Beach Scheduled To Balance Budget Thursday 

By Jason Jeffers
Staff Writer 

PROOFED 

This evening at 4 p.m., the Miami Beach City Commission will meet for the second reading and final public hearing of the city budget for fiscal year 2002/2003.

The meeting follows a complicated process through which the city administration has struggled to bring the $160 million operational budget into balance. The final step of locating $120,000 was reached last Thursday at a meeting of the Finance and Citywide Projects Committee.

According to City Manager Jorge Gonzalez, $74,000 of the remaining sum would be obtained through delaying the Miami Beach Fire Department’s scheduled compliance with a National Fire Protection Association code requiring a minimum of four sworn firefighters to be assigned to each fire truck.

The remaining $46,000 will be raised through a variety of methods, including a delay in filling certain vacancies, Gonzalez said.

The fire department was originally scheduled to start observing the code on November 1^st said Fire Chief Floyd Jordan, but will defer compliance three months until February 1^st. 

The delay will not have any effect on public safety, Jordan assured. 

The new steps towards balancing the budget were reluctantly supported by members of the firefighter’s union, who objected to the original means of raising the remaining $120,000. 

That plan would have reassigned five sworn firefighters currently serving as fire inspectors to truck duty, in order to fill the positions with state certified civilian inspectors. 

Although the measure would have saved the city money, several members of the fire department criticized it, saying it would have a negative impact on public safety. 

The latest measure was met with “mixed feelings,” said union president Jack Richardson, who noted that while the three-month delay was preferable to the hiring of trained civilian inspectors, it was still a minor setback as far as allowing the fire department to provide optimum service. 

The possibility of replacing sworn inspectors isn’t off the table yet however, as Jordan stated that the issue will be raised again during union negotiations with the city next year. 

“It is still an effective way to reduce costs with no impact on public safety whatsoever,” said Jordan. “This is a practice that has been successful throughout South Florida for over 30 years.” 

One option that was discussed as a possible alternative to replacing the sworn officers with trained civilians was the possibility of raising sidewalk café taxes. While that measure was not implemented, it will be considered in the future by the finance committee, Gonzalez said.