‘Difficult decisions are ahead’: Miami-Dade faces worst budget crunch since ’08 crash

After years of flush spending and tax-rate cuts, Miami-Dade County is now facing the steepest budget crunch since the 2008 financial crisis.

A top deputy to Mayor Daniella Levine Cava on Wednesday laid out a looming financial squeeze for Florida’s largest local government. The administration is predicting a nearly $400 million shortfall next year for the county’s $3.6 billion general fund budget that pays for the core services of police, jails, transit and parks and relies on property taxes for the bulk of its revenue.

“We have some very difficult decisions to make,” Carladenise Edwards, the county’s chief administrative officer under Levine Cava, told the County Commission’s Appropriations Committee at an afternoon meeting. “If we don’t pivot, and we go straight into the storm, it could be devastating.”

The administration blames a mix of circumstances and overspending for the $387 million forecasted budget gap, including added expenses tied to a change in the Florida Constitution spinning off three county departments into independent agencies: Elections, Sheriff and Tax Collector. Also in the mix: state mandated sales-tax holidays, a $35 million subsidy for the 2026 World Cup games and cost overruns in the county’s transit department.

Edwards offered no potential fixes for the projected $387 million revenue gap at Wednesday’s meeting. But she did say that Levine Cava, who will unveil the 2026 budget in July, will not propose an increase in tax rates to fix the budget gap.

With more than a month to go before the budget gets released, the administration still has ample time to rework the current numbers and bring down the projected deficit. Asked if layoffs were a possibility in the 2026 budget, a Levine Cava spokesperson said in a statement that the administration is waiting for the final property-tax estimates that come out in June but that “we do know that difficult decisions are ahead.”

Miami-Dade also is expecting less money from Washington under President Donald Trump and likely fewer state dollars as Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state legislature push for tax reductions in the 2026 Florida budget.

“I know this is going to be a difficult year,” County Commissioner Juan Carlos Bermudez said at Thursday’s meeting of Miami-Dade’s Government Efficiency and Transparency Committee. “There’s probably less money coming from Washington and Tallahassee.”

At the Appropriations committee meeting, David Clodfelter, the county’s budget director, said the last time Miami-Dade faced this kind of shortfall was in the years surrounding the financial crisis in 2008 that saw banks close and a recession begin.

Property values surged after Levine Cava took office in 2020 in the middle of the COVID pandemic, creating more tax revenue at a time when the county also received more than $1 billion in federal pandemic relief. The county was flush enough in Levine Cava’s first term that she was able to secure two 1% cuts in the countywide property-tax rate for property owners. But spending increased during that time period, too.

Labor contracts negotiated during Levine Cava’s first term included pay raises for unions that added about $150 million to the budget this year. The two tax-rate cuts, approved by county commissioners in 2022 and 2023, removed about $42 million in revenue from this year’s budget, according to a Miami Herald calculation.

Levine Cava has already taken some austerity measures, including imposing a hiring freeze earlier this year and eliminating some vacant positions — including the $175,000-a-year position of chief heat officer she’d created to devise county responses to extreme heat, like promoting the availability of air-conditioned public buildings for people to get out of the sun.

Edwards presented a chart with the administration’s breakdown of the $387 million deficit for the 2026 budget year, which begins Oct. 1. Causes include:

Transit busting its budget: The administration predicts a $53 million gap between transit expenses and the revenue available to pay for Metrorail, Metromover and the bus system. A new rapid-transit bus system in South Miami-Dade is expected to open this summer with a yearly operating cost of about $12 million. Earlier this month, the Levine Cava administration won commission approval for an additional $27 million for the Department of Transportation and Public Works budget to shorten Metrorail waits and to fund expenses for the Better Bus route redesign that was launched in late 2023.

Unsustainable spending: Edwards said about $90 million of the shortfall comes from spending decisions. That includes $23 million in recurring spending on nonprofit grants and other funding giveaways by Miami-Dade. About $65 million was linked to spending increases that Levine Cava recommended and commissioners approved: $30 million in extra funding for the Sheriff’s Office this year and $35 million in subsidies for the 2026 World Cup games.

DMV fixes and more: There’s a sharp increase in the budget for the county’s Tax Collector’s Office, which is in the process of taking over Florida’s overwhelmed DMV offices across Miami-Dade. State rules made the Tax Collector’s Office an independent agency this year, with the requirement that it take over driver’s-license functions that for decades have been a state responsibility and a state expense. Dariel Fernandez, Miami-Dade newly elected tax collector, is using his office’s authority to retain an estimated $107 million in property taxes from the county’s budget next year to fund the new services. Fernandez has also said he expected to refund a portion of that money at the end of 2026 but has not said how much.

Levine Cava is holding three town halls on the budget this month:

• Friday, May 16, at 6 p.m., at the Main Library, 101 W. Flagler St., Miami
• Saturday, May 17, 12:30 p.m., at the North Dade Regional Library, 2455 NW 183rd St., Miami Gardens
• Monday, May 19, 6 p.m., at the South Dade Regional Library, 10750 SW 211th St., Cutler Bay

This story was originally published May 15, 2025 at 12:47 PM.