Editor’s Note: As Vero Beach’s city leaders began budgeting for the 2013/2014 fiscal year, City Manager Jim O’Connor was instructed to cut an additional 10.9 percent out of a general fund budget that has already been reduced by some 25 percent since 2007.  

While Mayor Craig Fletcher, Vice Mayor Tracy Carroll and Councilwoman Pilar Turner contend the city needs to trim staff and reduce services in order to be more “efficient,” some fear further cuts in municipal services will diminish the quality of life in Vero Beach.

Councilmen Jay Kramer and Richard Winger have questioned the need to make what Winger called “draconian cuts” affecting all city departments. Winger, who is running for re-election in November, says his priority is to “Keep our Vero, Vero.”

Ironically, opponents of the proposed budget cuts have been accused of being opposed to the sale of Vero Electric, a charge leveled by the very same people who said the sale would not lead to cuts in services.  In fact, when Kramer said the sale would require tax increases or cuts in services, Carroll accused him of “fear mongering.” 

According to an article in today’s Wall Street Journal, by continuing to hack away at city services, the Council troika of Fletcher, Carroll and Turner are bucking a national trend among many cities now beginning to fill thinned ranks.

BY MARK PIERCE/WALL STREET JOURNAL

Cities across the U.S. are starting to hire new teachers, firefighters and police officers as a deep and prolonged slide in local-government employment appears to have bottomed out four years after the recession ended.

READ MORE:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/cities-begin-hiring-again-102700962.html