Mayor Eileen Higgins says the money is urgently needed to rebuild aging police and fire facilities. Critics question whether Miami can afford another major bond issue while struggling with pension obligations, existing debt and rising public safety costs.
Editor’s Note: This story was first published on October 9 by WLRN Public Media. The Spotlight is republishing the story under a partnership agreement with WLRN.
The last time Miami taxpayers agreed to take out a multimillion-dollar loan for the city, Miami was a different place. The COVID-19 pandemic hadn’t yet brought up costs on all manner of materials and goods. Digital nomads and remote workers from high-paying New York firms hadn’t yet made Miami their new home. The housing crisis, though ongoing, hadn’t hit the critical levels seen in the aftermath of pandemic lockdowns.
The bond Miamians agreed to in 2017 was branded on longevity and keeping Miami around in perpetuity: Miami Forever.
Now just eight years after Miami voters passed the $400 million Miami Forever Bond, a new bond is on the ballot with an even bigger price tag.
The Safe And Ready Miami Bond asks voters to approve $450 million in new debt to pay for critical maintenance at fire stations throughout the city, construct new stations and to build a new public safety headquarters to replace the 50-year-old police HQ in downtown.
This is Miami Mayor Eileen Higgins’ first major act since she took office in late 2025, and she has championed the bond by highlighting the poor state of the city’s public safety buildings — from flooded basements and perforated ceilings to outdated wiring that is difficult to replace.
“ As the city has grown, the police headquarters building has stayed the same. It has been in this kind of deteriorating condition for well over a decade with no one doing anything about it, and the situation in our fire stations sometimes is worse than what is going on at the police headquarters,” Higgins told WLRN in an interview.
The bond has drawn criticism, however, from Higgins’ political opponents and those who believe the city should be saving money rather than taking on more debt.
“ We are so in debt. We haven’t paid off the first bond. We wanna do another bond. We’re gonna bond ourselves into oblivion,” said former Miami City Manager Emilio Gonzalez, who ran for mayor against Higgins last year.
Miami voters will vote on the Safe and Ready Miami Bond’s approval on Tuesday, Nov. 3. Early voting begins Oct. 19.
Miami’s existing debt
A 2023 analysis from government finance transparency nonprofit Truth in Accounting declared Miami a “sinkhole city,” giving it a letter grade of “D” for financial health owing in part to its high ratio of debt to city assets.
Sheila Weinberg, CEO of Truth in Accounting, told WLRN after looking at the city’s recent financial statements that not much has changed since 2023.
“ We graded it 67 out of 75, 75 being the worst. So the voters should consider —before we hire new people, before we offer new services and benefits — they should consider whether they should be paying down their old debt before new programs or salaries are incurred,” Weinberg said.
The biggest drags on Miami’s balance sheet are the city’s unfunded pensions and health benefits for retired city employees. Together, these two categories make up about $2 billion in debt on the city’s books. Net pension liabilities for police and firefighters alone were more than $1 billion in 2025, per the city’s most recently available annual financial report.
That same report notes that the City of Miami is operating at a deficit of about $950 million for government activities as of last September. Certain sections of the city are operating over their allocated budgets, particularly the public safety arm.
An excerpt from Miami’s July 2026 monthly financial report showing public safety spending is $34 million over budget.
According to a monthly financial report for July 2026, the city’s public safety expenditures were $34 million over budget, owing to retirement funds, pensions and salaries for police and firefighters.
Gonzalez argues the city should be looking to pay down its existing pension and bond debt and look for efficiencies.
“ And what happens, you know, when pension, salaries, benefits, and debt services reaches the 95% threshold, then what happens then when there’s no money left for the resident? This is like self-perpetuating,” Gonzalez said
Mayor Higgins said Miami’s public safety infrastructure is in dire need of repair and replacement one way or another and must be funded. The point of the Safe and Ready Bond is to make it so her administration has the money in-hand to begin construction on those replacements immediately.
”The bond approach gets these projects done more quickly, right? Because we know we can issue debt whenever we want to on this bond. We’re only gonna borrow money as we are spending the money for the capital,” she said.
Miami Forever
The $400 million elephant in the room during recent bond talks has been the Miami Forever Bond, and how that money has been spent if the city is already looking to take out another loan.
The Forever Bond was meant to pay for environmental sustainability projects, drainage, affordable housing and public parks throughout the city.
Both Higgins and Gonzalez said on the campaign trail last year that the Forever Bond was not transparent, and it was unclear what the money had been spent on. Now that Higgins is in office, she promises to create an online dashboard for residents to see Forever Bond projects and what stage of construction they are in.
The city has a Miami Forever Bond Citizens’ Oversight Board that meets regularly, and the board’s publicly available agendas shed some light on where the money has been spent.
According to the Oversight Board’s May agenda, only about 30% of the $400 million has been spent so far, though a majority of the money has been earmarked to citywide initiatives. Projects already underway include drainage improvements, seawall construction, new parks and park facilities and several affordable housing projects.
Higgins said the Miami Forever Bond put a majority of its funding toward the planning and design phase of many projects, but did not necessarily commit enough dollars toward completing every initiative promised. That’s why Miami Forever seems to aim wider than the Safe and Ready, and why the funds haven’t been spent in the last eight years, she asserts.
“ Miami Forever Bond spent a lot of money on design of projects that have no construction money associated with it. They should have either put less projects in the bond and make sure everything in the bond is buildable,” she said.
As for why the Safe and Ready Bond carries a significantly higher price tag than Miami Forever, Higgins points to construction costs that have risen considerably since 2018. She also said that while Miami Forever Bond committed to many smaller projects, the public safety construction she has planned is a considerable undertaking. On top of construction costs, the city will have to pay land costs for the sites of four new fire stations.
“ The Safe and Ready Miami Bond basically repairs or replaces all of our inadequate public safety facilities (and) adds additional fire stations in neighborhoods that do not have adequate response times now because the city has not built new fire stations in years and years and years,” Higgins said.
Miami voters will vote on the Safe and Ready Miami Bond’s approval on Tuesday, Nov. 3. Early voting begins Oct. 19. County residents can check the status of their voter registration on the Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections website.
