Firefighter overtime that looks like it’s falling but isn’t. Eighteen festival grants replaced by an unidentified $2 million pot. And a capital funding gap that’s much larger than it first appears. Here are a few numbers buried in Miami’s proposed budget ahead of Thursday’s final vote.
At 571 pages, Miami’s proposed budget for the coming year contains plenty of big numbers.
There’s the $3.7 billion bottom line. Nearly $1.3 billion in General Fund spending. Almost $691 million in property-tax revenue.
But some of the more interesting numbers are considerably easier to miss.
With city commissioners scheduled to cast their final vote Thursday, the Spotlight took another look at Mayor Eileen Higgins’ proposed spending plan — this time for some of the numbers buried deeper in the budget.
Here are five that caught our attention.
1. Firefighter overtime is down. Or is it?
At first glance, Miami’s budget appears to show a big drop in firefighter overtime expenses.
One Fire-Rescue overtime account falls from about $7.1 million this year to just $2.5 million next year — a decline of roughly $4.6 million.
But look elsewhere in the budget and the picture changes.
Staffing overtime jumps from about $7.9 million to nearly $14 million. And when all Fire-Rescue overtime is added together, the total actually rises by nearly $2 million, to about $22 million — an increase of roughly 10%.
The Spotlight asked repeatedly whether the shifting numbers reflect a reclassification of overtime expenses, an expected increase in staffing overtime or some combination of the two. The city did not respond.
Nor has the city provided records repeatedly requested by the Spotlight showing how much its employees actually earn each year when overtime, specialty pay and other additional compensation are included.
2. Eighteen festival grants disappear. A $2 million pot replaces them.
Miami’s budget has traditionally told taxpayers exactly how much the city planned to spend on a long list of festivals, celebrations and other special events.
Next year, it doesn’t.
In the current year budget, 18 individually named events receive a combined $2.43 million. In Higgins’ proposed budget, every one of those allocations drops to zero.
But keep reading.
Immediately below those zeroed-out accounts is a new one: $2 million for “Citywide Festivals and Special Events.”
Who gets the money?
The budget doesn’t say. It describes the entire $2 million as “Pending distribution by projects.”
And there’s another wrinkle: The new pot is $433,000 smaller than the combined $2.43 million budgeted for those 18 named events this year — a reduction of about 18%.
So, the proposed budget doesn’t necessarily eliminate city funding for those festivals. It eliminates the individual allocations and replaces them with a smaller $2 million pot whose recipients have yet to be identified.
3. $10.5 million in savings from “frozen positions”
Somewhere in Miami City Hall, jobs worth $10.5 million are apparently being frozen.
Which jobs? The budget doesn’t say, nor did the city’s Office of Communications, despite multiple requests for comment.
Buried in the proposed budget’s “Non-Departmental Accounts” is a $10.5 million savings assumption labeled “Attrition Savings.” The explanation is just four words: “Frozen Positions pending distribution.”
Attrition savings aren’t unusual. Governments routinely budget for positions expected to remain vacant for part of the year.
Elsewhere in Miami’s budget, for example, the Risk Management Department anticipates saving $115,000 by leaving five vacant positions unfilled for three months.
But the much larger $10.5 million entry doesn’t identify the positions or departments involved, how the savings were calculated or what “pending distribution” means — including where the $10.5 million savings would ultimately be allocated.
4. $28.3 million now. The spending decisions come later.
Miami’s proposed budget sets aside $28.3 million for a pandemic-era economic-support program called Miami for Everyone.
What it doesn’t say is how that money will ultimately be spent — or who gets to decide.
Unlike money budgeted for a specific department, service or project, the $28.3 million remains available for spending decisions to be made later. The proposed spending plan doesn’t spell out a formula for dividing the money, how much is available to each commissioner or district, or what criteria govern which projects receive funding.
An example of that discretionary spending appears on this week’s City Commission agenda. District 2 Commissioner Damian Pardo is asking his fellow commissioners to approve about $167,000 from the program’s current-year budget for maintenance repairs to the historic Christ Episcopal Church in the West Grove.
That means commissioners are being asked on Thursday to approve $28.3 million for a discretionary spending program without the budget identifying the projects or recipients of those funds.
The city has not responded to repeated Spotlight questions about the program and how its money is allocated and distributed.
5. Miami has an $828 million capital funding gap. Actually, it’s $1.8 billion.
Buried in Miami’s capital plan is a daunting number: $828 million in projects and other capital needs for which the city has identified no funding at all.
But keep reading.
Another $1.86 billion in capital needs is listed as “partially funded.” The city has identified about $861 million to pay for those projects.
That leaves another $1 billion without identified funding.
Put the two categories together, and the picture looks considerably different: Miami has roughly $1.8 billion in identified capital needs without identified money to pay for them.
The city acknowledges that some “critical capital investments” have gone without funding for several years, specifically pointing to the replacement of heavy and light vehicles and other equipment.
And now voters are being asked to help pay for some of the city’s capital needs. In November, they will decide whether to authorize $450 million in new general obligation bonds for public-safety facilities.
Even that amounts to only about one-quarter of the $1.8 billion capital funding gap identified elsewhere in the city’s own budget documents.
For a deeper dive, read the Spotlight’s three-part series on the City of Miami’s budget:
Read more: Miami’s Billion-Dollar Boom, Part 1: Where Did All the Money Go?
Read more: Miami’s Billion-Dollar Boom, Part 2: The Rising Cost of Public Safety
Read more: Miami’s Billion-Dollar Boom, Part 3: City Hall’s Growing Payroll
