Escambia County is looking for $17.1 million in budget cuts. County Budget director Amy Lovoy has made these recommendations to the BOCC:
– Eliminate longevity pay after Sept. 30, 2009. Those already receiving longevity raises would continue at their current rate. Currently county employees get a 2 percent raise after their first five years on the job. The amount of the raise then rises every five years and tops out at 10 percent a year after 30 years.
– Amazingly the County has been paying holiday overtime at 2.5 times regular hourly pay. The standard in the private sector is 2 times. Lovoy recommends going from 2.5 to 2 times.
– Reduce extra leave benefit for managerial and technical employees. Managers will go from 80 hours to 60; Technical employees from 60 to 40.
– Employees would be charged $5 more per month for basic dental coverages, and $10 for expanded dental coverage.
– Eliminate county-funded life insurance for retirees…..Where are paying life insurance for retirees???
– Eliminate the lower-cost health care option for Medicare-eligible retirees but offer access to a Medicare supplement policy.
Note: The County just saved the the City of Pensacola thousands. The council doesn’t have to do a study on whether to keep longevity pay. It can now follow the County’s elimination of this public sector benefit.
Popularity: 16% [?]
City departments also have lots of assistants for their well paid administrators and new departments formed under the Bonfield administration.
Where are they today?
One director has been working for the CMPA for over one year at no charge to the CMPA.
If the city can loan an employee for that time, does the city really need this employee???????
John Simmons-how right you are, county employees have just got to be the prize winners in low productivity. Take a stroll through the courthouse and pay attention to how “casual” they are in their activities. I can’t really say ‘work activities’ because they don’t really appear to be working.
Taz, thats what consoladation is trying to do, but it will never pass with the current leadership
How about Getting some sort of meeting together about the outrageous cost of health insurance. This would probably have to be forced on them because they all have their little groups to watch out for. Two years ago the county forced employees to start paying the cost of their health insurance and without negotiation or input. Since that is the case, why not find a way to force all constitutional officers to participate in the negotiation of a common insurance carrier for all BCC, Sheriff, School Board, Tax Collector, ECUA, and any one else that is paid by county funds. This would place all in a larger group thus more negotiating power, and lower cost per employee. Just my .02.
The county has much waste, lets start to cut at all levels, goverment workers still do not understand the importance of working hard, they just want to get by, lets start with real local reform and cut waste in the county, starting in Bobs office, he has more assistants than the president
City residents did vote for the LOST tax renewal. Remember the signs posted in the downtown area. The city got its cut or Mayor and council would not have been selling “the tax that can build the library” again at public meetings.
And if city residents pump gas we will pay the 3% increase. ECAT showed up with hat in hand but nothing required to show what or how they plan to manage over 8 million a year.
And yes city residents pay FULL county taxes in addition to the city tax and DIB tax for some of us. What services do we get from the county?
We don’t have fire assessments, but the city council tried to add one – anticipated shortages, then a few months later wanted to provide free fire service to the county after one business burned that could have easily requested annexation into the city instead .
No need to wonder why citizens doubt the decisions we see made by the so called leaders.
Grover,
I appreciate your comments, and all your efforts to reduce our tax burden, but I still believe your reduction in travel is only a token reduction.
And being in the lowest 10 cost counties in the state, well, that’s probably where it should be based on our per captia income.
If you’re really serious about salary reduction (like you mentioned about last year’s letter you sent to our state legislators), then donate a portion of your salary to one of the “outside agencies” and reduce our budget accordingly. It’s easy to send a letter to the state knowing that very few other counties would support it. Donating a portion of your salary – Now that’s saying something.
If I may be so bold, I don’t think the Sheriff really dug very deeply to reduce his budget. A few areas of fluff (in my opinion) do not measure up, for example, to your proposed reduction in response time for EMS. You provided praise for his reduction when all he did was pick a few pieces of low hanging fruit. Other county services, however, are dying on the vine.
And, I understand you, Valentino, and Robertson are not in it for the money. And I really appreciate that. Just my opinion from observations of what was/was not said as well as body language during the meeting.
Grover, we have already figured out it isn’t about the money. It is about what you guys can line your pockets with.
You might be an honest man, but unfortunately, the company you keep makes you guilty by association…Geno, in developers pockets, and lies about his meetings…Super Mike, almost as arrogant as W.D.
Oh I almost forgot that cast of charactors as well.
Do I need to go any further.
Anon,
These are real savings. In 3 years, the budget has been reduced from $452 million to $363 million, property taxes including MSTU from $135 million to $105 million. Our per capita cost of local government annually (property taxes, sales taxes, fees all of it) is around $1,200 per person. That will probably move us into the top 10 lowest cost counties in Florida.
Sailor Boy,
We did eliminate the one personal expense to the commissioners yesterday. As a reimbursement that is not taxed, it was nearly a 3.5% reduction personally on top of voting to cost us more for our benefits. Kevin by the way brought it up. I know we are not in it for the money.
Grover
To Wake up…The City doesn’t have fire assessments, gas taxes, or a LOST tax. Those are all County creations. The City shares in the gas tax and LOST tax but can not decide to change/add them independently of the County. The $14M and $40M are not one-year items. Those will be paid out over a number of years so it’s not the crushing blow you want to make it out to be. Also, please define the dream perk packages for City employees. A lot of us would like to know when we’re going to get it.
The 5% pay raise city staff received the year after Ivan would be the equivalent of a few years increase for many private sector employees.
Most companies see max of 3% while what we’ve seen the last few years is 1 to 1.5% increase.
NEVER 5%
The city has at least a 14 million deficit for their pension plans.
This 53,000.00 and declining town obviously cannot afford the dream perk package of city employees.
17 million to cut in the county, 14 million to fund a deficit for the city, 40 million to fund a new development.
I smell new taxes, franchise fees, msbu, stormwater taxes, fire assessments, gas taxes, another lost tax, or whatever creative tax scheme they can come up with after they inform the citizens they will need to help out by expecting reductions to services.
The City already eliminated pay increases for the past 2 years & is doing so again next year. They’re also freezing longevity & their longevity plan is less generous than the county’s. The city’s health insurance options are worse than the county’s & the city requires employees to cover a greater percentage of the cost than the county. The city has never paid for retiree health insurance. The city also discontinued reimbursing employees for educational expenses, eliminated the monthly employee newsletter, cut out everything except a day off for the employee of the month, eliminated all training funds, etc., etc. Nice to see the county is finally catching up. That explains why the city’s budget is balanced through next fiscal year & the county has to cut millions.
[...] Rick’s Blog: “County may drop longevity pay” [...]
Rick,
Robertson’s against cutting longevity pay. Look for him to drum up support if he can find another area to cut.
Another interesting point that Robertson brought up was reducing Commissioner’s salaries. We all know that the state sets them and probably won’t lower them, but here’ an interesting option:
Come up with a dollar figure and each Commissioner donate that amount to one of the outside agencies (St. Michaels Cemetery, United Way, etc.) that the BoCC provides funds to from our tax dollars. The BoCC could then reduce the county budget by the same amount. Presto, quasi salary reduction without State approval. Don’t look for White or Young to vote for it; their in it for the money.
By the way, did you watch the meeting and see, once again, how lost Young was? It’s a shame.
City already reccomended eliminating longevity pay starting oct 1…so the city actually saved the county from studying that one.
So Rick, are these just feel good measures to make it look like they’re doing something or do they generate real cost savings? How much will these changes whittle that $17.1M down?