After 11 straight hours of heated public comment and tense conversations among commissioners, Miami-Dade County voted in favor of Mayor Carlos Alvarez's proposed "rollback" budget.
Eight commissioners voted for the budget and five commissioners voted against it.
The commissioners faced two choices to fix the county's huge budget deficit: raise property taxes, or eliminate government services, and reduce the number of police and fire/rescue personnel. In the end, the commission voted to raise property taxes.
"I don't believe that going to a flat rate would've been the appropriate way to go," said Mayor Carlos Alvarez. "Our quality of life will not suffer. You'll still have the same number of police officers on the streets patrolling, you'll have fire/rescue personnel responding to calls on a timely bases; so the level of services will not be affected so I am very happy."
The county is faced with closing a $444 million dollar budget hole for the 2010-2011 fiscal year. Mayor Alvarez proposed the county do that by using money from the reserve funds, cutting spending, and a tax-rate increase.
That tax-rate increase is estimated to bring in $178 million dollars. Some 60 percent of homeowners in Miami-Dade County with homestead status will see a 14 percent increase in their property taxes.
Commissioner Jose "Pepe" Diaz voted against the tax hike.
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"The citizens are fed up, they're tired, they want a relief. But yet there's a lot of services needed because that's the part they (commissioners in favor) felt was important and I respect them and their vote," he said after the hearing. "My vote was different. I still believe this is not the time to increase services, maybe it's time to reduce services just like a lot of people (homeowners) are having to reduce a lot of things they need."
Commissioner Joe Martinez summed up the vote by saying, "The bottom line is it passed with an 8-5 vote. It was the same thing as the preliminary (vote from the first public hearing on September 13th) it's a tax increase whether they say rollback or not. And we broke another promise to the people..."
An estimated 250 people signed up to speak at last night's 2nd and final public budget hearing. It started at 5 p.m. on Thursday and wrapped up at 4 a.m. on Friday. Some were there to argue against the tax increase and others there to fight to against the cutting of government programs and police and fire/rescue jobs.
Commissioners face a tremendous amount of pressure from both sides, including from Norman Braman, a prominent Miami businessman. Braman is said to have threatened the mayor and any of the other commissioners who vote for the property tax increase by bank rolling a recall campaign against them.
Commissioner Barbara Jordan wasn't happy about the threat. "I resent any attempt at intimidation," she told the Miami Herald. Commissioner Carlos Gimenez agreed. "Nobody should govern by threats," he said. "You should vote your conscience."
Also drawing criticism under the budget that was passed last night: commissioners' budgets won't be affected, executive salaries and benefits will be virtually untouched and raises will be granted to most of the county work force.
