(Repeated) A City Agenda For Coral Gables

April 15, 2011 Leave a comment

This is the list of issues, problems and ideas that might form part of an Agenda for the City of Coral Gables.

  • Prepare and discuss an overall NEW AGENDA for the City of Coral Gables to face the major pending problems, such as unfunded benefits, taxation, staffing and organization;
  • City Manager should routinely report to taxpayers progress on the budget and organizational changes;
  • The city needs a new Code of Ethics;
  • Change the election dates for Coral Gables to coincide with national and state elections.
  • Prepare and publicly discussion a long-range financial plan for the City of Coral Gables
  • Target a freeze and/or reduce actual amount of taxes paid by citizens (not millage rates) during the next three years;
  • Accelerate a plan of reducing pensions and health benefits, especially for firefighters and police;
  • Prepare a plan and publicly discuss how to reduce unfunded pension liabilities during the next five years;
  • Have a community town hall meeting at least twice a year to discuss the budget and other current issues;
  • Develop a realistic and flexible agreement with the Biltmore that protects the taxpayers not just now, but in the coming years;
  • Undertake a review of financial mechanisms and the defective EDEN system to establish a modern, functional accounting of spending and revenues.

Filed under Coral Gables, Finance, Government, Management, Organization, Pensions

Welcome Messrs. Cason, Quesada and Kerdyk: A List of Some of Your Considerable Challenges

April 14, 2011 1 Comment

Congratulations to Messrs. Cason, Quesada and Kerdyk.  Thank you for your willingness to take on the big issues of the city of Coral Gables.

We trust you will forge hard questions about the considerable problems we are facing.

Here are a few big challenges for the near term:

  • Shift the financial and institutional  leadership back to the commission from the city manager.  This means more commission involvement in pension reform, financial planning and organizational restructuring.
  • Create true financial transparency, not hiding audits, honesty about reserves, no more games with the budget–people are expecting no more tax increases.
  • Do some minimal long-term financial planning.
  • Introduce new practices of citizen involvement and participation.
  • You need to think the unthinkable.   Shouldn’t the city  consider the full range of alternatives for the Biltmore, including its semi-privatization or its return to the federal government, with all of its liabilities (I know, that’s unthinkable).  Can the city cannot continue with the Biltmore as a large financial albatross–let’s hear a serious discussion of this in the commission.
  • Take a hard look at the city’s public security costs.  Will the commission and city manager please evaluate publicaly the police and firefighter needs at a technical and administrative level, rather treating these services as “untouchables.”
  • Pension reform requires an active commission with clear goals and plans, not just piecemeal negotiations.
  • The city seems to be stuck with a nonfunctional museum that may need its permanent financial support.  Can someone make an open and honest appraisal of what is going on at the museum.
  • Miracle Mile now denotes a certain declining quality in its retail businesses, rather than it being a leading and dynamic retail center.  Miracle Mile has lost its way–can we get an objective view of that before we spend millions on its so-called “streetscape.”

Filed under Business and Commerce, Community, Coral Gables, Employees and Unions, Finance, Government, Management, Property Values

City of Coral Gables: Check Your Reserves For Hurricane Response

April 6, 2011 Leave a comment

EXTENDED RANGE FORECAST OF ATLANTIC SEASONAL HURRICANE ACTIVITY AND LANDFALL STRIKE PROBABILITY FOR 2011

(Philip J. Klotzbach & William M. Gray: http://hurricane.atmos.colostate.edu/Forecasts/2011/april2011/apr2011.pdf )

ABSTRACT:

As of 6 April 2011, it is foreseen a well above-average activity for the 2011 Atlantic-Caribbean cyclonic season. The seasonal forecast has been reduced slightly from early December, since there is a little uncertainty about ENSO and the maintenance of an anomalously warm tropical Atlantic SST conditions. It is possible to continue to anticipate an above-average probability of United States and Caribbean major hurricane landfall.

Information obtained through March 2011 indicates that the 2011 Atlantic hurricane season will have significantly more activity than the average 1950-2000 season. We estimate that 2011 will have about 9 hurricanes (average is 5.9), 16 named storms (average is 9.6), 80 named storm days (average is 49.1), 35 hurricane days (average is 24.5), 5 major (Category 3-4-5) hurricanes (average is 2.3) and 10 major hurricane days (average is 5.0). The probability of U.S. major hurricane landfall is estimated to be about 140 percent of the long-period average. We expect Atlantic basin Net Tropical Cyclone (NTC) activity in 2011 to be approximately 175 percent of the long-term average. We have decreased our seasonal forecast slightly from early December, due to anomalous warming in the eastern and central tropical Pacific and cooling in the tropical Atlantic. This forecast is based on a new extended-range early April statistical prediction scheme that utilizes 29 years of past data. Analog predictors are also utilized. We expect current La Niña conditions to transition to near-neutral conditions during the heart of the hurricane season. Overall, conditions remain conducive for a very active hurricane season.

Filed under Budget, Coral Gables, Environment, Finance

Krugman on Ryan’s Fantasy Budget. What About Coral Gables?

April 6, 2011 Leave a comment

I wonder sometimes if this is not the model for the budget for Coral Gables. But no, the city keeps increasing taxes in the face of falling revenues or rising revenues.

It is timidity of tax cutting in Coral Gables that keeps taxes increasing and terrible past commitments of the city in pensions and salaries, as well as having way too many employees.

Actually, what is not good for the country (keep lowering taxes and spending) is just fine for a small bloated municipality.  At the federal level we know where the money is going (health, the military, social security, debt payments, and other small government programs).

Where does the money really go in Coral Gables–it goes for salaries and benefits–for which there have been no good studies of their efficient use.

Ryan is proposing huge (and largely unspecified) spending cuts; but he’s also proposing very large tax cuts, mainly, of course, for those with high incomes. And as you can see, a large part — roughly half — of the spending cuts are going, not to deficit reduction, but to finance those tax cuts.

Actually, it’s even worse, since the revenue figure in the Ryan plan is simply assumed, and is clearly too high given what he’s actually proposing on taxes; so either the fall in revenue will be even larger than shown here, or there will be unspecified tax hikes on the middle class.

via Where the Spending Cuts Go – NYTimes.com.

Filed under Coral Gables, Economy, Finance, Taxes and Fees

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