Miami Beach looks to private parking enforcement as COVID-19 leads to more budget cuts
Facing a $13.8 million shortfall in its parking fund, the city of Miami Beach is proposing to eliminate 40 full-time positions in the department and may privatize up to 50% of its parking enforcement functions.
The proposed budget cut, first announced by Miami Beach Chief Financial Officer John Woodruff on July 17, concerned some city commissioners and motivated several parking officers to call into Friday’s budget workshop to plead for the city to save their jobs.
“It really hurts my heart that I have to go through all this,” parking employee Delroy Ireland said at the meeting.
Facing criticism, the city retooled its proposal Friday during a presentation before the Finance and Economic Resiliency Committee. Woodruff said the city does not plan to fire or demote any of the employees to part-time positions, as was initially proposed. Each of the 40 workers, he said, will be offered an equal-paying, full-time position with the city in different departments.
“Workers would not earn less than they earn today,” Woodruff said. “That is our goal to preserve everyone’s salary and continue employment with the city.”
The parking department, which operates as a self-sustaining enterprise fund, has seen its profitability sink in recent years. In 2019, parking enforcement cost the city $5 million but only brought in $3.3 million, meaning it cost the city $1.7 million to enforce its parking rules, Woodruff said. The proposed “rightsizing” would shrink costs to $3.8 million in Fiscal Year 2021. If Ocean Drive remains closed to vehicular traffic, as it has been much of the last three months, the city stands to lose about $1 million more per year in lost parking revenue, Morales said.
“We can’t afford to keep doing what we’re doing,” Woodruff said. “We need to do something different.”
The city will hold two more public meetings, on Sept. 16 and Sept. 29, to adopt the final budget.
If the current plan passes, the parking department will be staffed by part-time city employees and contracted workers beginning in October when the new fiscal year starts, according to the city’s proposed budget. Parking meters will be entirely replaced by smartphone apps. City Manager Jimmy Morales said Friday the new enforcement officers will still abide by city guidelines and won’t be offered incentives to ticket people more frequently.
“I want to make sure that whatever changes we’re making in terms of enforcement are going to be fair to our residents,” Commissioner Mark Samuelian said.
Commissioner Michael Góngora was among the loudest voices on the commission at the July 17 meeting expressing concern over the initial plan to eliminate and demote full-time employees. Most workers will lose their union status with the Communications Workers of America if moved to other jobs, the city said. He proposed that the city defer the cuts for a year to allow the department to study its weaknesses and attempt to become self-sustaining.
“We have to look at it not only with our minds but we have to look at these issues with out hearts as well as doing what’s best for our city,” he said at the time.
Commissioner Ricky Arriola, the committee chair, said the city deserves credit for coming up with a creative solution to avoid layoffs or demotions. Because of the economic impact of COVID-19 closures, the city has dipped into $8 million in budget reserves this fiscal year and plans to use another $8 million in Fiscal Year 2021. The city will continue looking for cuts where it can, Arriola said.
“Parking is one of the first that’s getting the hardest look,” he said at Friday’s meeting. “But this is not the only department that is going to have to go through this painful exercise.”
Former Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez, who has criticized the city’s proposal, organized for the affected parking employees to film a video testimonial and call into Friday’s meeting.
“If we hadn’t raised awareness, they were going to be demoted, then possibly fired,” Rosen Gonzalez told the Miami Herald in a text Saturday. “That was unacceptable.”
This story was originally published July 25, 2020 at 7:22 PM.
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