Coral Gables Watch

Coral Gables’ Police Salaries and Benefits: Did You Pick the Wrong Profession?

September 3, 2010 Leave a comment

One can calculate average salaries and benefits in the 2010-2011 Estimated Budget for Coral Gables for the police department and you get the following amazing salaries and benefits. This clearly evidences that it is time to cut salaries and benefits substantially.

(1) police chief $152,917 plus about $99,396 = $252,313 (note: I have estimated benefit costs as 65% of salaries, but they could be a little more or less for any given position.)
(1) assistant police chief $84,220 plus $54,743 benefits = $138,963
(3) police sergeants $90,772 average plus $59,002 benefits =$149,774
(2) police lieutenants $110,473 average plus $71,808 benefits = $182,280
(97) police patrol $78,449 average plus $51,858 benefits =$130,307

These are just averages. They do not show very high salaries and benefits for certain individuals. We trust that Mr. Salerno has set the negotiating conditions for lower salaries and benefits.

Filed under Budget, Employees and Unions, Finance, Government, Pensions

More Economic Aid (Stimulus): About Time

September 3, 2010 Leave a comment

Finally, the Administration has accepted that the initial stimulus package was not enough to bring employment back up. This will benefit Florida and Coral Gables, especially, because the state’s unemployment rate is a good 20% higher than the national average.

Eager to jumpstart the economy ahead of crucial midterm elections, President Barack Obama said Friday he intends to unveil a new package of proposals, likely including tax cuts and targeted spending, to spark job growth.

Obama spoke in the Rose Garden after the August jobs report came out better than expected, showing the private sector adding 67,000 new jobs last month and revising upward the numbers from June and July. But unemployment ticked upward to 9.6 percent as more people entered the job market, and the president said it wasn’t good enough.

…

Obama’s package could include a number of provisions that have languished in Congress for much of the year, including infrastructure bonds for municipalities and extensions for a series of tax breaks for businesses and individuals that expired at the end of 2009. Democratic leaders are considering making one of the tax breaks permanent, for businesses that invest in research and development.via

The Associated Press: Obama planning new package of economic aid.

Filed under Economy, Florida

Improving the City of Coral Gables: Information for the Citizen

September 3, 2010 Leave a comment

The National League of Cities has a great set of documents that provide good practices and guidelines to help improve the operations of cities, small and large. The National League of Cities publishes “City Practice Briefs” and “Municipal Action Guidelines” that distill good practices, experiences and effective ways of strengthening local government. Some of these briefs and guides are very relevant to Coral Gables and useful for the interested citizen.

City Practice Briefs provide a selection of city practices and programs on specific topics to assist municipal officials faced with decisions. Each City Practice Brief provides a summary of five to ten city programs along with contact information and is designed to facilitate networking.

Municipal Action Guides provide helpful background information on various topics in a concise format intended to offer guidance to municipal officials faced with decisions. Each Municipal Action Guide is designed to identify a current challenge, outline strategies for addressing the challenge, list action steps that can be taken, include examples of effective city practices and programs, and identify other resources that are available.

via City Practice Resources | About Cities | National League of Cities.

Filed under Government, Organization

City of Coral Gables: Try Communicating with the Citizens

September 3, 2010 Leave a comment

See below recommendations of good communication practices by the National League of Cities (NLC) to improve commuication and understanding between the city government and the citizenry.

One may conclude that very few (or none) of these suggestions have been considered or practiced by the city government of Coral Gables, except in those few instance required by law such as boards, budget hearings and selected items on the Commission’s agendas.

For example, the recent Impasse Hearing between the city and the general employees was not transmitted on TV locally.

A NLC document recommends the following steps to communicate effectively with the community.

Seek input from your citizens on (a) their needs/wants; (b) their evaluation of services; (c) their views on how services can be improved; and (d) priorities for goals and objectives.

Use focus groups to obtain input from citizens on what results should be tracked by the government.

Provide outcome information to citizens in forums, meetings, newsletters, media interviews, and web-sites.

Offer periodic briefings on local government accomplishments to neighborhood and other citizen groups.

Provide to citizens outcome information likely to be of greatest interest to them, such as breakouts of outcomes by neighborhoods.

Provide annual reports to citizens, neighborhood associations, and other community groups that highlight the results achieved.

When the government reports to its citizens or media, require that the information provided includes the bad with the good – but also includes explanations and plans to correct the problems.

Work with the media to encourage their use and proper understanding of results-based information.