COMMENTARY

Editor’s Note:  Councilwoman Pilar Turner sent clear signals this week that she will persist in arguing for further cuts in staff and services, despite the fact that the City’s employee count has already been cut 26.4 percent since 2005, from 540 to 397.  The number of paychecks issued by the City will come down by another 100 or so when the electric system is sold.

Turner bases her case for further budget cuts on benchmarking statistics she claims prove beyond question that the City is overstaffed.  Turner, whose term ends in 12 months, and who nominated herself for vice mayor but who was passed over for the position, may be in for a long year. Since taking office three years ago, Turner has had the luxury of voting with the majority on most issues, though the going got tough for her this past August, when she argued for sharp cuts in staffing and services that went even deeper than what Craig Fletcher and former Councilwoman Tracy Carroll would support.

The City is currently at impasse in it negotiations with its police officers, largely because the City’s negotiators have refused to consider giving law enforcement officers their first raise in five years.  That hard negotiating position may have softened Friday during a closed-door Council meeting held to discuss the City’s talks with the police union.  

Why did Turner nominate herself for vice mayor after newly chosen mayor Richard Winger had already nominated Jay Kramer?  More than anything, Turner’s self-nomination may have been an attempt to better position herself for a run for the County Commission. If and when County Commissioner Bob Solari seeks Debbie Mayfield’s job as State Representative, Turner could be a like-minded successor to Solari on the County Commission.

However, as Karl Rove and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are working to defeat Tea Party supported limited-government extremists, it will be interesting to see how many more of these strident and extremist Libertarians Indian River County voters will continue to elect. Never mind not giving Vero Beach Police officers their first raise in five years, Turner would probable be comfortable asking them to take another pay cut. If not countered, these extremist positions could choke the life out of our community.

The following commentary on Turner’s favorite set of statistics was first published August 2.  

MARK SCHUMANN

When Councilwoman Pilar Turner cites statistics comparing Vero Beach’s employee count unfavorably to other “comparable” cities, she is, intentionally or otherwise, misleading the public.

If Turner’s purpose is to cull from the benchmarking studies statistics that support her view of limited government, then perhaps the facts don’t matter.  But for those interested in an intellectually honest, meaningful comparison of Vero Beach to other cities, here are some important considerations. 

Recently, to justify her $10,000-a-year health insurance benefit, Turner recently compared the City Council to the Indian River County Board of Education, whose members are responsible for a $308 million budget and 2,700 employees.

When Turner wants to make her case for emaciating city services, she draws on statistics from cities that are quite different from Vero Beach. Turner may not be responsible for the decision to compare Vero Beach to land-locked Maitland, for example, but she has got to know by now that averages can be misleading and comparisons can be meaningless when variables are not taken into consideration.

In calculating a “benchmark average” of compensation for Council members, Turner factored in the $21,000 a year the City of Dania Beach pays its council members.  Well, Dania Beach has a population of 29,000, compared to Vero Beach’s 15,000.

Most of the cities with which Vero Beach was compared do not have beaches to guard and beach parks to maintain, or a marina, or an electric utility, or a municipal airport, or nearly as many acres of parks.

Though Stuart and Vero Beach have comparable size populations, Vero Beach has nearly twice the land area of Stuart.  Stuart also has no beaches to guard, very little in the way of recreation programs and only a few city parks.

Certainly any good appraiser knows that without taking variables into consideration, averages can be misleading, if not meaningless.  With one foot frozen in a block ice and the other in a bucket of boiling water, on average you would be comfortable.  That knowledge is of very little consolation, though, when you are simultaneously suffering from third degree burns and frostbite.

With a degree in engineering, surely Turner understands that relying on averages can lead to poor decisions.  To not account for the significant differences between Vero Beach and the other cities to which it has been compared is to engage in bogus benchmarking.

When Turner argues that the city has far too many employees, she is forever including the hundreds of employees in the city’s enterprise operations, such as Vero Electric and the water and sewer department.

Either Turner is not aware that she is setting Vero Beach against many cities that have no beaches, or electric systems, or city-owned water and sewer utilities, or she simply doesn’t care to have her preconceived notions confused with the facts.

Consider a comparison of tax rates.  Marco Island and Vero Beach has among the lowest property tax rates in the state.  One could cite Marco Island’s millage rate of 2.0 to argue that Vero Beach rate of 2.0 is not too low.  But consider that Marco Island’s base of taxable property is valued at $9 billion dollars, as compared to Vero Beach tax base of just $3 billion.  Per resident, Marco Island is raising three times as much in property tax revenue as is Vero Beach.

Unlike Vero Beach, Stuart does not have a full-service municipal marina, nor does it manage the local airport.  Yet, Stuart has a general fund budget of $20 million compared to Vero Beach’s $19 million. Up the coast, the City of Coco Beach, with a population of just 11,000, compared to Vero Beach’s 15,000, has a general fund budget of $21.5 million.

It would be easy to get lost in the weeds in these city-to-city comparisons, but the point is that Turner and her Taxpayers Association and Tea Party friends don’t have a leg to stand on when they claim Vero Beach’s city government is bloated.

Though Turner and her supporters base their argument on little more than assumptions and theory, they persist in attacking city workers, often with denigrating and belittling comments.  In doing so, Turner and company have managed to create an urban legend around the notion that city employees can do no right.

Speaking of urban legends, at least one former City Council member is still claiming the city pays its secretaries as much as $100,000 a year, including benefits.

In fact, the city doesn’t even have a position titled “secretary.”  The city employs clerical assistants, administrative assistants and senior administrative assistants.  According to human resources manager, Lynne George, the highest paid employee in these classes is a senior administrative assistant with 17 years of service, who is making approximately $60,000 a year, including benefits – not $100,000 a year.

That same former City Council member suggested the city should fire its longest serving employees because they are being paid more than new hires.  Where is the moral outrage at this Wal-Mart approach to treating employees?

I feel sorry for the city’s employees, who are constantly being criticized by Turner, Vice Mayor Tracy Carroll, Glenn Heran, Charlie Wilson and others.  Rather than offering a vision for moving the city into a positive future, they seem capable of little more than demonizing the city.  They are without any vision for building an organization and motivating people.  For her part, all Turner seems to be able to offer is her version of the carrot and stick approach where she eats the carrot and beats the employees with a stick.