Town Workshop focuses on budgeting and state lobbying

Community Wednesday, October 30, 2013

 

During an October 30 workshop at Miami Lakes Town Hall, councilmembers discussed the second phase of implementing a mechanism to closely evaluate and monitor the town’s expenditures, and selecting a lobbyist for Tallahassee. 

Councilmembers discussed Vice Mayor Manny Cid’s proposal for Phase Two of his Performance Based Budgeting (PBB), which is scheduled to take effect for the 2014-2015 fiscal year. Phase One of the People’s Budget, as Cid calls it, was implemented for the current fiscal year and the final stage will start in 2015-2016. 

Cid said the goal is to show residents not only what services they are receiving for their money but how efficiently and effectively the town is providing them. The workshop consisted of a presentation by the town manager on the town’s internal expansion of performance measures and their implementation into the 2014-2015 budget. 

“During Phase 2, we focused on tallying inputs and outputs,” Cid said. “It was a great start to the three-year implementation. Phase Two shall revolve around figuring out what exactly quality performance and government success actually means.” 

Cid initially offered the Performance Based Budgeting process in March, saying the Town Council isn’t provided with the tools to analyze efficiency or effectiveness of a program and expenditure. He said the town’s budget system was an incremental budget or line item system, the simplest form of budgeting with a focus on increasing or decreasing the preceding years level of spending. 

“I personally believe that this type of budgeting is not rational due to the lack of goals and objectives,” Cid said. “The PBB will develop performance measures and benchmarks, plus assist the council in monitoring and evaluating each expenditure. Most importantly, a PBB will be quantifiable. The performance indicators in the PBB will be relevant, understandable, timely, consistent, comparable and reliable.” 

In addition, lawmakers discussed Councilmember Tony Lama’s plan for selecting a legislative lobbyist to work on behalf of Miami Lakes in the State Capitol. Lama and councilmembers dialogued about a plan to manage the responsibilities. 

They include: 

• How does Miami Lakes intend to collectively represent the interests of the town in Tallahassee? 

• What roles will councilmembers play? Is there some logical way to distribute the tasks amongst lawmakers based on their individual skill sets? 

• For resident engagement, former U.S. Senator Bob Graham suggested that Miami Lakes should consider resident lobbying due to its effectiveness, and he would assist in training. How can the town incorporate this idea? 

• Does the town find dollars to put out an RFP and hire an outside firm? 

• Does Miami Lakes consider a combination of approaches? Lama said he believes it is worth discussing whether Miami Lakes believes the selection of a lobbyist, regardless of dollar amount, should reside with the entire council. 

In August, lawmakers terminated the contract for lobbyist Becker-Poliakoff following the arrest of suspended Mayor Michael Pizzi on public corruption charges, who recommended the firm earlier this year. 

Attorney Richard Candia who worked with the Becker-Poliakoff law firm cooperated with FBI agents in a string that brought down Pizzi for allegedly pocketing money from a phony company that facilitates federal grant money. 

The town didn’t budget any funds for the current fiscal year.