How Palmetto Bay fared with the 2020 Florida Legislature:
No better, no worse than neighboring Pinecrest and Cutler Bay. Pinecrest appears to have $150,000 in the budget for stormwater. Palmetto Bay has $100,000 for stormwater. Cutler Bay has $100,000 in the budget for the Cutler Bay Wetland Restoration Project (HB 3757). All contingent upon survival of the Governor's line item veto.
Palmetto Bay may receive $100,000 out of the $3.2 million requested: For Palmetto Bay, out of the $3,245,900 requested, there is a paltry $100,000 in the budget, or barely
over 3% of what was being sought. But, this $100,000 is $100,000 more than made
it into the budget at this time last year (2019). This post updates the legislative
mid-term post of February 20, 2020 and closes out
the 2020 regular legislative session. There has been no definitive word yet as
to whether or not there will be any special sessions to address Coronavirus or
other issues.
Please be mindful that nothing in the budget is
final until the Governor signs the budget (after any line item vetoes). The
Coronavirus pandemic may trigger many line item vetoes, removing some of those
items initially thought to be safe in the budget.
The grading process: In evaluating the possible success for this
legislative session, we start with the original 2020-2021 appropriation requests from Palmetto Bay officials totaling $3,245,900. This is an enormous request, an amount of money that appears worthy of significant travel and
constant advocating in Tallahassee, but not the final drop to the $100,000
total that is currently earmarked in the State budget. There was brief
talk of another $125,000 for an education center placed in State Education
Funding, but that $125,000.00 was a drop in the budget to the total project
cost for Palmetto Bay taxpayers – $745,900 was the original funding ask from
the State. The claimed local contribution was proposed to be $1,500,000 for a
project optimistically estimated in 2019 dollars to be $2,245,900 (and this
request was voted in favor of by a vice mayor who has been critical of Palmetto Bay’s “million
dollar hotdog stand”). Note there has never been an operational plan – coverage
for operation and maintenance, costs of personnel, even considered by Mayor
Cunningham and Council before requesting the money for this potential
boondoggle.
Revenues - but factor in costs to obtain: Also note, the $100,000 is the appropriation, but
there were significant costs related to the playtime in Tallahassee for Mayor
Cunningham and company. These taxpayer funded costs include a full time
employee grant writer (salary, benefits, internal costs such as office and
other employee related costs are at least $70,000 per year), apportioned time
of the Deputy Manager for her time spent in set up, preparing for, travel and
ongoing communication (I have been told this is valued in the $30-50K range) as
well as other personnel in preparing for and traveling with (and without the
elected) locally and in Tallahassee. Add in what I am told (but have not
personally seen evidence of) a last minute no-bid hire of $10,000 for undefined
lobbyists, and it appears that it would have been far cheaper to spend our
money locally and not seek money in another recent losing effort in
Tallahassee, especially when the elected were distracted in Tallahassee which
may be a reason they took their attention of the moratorium, allowing it to
expire. Long story short – what did Palmetto Bay taxpayers put up to receive
the $100,000?
One does not have to travel and shelter in
Tallahassee to follow legislative requests. Many projects approved where
hometown grassroots projects.
Status of appropriations in Budget –
making it into the budget to be submitted to the Governor:
Made it
into budget
Midterm February
20 figure
600,000 Deering Estate Foundation’s Field Study Research
Center Phase 2 (HB 2627) 250,000
100,000 Cutler Bay Wetland Restoration Project (HB 3757)
100,000
150,000 Homestead Automatic Flushing System (HB 3165) 150,000
100,000 Palmetto Bay Sub-Basin 61 Construction (HB 3461) 100,000
ZERO Nature Educational Center
(Coral Reef Park) (HB 3809)(Details) 125,000
150,000 Pinecrest Stormwater
Improvements (HB 3807)
100,000
Some did improve from the February report: Team Deering Estate worked hard and
raised their number from $250k in February 2020 to an impressive $600,000 in
the final legislative budget approved by the legislature on March 18!
Otherwise, the numbers for the sampling of local projects listed above February
20 stayed the same.
Many local items did not hold their
place. An example is the Coral Reef Park Nature Center, hidden in an
educational portion of the budget at $125,000, but was cut to ZERO.
FINAL WORDS / IMPACT UPON PALMETTO BAY BUDGET(S): The $100,000 for stormwater improvements will move into the Palmetto Bay FY 2020-21 budget where it will be matched with $100,000 of Palmetto Bay tax revenue in order to support $200K in stormwater projects.
