We continue to work diligently to educate the public regarding local issues that impact quality of life, our fragile environment and our limited infrastructure.

Is anyone in Village Hall listening?

For many years, I was responsible for the submission and execution of substantial operational government budgets. Result? I have an opinion based on experience.

I can honestly say that I have never seen a budget process as broken as the Village budget protocol. At last week’s Budget Hearing, in less than 5 minutes, the Village Council approved spending $60 million resident tax dollars.

The budget Task Force of village residents commissioned by Manager, Ron Saunders, a few months back, did a great job and made common sense, actionable recommendations. They recommended a review of the “gold plated Rolls Royce” of employee benefits, including health insurance benefits bestowed by prior manager, Ted Yates, without Village Council approval (ignoring law?) Where was HR? Where was the Village Attorney?

They took a baby step to try to fix the issue, reducing employee family health insurance coverage from 97% paid by taxpayers down to 80%.  They then used the savings to provide salary increases.

Task Force recommendations also included:

• A request to improve the budget process and presentation to the residents.

• Suggested hiring a full-time grant writer to supplement funding

• Institute performance-based standards for employee raises

All these recommendations hit the mark and are common practice in the real world. Unfortunately, so many very relevant recommendations seem to have fallen on deaf ears.

We may have shared the following information in prior newsletters but it needs to be repeated.  The cost of government/resident:

• Islamorada (7,170 residents) - $2301/resident

• Marathon (9,689 residents) - $1,070/resident

• Key West (26,444 residents) - $817/resident

Our total general fund expenditures have increased from $11 million in 2021 to $17 million in the current cycle. A yearly increase of 11.24%. When does this stop and why do we spend so much?

Has anyone on Council ever executed multi-million-dollar budgets made up of taxpayer money before? You can’t manage what you don’t understand.

In order to stop the bleeding, we have several recommendations:

• Conduct an operational audit. Perhaps programs that were begun several years ago can be tweaked or eliminated. We have never done this in our quarter of a century existence.

  
  

• Require staff to submit cost cutting budgets: 10% and 15% potential budget cuts in future submissions. That would reveal programs and positions that can be eliminated. It is efficient and good business. Throughout my managerial career we were required to submit three budget requests: 10%, 15%, and 20% cuts. This is not a foreign concept. This may demonstrate some full-time positions that could be contracted out to avoid costly employee benefit packages.

  
  

• Invite the Florida Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to help us analyze how we can be more efficient. Why would any government official not welcome DOGE assistance? DOGE recommendations do not have to be implemented, but for the first time in a quarter of a century, the Village would have a state-of-the-art analysis performed by an outside entity.

I think that knowing we are not going about budgeting efficiently should be an eye opener for residents.

If you don’t care how your tax money is spent, then I am not speaking to you. I am speaking to those who do care.

Contact your Village Council and Village Manager and urge them to do better with our taxpayers’ funds…  and listen to residents.

What they are doing is not working.

Thank goodness that elections have consequences.

Tom Raffanello

Reply to: ICA.in.Keys@gmail.com