From the Mayor’s Office to the media:
There was a question about personnel increases, and I will say I was taken back because I did not think we were adding that many. Towards that end, I realized my reaction was confirmed with finance as many in that increase were enterprise related.
As I said this morning, most of our growth was reacting to increases in our enterprise funds. These are funds that don’t use tax dollars by user and permit fees. These are also funds that have to act more like a business and react to increases in demand. Additionally, demand has been strong enough that there are sufficient revenues to fund these positions. Additionally, if we were not to fund them, we could fail to meet demand and cause our own reduction in revenue.
Please note 19 of the 27 positions are outside of the general fund. Please note that 3 are in Inspections, 5 in Pensacola Energy, 6 at the airport (with one being a PPD position funded by the airport), 1 at the port, and one in fleet maintenance. All of these are funds that raise their own money and cannot share with others. They have all seen increases and need more people to keep up with servicing demand. In addition, we have 1 in CRA to deal with the large number of CRA projects that the council has approved, and we have 2 in Cultural Affairs, which is a new department introduced by Councilwoman Broughton and funded by the council in ARPA.
That leaves 8 new in the general fund and 5 of those are public safety, 4 in PPD (3 of those were related to dispatch), and 1 in Fire. Again these were the top priorities for each public safety department, and I am always going to support public safety. Both of our departments are premier organizations in the state if not the country, and community support is strong for each for why people want to live in the city.
The others are 1 in project management for public works to oversee the significant amount of projects we are currently doing. Another is for additional support at Parks and Recreation. Again we have a lot happening in P&R and it is another priority why people want to live in the city. For these reasons, we believe additional support is critical to the effective management of this department. Finally, we have the additional hire for a Planning and Zoning manager under Ms. Morris in Development Services. Again we feel this is a critical area especially with looking at statutorily how we can assist affordable housing within the LDC. We definitely need a person in this position.
Finally, under the Mayor’s budget Council is neutral, as the Mayor’s office removed the separate legal council position which balances the increase council has made in hiring a second budget analyst. However, council may also look to increase a position.
I hope this answers your question. Again, as I said this morning, the vast majority of the positions 24 out of 27 are either public safety or in funds outside the general fund. Those enterprise funds are experiencing rapid growth and we need personnel in order to simply service demand.
Thanks. Grover
In FY2008, the city had 984 full-time funded positions. That is not a complete picture. There are part-time, seasonal, temporary and contract employees and also some employees who work on personal services contracts. Over 14 years, I have asked council members about how many people “worked” for the city and none knew or were filling to force the issue to find out. When Hayward took office in 2011, the number of full-time funded positions had dropped to 875. He got it down more to 770 (FY2016) but by 2018 it had inched back up to 781. Robinson has increased it to 792, 830, 858 and now wants to increase it again to 884. It’s hard to believe that city hall is doing so much more work since FY2016 that it needs 114 more employees. Inexplicably, Robinson (like Hayward too) often created new positions and hired people to fill them without the council having approved the money to fund those positions. How can a mayor spend money that he does not have? (Easy if the council does not care.) The information for the current and prior nine years is on page 526 in the FY 2023 Proposed Budget’s Appendix Q. Prior budget documents have older year data. The numbers may be unreliable. Earlier this year, golf pro Adrian Stills applied to be the head of the Parks & Recreation Department. We all know that he got the job because David Forte owed him a favor not that Stills was the best of the 88 candidates. That’s how Police Chief Randall got his job too. Cronyism rules in city hall. Anyways, Stills’ application claims that he supervised ten (10) people at the golf course presumably not including himself. But Appendix Q shows that the golf course has only three (3) total funded positions. No one ever checks this stuff. Most importantly, what happens to the millions when positions are kept vacant or only filled for part of the year? In late 2008, I asked about what I assessed could have been as much as $3 million in funding for salaries and benefits that could not have been spent because positions were kept vacant or only filled for part of the year. I raised my concern with a council member who didn’t want to risk raising the issue. Over the years, I have urged council members to do an operational audit of the city government to include looking at “people” but they will not. The Charter Review Commission did not do it in 2008/2009 or in 2022 and Robinson’s Transition Team did not do it in 2019. In 2019, Quint Studer recommended such an assessment but it was not done. I’d first ask the Florida League of Cities to do a no-holds assessment. The Council could and should appoint its own commission to look under every rock to find savings. In January 2008, Diane Mack proposed a citizens budget commission but the council hated that idea. She and I and another person then started up the short-lived Pensacola Budget Study Commission and immediately found all sorts of inefficiencies most of which still exist because if you propose changes the city staff gangs up on you. It went away when we opted to run for office. She won; I did not.