It wasn’t handed out to those present at the meeting — there were no stacks of paper poised on tables for members of the press or the public. The meeting was not tape recorded.

As reporters and city staff typed or scribbled away in their notebooks, City Manager Jorge Gonzalez handed out small packets of color-coded sheets to each of the Miami Beach commissioners present: Jerry Libbin, Matti Bower, Richard Steinberg, Saul Gross and Simon Cruz. A couple of packets went to staffers at the large oval conference table inside City Hall on Thursday, July 19, but few else.

“We’ve got a five-million-dollar math problem,” Gonzalez said.

In the face of the challenge handed to him and his staff by the state’s proposed property tax legislation, Gonzalez is now charged with making up for a gap in next fiscal year’s operating budget of between $5 million and $5.5 million.

The city has been working to reduce its citywide budget by 9 percent, bringing it to around $237 million in accordance with the reduced revenue caused by Tallahassee’s property tax measure. And so department heads, as instructed by Gonzalez, have been scrambling to cut their budgets.

The list of city employees whose positions would be eliminated or restructured showed up with Gonzalez — and not a moment sooner. Much consternation has arisen at City Hall over this list. And the commissioners themselves almost reeled in the face of it.

“We never saw this list before now,” Libbin said. “We need time to digest this.”

“This is the laundry list,” Bower said.

The board was at first unsure how to proceed, but determined quickly that they wanted to discuss the cuts line item by line item, right away.

“The reason I’ve been careful with this list is there are 90 positions here; 41 or 42 are currently filled. Some of those have seniority,” Gonzalez said.

Overall, the city currently has a few hundred unfilled positions, and now Gonzalez plans to eliminate around 50 of those.

Some of the hush-hush approach surrounded the prospect that a good chunk of those positions could include ones with union protections or employees with seniority, “which means it would bump somebody else,” Gross said. “And most of these have been determined by department heads.…”

Gonzalez, in the attempt to identify which employees’ position wouldn’t make the cut, ordered a “modified zero-based budget approach.” In other words, each department would start at zero, and work its way up based on position necessity. Take the Police Department for example, Gonzalez suggested. Patrol officers are needed, then dispatchers, then supervisors, etc. As they progressed, department heads had to identify positions that could be cut with “minimal service impact.”

“These numbers are the fifth round of those dialogues,” Gonzalez said.

Possible cuts within the Police and Fire departments illustrate a potential new danger in the precarious cuts to the city budget: morale. Gonzalez clarified there would be no layoffs in those departments, but restructuring would occur; positions that are vacant or soon to become vacant due to disability or retirement might not be filled — a prospect that displeased police union representative Bobby Jenkins.

The Miami Beach Police Department would also lose public safety specialists who are not officers but work in the city’s neighborhood contacts program; a data entry worker, resulting in a 10-day turnaround time for any reports requested from the Police Department; a crime prevention specialist; and a vacant 911 dispatcher position — a department Gonzalez noted is “never fully staffed” — among other positions.

And the brass won’t escape the cuts either. Also up for elimination: the police captain’s position known as a support services captain, which is currently filled, but will be vacant in August due to disability leave.

Sensing the tension in even talking about proposed cuts to the Police Department, Libbin said, “So a couple of lieutenants aren’t moving up to captain so fast —– let’s call a spade a spade.”

Gonzalez quickly said that “no police officers are going to be out the door.”

But “it’s about morale,” Jenkins said. “The guys will do their jobs. They always have.”

The Miami Beach Fire Department will also tighten its belt. That department will also lose a chief position, again currently filled but to be vacated by February — taking both the Fire and Police departments down to the staffing levels of one assistant chief each.

Fire would also lose one preventive maintenance mechanic, and will probably have to revamp its overtime payouts.

The Ocean Rescue facet of the MBFD also had its overtime pay practices scrutinized. Talk of eliminating a lifeguard stand or reducing the hours that beaches are staffed with lifeguards disturbed commissioners, who suggested it could result in “trading a life for $100,000,” as Commissioner Steinberg put it. The city installed three new lifeguard towers last year.

But “one thing we didn’t want to do was just go back to the numbers from a year ago,” Gonzalez said.

That approach was designed to not simply downsize government, but cut what appeared to be unnecessary positions that have existed for years.

Gonzalez clarified that his list — color-coded with yellow, white and green entries —designated how much visible impact the cuts would have for taxpayers. Green was a ‘go,’ white “is the ones we’re doing — you’re not going to feel them,” while yellow represented jobs that “not only affect positions, they affect service [levels],” Gonzalez said.

Some of the “yellow list” cuts included Gonzalez’s own office. The city manager’s office has offered up to $205,000 in cuts, including an office associate (receptionist) position, which would reorganize some human resources functions, and the position of the city manager’s chief of staff, totaling a 9.6 percent budget reduction in that department.

The city’s Communication Department would experience a $60,000 reduction by eliminating a vacant public information officer position. That department would experience a 6.3 percent reduction in its total budget. Commissioners also requested that Gonzalez put that department on a list to look into further cuts, such as the city’s promotional magazine, MB.

The list for further research got longer as the discussion went on, permeated by suggestions and Gonzalez’s predictions on what the commissioners would support right off the bat or foresee a major problem with down the pike. “If it comes down to a magazine or a lifeguard stand…,” Commissioner Cruz started to say.

The city would also eliminate a budget analyst position, which adds to $209,000 in cuts within the Audit Department. That department is responsible for auditing the city’s subsidization of nonprofits, resulting in less frequent audits. “We used to have four auditors, now we’ll have three, so the nonprofits [that the city gives money to] will be visited every four years instead of three,” Gonzalez said.

In finance, one position would be eliminated, which prompted speculation that advances in technology in coming years will actually eliminate still more positions in that department, described by Commissioner Gross as “an opportunity to computerize the city.” (Suggestions of employing “robots” could be heard throughout the room.)

Human resources could lose a recruitment officer position and make other cuts, representing an 8.4 percent reduction in the department’s $1.6 million budget. Labor relations would also lose a specialist to the tune of a 15 percent reduction in that department, and a City Clerk’s Office vacancy represents a $64,000 a year budget cut.

The City Attorney’s Office would reduce its dependency on outside counsel, saving the city $10,000 in fees. That office’s annual budget has been coming in above the $1 million mark. There may be a temporary freeze of one of the city’s first assistant attorney positions.

The Planning Department would shave 2.5 percent off its budget, saving the city $84,000. Gonzalez says the department is looking into hiring student interns to make up for some of the gap.

The Cultural Department would eliminate a receptionist, and would no longer pay for any overtime incurred by Bass Museum employees working special events — such bills will have to be paid by any organizations holding events there. Monies that would normally pay for cultural arts programming in schools would be cut by $65,000, and some parks and after-school programming would be affected.

Cuts in the Parks and Recreation Department would also affect some city-funded activities. “We may have to cap enrollment in a popular park program, cut DJ rentals back,” Gonzalez said, adding that cheerleading squads the city sponsors to travel to competitions would have to raise funds for future trips. The department may also have to reduce advertising for events and classes and consolidate programs held at the city’s Tot Lots, such as Mommy and Me classes. Commissioners urged Gonzalez to look at making some of those classes more cost-effective rather than drastically reducing the budget.

A program that pays for the city to paint over graffiti on private property would be eliminated, saving the city $50,000. (Officials at the meeting could not recall citizens taking advantage of that program at all.)

Commissioner Jerry Libbin was uncomfortable with the proposed elimination of a code enforcement director, which would have claimed a 9 percent reduction in that office’s budget, until more information could be obtained about what responsibilities the position entails. That position ended up on the list for further review.

The city’s answer center hotline would be disbanded, with the calls being forwarded to a message directing citizens to the city’s Web site, www.miamibeachfl.gov, and Miami-Dade County’s 311 hotline.

Public works could lose an environmental specialist, discussion of which entailed a little back and forth throughout the meeting. “Maybe that’s something that isn’t right at this point,” Gonzalez conceded. Also possibly on the chopping block in public works: an American Disabilities Act compliance position and a capital projects coordinator.

Discussion also entailed some “revenue enhancements” bringing in another $1.7 million, including a rise in fire rescue fees (often paid by patients’ insurance), a rise in Miami Beach Golf Course’s residents’ fees, increased film and print permit fees, and increased sidewalk café revenues and right-of-way permit fees, but the suggestions didn’t all fly with commissioners who feared that the hikes could be damaging down the line.

Financial support for homeless programs within the city and the South Beach Chamber of Commerce would see some cuts. The city is also reviewing its monetary contribution to the now financially successful South Beach Wine & Food Festival.

At the end of the day, after the back and forth of commissioners and staff, Gonzalez still needed to cut another $1 million from the budget. And so, with the commissioners’ vetoes marked on his legal pad, Gonzalez was sent back to the drawing board.

Two hearings on the proposed budget are tentatively scheduled for Sept. 17 and 26.

A budget workshop for the public may also be scheduled.

Comments? E-mail angie@miamisunpost.com.