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

For The Candidates: A Proposal For A NEW AGENDA For The City of Coral Gables

March 17, 2011 Leave a comment

This is the list of issues, problems and ideas for the future of the city Coral Gables Watch for inclusion in a needed New Agenda for the City of Coral Gables. Following is a list of examples of possible NEW AGENDA items.

  • Prepare and discuss with the public a NEW AGENDA for the City to face the major pending problems, such as unfunded benefits, taxation, staffing and organization;
  • The City Manager should routinely report to taxpayers the progress on the budget and organizational changes;
  • The city commission should agree on a new Code of Ethics;
  • Change the election dates for the city of 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 amounts of taxes paid by citizens (not just 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 from subsidizing the operators;
  • Undertake a review of financial mechanisms and the defective EDEN system to establish a modern, functional accounting of spending and revenues.

Filed under Community, Coral Gables, Election, Employees and Unions, Finance, Government, Management, Pensions, Taxes and Fees

Dysfunctional Democracy: More on the Coral Gables’ Leaf Blowers

October 28, 2010 2 Comments

During times of economic and financial crisis, a single Coral Gables commissioner has directed a huge amount of his energy and time to trying to regulate gasoline leaf blowers for its citizens (exempting, of course, the city and its subcontracts, as if their leaf blowers will not have an environmental impact).   He states he has done in depth research on the subject, looking at other cities and towns with the leaf blower regulations.

Imagine if the commissioner had used nearly as much energy in evaluating the impact on Coral Gables citizens of increased taxes, unfunded pensions and health plans, overpaid public security employees, defective lease management and a chaotic city organization.  If he had directed the same passion to these everyday problems as he has to leaf blowers this city might make some progress that favors its taxpayers and not the quiet interest groups standing behind the commission.

The environmental impact of traffic in Coral Gables is hugely more impacting on the citizens; the commission has approved a significant expansion in traffic around the University of Miami–these impacts tower over any tiny, miniscule impacts of a few leaf blowers in the hands of low paid lawn workers.

Filed under Coral Gables, Environment, Management

Coral Gables Finance Department Audit–Symptoms of Mismanagement and Indifference

October 23, 2010 Leave a comment

The Finance Department of the city of Coral Gables was treated in an article in the Coral Gables Gazette on September.

Also, in a letter to the CGGazette, a former candidate for commissioner calls for the resignation of the Finance Department head.

The Finance Department problems are clearly revealed in the recently concluded report of the internal auditor of the city of Coral Gables.  The audit process was initiated in 2009, a first round of comments and recommendations was submitted for review and responded to by the Finance Department.  Subsequently, the city’s Internal Auditor prepared rebutal statements for unfulfilled recommendations and submitted the final report to management in September 2010.

The internal functional review of operations by the city of Coral Gables Chief Compliance Auditor (who works for the city manager)  confirms

  • dramatic dysfunctional management oversight ofoperations and control over the city budget, income and expenditures;
  • a persistent failure to review and balance accounts on time and correctly;
  • incomplete standard financial controls to avoid possible misuse or malversion of funds;
  • incomplete department-wide  information coverage and access via the EDEN software;
  • serious deficiencies in communications between management and staff and among departments;
  • defects in the EDEN financial module that the Finance Department hasn’t resolved;
  • consistent failure of management to supervise and give oversight to accounting review and information flows;
  • inadequate oversight over maintain current and consistent information flows among departments;
  • lack of efficient, integrated use of the IT systems of the city, among many others.

One may conclude that there is a top down management culture and weak communications within the Finance Department among staff and supervisors. The EDEN accounting software is incomplete, not fully applied and subject to incomplete supervision by the IT Department and the Finance Department supervisors.  The audit raised claims by both departments that the other is to blame for the break down in accounting.  This shifting of blame has led to an obvious failure to communicate from bottom to top between the two departments.

There are too many issues to discuss in a single posting and I hope to expand on this in coming days.

Filed under Coral Gables, Finance, Management

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