The worst budget crisis since 2008 and Miami-Dade couldn’t see this coming? | Opinion

Miami-Dade County is facing the worst budget shortfall since the 2008 Great Recession — nearly $400 million out of the county’s $3.6 billion general fund budget that pays for core services such as public safety and parks.

And who’s to blame?

The county is dealing with what Mayor Daniella Levine Cava described as a “perfect storm.” There’s the cost of converting three county departments — elections, sheriff and tax collector — into independent agencies run by newly-elected constitutional officers. (The county couldn’t have stopped this change, forced by a 2018 statewide referendum.)

There’s less money expected from the state and the Trump administration, no more COVID federal dollars and inflation has made the cost of running government more expensive.

With the mayor now talking about budget cuts and austerity measures such as department mergers and hiring freezes, we wonder: Where was this fiscal conservatism when Miami-Dade was flush with cash, including $1 billion in federal pandemic funding and rising property tax revenues? The responsibility to plan for the end of the financial bonanza was on the mayor and the 13 county commissioners who approved two property tax cuts that cost $42 million in revenue from this year’s budget, the Herald reported.

“We’ve already begun to economize,” Levine Cava told the Herald Editorial Board. “We are focused on greater efficiency, finding savings for residents, improving operations, cutting red tape... Already this year, we’ve asked every department to identify savings in their budgets, both for this year and in next year’s projected budget.”

Why, then, why is Miami-Dade treating the $46 million it has committed in direct funding and services to the host committee of the 2026 FIFA World Cup as though it’s untouchable? If programs that directly impact services for our citizens could be on the chopping block, so should money for the soccer tournament, even if Miami-Dade officials made a financial commitment as one of the Cup’s 16 host cities.

Moving forward, the burden of frugality will fall not only on the mayor and commission but also on the new constitutional officers. Levine Cava said that the budget proposals submitted by some for approval by the county “are significantly outpacing the growth rate that we project and that we think is reasonable.”

Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz, for example, is asking the county $110 million more than last year’s Miami-Dade Police Department budget, according to budget documents from her office. That increase is partly driven by merit salary increases Levine Cava’s administration negotiated in 2023, overtime increases “due to less deputies” and money to hire 54 additional civilian positions — the first significant increase in that workforce “in decades,” according to a Sheriff’s Office document.

Tax Collector Dariel Fernandez hasn’t yet submitted his budget, but his office is in the process of taking over the county’s beleaguered driver-license offices from the state, and he’s promised to hire more staff and reduce wait times. Fernandez also plans to exercise his office’s authority to keep 2% of property-tax money from the county — totaling $107 million — to fund the new services. He said he will refund a significant portion of that money at the end of 2026 but he hasn’t said how much.

To be sure, spending money to reduce the outrageous wait times at DMV offices or hire more people to improve public safety may offer clear public benefits. Likewise, some of the programs Levine Cava created to help people during the pandemic and struggling in Miami-Dade’s housing crisis were necessary.

The same can be said about public transit expenses, responsible for a big chunk of Miami-Dade’s budget woes. The rapid-transit bus system in South Miami-Dade, a much-needed project expected to open this summer, has an annual operating cost of about $12 million, the Herald reported.

After years of being buoyed by pandemic funding and the hot real estate market, Miami-Dade may be finally learning the lesson that we can’t pay for it all — tax cuts, social programs, the World Cup — all at the same time.

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