Unexpected cuts at county parks draw rebuke, probe

Miami-Dade parks fund cuts that commissioners were assured during heated summer budget talks had been restored actually still exist, Chairman René García told the county’s Recreation and Tourism Committee on Monday as he called for more detailed reports and a meeting with the mayor.

Though the administration’s message is that parks cutbacks are a direct result of trims in the state’s budget, Mr. García said those state cutbacks came long before commissioners signed off on a handshake agreement that parks would be little affected by any county budget trims.

“When we had our budget hearings, we were under the impression that parks were going to be pretty much held harmless,” Mr. García told the committee. “I was under the impression that the parks budget was mainly restored.”

In answer to his subsequent questions, Christine White, the parks director, said 49 full-time positions had been cut from the parks payroll due to the budget changes, leaving 1,571 full-time workers. She said 46 of the 49 had been placed in other county jobs and the aim was to place the other three in county jobs.

Of the positions eliminated, she said, “the majority of them are administrative staff. We reduced the communications team, management staff for the most part,” though she said some recreation department managers and several lifeguards were cut. Asked by Commissioner Marleine Bastien, she said that indeed she had forgotten to note that three security guards were among the eliminated jobs.

Asked about park capital improvement projects, Roy Coley, county chief utilities and regulatory services officer, listed the funding sources of parks projects and said that in one area, future financing, $73 million had been removed from the project list and future financing would not be available to parks this year because of the cuts made in Tallahassee.
Mr. García, a former state legislator, pointed out that all the cuts in Tallahassee were final before county budget talks when parks were said to be little affected by cuts.

“Maybe it’s wrong for me to assume that our budget director was following what’s happening in Tallahassee and our legislative team was following what’s happening in Tallahassee and sending the information back to us,” he said. “That did not show up in any of our budget books.”

Mr. García emphasized multiple times that he was trying to get an appointment to talk with Mayor Daniella Levine Cava “and I will give the mayor the benefit of the doubt for now, but I would like to have a conversation with her. We’ve requested a meeting with her and we’re waiting to get that meeting on the books.”

Commissioner Bastien said she also wanted to meet with the mayor about parks concerns.

The issue, said Mr. García, illustrates “some of the frustration that we have voiced on the dais about not getting adequate information to us so that we can make important decisions that affect the wellbeing of the residents of Miami-Dade County.”

Ms. Bastien said that in her district, “30 funded projects were defunded. We just found out.” She said that leaves only six funded projects in the district.

“What happened in Tallahassee came way before our budget talks happened,” Mr. García concluded. “Somewhere along the line we need to be able to connect the dots a little better and get information to the county commission when we’re doing budget talks and be careful when we do handshakes on budget deals and commit certain things and then those certain things are not kept. Anyway, that’s politics.”

The post Unexpected cuts at county parks draw rebuke, probe appeared first on Miami Today.