While the Miami-Dade Commission considers firing 700 workers and slashing services and making employees sacrifice their benefits, the county spent close to $1 million this year on fancy new pavers for the parking lots at three county facilities. No, not libraries or neighborhood service agencies or cultural centers where hundreds of constituents come and go. These octagonal, terracotta-colored […]
It’s just another band-aid. And it’s not even a good one at that. Rather more like those cheap, generic brand band-aids you buy at the dollar store. But Miami-Dade Carlos “Cry Wolf” Gimenez, who didn’t listen to the people when they voted to increase their own taxes for improved animal services, has turned his other […]
Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos “Cry Wolf” Gimenez will present his budget today for the first time publicly — his proposal to run the $6.2 billion business that is county government and, more specifically, the $4.45 billion that is the general operating budget (the other $1.6 mil is for capital improvements). Oh, that doesn’t mean we aren’t […]
Say it ain’t so, mayor: Please tell Ladra and everyone who lives in the county and pays property taxes that you are not proposing to fire 255 police officers while, with the other hand, you give the Pérez Art Museum Miami $1.5 million more for $4 million in total. How many cops’ jobs can those […]
Forgive Ladra and her friends if we have lost all faith in Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos “Cry Wolf” Gimenez and the county bean counters. First, there was a $208 million shortfall in the Miami-Dade budget. Then it was $200 million. Then, if I recall correctly, it fell to $160 million. Then it was $90 million. Then it […]
In what can only be seen as another backpedal moment, at best, and another bait and switch, at worst, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos “Cry Wolf” Gimenez dropped his demand for 10 percent wage cut across the board for county employees, saying that he can balance the budget instead by reducing the workers’ healthcare benefits. There are still […]
While alarms are sounding about reduced services and Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez threatens to lay off up to 700 employees — including 250 police officers — to balance the $4.4 billion county operating budget, our commissioners will consider spending close to $100 million just today on everything from engineering to janitorial services to concerts to personal trainers. Can […]
The Miami-Dade Police sergeant who got caught racking up questionable overtime has not been fired and is not on the list of officers to get canned by Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez‘s plan to balance the budget by firing 255 cops. He’s not even getting bumped down a notch. In fact, he was recently transferred to […]
Some call it payback for the 5% loss and the veto override that arguably strained some of his already-limited ability to negotiate with the county employee unions, but Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez is proposing new contracts that ask for a 10% cut in base pay and hints at a new battle with our county labor […]
Aside from Miami-Dade County’s lay off of 21 employees in the last couple of months to help deal with what Mayor Carlos “Not So Golden Boy” Gimenez says is a bulging budget shortfall, the incoming crop of new police officers has been cut in half from four academy classes to two. But Gimenez assured commissioners in […]