Facing funds gap, county should start playing a team game

County commissioners are playing a team sport. Together they set priorities – at least on paper. In reality, however, they too often go their separate ways, spending as each sees fit.

It happened again last week, when Miami-Dade commissioners divvied up a slice of school zone speeding fines for individual commissioners to spend as they like, with no coordination or agreement.

Imagine if the Miami Heat or Miami Dolphins let every player do as he pleases instead of following a game strategy. That’s a chaotic formula for sure losses.

Yet local governments often resemble fiefdoms, ranging from 13 in the county to five in the City of Miami. They use specific pots of money not for agreed-upon budget priorities but for each commissioner to spend at will. 

That diminishes government’s ability to meet priorities as money goes instead to individual aims.

Few commissioners admit the impact of this balkanization. They like their pools of discretionary cash. 

But Eileen Higgins in the county has been a consistent and refreshing exception to the practice of looking the other way at this brand of government-sanctioned waste.

In discussing a plan by Chairman Anthony Rodriguez to keep a slice of school speeding fines under control of individual commissioners rather than go to a new sheriff’s office that opens next month, Ms. Higgins laid out concerns that Miami Today has long shared.

“This is the first time this has come up in quite a while where we divide money into 13 pockets,” she said, “and I have consistently voted against all of those policies that create 13 miniature governments.”

The system that catches school zone speeders, she noted, now “is no longer a revenue source for the county. We are going into an outrageously difficult budget year” where five new constitutional officers could cost an extra quarter to half billion dollars, a new courthouse will cost a “ginormous” amount, the transportation department used up its reserves “so we’re talking about some cuts next year to both bus and Metrorail,” plus who knows how much more solid waste disposal will cost when the county finally decides how to do it.

“So I really did like the idea of having an alternative revenue source for the county that could fill in important service gaps,” Ms. Higgins said. “But I can’t vote to divide this by 13 where each of us does basically what we want…. I just caution us, what we are going to be talking about next June and July is cutting services or raising taxes.”

The amount at stake in school speeding fines alone won’t solve those dilemmas. But, as Ms. Higgins noted, “All of this adds up. Every time we’re taking what could be $10 million, $20 million and taking it away from countywide services and putting it into the discretionary funds of county commissioners, which I believe are already pretty substantial.” 

The county doesn’t publicly total those “pretty substantial” amounts that each commissioner gets to distribute as he or she decides, with no county budgeting and no check on spending. That practice is certainly a recipe for waste and possibly for a lot worse.

Ms. Higgins referred to the so-called Peace and Prosperity Plan that gives individual commissioners control over some of $95 million in payments for naming rights from the Kaseya Center to battle the root causes of gun violence. 

Commissioners also split up for individual use the county’s pittance from the sale of the Miami Marlins. The City of Miami divvied up $2.89 million in park impact fees among the five commissioners to spend as they see fit. Miami also subdivided $52 million in park and culture bond funds to give each commissioner a slice. The bad examples go on.

Often individual commissioners must use these discretionary funds for a certain general cause. The school spending funds must go to school safety, though each commissioner who gets funds will determine just how. In the City of Miami cases the money must go to park or culture use that each commissioner chooses. By not working together, officials aren’t following any plan to accomplish vital aims.

“I think that every district has different needs when it comes to school safety,” Commissioner Rodriguez said in defending the decision to have individual commissioners spend without coordinating with the rest of the county.

Well, every position on the football field and every player on the basketball court also has individual needs. A good game plan takes all of those into account and comes up with what’s best for the team, because if the team wins, everybody wins. That’s want representative government is all about.

Beyond very limited desires, such as naming a small support staff, commissioners have no business deciding one by one what government will do or where government money will go. That’s all part of a team decision springing from a budget drawn by the mayor and voted on by the commission. Spending outside of the budget is an end run with no blocking.

Chairman Rodriguez laid out a good idea by putting speeding fine funds in the general fund rather than letting the new sheriff spend it. He also found a very fair mathematical formula for dividing the money. Unfortunately, subdividing the money does no more good than putting it in the sheriff’s hands, because it won’t help the county with big issues like those Ms. Higgins cited. 

The county, which in recent years has been rolling in cash as real estate tax receipts soared and was spending like there was no tomorrow, has come smack up against tomorrow. There was never a good excuse for government fiefdoms. Now they are a glaring liability.

It’s time for the coach in the mayor’s office to remind the players on the commission field that they’re playing on a team where any waste is wrong. It’s a team sport with too much at stake to play alone.