COMMENTARY

MARK SCHUMANN

In the fall of 2011, all 44 city employees making more than $70,000 a year took a mandatory 4.62 percent pay cut.  In total, the move saved $183,834 annually.

In a memo announcing the pay cuts, City Manager Jim O’Connor explained the reductions were being made, “solely on the economics of balancing the budget.”

Yet, when the books were closed on the 2011/2012 fiscal year, spending was $567,000 below budget.  If the pay cuts were a temporary, emergency measure taken “solely” to make ends meet, they proved unnecessary.

As the city moved into the 2012/2013 fiscal year, the pay cuts, which were supposedly short-term, remained in place.  Again this year, the city’s general fund spending is running below budget by hundreds of thousands of dollars more than was saved cutting the salaries of competent, dedicated, hardworking employees.

As the city prepares a budget for fiscal 2013/2014, it now appears likely revenues will exceed expenses by some $1 million.  In fairness to city employees and their families, it is time for the City Council to restore the “temporary” salary reductions that have proved unnecessary.

One could argue that with generous benefits, such as health insurance for part-time City Council members, virtually unlimited accrual of unused sick leave and vacation time and an expensive and underfunded defined benefits pension plan, the city’s compensation packages had gotten out of line with that of the private sector.

But now that the benefits have been and will continue to be reduced, including a planned conversion to a defined contribution pension plan, it is time to restore the 2011 salary reductions that were supposedly temporary. (The only employee benefit that has not been trimmed is the $10,000-a-year health insurance packages for Craig Fletcher and Pilar Turner.)

While ending the temporary pay cuts for employees making $70,000 or more, the Council should also consider at least modest raises for other city employees who have been under a wage freeze for five years.

Council members Tracy Carroll and Pilar Turner continue to criticize and belittle city employees, while falsely claiming the city has done little to bring its budget under control.  They conveniently fail to acknowledge that the city has cut its workforce by some 20 percent – eliminating more than 100 positions.

Carroll and Turner are forever claiming the County had done a better job of implementing austerity measures.  Perhaps they should take note of the fact that their heroes on the County Commission recently voted unanimously to award long-overdue pay increases.  When County Commissioner Bob Solari is ready to support raising pay for County workers, you can rest assured the time has come to do just that.

Quite simply, the city’s supposed budget “crisis” exists only in the minds of Tracy Carroll, Craig Fletcher, Pilar Turner and their fundamentalist Libertarian friends with the Taxpayers Association/Tea Party.

If proponents of the sale of Vero Electric are to be believed, city residents will save some $10 million a year on their electric bills once the keys to the power plant are handed over to Florida Power & Light.

The sale likely will not take place until late 2016, though.  If and when the city is able to sell its electric utility to FPL, taxpayers will be faced with a choice of accepting a tax increase of approximately $1 million a year – offset against the $10 million savings in electric bills – or losing important, even vital services.

For now, though, all the talk of budget cuts is Taxpayer Association/Tea Party nonsense and is disconnected from political reality.

Should government be “limited”?  Absolutely!  Government services should be limited, not to Pilar Turner’s idea of what constitutes “vital services,” but to what the public wants and needs and can afford.

When the Taxpayers Association/Tea Party crowd speaks of “limited government,” what they are really arguing for is smaller government, as in fewer government services.  Their point, however, is meaningless, unless the majority of voters support their extremist Libertarian agenda.  They need to be reminded that we live, not in a plutocracy run by the aristocracy, but in a democracy.

Golf, tennis and fishing are not the only popular local sports. Unfortunately, bashing local government employees has become another favorite pastime.  After enjoying a round on the links, or a match on the courts, and a morning casting on the flats, it seems that many retirees tune into Rush Limbaugh, and then spend their happy hour complaining about government, and specific public employees.

Sure, many are concerned with the size and reach of the federal government. And, to be sure, there is more than a little festering disappointment with President Obama’s reelection. But there is no good reason to take these frustrations out on city employees who are mowing the grass, guarding the beaches, and in the case of the Police Department, protecting city streets and neighborhoods.

It is time for the community to come to the defense of the many fine city employees who are responsible for delivering services that make this community such a popular tourist destination and a special place to live.