Our View: How to simplify budget talks

The Longboat Key budget process reminds us of nature’s annual course with the Key’s beloved swans.

The birds mate, their eggs cook, cygnets are hatched and then the culling begins. The numbers of cygnets inevitably end up fewer than at the start. It’s nature’s ritual.

At Town Hall, the ritual is similar. Town Manager Bruce St. Denis and his department heads meet. They discuss the next fiscal year’s budget. Town Finance Director Tom Kelley puts the numbers together. The town manager presents a new budget document. And then the culling process begins.

Town commissioners inevitably tell St. Denis to go back to his office to cut more.

Giving birth is always a painful process. But in the case of the annual town budget, it doesn’t have to be so. Indeed, you would think Town Manager St. Denis, after 16 years, would be tired of this annual summer gestation process.

It comes down to leadership and direction — St. Denis’ leadership and explicit direction from the Town Commission.

Often times in these lean years, St. Denis has presented the commission with budget options that go like this: Raise millage rates and taxes to balance the budget, or raise rates (less) and spend money from the “rainy fund” to balance the budget. The obvious third option — cut spending — often must be coaxed.

In the commission’s latest rounds of budget discussions, St. Denis presented commissioners with a $265,000 deficit. What do you want to do, he asked them? No surprise, they told St. Denis to find $265,000 in cuts. He did.

Commissioner Jack Duncan, echoing his colleagues, said St. Denis’ paring of the budget was “fantastic.”
It could have, should have happened at the start.

It’s obvious St. Denis resists cutting Town Hall expenses. And that’s understandable. No CEO likes to cut pay or people or conveniences.

But commissioners can shorten this process and reduce its angst by doing two things: 1) create an incentive-based, management-by-objectives measurement plan for the town manager; and 2) in that plan, let it be known commissioners expect the town manager to produce an annual budget that either holds steady or reduces the town millage rate.

Longboat Key’s tax rates have never been onerous in its 56-year lifetime. Nor have they been too stingy. Given the property values on the Key and the fact the town’s population is not growing, there should be no need for government operating expenses growing faster than the combined inflation and population rates.

In the end the commissioners almost always reach a satisfactory, rational outcome on the budget. Getting there doesn’t need to be as complicated as it has been.

+ Outsource, outsource
Our sister newspaper, the East County Observer, has embarked this summer on a series of reports intended to educate the residents of Lakewood Ranch on the potential consequences of voting to incorporate.

Along the way, the newspaper reported on the experiences of three cities that recently incorporated — Weston, Wellington and Bonita Springs.

Of the three, the most noteworthy was Weston. This is a city of 62,000 residents and a $100 million annual budget — but it has only nine city employees. As the East County Observer reported:

“All nine employees are directors of a department of the city but largely act as contract control agents with the 30 major private contractors …”

Weston outsources police services to the Broward County Sheriff’s Office and fire and rescue to the county. It also contracts for everything from planning and zoning down to the receptionist at the desk entering City Hall.

The results: Weston has the lowest tax rates of all municipalities in Broward County. What’s more, a recent study for Broward County found that when all taxes, fees and other governmental assessments on citizens are combined, Weston is the least expensive place in the county to live — at least as far as government expenses go.

This model is becoming increasingly popular nationally. It’s certainly one that is worth examining for Longboat Key. Just think: No more pension problems. No more fretting about updating office computers and software; paying for health insurance or hassling with unions. All of that shifts to the private sector. Sounds appealing.