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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCC 2010-07-22 MinutesCity of Miami City Hall 3500 Pan American Drive Miami, FL 33133 www.miamigov.com Meeting Minutes Thursday, July 22, 2010 5:00 PM SPECIAL MEETING City Hall Commission Chambers City Commission Tomas Regalado, Mayor Marc David Sarnoff, Chairman Frank Carollo, Vice -Chairman Wifredo (Willy) Dort, Commissioner District One Francis Suarez, Commissioner District Four Richard P. Dunn II, Commissioner District Five Carlos A. Migoya, City Manager Julie O. Bru, City Attorney Priscilla A. Thompson, City Clerk City Commission Meeting Minutes July 22, 2010 5:00 P.M. INVOCATION AND PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE SP.1 10-00827 Present: Vice Chairman Carollo, Commissioner Gort, Chairman Sarnoff, Commissioner Suarez and Commissioner Dunn II On the 22nd day ofJuly 2010, the City Commission of the City ofMiami, Florida, met at its regular meeting place in City Hall, 3500 Pan American Drive, Miami, Florida, in special session. The meeting was called to order by Chair Sarnoff at 6: 57 p.m., and adjourned at 9:28 p.m. Note for the Record: Commissioner Dunn entered the Commission Chambers at 7: 03 p.m. ALSO PRESENT: Julie O. Bru, City Attorney Johnny Martinez, Assistant City Manager/Chief of Infrastructure Pamela L. Latimore, Assistant City Clerk DISCUSSION ITEM DISCUSSION ITEM THE BUDGET TASK FORCE COMMITTEE, THE FINANCE COMMITTEE, UNIONS AND EMPLOYEES TO HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO PROVIDE THEIR SOLUTIONS FOR THE BUDGET SHORTFALL THIS YEAR AND THE NEXT THREE YEARS. 10-00827 Memo.pdf 10-00827-Submittal-Budget Committee Task Force Report.pdf 10-00827--Submittal-Michael Butler -Statistical Data on Fife Dept. Service Calls.pdf 10-00827-Submittal-2010 Fire Department Survey Comparison.pdf 10-00827-Submittal-Administration-Police Department Comparisons.pdf 10-00827-Submittal-Memo-City Manager.pdf 10-00827-Submittal-Correspondence-Miami Association of Firefighters.pdf 10-00827-Submittal-FY'11 Proposed Budget (Summary).pdf 09-01453-Submittal-Memo-Mayor Regalado.pdf DISCUSSED Chair Sam off The reason I called this special meeting tonight was to give everyone involved in the budget the opportunity to discuss and see if we all agree to the numbers and if there's any kind of recourse or any kind of way that you can recommend to this Commission in terms of how we should go about the budget. The reason I wanted to do it now versus September, there's not much time to react in September. So what I proposed was that the City Manager provide the numbers to us, not only as to this year shortfall, but the next three years shortfall, and also to discuss something called the unfunded liabilities. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to the City Manager for a brief presentation. He is going to describe to us the financial predicament that the City ofMiami finds itself in, andl don't think many of the municipalities are in a very different predicament, but we may be, as I call it, the head of the spear because we may be in a little bit deeper than some of the other municipalities. So with that, Mr. Manager, are you ready to go? Carlos A. Migoya (City Manager): Yes, sir, I am. The only thing that we are in the process of doing, which will be delayed, but it's -- you all have the information -- we're going to make copies of what I'm going to be talking about so any -- I don't know if we're going to have that City ofMiami Page 2 Printed on 9/1/2010 City Commission Meeting Minutes July 22, 2010 many copies available that quickly, but we'll have some copies available so people can look at the numbers are that we're looking at. But we have talked about these many times with you. We actually have done briefings with you about what these items are. But just real brief as it relates to the year '9/'10, we are in the process right now of maintaining a deficit that'll probably be in $20 million dollar range. We've been able to bring it down. I believe we were at -- the first guess was around 27, $28 million, and we have brought it down to $20, 800, 000. And at this point, that number is about where it will be. We have had the good scenario that for the last several months, many departments have done a great job of managing their expenses. We've gone through a procurement freeze now for -- ever since I've been here, and so the expenses themselves have been reduced quite a bit. The challenge is that, obviously, as you will recall, the revenue side did come in substantially below the budgeted amount for previous year predominantly in the property tax category, and also some of the risk management expenses are well above what the numbers are from -- Chair Sarnoff So, if you could -- and I don't mean to interrupt you much, but -- Mr. Migoya: You're not. Chair Sam off -- I want to try this as -- to be as clear as I can. So we're going to have a $20 million deficit the end of this fiscal year? Mr. Migoya: That's correct. Chair Sam off What happens to that? What -- how do we acquire that $20 million? Mr. Migoya: Right now the -- we have a reserve -- the -- our reserve had started off being around $120 million several years ago -- Vice Chair Carollo: A hundred and forty. Mr. Migoya: -- had been depleted and are currently $39 million. So with this $20 million deficit, our reserves will be down to $19 million. We are working with the Parking Authority in ways to try to monetize the Authority in one of several ways. We actually had their board approve that item at their last board meeting. I believe it was July 8. And we believe that we will able to obtain approximately $100 million if and when we monetize that. We have yet to bring that item up to you. But that is our way to bring back our reserves to the amount that we are -- we have self-imposed to us. That money -- part of that money will go to pay off the garage four at James L. Knight Center, which is around $26 million. That helps us with a defeasance of about $5.8 million. Chair Sam off That's an annual payment? Mr. Migoya: That is an annual payment that we have right now of $5.8 million. Chair Sam off That comes out of the general fund? Mr. Migoya: Comes out of the general fund. We do have a negative drop on what we get from the Authority from 7.5 million to $2 million, so in a sense, we only have a positive $300,000 on that defeasance, but at least we use that as a way to amortize -- to defease [sic] that debt right now and it helps us out substantially. Beyond that, we probably will still have about another 10, $15 million in that reserve, which, frankly, we had -- I have yet to propose that, but that is the money that I'm hoping to use in Virginia Key to be able to put that to work, and if we -- use that investment will be the way that we -- if we use $16 million of that money on Virginia Key, we could have a return of $2.6 million a year net strictly from the marinas, not including any garage revenues or any other revenues. So that, by itself, is a 16 percent return -- is actually a solid City ofMiami Page 3 Printed on 9/1/2010 City Commission Meeting Minutes July 22, 2010 return and could only get north of that. So this is another way that, obviously, it wouldn't be this year. It'll be one or two years down the road, but we could have ways to continue to gain additional income and wean ourselves so much from -- you know, right now 50 percent of our revenues are comingfrom property taxes. The goal here is to get other fees and other ways to substantiate the City so that we're not at that 50/50 range, but we get ourselves closer to one -thirds, two-thirds in fees versus taxes so that the volatility of taxes doesn't really impact us as much as it is right now, and that's a goal that I put in there. Again, that's at long-term. I know you mentioned the issue about the one year versus five years, but that's again something that we -- if we don't start working on today, we will never work on it, so -- And as we go through this, I'll tell you more about some of those initiatives 'cause actually, some of the other fees -- initiatives, you'll find out that many departments, especially the two public safety areas -- actually, Police, Fire, and Solid Waste have all done a great job of coming up with different ways to create additional fees that are quite helpful to help us go through this environment and hopefully put us in a better situation in the future. So with that, right now our reserves will be down to $19 million at the end of this year, notwithstanding whatever we do with the Authority. The expectation -- well, not expectations, but we know for a fact that assessed values for next year will drop by 15.5 percent for the City ofMiami for all properties. That will actually give us a reduction in property tax revenues for next year of $37.3 million, which is the bulk of the drop in revenues. We're kind of predicting all the other revenues to be fairly flat. The only other expense items that we're looking to grow next year -- and again, we projected the expense items based on where we are. Actually, if you look at where we've been in expenses from October to now, we have actually dropped our expenses at -- by $3 million a month or $36 million, which is a little -- it was about 8 percent reduction in a 7-month period -- 7-, 8-month period, so that's actually pretty sizable that we've been able to move that quickly on expense reductions. But next year, in addition to the normal expenses, and assuming we stayed with the current contracts that we have, with increases and -- that we have for all the different unions and so forth, we would have some increases there, but the big increase will be in the payment of pension. This year we paid for pensions a total of $89.6 million. Next year's scheduled number for October 1 is $115.5 million, which is an increase of $26 million. So now you have a $37 million drop in revenue and you have a $26 million increase in pensions. In addition to that, you have an additional expected growth in Risk Management, which is all the insurances and settlements and so forth of another $4 million. So between those increases and the normal increases you have in operating expenses from increases in salaries, we are projected to have in operating deficits, in operating deficits, a deficit of $96.5 million. Now that deficit does not include the fact that this year, we did not -- as part of balancing our budget for the year '9/'10, which we didn't obviously; we have a $20 million deficit, we deferred a lot of capital expenditures. Those capital expenditures included not buying police vehicles. We haven't bought any fire vehicles now in two or three years? Chief Maurice Kemp (Fire): We bought some. We haven't had any capital improvement money for three years. Mr. Migoya: We haven't had any capital improvement money comingfrom the City for three years on Fire. We didn't buy any City vehicles. We have not done any maintenance to our buildings. And we were funding through the Sunshine State money, rather than expenses, our IT (Information Technology) expenses, which is you're borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. I know, Commissioner Carollo, why you're nodding your head, but that's what we've been doing. So if you add those kind of expenses, which are considered to be capital expenditures, that's another $14 million, and now you're at $110 million deficit, including capital expenditures for the year. That's a do-nothing scenario. If you just try to run this with -- and obviously, with a $19 million reserve, even if you replenish that reserve, that's not going to go very far. So we have looked at how to deal with this in considering the fact that 91 percent of our expenses are compensation and benefits. Unfortunately, the biggest place to get the reductions, if you're going to do it on the expense side, would be on the employee side. So what we did here was -- oh, it's further down. I'm sorry. We had proposed that we have a 5 percent average reduction of salaries. City ofMiami Page 4 Printed on 9/1/2010 City Commission Meeting Minutes July 22, 2010 What that means is that to try -- across the board for all employees, union and nonunions. But to try to be fair with people -- and know that that's -- this does not always happens this way, but we did -- the hire you make money, the higher the percentage cut. So for example, people that make $40,000 or less would have no reductions. And then there was a bucket list going -from that number north, which it would start from 5 to 12 percent increases -- I mean, decreases, so the overall weighted average would be at 5 percent. That and the reduction of some of the supplements as part of the bargaining that we're talking about would have a reduction of $33 million to salaries for this year. In addition to that, health care is broken up into two sides for the City. Police has its own separate trust -- health care trust, so we ourselves -- they manage their own health care trust and we just supplement what that amount is. So what we've said to Police as part of our bargaining is whatever we paid you last year, which is approximately $12 million, we will give you the same amount this year so we're not assuming any increases to that number. Police -- the Police plan is a more conservative plan or a less -benefits -to -the -employee plan than the remaining of the City. The remainder of the City has a no -deductible plan and has very little copay, something that's unheard of in this country today. So what we're proposed to the rest of our employees from a bargaining perspective are that we would have a more traditional deductible that you would normally see in a municipality or a corporate environment and traditional copays, while also giving them an option of a POS [sic], which is basically like a -- you choose your doctor versus an HMO (Health Maintenance Organization), so they still have the same flexibility. And just having the deductibles, we believe -- and that's part of the actuarials on the health plan and so forth -- that people will start changing how they do it. For example, if you have no cost whatsoever and you have a headache, you're likely to go to the Emergency Room to find out if you have -- a head scan. If you have a deductible, there's a likelihood you might take an aspirin, so -- and I'm exaggerating, obviously. But the bottom line is that the behaviors are different when you have an expense versus when you don't have an expense. So based on the actuarials, just making these changes would have a $14.2 million improvement or a reduction to our expenses. I'm going to leave pension for last because that's the more difficult one to explain. We're in the process of working with the Fire Department to look at how to address the Fire College and how we go about -- you know, there's many organizations, many departments out there and organizations that are doing a lot of training for people and giving them a certificate for the basic training. We're looking at a way to privatize some of that and how we go about doing that. We believe that between a savings and an improvement, there's at least $500,000. In speaking with Chief Kemp, Fernandez, and the rest of the group, that we believe that that number could even be a little better, but we will know more about that over the next week or so as we continue to work on that. Obviously, not all of that would go into place October 1 'cause it is July 22 already, but I'm telling you, these guys have been working very diligently on that piece andl think there's a lot of savings to that. In addition to this, we said that every year for the next five years, we will have a 2 percent attrition. That means, as we -- as people turn over in the entire City, that we look at, you know, what we need to replace, what we don't need to replace, and a 2 percent attrition is a very doable number. That's $5 million further reduction. And then as it relates to the pension, we looked at all the different possibilities on how to deal with the pensions and, frankly, the only way that we found that we could have a substantial improvement to that number, not just for the year '11 but on an ongoing liability issue for the City and sustainability, is to go from a defined benefit plan to a defined contribution plan. And what we're saying by a defined contribution plan different from a defined benefit plan is that in a defined benefit plan, when you retire, you get a specific dollar amount that you retire on. The problem with that is that if you look at it the way it is today, we have to have -- depending on the pension that we have today, you have to guarantee a minimum return of seven and three quarters or eight point one percent, depending on which plan we're talking about. Under the current market, in the last several years and actually for the next at least five to ten years, ability to average seven and three quarters or eight percent are going to be quite difficult to do. And when you don't get to that return, then the City has to come up with the difference. So the liability in that piece grows a lot. In addition to that, you have the fact that salaries have been growing at a heavy point, so obviously, that increases the liability, and also, life expectancy has also increased a lot. So if you look at it, the reason why private companies City ofMiami Page 5 Printed on 9/1/2010 City Commission Meeting Minutes July 22, 2010 have gone away from defined benefit to defined contribution is because it didn't work for them, and that is -- in a private corporation environment someplace where typically people work 40 to 45 years and retire -- and get paid a pension for 15 to 20. In the public sector environment, people work for 25 years and expect to get paid a pension for 35 to 40 years. So contribution versus payback, it's impossible to maintain that sustainability, which is part of the issue that every municipality is going through, which by the way, private companies have found that and have stopped it over ten years ago. So the only way that we've been able to figure out how to do this is to freeze the current defined benefit plan. And what that means is that anyone that's on the defined benefit plan to date -- and that's through September 30 -- will be fully vested on their plan through September 30. Beyond September 30 -- in other words, October 1 going forward -- they would get a specific amount given by the City and -- Michelle, are you around in case -- correct me with these numbers. I'm going to give you approximate numbers 'cause -- but I believe it -- for public safety, we're talking about a matching where the City will go up to a maximum of 21 percent and the employee would be able to give up to 8 percent. Us 20 percent and 8 percent, where basically 28 percent will be funded towards that defined contribution on an annual basis. That means the employee would get to invest it how he saw fit -- he or she would see it fit, and then obviously, at retirement they would have a lump -sum amount to that effect. And in the case of the general employees, the amount is a lesser amount where it would be up to 12 percent and a 6 percent match from the employees, so it's 18 percent. And frankly, these numbers that we're talking about, 18 and 28 percent, are way above what the private sector does. The private sector typically does a 6 and 6 match to a maximum of 12 percent. So we're recognizing that the public employees have had substantially higher than that, so we're (UNINTELLIGIBLE) a higher contribution. By doing this, we do a couple of different things. First of all -- and people say, well, by not having employees funding into the old plan, you're actually going to fund more. Well, that is true for a period of time, but -- because you have now maximized the salary. You no -- by everybody being vested this year, you no longer have to fund what future liabilities of salaries are going to be. By doing that, you're reducing your unfunded liability by $200 million, which is a -- Chair Sam off Can you explain to the average person, what is an unfunded liability? Mr. Migoya: What happens is -- five, six years ago, the City was in a funded -- hundred -percent funded environment. Over that period of time, primarily for a couple of different factors, but predominantly because of the life expectancies, the multiples, the salaries, we went to a one-year average rather than a five-year average. A lot of these things started -- the liability started skyrocketing. And you're allowed to maintain a percentage of your pension as an unfunded liability. Today, our unfunded liability is around 80 -- our funded liability's about 80 percent, 80, 81 percent. So on a fund of about a million five, you're talking -- a billion five alone on -- a month, it's -- I think our overall is about two billion dollars. It's -- we got about a -- unfunded liability in the four to five hundred million dollar range. By doing what we're doing, we're going to be able to reduce that unfunded liability, which also reduces our future exposure to payments. So whatever we would save by not having to do under -- whatever we would spend by not having the additional monies from employees, we are substantially reducing our exposure by having that unfunded liability, which means future payments. So in a sense, we're breaking even or probably even going to be a little better than that. But at this point, the projections are that we're breaking even. So by doing all of this, the current year saving on pension, including the fact that we will be paying under the new defined contribution that 28 -- that 20 percent and 12 percent for the City portion, we would still have a savings of about $31 million. Hang on a second 'cause I -- by moving my hands, I just came out of where I was, andl don't want to talk without having the numbers in front of me. I apologize for that. Thirty-one point two million dollars, that is correct. We will still have increases in the future, so obviously, that is a challenge in itself so -- but let's just talk about 10 and 11 right now, which I think are the important pieces. So when you add all those expense reductions that we're talking about, we would have an expense reduction of $84.7 million. City ofMiami Page 6 Printed on 9/1/2010 City Commission Meeting Minutes July 22, 2010 Chair Sarnoff You said 87.4? Mr. Migoya: Eight four point seven million dollars -- Chair Sam off Four point seven. Mr. Migoya: -- towards that $110 million number. Now, if you've got $110 million, you -- basically you're talking about 82 percent of the reductions are coming from compensation, but yet, 91 percent is your budget, so -- the reason why we've been able to do some of that or most of that is because we have had great cooperation from all the departments and employees actually in ways to do revenues, and we're not done yet. We -- I think we got the majority of it, but -- for example, we have -- we're looking at fee increases that will add for the year '10/'11 of $16.4 million, and I'll give you a brief of what some of these are. I'm not going to go into all of them, but they're predominantly fees that, as you know -- we gave you all a breakdown -- are predominantly -- the red light cameras is one. Then on an annualized basis will give us -- we're expecting, based on where we are with the revenues from the State and other municipalities' usage and so forth, will be $8.7 million. Since we will not be implementing it till January 1 -- or in other words, nine -twelfth of the year or 75 percent of the year -- for this year's benefit, it will be six and a half million dollars. The solid waste fee, which we already approved of 30 -- well, we approved the cap, not the actual fee. If we approve the entire $30, will be $1.7 million. There's other things in Solid Waste that -- again, the Solid Waste Department has done a really good job. The Mayor kind of talked about that this morning. We're talking about commercializing the Virginia plan, the Virginia Key plan, which is clean trash. That's a great example. The reason why we haven't commercialized it is because we don't have a scale. While the repair of the scale and everything that goes on there is approximately $200,000, close to $300,000, but the payback in one year is 700, 000. So the idea -- and it could be more than that because we're now talking to other municipalities about bringing their clean trash to us, which would -- at this point, if we get all the ones we're talking about, we would exceed the capacity of the Virginia Key plan, which actually would be a substantial lift from that number alone. We are also, by the way, have sent notice to Waste Management that we do not intend to renew the mini dump with them that's on 20th Street. The idea behind that -- and we're still working on it really early -- is to use the mini dump as a further chute for the clean trash as a way to further offload if we have many municipalities so -- even further add efficiencies to that, so that number could even be higher, so you can see how some of that works. We also -- on the RFP (Request for Proposals) that we had for commercial haulers, the amount that originally went out was 22 percent, but you had given us up to 24 percent so we went back and rebidded at 24 percent and we also put in an inspection fee for every truck at $500. That also provides a lift of about $300,000. So these are obviously fees that don't impact -- so in a sense, we've got a million dollars in additional monies from Solid Waste. We increased our fees to the marinas. We still are below market and that's a lift of $638, 000. EMS (Emergency Medical Service) charges and the Fire Department's another half a million dollars. That could be a little more, but obviously, we're not counting for that right now because we're still early on in that area. We are looking to put murals in police headquarters and the MRC (Miami Riverside Center). As you know that both of those buildings are very close to 1-95 and a great place to put murals, but not only will we get the permits since we own the buildings; we would actually get the revenues. And this is a conservative number, but we believe we will at least get $1.2 million in fees by doing those murals. We're implementing other things in the Police Department with the commercial vehicle violations -- and FDOT (Florida Department of Transportation) right now does all the commercial vehicle violations. We have officers in staff already that are FDOT certified. And by a slight -- I think that's $120,000 investment. We can generate $720,000 in fees on an annual basis. And we're talking about privatizing fingerprinting. For example, you know, we were doing fingerprinting for criminals, but yet, why can't we be doing that for, you know, people that get their passports and do it for civils (civilians), so that's in there. We're going to all -- we're also looking at doing some stuff around correspondence and records for the Police Department. We're also looking at allowing other departments, federal and state, to use our shooting range City ofMiami Page 7 Printed on 9/1/2010 City Commission Meeting Minutes July 22, 2010 and getting fees for that. So all of those ideas have given us for this year $16.4 million, so as you can see, that that's a very helpful lift. So the $16.4 plus that $84 million, we're basically at $101 million. That still leaves us about $9.6 million in deficit, which we're in the process of working through. And then, as I mentioned in the morning -- this morning, but I'll mention it again, when we talked about the doomsday scenario, which is the -- I hate using that word, but it is what it is -- if we did not give any concessions to any of the issues that we got from expense reduction or fees -- because at the end of the day, these expense reductions and labor negotiations are either going to be with the unions or it may end up with you if we don't come up with an agreement -- and as well as the fees, then the only solution will be through layoffs. Then obviously, we have asked every department to work on what that scenario will look like, and we're calling that the 20 percent scenario, although it's probably going to be closer to 25 or 30, but at least we're starting on that 20 percent scenario. We have also asked the departments to work on a 5 percent scenario of reducing expenses by 5 percent. And frankly, the Budget Department has been working diligently for the last week and a half with all those departments. I've been personally involved in all the large departments. And tomorrow, we have the last of -- we're going to have an all -day event, from 9 o'clock in the morning till 8 o'clock at night, going through all the big depart -- a lot of the remaining departments, and we'll be able to figure out how to identify what those 5 percent looks like, and we believe that we will be able to balance through those expense reductions and maybe a few more fees that we're not done here with, and we'll be able to find that $10 million so we'll be able to get to that hundred million -- $110 million deficit by doing all these actions. So that is what we're doing for the case of '10/'11. This does not -- the re -- and people may ask why have we not done anything around increasing taxes. Well, first of all, politically, it hasn't been the will -- the political will to increase our millage. I look at it differently. I look at it from the standpoint that we're not -- the storm is not over yet. We are still expecting next year to have a further drop in values, although, if you look what's happening out there, it looks like properties -- residential properties have bottomed out. Remember, residential properties are only half of our revenue. The other half is commercial properties, which still have to -- bottom. But even on the residential side, it takes a year or two for us to start seeing the revenue. Values start increasing one year. It gets picked up by the assessors the following year. And then the third year is when you actually get the revenue. So based on that and -- so even if -- if you assume the bottom out on that with commercial properties dropping, we're still taking the assumption there will be a 5 percent further drop in assessed values next year. So that, on its own, even with the expense reduction that we got, we're expecting to have a $25 million deficit for next year, a $30 million deficit for the year '13, and a $23 million deficit for the year '14. Andfrank -- Chair Sam off Would you review those again? I apologize. Mr. Migoya: What we're saying is a 5 percent reduction in assessed values next year, which obviously you have a drop in revenues. It'll be a break even the following year and start having a slight lift the next couple of years. So based on those and these current numbers alone, we're showing a $26 million deficit for year '11/'12, a $29 million deficit for the year '12/'13, and a $23 million deficit for the year '13/'14, and then '15 will be our break even year if it starts getting -- if things start getting better. So as you can see here, we cannot just do something -- and that's why I've been saying this is not about doing expense reductions for one year. That's why we can't do what we did the last time that we said. We're not going to go buy police cars. We're not going to buy uniforms. We're not going to buy shoes. Well, you know, if you do that for three or four years, we're going to have everybody in bathing suits and riding, you know, mopeds -- Vice Chair Carollo: Bicycles. Mr. Migoya: -- or roller skates. But the bottom line here is we obviously have to have a balanced budget that's sustainable for a three- to five-year period. And the reason why we're saying it's okay to have a $26 million deficit is because as the year goes on, we'll be able to get better at predicting what our expense structure looks like, what we can do better; we'll be able to City ofMiami Page 8 Printed on 9/1/2010 City Commission Meeting Minutes July 22, 2010 identifi, other revenue sources. For example, the Virginia Key opportunity, which I -- which won't come into line until maybe the year '12 or '13. And like that, we'll -- we have other opportunities. Madeline Valdes, our asset manager, is -- and Tony Crapp are working (UNINTELLIGIBLE) all these different opportunities are. And every one of the departments are getting better at being more entrepreneurial about how we do things. Building and Zoning is obviously doing a really good job of also trying to assess how to capture all the fees, and as we get more automated, we'll be able to do a lot better. So this is not a one-year fix. This has to be a five-year fix on how to get better at it. And though the proposal of what I've been saying -- and I know that this is very difficult to quantifi, it from a contractor or even an employment standpoint -- is to say, you know, the last ten years have been really good if you look at the fact that over the last ten years, on an annual basis, revenues for the City grew by $175 million, but our compensation and benefits grew by $215 million, while our headcount only grew by 1 percent a year, so basically, the average compensation of employees grew substantially over the last ten years. This is now the time that we have to unfortunately take some of that back. But hopefully, if things are a little better than what we're looking at here, this is a very conservative approach. But if things get better, we can take some of that revenue and give it back to the employees as those revenues and -- get better and the predictability of the efficiencies are better. So this is -- under the Mayor's -- Regalado's idea of transparency, what we've offered is to not only be transparent about our current situation, but to be equally transparent and asking everyone to be part of the solution on our revenue and expense structure going forward And as we make money in the future and we find ways that we commonly get better at making money, that we all share on those profits going forward. And just trying to come up with an entrepreneurial way to not only balance the budget, but to equal -- share on the benefits, just like we're sharing on the detriments. Chair Sam off Is that it? Mr. Migoya: I can't think of anything else. I've run out of things to say. Chair Sam off All right. Any Commissioners have any questions of the Manager? Vice Chair Carollo: Actually -- not really a question. I just want to say the comment that I mentioned to you yesterday, and I want to make sure that, you know, we follow up on it. I've noticed on the red-light cameras there's one on US 1 and Ponce de Leon. Now it's my understanding, Ponce de Leon side is Coral Gables. The other side, it's my understanding, it's Coconut Grove. Andl think that camera -- no? Chair Sam off No. That's -- they're called Little Gables. Vice Chair Carollo: That's -- Chair Sam off It's still Coral Gables right there. Vice Chair Carollo: That's called Little Gables? Chair Sam off Yeah. Vice Chair Carollo: I thought Little Gables was by LeJeune and 8th Street. Chair Sam off No, no, no, no, no. That's -- maybe I'm getting the name wrong. That is still Coral Gables. Vice Chair Carollo: That is Coral Gables? Chair Sam off Just a little section there. City ofMiami Page 9 Printed on 9/1/2010 City Commission Meeting Minutes July 22, 2010 Vice Chair Carollo: 'Cause I thought it was part of the Grove. Okay. I was going to say, hey, I want a piece of the -- okay. It's your district. Mr. Migoya: I like the way you think. Chair Sam off Commissioner Dunn, you're recognized. Commissioner Dunn: Yes. Mr. Migoya: Go ahead. I forgot one other thing, but -- I like -- please, Commissioner. Commissioner Dunn: Yes. Mr. Manager, you mentioned that in your projections for the years '11 and '12, '12 and '13, '13 and '14, 26 million, 29, 23, respectively, is that inclusive -- and I believe you said this, but I want to -- of the upgrades for equipment and that kind of --? 'Cause I know now -- right now we're on bare bones. Mr. Migoya: Yes, sir, it is. Again, when you're doing a five-year plan, the last thing you want to do is have our employees out there in a vehicle that's falling apart, not only from a safety standpoint, which obviously is unacceptable, but equally important is the image of our City depends on every one of our employees out there and the way they look. And the last thing I want to see is a fire truck or a police vehicle out there that -- that's shabby -looking. It would not be a good image to the City, in addition to the safety factors. Chair Sam off You would -- said you wanted to say something? Mr. Migoya: Yes. There was one other thing that we looked at, which I thought it was important, and I'm hoping I can find it, unless Lynn moved it out of here again, which I think she did. Yes, she did. She's very competent about that. But I can give you some of the numbers. We -- one of the questions that was asked of us throughout this -- through all these different issues was that our City was inefficient and that we had too many police officers and that we had too many firefighters. We actually had an analysis done based on looking at all the cities that are ma -- about 10 or 15 cities of similar size and half a million dollar population -- and a half a million people population. And we also looked at ourselves against some of the bigger cities as well so that we'll be able to look at it. I will tell you that when analyzing calls made by Police and Fire, in both cases we were either second or third most efficient departments in those groups of cities. And ifI can have that back, Lynn -- it's coming. It's coming slowly. Here we go. Bear with me one second 'cause I think this is an important stat. And again, this is to -- in my opinion, this shows the great efforts of our departments on how good they really are and -- which is why it's important that we -- when we look at deficiencies or we look at all different ways of looking at efficiencies and not just necessarily -- okay, this is Police. That's good. And Chief Kemp, I know you have Fire; ifI can have Fire as well. In the case of Police, if you look at calls per service for police -- per police officer, we did 624 calls and there were only 2 departments that were more efficient than us, Sacramento at the 887 range and Nashville at the 659 range. And in this population, you got cities like Colorado Springs; Raleigh, North Carolina; Cleveland, Ohio; Kansas City, Missouri; Atlanta, Georgia; Washington, DC (District of Columbia); Boston, Massachusetts; Memphis, Tennessee; San Francisco, California; and Honolulu. So it shows you the number of calls per sworn officer and -- which is the better way to match this. It's not, you know, what the population is versus the number of officers, but it basically -- when you get called, you got to be out there, and that's -- or that's whether it's a, you know, murder or an accident or whatever it may be. So that was for Police. In the case of Fire, what we did, a similar analysis. Our firefighters did 126 alarms per firefighter. There was only one department more efficient than us and that was Chicago, Illinois, at 137. Obviously, that's not much of a comparable since they are -- their size is about five and a half times our, so they're 2.8 million people versus 5 -- Miami being 500, 000. But some of the other cities that are here are New York City ofMiami Page 10 Printed on 9/1/2010 City Commission Meeting Minutes July 22, 2010 City, LA (Los Angeles), Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston, Nashville, Virginia Beach, andl know we have more than that. Yes, we do. That's the other one. Twenty-one. We also have Buffalo, New York. We have Colorado Springs; Raleigh, North Carolina; Pittsburg, New Orleans, Oakland, Boston, Memphis, Charlotte, North Carolina, Detroit, Fort Worth, and Fairfax. So if you look at that -- and obviously, the latter ones that I mentioned are the ones that are closer to our size population. But if you look at the efficiency of our calls per service for our guys, both in Fire and Police, it shows you that our guys are a lot more active on a per headcount basis than just about every other city out in the country on a per firefighter and per officer basis. So that -- I thought that was a good exercise, and that's just one of the exercises. PFM (Public Financial Management), which you actually extended the contract, are looking at a lot of the other comps for us on a -- by the municipalities that are comparable. The problem with measuring municipalities on a city -by -city basis is that the services, as you know from a city to another, are -- range very differently, so we have to break it down and look almost by department and look exactly what they do so we can try and compare them. So PFM, who has this information, they do a lot of work for a lot of different municipalities, is able to go in and drill this information. And as we learn, we will try to figure out ways to make sure that our people are efficient. Having said that, we are still looking at different ways that -- there might be some outsourcing opportunities of some things, nothing with public safety. We still believe that public safety, we have to control public safety. I know that there's rumors out there that we wanted to sell the Fire Department to Miami -Dade County. First of all, I wouldn't want to lower our level to Miami -Dade County, but equally important, I think our citizens deserve better. So I believe we have to have control over our service levels in public safety and solid waste. Chair Sam off All right. Thank you. Any Commissioners have any other questions? All right, what I'd like to do is I'd like to allow the Budget Task Force to present. I'd then like to allow -- I think we have a Finance Committee to present, if they're here to present. And then I'd like to give the union leaders an opportunity to present, so that'd be Armando, Bobby, and Charlie. And then from there, we'll take comments from anybody else who wishes to speak. Bob Rodriguez: Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission, thank you very much for having us here tonight. We're very honored and thrilled to have been chosen and selected to be part of this committee. My name is Bob Rodriguez, and I'm chairman because of my committee's choosing me of this task force. And we spent the last four months every single week studying this, andl could attest to the frugal ways of the Manager because although we met from 12 to 2 every week, getting a sandwich out of him was very tough, so we know that he was saving money at every given juncture. And I think what we've learned throughout this process is that there is no question about it, that there is an enormous amount of phenomenal talent in this City. This City is run unlike any other city. And yes, it is going through a very difficult time, but because of your leadership and the professional management, there is no question that the capability of the City is second to none. And as a marketer -- and I've spent my entire life in marketing -- I can tell you that this brand called the City ofMiami is probably well worth a billion dollars unto itself. So the challenges are most certainly real and we understand them. And let me just share with you what we did. For four months, we basically analyzed four buckets, four buckets: the expense side, the revenue side, the processes, and then the balance sheet. And we have some recommendations and we're going to walk you through these recommendations, and then I'm going to have Chief Butler come in and talk about some more specifics. But let me talk right now about process overall. The panel of stakeholders, by the way, are all volunteers. We didn't charge a dollar for this. We simply have a passion for this City. In many ways, many of us that were born here want to see the City succeed. And all of us think that within our findings, you will notice that they're not really rocket science. For the most part, we believe -- and as you've said and the Manager has said -- you're not generating enough cash right now to honor the obligations most certainly in the future and the City needs to reduce expenses, so you know that. We need to be -- we think the City needs to be more transparent. I'm going to talk about that in a minute. And we need to focus the energy of the City on being more customer focused. I think, and I'm challenged as a business owner, what does the customer have to say about it? What City ofMiami Page 11 Printed on 9/1/2010 City Commission Meeting Minutes July 22, 2010 does my customer have to say about it? And by the way, the customer isn't just a resident or the voter; it's the business owner, it's the stakeholder, it's the investor, it's anyone. And so the idea offocusing on the customer is critical. Andl think clearly that the City needs to reevaluate, and we believe, its relationship with the County for a lot of reasons. We've heard things from the parking surcharges to everything from what's coming out of Visitors and Convention Bureau to what's coming out of the Beacon Council. Great entities, but what are they doing for the City of Miami. We have one graph here. And by the way, our committee debated very, very long about putting this graph here because it's only one, but it is the 800-pound gorilla in the room. And actually, the Manager said it's a bigger number than the one that we're publishing. We published this number a couple of nights ago. Eighty-three percent all in is out of the general fund, leaving seventeen percent for the rest of the operations. I can tell you as a business owner -- andl believe my colleagues would say the same -- that if that were the case in a private sector, it would be out of business. It simply is not sustainable. We are a business of talent. My company's a business of talent. Many of my colleagues' businesses are of talent. And talent itself, at a overall cost structure, usually comes in at 65 percent of all revenue, so this City is about talent. The firefighters, the Police Departments [sic], all the great men and women that serve this City, it's all about talent, but somewhere along the line the cost structure of the City, from a long-term perspective, has to change. Otherwise, something happens. You have to raise taxes or, simply put, you've got to cut expenses. So here is the recommendations that we share. We think salaries have to be reduced in some cases -- the Manager's addressed it -- including reforming overtime. We believe the health care costs -- and you've talked about it, so we don't have to get into it -- has to be changed, and establishing a defined immediate -- immediately a defined contribution plan, and studying adequately the staffing levels of all the departments, and finally, reengineering to include the maximum use of technology. Technology today has changed our life. I just came back last month from Shanghai, China, where I participated as a visitor to the World Expo. That comes on every five years, and at every instance the communities that are emerging are using technology as their friend. There seems to be a disconnect with the advancement of technology in the City ofMiami and simply what technology can do for its stakeholders. Outsourcing. I -- as a company, we have looked at many cities throughout America, andl can tell you that -- the Manager has referenced Raleigh. I used Raleigh in many of our presentations, as I did Colorado Springs. Raleigh has moved towards outsourcing 30 some odd percent of its general operation. And what that means is that outsourcing should be studied. It has to be studied. No one is sitting here, and most certainly our committee can't sit there and say what should be outsourced, but the studying of outsourcing is critical for this City because, quite frankly, the private sector can do some things much better than the government can. So in that instance, you have to look at it. Reward departments that spend below their budget. Reform the accumulation of sick and vacation time. Study systems to control the inefficiencies on revenue producing departments. Develop better controls. And improve the systems to -- able to maintain the current reports when required. The Chairman has said it. In many instances where you vote on something and months go by and you're not really sure if, in fact, it happened. One example of the vehicles that you were going to sell, these vehicles were posted for sale, and they went to GSA (General Services Administration); and ten months later, the vehicles are older, they're worth less money, and they haven't been sold; yet, you focused on getting that in your budget. And so that's part of what has to happen. Expediting licenses and permitting fees. Colleague of ours, Jim Cassel, will talk in a minute. He mentioned that he just moved his business to the City ofMiami -- I believe that's correct -- and just the process of getting a license to operate is onerous. It shouldn't be that way. With technology today, why do we have to have an individual, especially if it's an investment bank, have to come in and see if the bathrooms are capable of managing a business? This is the City ofMiami in the 21st Century. Do we really need to have 500 pieces of paper -- andl am exaggerating a bit -- process the application of moving somebody into the City? I don't think so, andl don't think our -- anybody would say it should be. And management needs to ensure that the approval of the City Commission is implemented on a timely basis so everything that management wants and most certainly that the Commission wants is done. We looked at some specific things, Off -Street Parking as an example. You have to look at that for additional revenue costs. And we looked at City ofMiami Page 12 Printed on 9/1/2010 City Commission Meeting Minutes July 22, 2010 everything -from would we recommend bringing Off -Street Parking into the City ofMiami or letting it operate as it does, but bottom line is that there's more revenue to be gotten from Off -Street Parking. Examine CRAs (Community Redevelopment Agencies) to ensure that the monies are being spent appropriately. Study and implement user fees where appropriate. The Manager referred to them. There's many things. We heard just a couple of nights ago about police reports for the insurance industry and the -- probably, the list goes on and on. Andl mentioned that I went to Shanghai. Andl can tell you right now at the Expo, the number -one thing that they were talking about, outside of technology, is renewable energy. And what municipality is using renewal energy? So we've got this beautiful downtown skyline. We've got 700-plus properties. Who is actually studying solar and wind and small wind, and how can that benefit not only the business owner but the resident? And if you take it a step further and say in ten years, if we could reduce the expenses of energy to our residents or to our business owners, the City has a competitive advantage. It basically allows a business owner to operate at a much cheaper rate than maybe other cities, like Coral Gables or Unincorporated Dade. So the idea of using renewable energy is a very, very important one. It needs to be studied thoroughly. Parking surcharges should be increased, applied, and enforced throughout the City. We saw a lot of spottiness on that. Better monitoring of the parking and the commercial garbage revenue; establish mandatory recycling program. We understand that on the single resident side, only 50 percent, 50 percent of the residents are actually recycling, so the ability of generating more money on recycling is very impressive and it could become even much more so. The Solid Waste waste station we talked about, and maximize public private partnerships. There are just instances around the world where a private public partnership makes sense. And in many instances, it may happen here at the City, and it has to be studied. And then I want to talk real quickly about one thing that we put on the balance sheet. Here's this balance sheet. We've heard and many people that came to talk to us said it could have a billion dollars. I think the brand alone is worth a billion. It could be worth two billion. Watson Island alone, what's it worth in good times? Our recommendation is like our group, which is a group of volunteers, a group of volunteers of the City stakeholders be established to study the maximum utilization of the assets of this City. We think it is critical. If it is two billion, if it is three billion -- I heard the Chairman say that a consultant at one point said that if you utilize the assets properly, there may no be -- there may not be any property taxes in the future here. So think about the utilization and the maximum utilization of the City assets and how can you properly look at them, most certainly the establishment of a stakeholders' committee, like our committee, is important and highly recommended. And finally, before I close and turn it over to Chief Butler and identifi, and acknowledge my colleagues, I want to talk about the process. We talked about the process being customer -centric. We think it's important, including the elimination of the bureaucratic red tape, especially when it comes to people coming to build their businesses in Miami. Internet, mobile applications, and things that are today available. I know personally of a department in the federal government that's going to a one -system application. You make one call to the employee. It doesn't matter where the employee is. They're getting the call. They're getting the PDA (Personal Digital Assistant). None of this system where you've got three calls, three messages. Efficiency just has to be improved. Eliminating the redundancy of layers that just inhibit efficiencies and the creation of a system whereby the appropriate members of the Commission are followed through with regard to management and GSA, et cetera. With that, I'm going to ask Chief Michael Butler to come up, but before I do that, I want to acknowledge my cochair or my vice chair, Fausto Alvarez, Tom Gabriel, who's on travel, who attended and worked very hard, Sylvester Lukis, Jim Cassel, and Arturo Ross. We were all the members that spent the four months putting this together. We're privileged and honored to have done it. And with that, Chief I'd like you to come up and take it from here. Michael Butler: Thank you, Bob. As most people in the room know, my name is Michael Butler. I am no longer a chief. I'm retired. It's nice that Bob gives me the honor, but I think I can bring something to the table. Before we get into this appendix that I hope you have on your desk, our groupie task force member is handing out some sheets that I think are of interest importance. There's issues with all of the contracts. Every single one of them has an issue. You know, the City ofMiami Page 13 Printed on 9/1/2010 City Commission Meeting Minutes July 22, 2010 Budget Task Force just outlined some of them. With enough time, I will go over some other issues. But there's something I want to concentrate on. Frankly, I know a couple of things about managing the fire department, all Fire Department people. When I retired in 2002, I retired with 36 years of service. On 9/11 I was the chief of Fire Prevention of New York Fire Department. To clam what that means, I held the third highest uniform position in New York City. And yes, I was there on 9/11. And as a senior officer, I remained on that scene for about six weeks, basically working 12 hours on, 24 hours off directing the recovery and rescue operation: It was not a good time for anyone in the fire service. You didn't have to be in New York to feel the pain. I'm sure the gentlemen here in Florida and Miami, South Florida felt the pain. In the beginning ofJune, I met with Chief Kemp and his staff. Chief Fernandez met with the Task Force just two days ago. And on both occasions, they explained the need for the lieutenant to be on the fire -rescue apparatus. Now, on one hand they want the lieutenant to be in charge and they want him to take care of all what has to be done on the medical side, on the rescue side, the emergency medical side of handling the situation. And then on the other hand, they want the lieutenant to be the team leader of the two -man team when they report to the scene of a fire. Now let's clearly understand this 'cause I know the firefighters in the room know what I'm talking about. You gentlemen may not have a full handle on it. You know, during an initial and expanding fire operation, the fire -rescues are put to work or they might be held in reserve. And any Fire chief will keep at least a unit in reserve. We used to call them ` fast trucks." In case there is an emergency in the building, we have a group of men who can immediately be deployed into that building to effect a rescue of a firefighter or a rescue of a civilian. So part of this situation with the fire -rescues is the chiefs, Chief Kemp and his -- want the fire -rescues to have a lieutenant because the lieutenant is the person who controls the operations of the firemen. The lieutenant reports to the chief or up -- and he is directed by the chief what to do. But you need that control. They operate as a firefighting team and a lieutenant is in charge. As I just said, always having a resource available at your left hand or your right hand, whatever you prefer, is a good thing to have. But clearly, the fire -rescue units here in Miami and South Florida have a dual role, right. At one hand they handle the ALS (Advanced Life Support) and BLS (Basic Life Support) assignments, the medical emergencies that come into the central dispatch station. On the other hand, they are called to respond and fight as firefighters and perform the duties that the chief in charge needs, so let's keep that in mind. But if we can for a second, let's kind of separate the two circumstances. I think we can all agree that pre -hospital care is important. Heart attacks, choking, injures from automobile accidents, gunshot wounds, knife wounds, drowning, execution, and I'm sure ifI asked the crowd here, they come up with another 20. People are always hurting themselves. And this list goes on and on. And these things happen everywhere. In my career, I've certainly seen many, many emergency incidents, medical type of emergency incidents, not only just as a medical emergency, but as a fire and a medical emer -- incidents. Andl have witnessed two -man teams, EMTs (Emergency Management Teams) handle paramedics carrying out their duties in a confident, expeditious and professional manner, two -man teams. Now in the task for -- I don't know ifI can get to the slide. What key do I hit for the slide? I just want to get up to cities. There you go. In the Task Force, we talk about -- we listed nine cities, all of which are larger in population than Miami. All of them conduct their emergency medical service operations with two men, be it paramedic. Some municipalities run two paramedics, some municipalities run a paramedic and an EMT. Some municipalities run with two paramedics. Everybody has their own way to do it, but the point I'm trying to make is they do it with two men. I have personally spoke [sic] with the chiefs and the administrators of all of these citizens -- all of these cities to discuss how they do their emergency medical operations. Now here's the question, and this is not an insult. It's not a slight to anyone in the room. But the question is this, does Miami give better care with three people? Is the lieutenant necessary to be on the apparatus? Now there's nine cities there and every one of them do a substantially more amount of responses to emergency medical conditions and they do it with two people. I don't believe that they're trained any better than our guys, and I'm -- our guys are right at the top of the notch when training. So the question is when you speak to the other municipalities, do they think that a lieutenant is necessary on the apparatus? And they resoundingly say no, we don't think the lieutenant is necessary. They feel it's an unnecessary City ofMiami Page 14 Printed on 9/1/2010 City Commission Meeting Minutes July 22, 2010 expense. In their minds, EMS protocol dictates that the senior paramedic on duty is in charge. He's responsible. Now I just said before, these cities respond to many, many medical emergencies than we do. If experience is any measure of success -- and all of these cities are very successful with their process. Now let's talk about the firefighter. Let's talk about the other half of the coin. When it comes to firefighting, I clearly understand the role a lieutenant plays at a fire scene; most important, close supervision of firefighting personnel in a hostile environment. One of our first jobs as firefighters is to protect ourselves. That's what I always told my men. You protect yourselves. You protect your team. And you save the public if you can, but you protect yourself. We're there to do a job, that's true, but we have to watch out for every one of the brothers. So I understand the chiefs concern. I understand having the lieutenant on the apparatus when he's responding to a fire. That's what should happen 'cause he's doing firefighting, doing suppression, firefighter suppression. Now I just gave you a chart. You should all have it in front of you. And basically, you look at the data over the last five years, there were 355, 000 plus ALS/BLS calls; there were 54,000 fire calls, so the total response is a little over $410,000 -- not dollars; responses, excuse me. What we're talking about here though is the percentage office calls to the total percentage, 13 percent. Basically, you have a hundred responses; 13 times you go into a fire, right, andl -- that's -- could be car fire, could be a house fire, could be a vacant building fire, could be a brush fire. It's a fire 13 percent of the time. Now this is where I feel we could save some money and improve efficiency. The Task Force report cites the City paid $3.4 million in 2009 for the 25 fire -rescue trucks with a lieutenant. Again, this is my opinion. I believe we are overpaying for the privilege of having all these fire -rescue trucks manned with the three-man suppression team with no tangible gain. We're paying for a three-man crew based on a 13 percent assumption that they would be needed. You go out the door one hundred times; only 13 times you go into a fire. Conversely, let's look at it the other way, 87 percent of the time that the members offire-rescue are going out performing rescue, emergency medical service, pre -hospital care service, 87 percent of the time they are responding with three men when nine cities can do the same job with two. There has to be a balance. I don't know what that balance is. That's a balance that has to be discussed with the City Manager and the Fire chief. There needs to be a balance before -- between the fire suppression needs of the Fire Department and the emergency medical side of their needs. I personally don't believe that it's prudent to pay for 24 positions when you don't need them. Now I know people in this room don't agree with me, and that's their privilege. That's my thinking on it. Now I can go on with other stuff in here, ifI have the time, Commissioner? Chair Sam off I'm going to give you -- Mr. Butler: These are some -- I'll make it quick. Probably one of my pet peeves -- and I'll skip over some here -- is eliminate -- or I shouldn't say eliminate -- establish a City policy, a policy on take-home vehicles that is outside of the union contracts, a policy that will be controlled by the City Manager's office. Well, yes, that's what he gets paid the big bucks for. But here's the point. Take-home vehicles have to be approved by the City Managers. Employees residing outside the City should reimburse the City for something. There's fuel cost, there's tolls, there's insurance, there's depreciation costs associated with that vehicle. Right now it's a free ride. Interesting figure, 69.27 percent of all City employees live outside of Miami. Now I'm not saying all of these people drive take-home cars, but obviously, a certain portion of these people have take-home vehicles. That's a tremendous expense that I think can be easily brought under control. One more incident and then I'll get off the mike, Commission. There's currently 585 firefighters, personnel in the Fire Department receiving 14 percent supplemental pay as paramedic. I have said this to Chief Kemp, so I have no problem saying it again. There are 108 assigned ALS positions, three shifts. That's 324 people. In my opinion, only those 324 people who are in the paramedic advanced life support position should be paid. Right there, that's a 44 percent savings. Right there. You only pay the people doing the job, 44 percent. Just in closing, you guys are the last stop, the Commission right here. You five men are the last stop. You can approve a contract, you can amend a contract, you can send it back. It's time to change the way we do business here. These are difficult decisions, difficult decisions. We have to stop the City ofMiami Page 15 Printed on 9/1/2010 City Commission Meeting Minutes July 22, 2010 thoughtless spending. And you will feel pressure. You'll get pressure on you about contracts. Please remember this -- and I'm repeating what I just said -- only 30 percent of the workforce lives in the City. Only 30 percent live within the geographical boundaries ofMiami City. So you need to vote for the citizens ofMiami. You need to vote for fiscal restraint. You need to vote to bring costs under control. Eighty-five percent budget cost to labor and pensions is unsustainable. Thank you. Chair Sam off Thank you. The Finance. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Vice Chair Carollo: Mr. Chairman, can we ask him questions or --? Chair Sam off Go ahead, go ahead. Who do you want a question of? Vice Chair Carollo: The chief. Chair Sam off Mike, you want to come back up. Vice Chair Carollo: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, you know, thank you for participating and volunteering in the Budget Committee. I think we're all quite lucky having someone of your experience, and it's commendable. At the same time, in New York you used two -men [sic] units. I think you were -- Mr. Butler: That's correct. Vice Chair Carollo: Andl would imagine you have a large amount of experience in emergency medicine, correct? Mr. Butler: Myself no. (Applause) Mr. Butler: That actually has nothing to do with managing -- (Outbursts from the audience) Mr. Butler: -- that has nothing to do -- Chair Sam off Hey, hey. Mr. Butler: -- with managing a fire scene, an emergency medical incident. Vice Chair Carollo: And why I'm asking is because I think some people will wonder if you get better service with three men than with two men -- and honestly, I'm a former first responder but in the law enforcement, so I don't know. You know -- Mr. Butler: Alls -- Vice Chair Carollo: -- I'm not a firefighter. Mr. Butler: -- I can say is most of the known world responds with two firefighters. Vice Chair Carollo: And -- Mr. Butler: South Florida responds with three. Don't ask me why. Vice Chair Carollo: Let me ask you something. I see the cities that you have here. Do you City ofMiami Page 16 Printed on 9/1/2010 City Commission Meeting Minutes July 22, 2010 know what they're rated? Mr. Butler: Their what? Vice Chair Carollo: What they are rated. In other words, their rate. In other words, we have a class, I believe it's called JA Fire Department. Do you know what they are rated? Mr. Butler: No, I don't. Vice Chair Carollo: So in other words, even though they respond with two personnel, they actually could be not as highly rated as the Fire Department here in the City ofMiami? Mr. Butler: When New York responds to well over 1.2 million EMS incidents and transports almost 900,000 people to a hospital, I think they're very well rated. And when New York City could put out -- I don't even want to talk to you about the fire statistics 'cause I don't have it in front of me, but we certainly don't respond to 13 percent fires. We do a hell of a lot more than that. Vice Chair Carollo: Right. Fire is separate from EMS. Here, we do both. Here, each -- Mr. Butler: That's correct. Vice Chair Carollo: -- Fire Department does both. Andl think it's quite -- Mr. Butler: And so do most of these cities. Vice Chair Carollo: Andl think it's quite understood that the most -- the majority of the calls are EMS calls -- Mr. Butler: Yeah, 87 percent. Vice Chair Carollo: Exactly. -- which is something that is known. But you know, that is something that the Manager had brought up in the past, you know, as far as us going to the County. Well, the County realistically is rated way below us, the City ofMiami, so I wanted to know what these, you know, fire departments were rated. Mr. Butler: I am telling you, alls I can talk about is the amount of responses they do and how they handle their emergency medical services. All these cities with the large populations they have respond with two people. Vice Chair Carollo: But you're basing it on population, right? Mr. Butler: No. I'm basing on what they do, what they do. Vice Chair Carollo: The re -- Mr. Butler: Do you agree with me that emergency medicine is needed everywhere in the country? Do you agree that people are having heart attacks; people are falling down in the street no matter where they live? Vice Chair Carollo: Yes, I agree with you. However, I believe we may be able to provide better services than some of these municipalities, and -- Mr. Butler: That's your -- that's fine. City ofMiami Page 17 Printed on 9/1/2010 City Commission Meeting Minutes July 22, 2010 (Applause) Vice Chair Carollo: -- I'll go a step further. These numbers clearly is a discrepancy with what the Manager told us earlier. He -- when he spoke about our efficiency, he said we were one of the most efficient departments. Mr. Butler: He's talking -- Vice Chair Carollo: So there's a discrepancy there. Mr. Butler: -- of responses per firefighter. I'm talking about packaging people on the street, getting them to a hospital, and saving their lives. That's what I'm talking about. And I'm talking about doing with two people instead of three. Commissioner Gort: Yeah, but the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) has a lot to do with it. What's the rate in New York? Commissioner Dunn: Mr. Chair. Commissioner Gort: You have it? Commissioner Dunn: Mr. Chair. Chair Sam off Go ahead. Commissioner Dunn: I mean, I don't -- when he's finished. When the Vice Chair is -- whenever you're finish. Vice Chair Carollo: Sure, I'll yield. You know, but these are questions that I want answered, especially with -- and once again, I commend you in your great experience and so forth as a firefighter, but when you're telling me, you know, we could do it another way, but you don't have the experience in emergency services and emergency medicine, paramedics, I -- you know, it's a concern to me. Mr. Migoya: Mr. Chair. Mr. Butler: I think -- Mr. Migoya: Mr. Chair. Just a min -- Mr. Butler: -- the 36 -- Mr. Migoya: Mr. Chair. Mr. Butler: -- years that I spent in New York City -- Mr. Migoya: Let me -- Mr. Butler: -- qualifies for me to talk about how New York City handles their emergency medical service and they do it with two people. And they do five, six, seven times the amount of responses that Miami does. I'm not here to defend myself or defend -- I'm here to make a suggestion to this board that there are probably other ways that you should look at how you handle this. That's my job as a member of the Budget Task Force. Vice Chair Carollo: Thank you. City ofMiami Page 18 Printed on 9/1/2010 City Commission Meeting Minutes July 22, 2010 Mr. Butler: You don't have to agree with me, but that's what I said. Chair Sam off All right. Let me go to Commissioner Dunn. Commissioner Dunn: Yes. I believe, in all fairness, if we could, Mr. Manager and the will of this Commission, hear from Chief -- Mr. Migoya: I was trying going to -- I was just -- I was trying to do the same thing. Once Chief Butler is completed and if the Budget Committee is completed, I'd like for Chief Kemp to at least, you know, show what the response is to the things that -- how we're dealing with these things. Obviously, we've -- I think Chief Butler's got a lot of great ideas, but I think we have some ways of how we do things and why they value (UNINTELLIGIBLE), so I think it's important to hear both sides. Commissioner Dunn: But -- Chair Sam off Commissioner Dunn. Commissioner Dunn: Thank you, Mr. Chair. In reference -- I know you handed the Manager -- Mr. Manager a sheet with our rating and -- you said it was one department that rated higher. Was -- did hear something like --? Mr. Migoya: No, no. The -- I wasn't talking about the ratings, sir. I was talking about the efficiency on a calls per service -- Commissioner Dunn: Okay. Mr. Migoya: -- for firefighters and police officers. I'm happy to provide that information to you. I'll forward that information to you. If you'd like -- Commissioner Dunn: Yes. Mr. Migoya: -- to have it now, I'll make copies of it. Commissioner Dunn: Okay. Commissioner Gort: Matter of fact -- Mr. Migoya: I have to make copies. Commissioner Gort: -- there's a rescue service taking place right now in the COW (Committee of the Whole) Room. Chair Sam off All right. Any other questions of the -- of Mr. Butler? All right, so let's -- Mr. Butler: Thank you. Chair Sam off Thank you. Commissioner Dunn: Thank you. Chair Sam off Chief. Oh, we'll let the Budget Task Force finish speaking. Sylvester Lukis: We want to finish the Budget Task Force first. My name is Sylvester Lukis. I've City ofMiami Page 19 Printed on 9/1/2010 City Commission Meeting Minutes July 22, 2010 been asked by the Chairman to put in context Chief Butler's statements here tonight. I have a tremendous amount of respect for Chief Butler and obviously respect his career, but I want to make it very clear that his statements were his opinions, not the opinion of the task force. We've -- the taskforce -- the task -- we have a tremendous amount of respect for our firefighters and our policemen. In fact, Freddy Hernandez gave us a pretty good analysis of the three versus two. I certainly don't have enough knowledge to tell the Chief how to manage this department. We recognize how well rated our department is. We're very proud of this department. I can tell you from a task force point of view, we voted on this issue, the three versus two, and the task force voted not to take a position on three versus two. All we said is that all the departments need to look at their structure and come up with what they believe, in accordance with the Manager and his senior people, should be the numbers. So just to be clear -- you know, I heard a loud response -- this was not the taskforce recommendation. Thank you. Chair Sam off Chief Kemp. Chief Kemp: Maurice Kemp, fire chief. I want to start out by saying that Chief Butler has had a distinguished career in one of the finest departments in the United States, but a comparison of Miami and New York is apples and oranges. I've had conversations with Chief Butler. They've been cordial and very spirited, and l just want to address some of his points. I'll start out by telling you a little bit about what we do and how we do it, and I'll elaborate on what the Manager started to tell you. We've done a comparison ofMiami and 21 other cities, and in that comparison, we found that, as he said, only one city went on more calls per firefighter than we did. But in addition to that, we broke it down into two groups. We compared our department with like -size cities, 290 to 520,000 people. And what we found that -- is that the City ofMiami responds to 56 percent more calls for service than like -size cities. We have 44 percent fewer fire stations, 42 percent fewer fire engines, and 57 percent fewer aerials. When comparing to departments of 600,000 to 1 million, we respond to 8 percent more calls for service than those cities. We do so with 47 percent fewer firefighters. We have 67 percent fewer fire stations, and we have 65 percent fewer fire engines. I said all of that to say that our model for service delivery is extremely efficient and extremely effective. We have a cost per firefighter that compares well to anybody. We have -- our fire death rate has gone down from 100 in 1981 through 1989 to about 37 from 2001 to 2009. So we do a great job with the resources that we have. Chief Butler contradicted himself. On one hand he agreed with us that we need a lieutenant for the suppression side of what we do. But on the other hand, he said take the lieutenant off of the truck. You can't have it both ways. We go on 82 percent EMS calls. Of all the 88,000 calls we go on, 82 percent are EMS. So it is my opinion -- and by this survey, our staffing model supports that opinion -- that if we did no EMS calls at all, we would need the same number offirefighters for the fire risk that we have in the City ofMiami. We are the densest city in South Florida. We have more high-rises per capita than any city in the country. There's no city with more high-rises in the southeast, south of Atlanta, than Miami. How do you rescue people? You do it with people. So if we did no EMS service at all, we need the same number offirefighters. What we do here in Miami is when the City is not burning, those firefighters are delivering EMS service. In all the departments we compared ourselves to 20 -- what, 20 -- I said 29 -- 21 departments? In all of those departments, only two of them had a fully integrated fire and EMS service, which is the model that we use. All of the others use a third -party service provider. And those are ambulance companies. Those are not fire trucks. Our rescue trucks are fire trucks. We have a firefighter with gear, we have hose; these men and women can grab the hose, go into a high-rise and effectively perform rescues, fire suppression, do whatever's necessary. They're not an ambulance company. I think that's the fallacy in this comparison. You're comparing a fire truck to an ambulance. We see (UNINTET,TIGIBT,F) and AMR (American Medical Response) driving around here all day with two people. That is an ambulance company. They don't do what we do. Applause. City ofMiami Page 20 Printed on 9/1/2010 City Commission Meeting Minutes July 22, 2010 Chief Kemp: I'll split this comparison to two sides, as the chief did. On the fire suppression side, we need an officer in charge of a fire crew. On the EMS side, that is 82 percent of what we do. Most of our touches with the citizens are on the EMS side of the house. Julie Bru would agree that 99 percent of our lawsuits come from our EMS service provision. I don't want a senior firefighter or a chief firefighter in charge to be responsible for the delivery of service to the citizens ofMiami. That is not the most effective way to do this. We have other reasons why we do what we do. It's called NFPA (National Fire Protection Association) 1710. That is the standard by which the fire departments strive to achieve. 1710 defines a company as a group of members under the direct supervision of an officer trained and equipped to perform assigned tasks usually organized and identified as engine company [sic], ladder companies, rescue companies, squad companies, or multifunctional companies. They need an officer. It goes on to say rescue is those act -- are those activities directed at locating endangered persons at emergency incidents, removing those persons from danger, treating the injured, and providing transport to appropriate health care facility. That's what our rescue trucks do. We need officers on our trucks. We need every firefighter that we have to serve the citizens ofMiami. And I'm open for any questions that you might have. Chair Sam off Do any Commissioners have any questions? Commissioner Suarez. Commissioner Suarez: It's not for the chief. It's for the Manager. Chair Sam off Go ahead. Commissioner Suarez: I just have a question -- it kind of relates back to the prior presentation. Why is it -- why is there a discrepancy between what the 91 percent that you stated earlier as our costs and the 83 percent that this task force is stating? I just want a clarification 'cause I don't know the -- Mr. Migoya: It's '09 versus '10 numbers. Commissioner Suarez: Okay. Thank you. Chair Sam off I'm sorry; you're saying then to him that it went up from 83 percent to 91 percent? Mr. Migoya: Yes, sir. Chair Sam off You're okay on that one. Thanks. Commissioner Dunn: Mr. Chair. Chair Sam off You're recognized, Commissioner Dunn. Commissioner Dunn: Not to the chief. It's, again, to the Manager. In terms of the take-home cars, that figure -- is that an accurate figure to your knowledge or you need time to look at that? In terms of people who actually live in the City versus -- Mr. Migoya: I don't have the numbers on that. We'll have to work on that one. Commissioner Dunn: And when you do that, Mr. Manager, I would like to know what kind of fiscal impact that would have if, in fact, we did change the way we do that. Mr. Migoya: We'll follow up on that. Yes, sir. Commissioner Dunn: Thank you. City ofMiami Page 21 Printed on 9/1/2010 City Commission Meeting Minutes July 22, 2010 Chair Sam off All right. Commissioner Gort: I have a question of the chief. How much training do you need to get a paramedic license or certificate? Chief Kemp: How many hours? It's 380 for EMT and 1,200 for paramedic; and EMT is to paramedic as LPN (Licensed Practical Nurse) is to RN (Registered Nurse). Commissioner Gort: At the same time when we look at the City ofMiami, our population is about 300,000 but, like you stated a little while ago, Mr. Chairman, at any one time we have over a million people in the City ofMiami. So a lot of times we are not providing services to 500,000 people or 300,000 people; we're providing service to about a million residents or visitors that we have here. Chief Kemp: We have the call volume that is 8 percent above cities with 600 to 1.1 million people. Commissioner Gort: Thank you. Chair Sam off Any other questions? All right. Chief Kemp: Thank you. Chair Sam off Is the budget committee done? (Applause) James Cassel: Good evening, Mr. Chairman. I'm Jim Cassel. I'm a member of the Budget Task Force, and there were just a couple of things I wanted to mention. I wanted to thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight and tell you being on this committee as someone who hasn't been that active and involved was enlightening on the one hand and really scary on the other hand because the kind of information and the staff the City, the Mayor's office, others who participated and gave us information gave us a lot of very interesting information that people really need to know about. Andl think you have an obligation to get -- let the citizens know what the expenses are and what the services are and whether the people are willing to pay for them or not pay for them. But some of the things I heard tonight mentioned by the Manager, who I think's doing a great job and very, very difficult situation, for example, was the Parking Authority, and the thought process of $100 million bond issue, which would be used to replenish the City's rainy -day fund, which certainly needs to be done. On the other hand, using that money to cover up the problems, you've got to be very careful and understand that taking that money in is going to cost future revenue 'cause someone's going to have to service that debt. So again, it's future money, you're hocking, you know, assets for that. So I think you need to, when that comes up, look at it very closely and not just summarily go through things. I heard earlier tonight as an example, and we talked about a task force potentially looking at the assets of the City. And yet, tonight, very quickly, $500 a month some charity is renting a building. That may be great, but that building may be worth $5, 000 a month, and there was no discussion tonight. Those things need to be looked at. It may be the right decision for public policy, but economically, someone's got to look at those kind of things. Andl think some of the issues that came up tonight, people don't really understand what the employees of the City are making. Not salaries but all in. Policemen, firemen, other employees, hundreds of thousands of dollars. They're not just making 40,000. There are many people in the City who make 40, but there are people in the City -- and we saw numbers -- making over $300,000, retiring with $250,000, $300,000 pensions that someone has to pay for. And it's something we got -- you know, in private industry or in public, we can't afford it. The citizens can't afford it, the City can't afford it. So when you're doing these City ofMiami Page 22 Printed on 9/1/2010 City Commission Meeting Minutes July 22, 2010 things and making these hard choices, you need to cut and do it tougher. Twenty percent contribution for pension? Unheard of in private industry. It's outrageous, and the citizens can't afford to pay for it. So I think when you're looking at things -- and look, 20 percent, don't get me wrong, it's a lot better than what you've got right now, but it's not enough. And the pay cuts, 5 percent to 12 percent, it's probably not enough. The City can't afford it. You've got to look at those things very carefully. And look, we were a volunteer group. We had very minimal help. I mean, the staff tried to do what they did. We didn't have staff. We didn't have enough to really go in and dig, so our stuff is very high level. But when you're sitting there, you've got to take the time and ask the questions and really, it's tough medicine. The alternative, you could raise taxes, which I think is even worse. In the times we're in right now where people are having problems at every level, raising taxes is not necessarily the approach. So the only way you can deal with it is some fees, which is great, but it's really taking -- you know, the revenues went up dramatically and quickly. You got to bring the expenses down the same way and now's the time to do that. So hopefully, over the next month or two as you go through the budget, you really look at this and look at it carefully and don't summarily just take a number, but go into it in great depth and get the support. Andl thank you for the opportunity to be part of this. Chair Sam off Thanks for serving on the task force. Is the task force done? All right. Is the budget finance committee here? Mr. Migoya: Could I just add one thing? Chair Sam off Sure. Mr. Migoya: IfI may, which is -- I think it's important. The way we've done the projections for 2011 and going forward is to just do that. We're not looking to do layoffs. That's important here. We want to make sure that we maintain the service levels. But we also want to make sure that we understand our efficiencies for every department. And know here we're focusing around fire, but we want to make sure we have the -- in every department in the entire City, where we understand the efficiencies, and to do that, we got to do a lot of work, which is why I was talking previously about the PFM. So -- and so rather than putting that number into budgets for the 2010/'11 year, you have to do that and then you work it over time. Rather than say I'm going to go get these efficiencies, those efficiencies may take one, two, or three years as you're working through them, but you're doing smartly and not necessarily just what's done here in the past of doing mass layoffs and you're impacting all the wrong departments and impacting all the wrong service levels and then you have to come back and refill those places. So in my opinion, it makes more sense to do what we're trying to do, which is to currently reduce benefits and salaries slightly for the time being, maintain the current levels, you know, touch here or there on a minor basis for what we're doing in the number of employees, but more importantly, understanding from efficiencies and hoping those efficiencies will help solve the issue for the next several years. So I just wanted to add that 'cause I thought that was important. Chair Sarnoff And I think it has to be stressed too. You're not looking just for the unions to do it. You're looking across-the-board. Mr. Migoya: It is across-the-board. And, again, I want to stress the fact that in every case that I've seen -- and know we talked about Police and Fire here -- we have very good people in every department. And it's not about the fact of about whether somebody's worth something. I mean, many of our people put their life at risk every day, especially on the -- obviously on the public safety side. We can't quantify or pay someone on what their life is worth because obviously we can't -- there's no way -- I can't put a -- I will never put a dollar amount on the value of anybody's life. So what's -- but what's important to me is that we can -- give everyone the benefit of compensation, as well as we can afford to pay it, while making the values and the expenses of the City sustainable for the future. City ofMiami Page 23 Printed on 9/1/2010 City Commission Meeting Minutes July 22, 2010 Chair Sam off There was a very famous old saying on that, Mr. Manager. And that was -- there was a doctor once in a restaurant. A woman was choking on a chicken bone. And he started the Heimlich, and pulled Heimlich once, twice, three times. It wasn't working. Finally, in an effort of just about lifelessness, she -- pulls it hard, she coughs it out, she starts to breathe. She goes, "My god, what do I owe you?" And he goes, "Exactly what you thought it was worth ten seconds before the bone came out." That's a hard thing to pay for. All right. I thought that we would have the unions up next. The -- am I right? The Finance Committee is not here? All right. So then let's have the unions come up. Commissioner Dunn: Mr. Chairman, I want to thank -- we need the thank the budget -- Chair Sam off Thank you all. The Budget Committee, thank you all very, very much -- Commissioner Dunn: Thank you. Chair Sam off -- for the service. Commissioner Dunn: Thank you. Chair Sam off I know you guys did a thankless job and I know the lunches weren't any good 'cause you didn't get any, but thank you very much. Commissioner Dunn: Thank you. Armando Aguilar: Good afternoon, Commissioners. Chair Sam off Good after -- Mr. Aguilar: Armando Aguilar, FOP (Fraternal Order of Police) president, 710 Southwest 12th Avenue. I am not going to be commenting on any of this at this time. I believe it's improper. We're in the middle of contract negotiations and that's where the ideas should come back and forth. So I'm going to reserve all my comments at this time. Thank you. Chair Sam off Thank you. Charlie Cox: Charlie Cox, Local 1907. I will tell you that Carlos, I have great respect for. I thought we had a great working relationship, and what I heard from Carlos tonight that I wish I'd never been a City ofMiami employee for 35 years. I am telling you that there ain't a one of you sitting up here that could've done the job that I did and all the people that fall under my bargaining group. And we're going to talk about privatizing and fixing this and fixing that. And that's how we get treated. We are always the ugly stepchildren. I am so sick of it. You don't know. How many of you can fix these cars? How many of you can fix these garbage trucks? How many of you can get out there and climb a 90-foot pole? Do you even know where the primary that feeds this building is? I do. We have electricians. You know what? We all had to come from other places. You think I started here? I came from Florida Power and Light. Every person that's in the trade had to have their license to come here. Did this City ever have an apprenticeship program? Never. Never. And to sit here and say that we may as well -- you know what, start with laying me off. The hell, I'm useless. I am so upset at that comment when I thought -- let me tell you, I was born in Jackson Memorial Hospital. I lived here 'til third grade. He likes to say it over there. Well, I can say it. That was ridiculous. So go ahead, privatize all of us and put us out our misery. Thank you. Chair Sam off You're recognized. Robert Suarez: Robert Suarez, Miami Local 587, 2980 Northwest South River Drive. City ofMiami Page 24 Printed on 9/1/2010 City Commission Meeting Minutes July 22, 2010 Commissioners, obviously we get to see each other pretty often. It was -- wasn't too long ago that my organization and I was up here addressing at least one of you. The other four Commissioners, though, I've known for a while, and you weren't here at the time on the dais. But to give you an idea, as Charlie stated, you know, the employees of the City ofMiami have a long history of giving back to the City. I know the finances of the City have continued to deteriorate. You all know what my organization's position is on this. We were here eight months ago. I love our other brothers and sisters in the other unions. My union gave a lot in exchange for coming back in 2011 instead of in 2010. I think most of you know that. I don't know how much you understand about what we gave back, but it was nearly $15 million out of $100 million budget in pay, benefits. We were demonized a lot in the media for some of the salaries we had, most of which was for either firefighters that traveled for disasters on our Urban Search and Rescue team. A lot of the figures that get thrown around are for the same work that our firefighters did when they went to Haiti, worked around the clock and got compensated for that, reimbursed through FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency). That money gets used in a lot of the salary figures when they talk about overtime. We're not talking about firefighters sitting behind a desk racking up overtime. That overtime is earned working out in the street or, like myself, on my hands and knees at the World Trade Center, next to Chief Butler, digging out victims. If those numbers would've been pulled in 2001, that would've been my overtime for the 11 days I spent digging in the World Trade Center. Demonizing our employees for what they're compensated without putting it into context for what they do and how we get that and why we got it. You know, I think a lot of emphasis has been put on expenses. You know, I think it's unfortunate that this budget committee, unlike some of their predecessors when the City was in similar financial times, really decided to focus a lot, much like PFM did, on expenses and not much on revenue. One thing I want to put into perspective is in particular with ad valorem, with property taxes, as values were increasing -- andl think the Manager alluded to this -- since 2000, the City Commission decided to eliminate a lot of other sources of revenue and dial it back, focusing on ad valorem property taxes more and more every year. Now we find ourselves in a situation where we're relying immensely on property taxes. Those property values fall out of the sky and some people seem surprised about why we're having trouble with revenues. So it's very easy to focus on those expenses, but I'd like to focus a little bit on the revenues. You know, some comments have been made about the fire assessment, the fire assessment fee, its legalities, implications of it. Right now the City ofMiami has a fire fee. It is zero dollars. The fire fee that City ofMiami has had in the books since about 2002 is perfectly legal. Other cities nearby us have an identical fire fee of that type. The one that was challenged was the initial fee that was based on a model that the courts found to be unlawful. Chief Kemp, his staff at that time did a lot of work with outside consultants in perfecting that fee to the point that cities around us now use that as a model for revenue. I propose that the City look at that as an option. We shouldn't be relying so much on property taxes as a source of revenue, as the Manager stated. It's a disastrous formula for this City to be focusing so much on property taxes as a revenue. The millage rate, as you probably know in the City ofMiami, has dropped from 10 mills to where we're at now, 7.674. At the same time, property values have increased. A lot of people don't know exactly how homestead works and Save Our Homes. Those years, homesteaded property owners during that period, while businesses and new property owners, their values were shooting through the roof homesteaded property owners were going up in many cases less than 2 percent a year. The 3 percent is a cap. CPI (Consumer Price Index) is the number that's used. It has been as low as .1 percent last year. The CRAs, the Community Redevelopment Agencies, they have a long history in the City ofMiami. I know they can do good work. I am frustrated many times in seeing how that money is used. A lot of people don't understand how that money is money that normally would come to the general fund of the City ofMiami. And though it has purpose, there are times for that money to be used in the way it's used or the way it's supposed to be used. I don't think in the financial times that the City ofMiami is in right now it should be picking between a skate park, for example, or giving to a local business in exchange for services that the City provides. You know, statutorily, I think there are plenty of options you have with the County's help to dial that back for the time being to not sacrifice services to the City. Like I said, the CRA does good work, and it's supposed to do good work, but there's a time and a place City ofMiami Page 25 Printed on 9/1/2010 City Commission Meeting Minutes July 22, 2010 for it. We have right now almost $30 million in reserves. Some will say they're allocated, encumbered. We have $30 million in total between all the CRAs that are sitting in either allocated or unallocated reserves. That, without a CRA, is money that would have come into the general fund of the City of Miami. I think there's a time and place for CRAs. I think we seriously have to look at how we do business with the CRAs in a time like right now. Whether it's allowing the County to dial back on the funding of the CRAs as the statute allows, put them to sleep as some County Commissioners have discussed in the past for a year or two while the City recovers from this. But that is supposed to be general fund money. That has a purpose and a time, I believe, andl don't know that that time is right now, not to the level of the amount of money that has been going into those CRAs with the difficulty we're having at the moment. There's been a lot of new construction over the past couple years in the City. We have this situation that occurs, and not a lot of people are familiar with, where a large building, many cases we have hundred thousand square foot buildings, half a million square foot buildings in the City ofMiami that don't go on the tax rolls by the cut-off date for the property appraiser. In many cases, the City loses revenue from those buildings because those buildings just barely passed the cut-off date, whether it was intentionally or not, and escape the tax rolls of the City ofMiami. We have buildings that just recently were CO'd (Certificate of Occupancy), some of them in excess of 600,000 square feet that as of right now are not going to be on the tax rolls for 2010. We're talking about millions of dollars of ad valorem revenue. There are states -- andl know the state of Florida at one time had jurisdictions that used this quite a bit. I believe that the City ofMiami should reinstate what many jurisdictions in Florida had used before, an interim tax fee. These buildings are using City services. In many cases they're occupied for months without paying property taxes. An interim tax fee would collect a pro rata portion of that ad valorem for the amount of months that those buildings are using City services but otherwise wouldn't be paying them. Certificates of use. The City, I don't believe, has a very effective method for enforcing businesses who are doing business in the City ofMiami without a certificate of use. Many cases our inspectors, walking from business to business inspecting those businesses that do have certificates of use, find a business who has been operating for a year or two without a certificate of use. Not what I would call an illegal business, and many times they are perfectly legitimate businesses but there's no method and there doesn't seem to be any emphasis on ensuring that businesses are receiving certificates of use and paying for certificates of use before they go into business. As I mentioned earlier about new construction, you know, I think right now the City does business where when a new building goes on the tax rolls, they seem to be relying on that developer to tell the City what their square footage is for which they should be paying their property taxes. It seems to me that we're relying on the architects of those buildings to tell us what the square footage is on every floor of those buildings. Circumstances that I've looked at, it seems like they leave out common areas in that square footage and nobody seems to be checking on the reliability of the square footage. And obviously, it's - whether it's intentional or not, there is benefits to a property owner being underestimated on his or her square footage. Many of these buildings we're talking about hundreds and hundreds of thousands of square feet per building of taxable value, and we're taking it upon the owners' architect's word on the square footage of that. Red-light traffic cameras, we just heard a little while ago from the Commissioner about neighboring cities whose traffic cameras are encroaching right on the edge of the City. I know we're in the process -- the procurement process for that now. That is something that I feel strongly the City should be pursuing immediately. We're -- you know, we -- cities all around us are taking advantage of that revenue and we're definitely behind the eight ball on that. Parking surcharges. Obviously, there's been in the media articles about issues of lack of enforcement. There is a lot more the City can do to enforce the revenues for parking surcharges. Single stream recycling. There's a lot of savings that can be brought to the City for single stream recycling. I -- it amazes me we don't have that in the City ofMiami. It would reduce the amount of trash the City has to dispose of and it would be reducing some of the expenses the City pays in getting rid of that trash that would otherwise be sent to recycling. The County Commission on July 13, Commissioner Pepe Diaz passed a resolution instructing their administration to look into advertising on County vehicles, selling advertisement on County vehicles. I think in this -- right now in these times those types of ideas are things we should be City ofMiami Page 26 Printed on 9/1/2010 City Commission Meeting Minutes July 22, 2010 pursuing. There are numerous other types of fees that we don't charge right now or that we are not enforcing as efficiently as we should be. On -street parking. I think there is much reform that should be do [sic] with on -street parking to make sure we're collecting the revenues that we're supposed to. The display and pay meters, making sure we're receiving adequate surcharges for those. And in closing, I think there has been a huge disservice done into the focusing -- the lack of focus on revenues. You know, it's disheartening for me to hear from the Manager and budget committees and in front of you all stating that, well, it's just -- it's quicker and easier to go after the employees than to do a lot of other things. And don't appreciate that. I know he probably means that in a nicer way, but it sure doesn't sound nice coming from an employee that it's quicker, easier to be coming after the employees than to be doing a lot of other things. Thank you. And ifI could, I have an attorney from -- representing our local that would just like a few minutes. Chair Sam off Let's just see if there's any questions. Are there any questions ofMr. Suarez? I have a couple, Bobby. So ifI understand you correctly, you'd like to see a $225 fire assessment per home, correct, single-family home? Mr. Suarez: That pattern along with the corresponding commercial rate would bring in, in my rough calculations, about $54 million. Andl -- as I state on here -- Chair Sam off Right. Mr. Suarez: -- there are many variations of that. Chair Sam off Okay. Mr. Suarez: And -- Chair Sarnoff Just want to make sure that that's your recommendation -- Mr. Suarez: Yes. Chair Sarnoff -- 25 per home. And you would like to defund the CRAs. You think there's $30 million there. Mr. Suarez: I think there are mechanisms. You know, we can look at -- defund the projects that are currently funded. I think the City Commission should take a look at those projects, prioritize, decide what projects are already in place and need to be continued to be funded. I know we have bond commitments. We should be looking at those bond commitments, deciding how much money can be used for that and whatever reserves we don't need. There are options to free up that money for the next year or two to be able to allow this city to operate. And those are arrangements you have to work out with the County. Chair Sarnoff So if in fact the 30 million -- let's say, for instance, the CRA that I used to chair that he now chairs actually doesn't even have any money left over. As a matter of fact, there's a shortfall to the commitment to the bonds that the developer picks up. Mr. Suarez: In Midtown. Chair Sam off Midtown. Mr. Suarez: Yeah. That's definitely the smaller of the three, yeah. Chair Sam off Well, Midtown has nothing. City ofMiami Page 27 Printed on 9/1/2010 City Commission Meeting Minutes July 22, 2010 Mr. Suarez: Right. Chair Sarnoff As a matter of fact, it's in a deficit. Mr. Suarez: Right. Chair Sarnoff Then you take the Omni CRA, which is very shortly going to fund $14 million a year to the Performing Arts Center. If we take that money back, we'd be in violation of a contract with the County. So -- I'm just saying, the County would not -- would be in a position of taking the CRA to court or whatever it would do, but that is an obligation that we committed to. Are you suggesting that $14 million should be removed? Mr. Suarez: When I said there's $30 million in reserves, I'm not implying that there's $30 million that you can remove from those CRAs and maintain those commitments. Chair Sarnoff But -- Mr. Surez: There -- if you were to commit to all those commitments you have in those CRAs with the amount of reserves you have, there are several millions of dollars that are left. Chair Sarnoff And I'm just curious what that number is to you 'cause I am doing the math for you. And right now you're at $54 million. He needs 110 million. You're at 54 million by charging each homeowner $225, more for businesses, less for, I guess, tenement housing, andl guess less for -- Mr. Suarez: There's a formula. Chair Sarnoff Excuse me? Mr. Suarez: There's a formula. Only -- Chair Sarnoff Right. I'm just -- Mr. Suarez: -- single-family homes, duplexes, and commercial properties. Chair Sarnoff -- saying the average guy out there, City ofMiami, can expect a $225 bill and that will net you or net the City 54 million. Then you say there's $30 million in CRA reserves, which I'm not aware of. I'm not even aware of there being $5 million in reserves, but -- and that's why I'm trying to figure out -- 'cause I'm trying to do the math for you 'cause I've looked at all your numbers. You're still, in my opinion, about 35 to $40 million short. And my question is, how do you make up the 35 to $40 million? Mr. Suarez: Well, I'm not standing up here telling you I have the answer to completely fill the budget hole on this paper right here. That's not what I'm up here to imply to you right now. And when I say that there's $30 million in reserve of the CRA, I'm not implying that that's $30 million that you can remove right now. I will tell you, I'm pretty confident that there are several millions of dollars that are unencumbered, uncommitted, even with bond payments that you're not going to need in the next few years. Chair Sarnoff Well, several is -- and I'm not disagreeing that there could be 4 or 5 million, but -- and I'm just doing the math for you. I mean, we're still almost $60 million apart. Do you concede or consider in any way, shape, or form that any City ofMiami employee should take a reduction of any kind? Mr. Suarez: I obviously negotiate for one bargaining unit, andl can say that I'm sure it was no surprise to the other bargaining units that they were going to be negotiating this year. It was City ofMiami Page 28 Printed on 9/1/2010 City Commission Meeting Minutes July 22, 2010 very much a surprise for mine. We wouldn't have given as much as we gave last year if we thought we were going to be at the table now months before -- I'll remind you that we were -- this legal action was taken upon us months before any of the other bargaining units even sat down for the first time. I maybe expected the City to come after us asking for help after going to all the other organizations that were supposed to be negotiating this year. I find it a little bit unusual that this sort of extreme position would be taken on us -- not only that it would be taken on us, but that it would be taken on us before negotiations even begin with any of the bargaining units in the City. I find that disingenuous. Chair Sam off It -- candidly -- and I think you've told me this so -- but candidly, the Manager approached you. Mr. Suarez: One time. Chair Sam off Right. Mr. Suarez: In a conversation about a lot of different things. Chair Sam off Well -- and you admitted to me candidly that you told him there was no way you would renegotiate. Mr. Suarez: We're talking about -- this conversation probably happened in March, you know. Chair Sam off All I'm saying, Bobby, is he had every expectation from walking away from a meeting with you that your official position was we're not going to renegotiate. Is that a true statement? Mr. Suarez: In March, my position that -- was that we were not going to renegotiate. Why would I have just six months earlier done that ifI was going to offer to renegotiate before the City began any of its negotiations with the unions that were supposed to negotiate this year? As an attorney, I don't know if that's how you would do business, but representing an organization like I do -- (Applause) Mr. Suarez: -- it just -- I don't think the City Manager could state that I was uncooperative - Chair Sarnoff No. I - Mr. Suarez: -- or that I really wasn't willing to work -- I'll tell you, when that one question came up, that was probably maybe 45 minutes into the total conversations I had ever had with this City Manager up to that date. Chair Sam off But all I'm trying to establish is he did come to you, ask you, and your response officially was no, we will not renegotiate. Mr. Suarez: We had a discussion about a lot of things. Chair Sam off Okay. Mr. Suarez: Within that discussion, he asked me about attending meetings with another bargaining unit to discuss issues that we had in common. I specifically told him I would never turn down a meeting to discuss anything, but I told him that it made no sense for my union to be renegotiating a contract at that point. And I feel that even now with the amount of progress the City has had with the bargaining units that were supposed to be negotiating this year, we're first City ofMiami Page 29 Printed on 9/1/2010 City Commission Meeting Minutes July 22, 2010 in line. I -- it just doesn't make sense to me. Chair Sam off I'm not aware -- andl think we heard today -- and correct me if I'm wrong -- that we have made no progress financially with any of the unions. So I mean, we've made progress on the fact that Article 9 means that there is a City. We've made progress that we know that Article 13 -- we're not making real substantial progress and yet, looming in front of us, how much money -- what was the -- was it 53 or $59 million that we reduced from the reserves that we were unaware of that we had to reduce? Mr. Migoya: I'm trying to remember the exact number. It was -- the transfers was 30 -- it was another -- it's about $59 million total. Chair Sarnoff Fifty-nine million dollars that when we were dealing with the last year's budget, we were unaware -- Mr. Migoya: About that. Chair Sam off IfI remember, it was 59 million. Mr. Migoya: I think it's close to that. Don't take exact numbers, but I think it's close to that. Chair Sam off Okay. All right. Thank you. Commissioner Dunn: Mr. Chairman. Chair Sam off Yes, sir. Commissioner Dunn: One of the things that I find disturbing -- andl know everybody has their issues, everybody has their positions that they have to take -- I think we can learn or we should learn, all of us, a valuable lesson from the Dwyane Wade, from LeBron James, and from Chris Bosch. They gave up -- just hear me out. Hear me out. Hear me out. I'm going to speak my mind up here. They gave up a lot to save the team. Hold on. Hold on. I don't know historically -- I don't know what happened historically, but all I know is where we are now. And everybody's going to have to give up something. And I think -- andl don't hear that -- and I know you may have given up some in the past, andl respect that. I'm not discounting that. But I do find it painful when I see representatives coming with solutions, but then there's nothing that they're willing -- I know some people may have given up something in the past. But if we're going to save this City, meaning all of us, the Mayor, we've got to be willing to give up something. That's all I'm saying. It's -- we can't have it our way and come out with a balanced budget. We've got to be willing to do -- now I don't know how we're going to do it. But we've got to be willing to try to work it out. Now, we can hardball it and we can go all the way to the wall. But I believe there's a valuable lesson. And all of us here in Miami are excited about the possibilities of a championship team. And use the word "team." And look at -- andl know some people are saying that's not -- it is an example. It is a relevant example because people gave up. And people are still giving up. And I'm not saying you have not given up. Hear me out. But we're not talking about whether or not a person has bread on their table. We're not talking about whether or not -- you heard the Manager say that our intent is not to lay off anybody. That's team minded. Now, if you're selfish minded, then you say, well, you know what? I've got my years in. I don't care what happens to the person who's just coming in. And I just believe we've got to look at this thing differently. I -- again, I don't have the answers at this point. I don't know -- I'm not saying that the fire or the police or the sanitation or whoever have not given up anything. But we've got to come to the conclusion that we've got to give up something. So that's -- I need to put that on the record because -- and again, I don't know how, but I hear us, you know, saying, okay, you give up, you give up, you give up, you give up. Yeah, I gave up last time. And perhaps you did, and I'm not saying you didn't. But we've got to look at this. We have City ofMiami Page 30 Printed on 9/1/2010 City Commission Meeting Minutes July 22, 2010 to look at the fact that we all are going to have to give up something if we're going to bring this City to the point where it is. Times are tough, times are hard, but the key to this is that there has to be a willingness on the part of everyone to be willing to give up something. How much? I don't know, but we've got to be willing to give up something, you know. 'Cause -- you know, I have to say this, andl have a lot of respect for you, Mr. Suarez. But what do you want me to tell the people in Overtown about cutting the CRA? That's an issue for me. Or the people -- you know, I mean -- so I mean, we still have issues that we have to address. So let's try to work together. That's all I'm saying. Let's try to work together. It's not -- I don't see it as -- now, this is how I'm looking at it and I'll finish. I don't see it as us against you all. We've got to have a -- it's us as a team. Andl believe that we can start trying to do that. I cannot speak for what happened in the past. You see a Mayor who has been transparent. Let's face it. A lot of things that were shared with us in the past were not truthful, but I have not seen that coming out of this Administration, out of this Mayor, out of this Manager. We're trying. And I know we have to try harder, but I know one thing. We all are going to have to give up something, and that's the bottom line. Chair Sam off Mr. Manager, you're recognized. Mr. Migoya: Mr. Chair, just a couple of points of clarification. On the issue with the CRAs, the $30 million that Mr. Suarez I believe is referring to are -- over several years there's been projects that are in the process of being procured and so forth, and there may be -- and there are probably around $30 million of which projects are being procured. Tomorrow I believe Larry Springs [sic] and a group of our people are meeting with the people from the CRA to specifically start working on what those projects look like and exactly -- if there are any of those projects that are -- already been, you know, spent out or slowed down, whatever the decisions may be that can be brought up and any additional resources of those dollars can be brought back. Now those dollars can be brought back if they are excess funds after I think it's a three-year period. They come back to the City as a form that you can use them from a capital expenditure standpoint. And when -- those will be a one-time benefit that we could look at. It could be a way that we can benefit and hopefully, over the next several days, we will know what that dollar amount looks like. So going back to the point of the $30 million, we will know that. We also made an analysis of the current CRA revenues and the commitments to the CRA revenues, including the future commitments that we have to the CRA revenues. And as of this time, there is a net of $5 million a year of differences between revenues and expenses and commitments to the CRAs that will be available for anything that we decided to do if we wanted to go -- if we wanted to put the CRA to sleep for a year or two, but it is $5 million a year. That is the number. And last but not least 'cause I think -- and I've thought about whether I should or I shouldn't, but I think it's important that I get it on the records. I've been very specific all along. Mr. Suarez, I have never said that it's easier to take it out of the employees. I've always said that the most difficult thing to do in expense reduction is dealing with the employees. And since we are talking about dealing with all employees at this one time, it is more important to deal with it one time only and use the reserves, meaning the revenues or whatever those would be in the future, to deal with the further losses we're going to have or deficit we're going to have, which we're estimating to be between 75 and $80 million over the next three years. But I've never said that it's easier to take it off the employees. I think that's very important. I think everybody's salary is very important to them, and I take that very seriously, so I just want to make sure I get that correction. Thank you. Chair Sam off All right. Next speaker. Mr. Suarez: I'd like to state that I had spoken to the Manager about the CRA item. I mention -- I brought it to him about a month ago, andl appreciate him looking into that. Andl do appreciate what the CRA does. I think -- just think that there's a time and place for it, and when the City has to choose between services, those residents in those areas right now, I'm sure they want their City services. And the way the CRA is structured, it is very, very difficult to use that City ofMiami Page 31 Printed on 9/1/2010 City Commission Meeting Minutes July 22, 2010 money, any of it, for services. And it's not -- I'm not looking to abolish the CRAB. It's not that I don't believe in them. I just think that there's a time and place for the level of money that's going to those CRAB and what's in there, and it's something we need to look at. Commissioner Dunn: Let me ask a question, Mr. Chairman. Chair Sam off Go ahead. You're recognized, Commissioner Dunn. Commissioner Dunn: Mr. Chairman. I know last meeting or meeting before last, we from the CRA, from both CRAs, gave a quarter of a million dollars to services, to the police. A million -- Chair Sam off I think it was more than that. It was half a million. Commissioner Dunn: It was a half a million -- Vice Chair Carollo: Half a million. Commissioner Dunn: Go ahead. Vice Chair Carollo: But you're paying it at a premium. In other words, you're paying it to go into overtime, not straight salary. Mr. Suarez: Statutorily, under that mechanism, you're only allowed to use that money for services above and beyond. You -- so -- and it doesn't financially benefit the City any. You have to put that money for services you don't even yet provide but you're committing to provide extra policing for that money. It doesn't financially really benefit the City any, though you're getting some extra service there, which is a great thing. In terms of balancing your budget, it doesn't -- I don't know, the Manager can chime in on that. It doesn't necessarily provide any assistance in balancing the budget. And I just think that that's -- it's something to look at. It's not about abolishing -- Commissioner Dunn: I'm not -- Mr. Suarez: -- the CRA or -- it's -- Commissioner Dunn: -- closed to anything, but I'm just saying, I think all of us, all of us have to look at what are we willing to give up. That's -- that is the premise of my statement. Chair Sam off All right. Thank you. Mr. Suarez: Thank -- Chair Sam off You're recognized for the record. Mark Richard: Mark Richard, council for the firefighters. Bobby asked me to speak because I've probably been involved in every major contract discussion here in South Florida in the public sector on behalf of a variety of different labor organizations, Jackson, FIU (Florida International University), Miami -Dade, Dade County schools, Broward teachers. I've also been involved for many, many years in the private sector contract talks, some that are debacles, American Airlines, andl spent hundreds of days in Dallas, Texas, at Southwest Airlines. Andl can tell you when these crises come upon us, a true test of leadership is called into question. Good practices are followed, teamwork is followed, transparency's followed; or bad practice, lack of transparency. Andl would tell you as an insider/outsider born here in South Florida, here in Dade County, that what's happened here today bodes poorly. I don't think anybody chose to do it that way, andl don't even question the bona fides. But I can tell you that the City ofMiami Page 32 Printed on 9/1/2010 City Commission Meeting Minutes July 22, 2010 greatest measure of a man or a woman and the greatest measure of a leader is how they respond to a crisis. When we have the power and we have the money, it's easy. When you're faced with the confrontations and the budget issues that we have now, it's very hard. And it's the truest measure of leadership. Let's begin to look at -- (Applause) Mr. Richard: -- some of the things that happened. A budget committee, for whom we have respect, walked out when the unions came up to present. It's minor. It's major. It doesn't matter. Somebody should've given them the speech you gave, Richard, earlier to them. I said to one of them when they were walking, you're not staying to hear from the workers who pump life into your hearts? And they laughed. When they let the chief speak, the former chief he came up with a recommendation that wasn't even adopted by the committee. That was a political boomerang. That was a setup. That was disingenuous. Somebody here should call them out. You appointed a lot of them. You should be on the phone tonight and said that's disrespectful. (Applause) Mr. Richard: Earlier today in your heart of hearts, I'm sure, you voted in the flat tax. That was a choice, a political choice. Now the chief tried to give a signal, a very disgusting signal, and he should be ashamed of himself as he draws about $145,000 pension himself. The chief that chief not our chief should be embarrassed 'cause he tried to send you a message. The message was don't worry about the politics; only 35 percent of them live in the City. That was a clear message, you'll get reelected; don't worry about it. Your political pundits can do the math. This is about our community. This is about a place we love. This is a place my whole life I've looked at that has risen from crises and it sometimes caused them. So what do we see? Honestly, it's not to be disrespectful. You pick up the Herald, we hear you're over budget today, and then you sit there and we lecture employees and attack Bobby. No offense, being in a budget these times is hard. You might have legitimate reasons. To have attacked you on that is a sandbag. What you did to Mr. Suarez today was a sandbag. It's inappropriate. It's just inappropriate when we have this crisis that you have to sit there and say we're going to have to make tough choices and not have any idea what they just went through. No one would ever say that these firefighters and their colleagues haven't given. How could -- can you imagine in April what the firefighter union just gave the workers, people that go home to their wives and their husbands and significant others, to their partners, to their children, college tuition, and say we're looking at millions of dollars in givebacks. And much of the statistics thrown out are so disrespectful. Have any of you ever told a firefighter that he or she doesn't have to work their overtime? You ask them every day to work overtime. What do they do in that overtime? They pump on chests. A woman was just escorted out of here. A City ofMiami rescue squad came. And while the time we're talking about them like they're third parties, Carlos, like they're so wonderful people and we're slicing and dicing of that crew had nothing to think about with regards to this hearing. They did their duty. They did their diligence. They save lives. You know that from your history. And yet we attack these people by hitting them with overtime, which if you don't pay, you have to hire other firefighters, other officers? So if we're going to put the cards on the table, that's how you address crises. One day we wake up and look at a skateboard park. It's ludicrous in this crisis. One day we look at drivers that people use on this Commission. Drivers? And at the same time talk about partnership? Drivers? For people to drive around and talk as if we're the leaders of the populist movement. We can't look at that. What we can look at is what we do. What we do is bring life back. What we do is run into buildings. Not this overweight lawyer. I'm useless. Firefighters have some value in this society. They run in with their police officers and others into harm's way while I shrink. When a call comes that a house is being burgled, law enforcement goes in. When Bobby Suarez went into 9/11, I was in New York a lot. We stayed away from Wall Street because of the stories of asbestos and other things in the air that might cause lung disease and, in fact, those predictions were unfortunately true. As he crawled in the dirt, fingers under his nails. He's not asking for special treatment. He's asking to be above City ofMiami Page 33 Printed on 9/1/2010 City Commission Meeting Minutes July 22, 2010 board. Statistics, number studies should be open. How much contracts of your lobbyists are being examined? How many outside lawyer contracts are being examined? How many here will say they'll take no more political contributions from anyone that's ever done work or will do work with the City ofMiami? And so we go to the bankers club and we go to Joe Stone Crab and we all talk and talk and talk, but there is a tax you've imposed today. You've imposed a tax, Mr. Manager, and you're a bright, terrific, successful person. You are. You've earned your record well. You've imposed a tax on every one of these workers. The government is taking their money. But that tax nobody defends in terms of that we shouldn't tax them. And they have to go home now and everybody up here is almost willing to say by voting in a flat tax today we've drawn the line. Eighty percent personnel? What are all the other cities? What are the municipalities paying personnel who in fact are doing well? No one's asked that city. It's always pretty much in that range. How do [sic] the colleges doing it with less and less each year? Has anyone gone out and commissioned and said where there haven't been cuts, how have govern -- how has government done that? Has anybody gone to anyone and picked up the phone in other fire and police departments across the country who didn't have these things and how did you partner? So here's the question. Southwest Airlines, 83 percent union, most union airline in America. Nobody knows that. Profits 37 years in a row. My friend who talked about the private sector thinks 'cause he flew to Shanghai, he's now an expert in the World Expo. I've been to Shanghai too. I wasn't an expert, other than at eating good food and having a great time. It's an amazing place. Doesn't make you an expert 'cause you flew somewhere, but they have the audacity to come up here and do this. And so what would you learn from Southwest Airlines if you'd pick up and speak to Herb Keller. He'll fly down too. We're close enough to him. He would fly down. He would tell you that you must start at the genesis with employees. You are in the employee business. They do hazmat, fire suppression, technical rescue. Can you imagine what it's like to call 911 ? And a person who looks in your eyes, who's there when the chest pain is coming and radiating where it shouldn't be radiating and you look in their eyes, unlike looking in a lawyer or a politician's eyes, and you know that's the only person that stands between you and going to your kid's graduation or your grandkid's christening? And then to tell those people we're going to hold your overtime against you. To tell those people we're going to let sandbag people come up here and attack lieutenants on apparatus. To come here and say, as you have said, sir, contracts are closed, but theirs is not? Okay. (Applause) Mr. Richard: So all my years of experience say to you this is a great city. I know some of you. You're great people. You're going to be challenged in these next 12 weeks. You can do the master plan. It's already done. I do this for a living, 30 years. The plan is to push. You've heard the recommendations to go, to cut, to slice, to attack. And there's one other thing you do. And each time you always say it, but you're the best. Don't say that anymore, by the way. We'd rather everyone just stop saying that 'cause it doesn't allow -- it just allows people to escape their duty. The real question is sit down with sleeves rolled up. Everything's on the table. All Bobby was trying to do is tell you there's revenue options that should be on the table. Southwest Airlines, we put everything on the table. Everything we look at for efficiencies. He always says I'm not touching my contracts. I start with the premise I'm not touching my contracts. You've started with the premise that there's no other revenue option than a flat tax. It's okay to do that. You did that today, but it's a statement hurled around this building. He says ifI -- someone came to him once and said you're traded on the stock exchange, aren't your most important people shareholders? He said absolutely not. My most important people are my people. If they're treated right, they make money for my passengers -- I mean, for my shareholders and everybody wins. Start employee -centered. Start centered with the citizens. Look at it from citizen out and then there'll be no cars, by the way. Give it up tomorrow. Make the announcement the cars and drivers are gone tomorrow. Make the announcement the skateboard park is off tomorrow. The CRAs are very important. I actually understand the notion behind empowerment zones and all that. We still look at them. I don't know what that means without hurting the community 'cause the community's got to not be hurt. We've got to look at their families and what it means to them City ofMiami Page 34 Printed on 9/1/2010 City Commission Meeting Minutes July 22, 2010 to, after all these hits, take another hit. Stop having lawyers look for ways to undo contracts in your shade meetings. Tell your lawyers honor every single word 'cause when we shook your hands, when you were your predecessors, you were here voted on these things, never did we say that you could just break them through clever lawyering, we believe will be defeated by better lawyering, but we'll see. Never did we -- (Applause) Mr. Richard: -- think we'd have to just what we do each day. So tonight, go home knowing that the citizens are important, that they can turn their lights out in their homes or their apartment's Little Havana, they can go into Brickell, a bungalow in the Grove, or some unfortunately to the street. And regardless of their race or religion, their balance sheet or whom they know, whether they lobby here or have (UNINTET,TIGIBLE) to get a bid through, whether they have any of that, they know that if they dial three numbers, three numbers, that despite how they were treated here today, that the men and women of this fire department will be there doing excellent care, saving lives, playing no politics with resuscitation, not being disingenuous with cleaning up bodily fluids, but they will be there to save lives 'cause they never lose their way. We ask you to come back and find your way. Thank you (Applause) Chair Sam off All right. Is there any other employees that wish to speak? All right, hearing none -- Go ahead. Richard Rodriguez: My name is Firefighter Rodriguez. I'll make it very brief. City Manager, Commissioners, appreciate all the hard work you do. Hopefully, I won't ruin this for anybody and for everybody, my apologies go out to my fellow brothers. Mr. Manager, I keep hearing going defined (UNINTELLIGIBLE) towards defined contributions. Commissioner Dunn, very respectful. I was there to help you to get your seat, just like for you, Commissioner Sam off. Sir, you mentioned earlier that we got to be truthful, that you've been hearing not -- nobody saying anything of truth. I just want to caution Commissioners, City Manager, that by not really analyzing and putting out all the information out there is just equal as a lie not only to our department, our citizens, the people, and the districts that you represent. Touching real quick on an example where you're mentioning hitting defined benefits over defined contributions, ifI got my pronunciation correct or my terminology correct. When we go over to like a 456/401(k) type program, the failure of mentioning that Social Security is not going to be paid by every single member that decides to go into this program is also now a decrease in what I would bring home, along with all of my brothers and sisters. Based on what you said, Mr. Dunn, no truthfulness or the omission of facts, either intentionally or not intentionally, could hurt the body. All I am saying by this, fellow Commissioners, City Manager, please, please do your research before you make your decisions for as a person as I -- most people know me here. I am a father with two very ill children; probably die soon before most of the people in here. I love the City ofMiami. I love this department. Can't say I love everybody that works for the department, but I will treat all of my brothers and sisters the same because they are like me. We're one big family. City of Miami Fire -Rescue, that's what I believe. It's who I love. I chose to work here. I chose to serve the citizens of this community. That's why it was no problem for me when my chosen leader, Robert Suarez, came up and asked me, hey, City needs help, we've got problems, 10 percent; Bobby, you got it. No questions asked whatsoever. Hurt me very, very, very much, just like a lot of our brothers and sisters here, to hear hey, you got to give more, without, you know, we don't have to worry about our contract? I don't know, sirs. It just doesn't seem right. I can't speak for everybody, but for me, I've already given up 10 percent of my salary. City Manager -- Mr. Migoya, my apologies, and my apologies ifI didn't say that correctly -- you're talking about 5 to 12 percent across-the-board. We're already by 22. What I was telling you, Mr. Dunn, if we went over to defined benefits to now defined contributions, andl have to now pay Social Security, that's going to be another 5 to 8 percent more. I'm already looking at now 30 percent. My wife City ofMiami Page 35 Printed on 9/1/2010 City Commission Meeting Minutes July 22, 2010 doesn't work. What I'm asking you is when you have our lives, livelihood at stake in regards to our salary, please consider every little dotted I, every little choice, every little insignificant -- thing that you might think is insignificant may have an adverse reaction that could highly affect me, for example. Again, we're only speaking about me at this moment, but adding up now a 30 percent, we're talking about therapy for my children. We're talking about my house now. I've heard through our media reports many of times, came up in this -- in our precedence [sic] here. Three hundred thousand dollar firemen. Bobby tried clearing that up. I believe he did a very good job at it. Commissioner Sarnoff, my apologies, I felt very insulted while a while back you came out in the media saying that you wish your parents would have told you, you know, to become a fireman because hey, you know, they told me study real hard and this and that. My father's a physician, sir. He studied. I cannot tell you how my father sacrificed for my family, for me. And let me tell you, sir, my father warned me about becoming a doctor. Warned me. I do not think it was very fair for you to bring that analogy to the public in the fashion that you did. It's very insulting, not only to me, to our department. It just was not right. (Applause) Mr. Rodriguez: Gentlemen, I'll just wrap it up. I appreciate the work you do. Please just remember, any little reaction has a very larger consequence. Andl thank you for your time. (Applause) Mr. Migoya: Mr. Chair, point of clarification. From the research that we have done through our pension attorneys, going to a defined contribution plan does have an exemption still for Social Security. Chair Sam off I'm sorry. Say again. Mr. Migoya: Moving from a defined benefit to a defined contribution plan, I don't know where he got his information, but our pension attorneys who have done the research say it would still exempt our people from Social Security. Chair Sam off Okay. Unidentified Speaker: Mr. Chairman. Chair Sam off All right. Mr. Suarez: Just to let you know, the rest of my membership that might have already put in speaker cards, you waived your time so that I could have more. Okay. So the members of Local 587 are done, andl definitely like to take a look at that interesting document the Manager's just referred to. Chair Sam off Okay. Mr. Suarez: Thank you. Chair Sam off Is there anyone else from City employees or anyone else who wishes to speak to discuss with this Commission their thoughts on how we should close the budget gap? All right, hearing none, seeing none, it comes back to this Commission. Motion to adjourn? Anybody want to speak? Commissioner Dunn? Vice Chair Carollo: Mr. Chairman. Chair Sam off Yes, sir. City ofMiami Page 36 Printed on 9/1/2010 City Commission Meeting Minutes July 22, 2010 Vice Chair Carollo: Motion to adjourn. Chair Sam off All right. We have a motion -- Commissioner Suarez: Second. Chair Sam off -- to adjourn. We have a second. All in favor? The Commission (Collectively): Aye. ADJOURNMENT A motion was made by Commissioner Carollo, seconded by Commissioner Suarez, and was passed unanimously, to adjourn today's meeting. City ofMiami Page 37 Printed on 9/1/2010