COMMENTARY
MARK SCHUMANN
Councilwoman Pilar Turner this week again cited carefully selected statistics from recent benchmarking studies to justify further cutting city staff and services.
Clearly, one of Turner’s firmly held, if not encrusted beliefs is the notion that Vero Beach’s city government is bloated. And so, when she came across a comparison of the total employee count of Vero Beach and several other Florida cities that seemed to bolster her case, she latched on to the numbers as if they represent ultimate truth.
The problem with Turner’s statistic is that it is taken out of context. You simply cannot use just one metric to accurately compare Vero Beach to other cities that may have a fire department, for example, but not an electric utility, a water and sewer utility, a solid waste department, a city-owned marina, a municipal airport, a recreation department and 178 acres of parks to maintain.
Subtracting from Vero Beach’s head count more than 200 enterprise fund employees, the city compares favorably to other municipalities, such as Stuart. Not counting the employees in Stuart’s fire department, a department Vero Beach does not have, that city has one general fund worker for every 81 residents. Despite the number Pilar Turner continues to misuse, Vero Beach has general fund employee-to-resident ration of 1 to 77, not 1 to 34.
When Turner serves up the least favorable employee-to-resident comparison possible for the city, she includes the employees working in Vero Beach’s enterprise funds. It is a meaningless comparison. Turner will likely continue to repeat this number over the coming months, but don’t believe it. It is simply no true.
Glen Brovont addressed the City Council more than once during budget workshops this week. Each time Bovont took to the podium he railed against the Police Department, going so far as to suggest the time might soon come to replace the police chief, and, if necessary, the entire staff.
In the most simplistic terms possible, Brovont tried to argue that the city’s budget woes are caused by the Police Department. “The problem is the Police Department,” Brovont said, repeating the phrase so many times it began to sound like a mantra.
But again, for the sake of comparison, consider Stuart, a city with a population and characteristics similar to Vero Beach. Stuart spends $6 million a year on its Police Department, Vero Beach $6.5 million, yet Vero Beach’s Police Department must patrol and protect an area some seventy percent larger than the City of Stuart.
Per square mile, Stuart spends just over $900,000 on police protection. Vero Beach spends $568,000 per square mile. Another benchmarked city, Cocoa Beach, spends just over $1 million per square mile for police protection. Brovont did not cite these numbers, and may not even be aware of them.
Quite simply, Turner’s accusation that Vero Beach’s city government is bloated, and Brovont’s claim that the solution to the city’s budget challenges will be found in “rightsizing” the Police Department’s budget are claims lacking a firm grounding in reality.
Turner has been a leading proponent of the sale of the electric system and has argued that the city should not depend on revenue from enterprise funds to help pay for city services. At the same time, she has consistently misused benchmarking statistics in an effort to make the public believe the city has more than twice as many employees as comparable cities.
Though Turner would have us worship at the altar of benchmarking, notice that she never mentions the fact that cities such as Cocoa Beach and Stuart, being without electric utilities, have millage rates more than twice that of Vero Beach.
You would think that before pushing for the sale of the electric system, Turner and her two colleagues in the Council troika, Craig Fletcher and Tracy Carroll, would have studied the financial models for cities that do not own utilities. If the troika had done their homework, it would have become undeniably obvious that along with the sale of the electric system would have to come a tax increase or the loss of vital city services.
This week, Carroll, Fletcher and Turner voted to cut from the Police Department budget four full time positions, including that of the animal control officer. Ironically, at the very time the Council troika has wandered into the field of tall, snake infested grass that is the negotiations to sell Vero Electric, the Council has voted to lay off many in the city’s grounds maintenance crews as well as its animal control officer.
Listening to Turner and Brovont make their argument for further budget cuts on the slimmest of evidence, I was struck by the parallel between Libertarian fundamentalism and Fletcher’s biblical fundamentalism. Just as Turner focuses her budget cutting case through one myopic lens, Bible thumping fundamentalists, as Fletcher describes himself, have a way of lifting selected verses out of context.
One of the dangers of placing complete confidence in any one religious tradition’s interpretation of the Bible is that, when push comes to shove, as it sometimes does, you just might be tempted to use the Bible to thump someone over the head. That is more or less what Fletcher did in early June when he refused to support a proclamation for Humanist Recognition week.
Just as with benchmarking statistics, taken literally and out of context, many verses in the Bible can be used as weapons to knock people over the head. For example, there is a phrase in the Gospel of Matthew that reads, “…hang all the law and the prophets.” Taken out of context, Matthew’s words could be used to justify burning of books and executing heretics.
Fletcher, Turner and their troika colleague, Carroll, have yet to impose capital punishment for dissenters, but they have, like religious fundamentalists of all stripes, often been rude and dismissive of those who express an alternate view.
Beware of fundamentalism, whether is shows up in religion or politics.
Indian River Guardian 
The fact that the elected officials in the COVB know so little about the operations of comparable Florirda communities is an indication that they were foolish to vote against participation in the Seven50.org. The whole purpose of this coalition is so that communities can learn from one another and avoid expense mistakes that waste tax dollars.. Instead the COVB “leaders” elected to bury their heads in the sand.
Another measurement that the COVB “leaders” should take into consideration is an analysis of the crime statistics vis-a-vis the size of the police visibility in other Florida communites. Many of us who chose to move to this area did so because of its low crime rates. Prior to making our decision to move to Indian River County, my husband and I subscribed to the local newspaper. It was because of reading the crime reports for over a year that we became confident that this was a safe place to spend our retirement years.
Cutting the police is a prime example of being penny wise and pound foolish.
But Pat, aren’t you vehemently opposed to any of your payments to Vero Electric going to help fund city services, such as the Police Department? It sounds like you feel you have a vested interest in the quality of the city’s Police Department, but you don’t want to help pay for it.
All citizens have a vested interest in the optimum public safety of the whole community.
As you yourself wrote on July 11th “For decades, dependence on electric system revenues kept the city’s tax rates artificially low.” The non-city utility users have subsidized the city for decades. It is now time to cut the revenue stream and have the city residents finally pay their fair share.
The costs to fully fund an adequately staffed police department could easily be accommodated with a slight increase in city property taxes.
If you have, as you say, a “vested” interest in the quality of police protection within a city where you do not live, then have you been so vehemently and adamantly opposed to a small portion your Vero Electric bill (6 percent) going to help pay for city services, such as the Police Department?
hypocritical logic on the part of the county ratepayers who refuse to admit that they use all the city services equally without paying city taxes. Keep a log of each time you use a city facility, be honest. The only thing that you don’t use equally are the solid waste and yard debris pickup. ANNEX and stop stealing our services. NO ONE SAYS WE HAVE TO PROVIDE YOU WITH WALMART RATES .
Anthony Thomas has it mixed up. It is the county utility customers who have not received city services in portion to the fees paid. The use of the word “stealing” is inappropriate when it has been the non-city rate payers who have subsidized city operations for decades.
Other than police there are no services routinely provided by the city to county residents.
There is no “stealing” of services that has occurred at Walmart rates.
Here is my log on the use of city services:
1996 – Zero
1997 – Zero
1998 – Zero
1999 – Zero
2000 – Zero
2001 – Zero
2002 – Zero
2003 – Zero
2004 – Zero
2005 – Zero
2006 – Zero
2007 – Zero
2008 – Zero
2009 – Zero
2010 – Zero
2011 – Zero
2012 – Zero
2013 – Zero
Let’s be clear about the numbers. On total electric system revenues of $90 million, with 60 percent of the customers located outside the city limits, Vero Beach would transfer $3.2 million a year to the general fund from income earned serving its 22,000 county customers. That represents 15 percent of total general fund revenues and expenses.
Pat, an estimated 60 to 70 percent of those using the city’s parks, beaches, boat ramps, recreation programs, etc., live outside the city limits. It is simply not accurate to claim, as you did, that, “Other than police there are no services routinely provided by the city to county residents.’