Miami-Dade budget cuts lead to fight over who pays for rescue helicopters

A spending fight over Miami-Dade County’s rescue helicopters has drawn a former mayor into a budget battle with the current mayor.

Rep. Carlos Gimenez, who is now a Republican member of Congress after a nine-year run as county mayor, joined leaders of the fire union on Thursday to warn that Miami-Dade residents will wait longer for ambulance arrivals if his Democratic successor ends a longtime practice of using a countywide property tax to pay for $28 million in helicopter expenses and instead moves them to the Fire Rescue budget.

“They need more money, more units, more firefighters,” Gimenez said at a press conference at the Local 1403 union headquarters in Doral.

As Gimenez spoke, Mayor Daniella Levine Cava’s communications team posted a video of the mayor responding to attacks on her Fire Rescue budget proposal, calling them unfounded and saying they ignore the spending increases for the agency that were granted under her tenure.

“Our firefighters are heroes,” Levine Cava said in the video, touting budget increases and pay hikes for firefighters during her five years in office. She said the question of which budget pays for the helicopters each year won’t make a difference for safety: “The services remain unchanged, and the public will not be impacted.”

At issue is the county’s $28 million budget for the four Fire Rescue helicopters that mostly land at trauma scenes and fly injured people to Jackson Memorial and other hospitals across Miami-Dade.

Facing a budget squeeze for 2026, Levine Cava wants to stop using a countywide property tax to fund the helicopters and instead pay for them entirely with the special property tax dedicated to funding the Fire Rescue department.

While she says the tax generates enough revenue to keep the Fire Rescue department growing while still absorbing the helicopter spending, critics warn that the change would sap funding needed to hire personnel and purchase more ambulances and fire trucks to reduce wait times during emergencies.

“This budget is dangerously unfair to the communities we serve,” union president William McAllister said at the press conference. “Lives hang in the balance. When seconds count, sometimes we’re minutes away.”

The dispute began last fall when Levine Cava won County Commission approval to have the Fire Rescue budget fund a portion of the helicopter costs, for rescues within the areas of Miami-Dade that pays the Fire Rescue tax. That covers most of Miami-Dade, with only property owners in Coral Gables, Hialeah, Key Biscayne, Miami and Miami Beach exempt from the tax because those communities fund their own fire departments.

Following the change made last fall, the Fire Rescue tax will cover about $21 million of the $28 million helicopter budget for the current budget year, with the remainder paid by Miami-Dade’s countywide property tax, according to an internal budget document shared with the Miami Herald.

Under the Levine Cava budget proposal, which faces its first commission vote on Sept. 4, the remaining $7 million would shift over to the Fire Rescue tax, too. That expense covers both helicopter landings in cities with their own fire departments and other costs related to the helicopters, including loan payments.

Levine Cava contends the helicopter budget has always belonged within the Fire Rescue department, which provides the pilots and maintains the choppers. Her administration argues that having Fire Rescue absorb the helicopter expenses won’t impact service, pointing to spending increases under Levine Cava that have brought new fire trucks, ambulances and rescue squads to the department.

Levine Cava’s 2026 budget proposal shows flat staffing for Fire Rescue, which has 3,001 employees. That’s up 10% from the staffing levels Levine Cava inherited from Gimenez in late 2020.

Fire Rescue Chief Ray Jadallah said response times in the outskirts of the county are a challenge but that it’s mostly runaway land prices and backlogs in fire truck production that are delaying Miami-Dade’s plans to build more suburban fire stations.

“Any restrictions we have are not funding related,” said James Reyes, chief of public safety under Levine Cava.

Gimenez, who rose from paramedic to fire chief in the city of Miami before entering politics, called on the mayor to reverse course on the helicopter plan. He also called on the 13 county commissioners to overrule Levine Cava on the helicopter funding source when they take budget votes after public hearings on Sept. 4 and Sept. 18.

Three Republican commissioners joined the former mayor at the press conference: René Garcia, Roberto Gonzalez and Natalie Milian Orbis.

Levine Cava’s budget proposal “means we’ll have less money to improve our fire service in this community,” Garcia said. “This is why I am here.”

This story was originally published August 28, 2025 at 6:40 PM.