To Mayor Dyer and all Orlando City Commissioners: 

(The only exception is Commissioner Phil Diamond who is the lone commissioner that is against raising millage rates. Good for him! A first-class letter similar to this was sent to the Mayor and all City Commissioners today.)

I wanted to voice my strong opposition to the Orlando city commission considering raising the property tax millage rate.  The city's budget was $604 million just 4 years ago and in the $400 million range just 8 years ago. Now the city's proposed budget is $919 million for 2008-2009 which is up from $820 million just last year. While many other governments and nearly every private sector company is decreasing its budget, the City of Orlando is increasing their budget by another 12% during a recession.

   Assessed values on non-homestead properties doubled and tripled throughout the city during that time period. The city quickly squandered every penny of this additional revenue on all sorts of expenses that the city never even dreamed of until the money started piling up in the city's coffers.  Now the city needs to greatly scale back and stop feeding at the trough of the taxpayer.  Those old budgets need to be revisited and some of the expense numbers need to be returned to those old figures from 4 to 8 years ago. Inflation has increased some but it hasn't doubled like the city budget did. Homeowners, landlords, and business owners cannot afford yet another tax increase.  All raising taxes will ultimately do is increase foreclosures, increase delinquent taxes, reduce sales tax revenue, chase off homeowners and small businesses to outside the city limits, and increase blight.

Here are some of the 2008-2009 ideas that the City has come up with according to Mayor Dyer's email to me just last week:

• Eliminating holiday bonuses for City employees.
• Reducing landscaping, mowing and parks maintenance Citywide.
• Cutting training and travel budget for all City employees by 15 percent.
• Closing community and recreation centers with low usage on Saturdays.
• Reducing all holiday decorations by half.
• Reducing the Fire Department's public outreach budget by 50 percent.  This means cutting health checks for seniors, health fairs, school presentations and smoke detector checks.
• At the highest level of the organization, Mayor Dyer is cutting a director level position from the cabinet and another management position.  

What is my reaction to the above ideas? Are you serious?  Is this the best you can come up with? Give me a break!  The City of Orlando needs to get back to a sensible, realistic budget like it had a few years ago and not the extremely bloated budget it has today.  I have spent some time analyzing the budget listed on the City of Orlando's website.

It seems the big gap in the budget is from employee related expenses.  I am a small business owner with employees and independent contractors, so I know quite a bit about meeting a payroll.  Since this is the city's number one biggest expense, that should be the place to look for the biggest cuts.

My first suggestion is an across the board 3% pay decrease for all non-union employees.  Many cities, counties, and private sector companies are decreasing salaries and employee levels. If the average salary for a city employee is $50,000 (hopefully the true average salary is less than this), 3% is only $1500 per year or about $100 per month after taxes, so the cut is minimal.  Most employees probably will not even notice it.

My next suggestion is to look at healthcare.  I presently pay for my own healthcare for myself and my family as do thousands of other Central Floridians.  To me it is a great luxury to get any break on healthcare, but I do realize that many employers pay this for their workers.  The bottom line is that employees should contribute more of the cost.  Let them pay for any increase in health costs this year.  Pass it all along to them.  If non-employee family members are on the plan, that should be changed.  Non-employee family members should be dropped altogether or else paid 100% by the employee and not the taxpayers.  I do not know the exact healthcare benefit plan that the city offers its employees, but the plan should be compared directly to other major employers in the non-union private sector like Lockheed Martin, Wal Mart, Publix, Universal Studios, etc. 

The next suggestion is retirement plans. All new employees should not receive a defined benefit pension where they get paid $X amount after so many years of service.  They should be set up with a 401-K account with matching contributions as required by law.  All existing non-union employees should be converted to a 401-K account within a year.  Very few private sector companies still offer defined benefit pension plans.  Old style pension plans started fading away when the ERISA laws were passed in Washington back in the 1970's because of the enormous burden on employers.  The City of Orlando needs to modernize its retirement plans as well and pass the cost along to its employees.

If the employees cannot handle these changes. All I can say is, "Too bad."  They can quit and go get a job somewhere else that will offer benefits exactly like what I have described above.  My bet is that you will not even get one employee to quit over this.  They need to tough it out like everyone else in Central Florida is doing.  It may be unpopular to employees, but they will learn to live with it.  The taxpayers have been living with these unprecedented tax increases over the last few years and have now been pushed over the tipping point. 

The City of Orlando claims their employees are underpaid.  I say, "Prove it."  Provide the taxpayers a detailed comparison between the salaries and benefits of city employees and private employees.  The Orlando Sentinel did a study in February 2008 claiming exactly the opposite. When you add salaries plus benefits, city employees receive a higher compensation than private sector employees according to this study. 

My next suggestion is for the city's union employees.  Personally, I believe that all union contracts with the City of Orlando should not be renewed once they expire.  All union employees should be treated exactly the same as non-union employees.  I also believe that during tough recession times like today that the city should consider re-negotiating with the unions.  I know plenty of people and companies that have successfully re-negotiated their leases, mortgages, and other long-term contracts during these recession times.  The city should consider doing this as well. When the city decides to hire new employees, it should do so without a union contract.  The unions provide no benefit whatsoever to the taxpayers of Orlando.  The unions only benefit the employees. The mayor and city commission need to do everything in their power to ultimately make all city employees non-union like so many other nearby cities.

Next we have energy costs.  I suggest raising the thermostat in all city buildings to at least 76 degrees.  This is still a comfortable temperature and will save the city tremendously on air-conditioning expenses.  I also suggest that the air-conditioning systems be turned off between 8:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. on weekdays and turned off completely on weekends and holidays.  If someone needs to be working during those times, you can have a manual over-ride for each zone of the building.

Next we have city vehicles.  The cost of gasoline has skyrocketed over the last few years.  I believe the city should follow the cost-cutting examples of other companies with a fleet of vehicles. Just look at what UPS and Federal Express are requiring of their drivers.  All drivers should attempt to make less left turns whenever possible.  All vehicles should have their engine shut off when the vehicle will be idle for more than 30 seconds.  All vehicles should not be allowed to surpass the speed limit - seems like a no-brainer but we all see city vehicles speeding recklessly down the highway nearly every day - certainly employees found breaking the law should be ticketed and ultimately fired if it happens again. There are inexpensive computerized ways to monitor someone's driving.  No employee should be allowed to take their vehicle home with them.  The city currently charges $35 to $45 per pay period for employees who want to drive their vehicle home, but these "company cars" are at a huge cost to taxpayers especially with gas prices as high as they are right now.  You do not see taxi cabs, school buses, garbage trucks, or UPS trucks parking in residential driveways every night, but you do see plenty of city vehicles that do this.  Some city employees even drive their vehicle outside of Orange County every single day to go home - up to 30 miles one way every day.  How does this benefit the taxpayers of Orlando?  Answer: It doesn't.  It only benefits the employees.  The city commission might think that parking a city vehicle like a police car in a driveway makes a neighborhood safer, but if this is the case then how come the Parramore area is not the safest area in the city? After all, the city's police headquarters has been located there for decades.

The City of Orlando should also consider merging their fire department, police department, code enforcement, building department, housing department, parks and recreation, and other departments with Orange County.  The City is spread out very oddly because of various annexations.  The City of Altamonte Springs merged their fire department with Seminole County a few years ago and the savings for taxpayers was great.  The City of Jacksonville merged entirely with Duval County years ago. The City of Orlando should strongly consider merging at least some of its departments with the county in order to save money and avoid a big duplication of services.

Next we have the grant money.  Many organizations want free money from the city to run their various non-profit groups.  Maybe when times are better the city can help them out.  But during these tough recession times, these organizations need to do other fundraising or mergers or cut overhead or whatever to stay afloat. In the past I have been a financial supporter at the Coalition for the Homeless and several other non-profit groups, and I know everyone is feeling the pinch right now. While I applaud what they do, this should not be a burden on the taxpayer in 2008.

I know there are plenty more budget cuts that can be found.  I think I have come up with some great cost cutting ideas that truly would cut the budget by millions of dollars.  It would be a great idea to hire an efficiency expert to look at everything the city does and see what other expenses they can cut out of the budget. Spend a few million on the expert, so that they can find $50 to $100 million+ in savings. 

I do hope you take my suggestions to heart, they are sincere and realistic in these times of great economic distress for everyone, both city government and taxpayer.

Sincerely,

Robert Arnold, Jr., Small business owner, Realtor, Orlando rental property owner, and Orlando taxpayer for the last 15 years

Citizens, if you are interested in joining an organized tax protest at the upcoming budget hearings on Monday, September 8, at 5:00pm and Monday, September 15, at 7:00 pm, feel free to contact me or simply show up at Orlando City Hall, 400 S. Orange Avenue, Orlando, FL 32801.

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(Copyright © 2008. Sand Dollar Realty Group, Inc. All rights reserved.)

Rob Arnold - Your full service and investor friendly Realtor in Orlando and Central Florida.

ABR, CPL, CRB, GRI, Managing real estate broker, Licensed mortgage broker, Notary Public

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