Jim Scholl, mayor of Monroe County and County Commissioner, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s been going on in the county.
It’s always important to keep a watchful eye out for storms.
Scholl said, “This has been somewhat of an unusual year in that the first half of the season, the storms that were developed in the Atlantic have all turned way north before they ever got very far west this year. Right now, though there’s three, well, one for sure, storm out there and two potentials. Gabrielle is out there. I think it’s a category one or two storm, but it’s headed off to the northeast and across the Atlantic, so it certainly isn’t going to impact us. But the two storms behind Gabrielle are out there and have a high percentage of chance that they could develop into at least a tropical storm and it looks like it, will also veer north, following this year’s paths that have already occurred. And then 94L behind that is a little further south, and maybe we’ll make it a little farther west, but still too early to tell, although the preliminary models would seem to indicate that they may also turn north and not necessarily impact the Florida Keys. So we keep our fingers crossed. But the National Weather Service here and, of course, the hurricane center up in Miami, and our own emergency operations center up there, with Corey Schwisow keeping an eye on everything. So we are well informed, and we’ve got a great team making sure that if something develops that would be forecast to come our way, we can get prepared and be ready to handle it.”
The county budget was recently passed at $43.6 million less in spending than last year.
Scholl said, “I think Monroe County, certainly for the last several years that I’ve been on the board, has exhibited great fiscal responsibility, trying to make sure that that we stick to our fundamental reason for having a county government, which is that level of government does things that the individuals can’t do for themselves, obviously, health, safety, welfare things, but the law enforcement piece, the emergency medical team piece, fire department, very, very important functions. Of course, in our linear county, with 120 miles, we have multiple resources. It’s not like one co located entity, and so we’ve got fire stations up and down the Keys with the EMS services there and the other piece of EMS that we just funded was the new Trauma Star helicopters. Our old helicopters were pretty much out of their lifetime for flight hours and needed to be replaced. So that was funded through grants and other things, and also some loans, but a critical element of our ability to support emergency management and when necessary, fly critical injuries or critical medical conditions up to Miami, and that is truly a lifesaver function of what the county provides.”
There were some tough decisions made on the budget.
Scholl said, “We have a pretty good idea, based on the governor’s executive order and then also, I know back in June, I think it was actually earlier than that, but at the Florida Association of Counties meeting, they briefed us on the DOGE process and what the expectations were, and really it is to focus on providing funding for core functions and eliminating some of the things that aren’t the primary responsibility of government. The Human Services Advisory Board, we had over $2 million that we were funding, augmenting some not only local nonprofit organizations, but non government organizations and that was one of the focus elements in the in the governor’s order was to look at reducing and eliminating funding for the those functions that are that are not primary government functions, so we took that seriously and of course, it’s always emotional when you have these nonprofits and non government organizations that do support different needs up and down the Keys, but they have other funding sources they can obviously go to, and it’s hard. I understand that, but most of these organizations have grant writer access and things like that that can go to foundations and things that do those types of funds. So I think that still, most of them will be leaner but healthier as the year goes on. We did make a commitment to look at the budget at a mid year review to see if we could restore some of that funding, perhaps, but there was still at the time when we were building the budget and were worried about passing the budget and establishing millage, we were still, obviously at the beginning of hurricane season, and now we’re past the midpoint, although it seems to be getting more active out there, but we were fortunate in the first half of this season, and now we’ll see what happens between now and the end of November, but that’s a concern to be able to make sure we have the funding resources to initiate recovery and this year, there were also concerns about what the FEMA role was going to be in recovery efforts. There were some pretty large proposals made to reduce the funding that they would provide to local governments to reimburse for recovery, so that added a lot of concern. I think our staff did a fantastic job working with all those issues and doing personnel reductions, but trying to make sure that we have a very lean but well staffed county government to do the things that we need to do to provide the services necessary to the county.”
The state continues to discuss the possibility of cutting property taxes.
Scholl said, “I think more in other areas of the state than here, but talking about reducing some of those, like fire stations and things like that, but that’s really not practical for Monroe County, seeing how we have one road and it’s 120 miles. Our response times depend on our fire stations being where they are, and we have them spaced out reasonably well to make sure that we can respond in an appropriate manner if there is a fire. That’s just an essential function that needs to be supported. In larger municipalities, where you’ve got maybe multiple fire stations, they might be able to consolidate, but I don’t think that’s at all appropriate for us and the discussions they had yesterday with the board that was in panel to look at property tax reform, quite a few interesting discussions, but one of the longest ones, and interesting one was the Florida Education Finance program, which was enacted back In 1973 to try to make sure that there was equal funding across all of the school districts in the state, because obviously there’s small, financially challenged counties that don’t generate that much from property taxes. The state decided they wanted to have every student, all the full time equivalent numbers of students, have the same revenue going to those districts for the number of students they had. So they have a very complex formula that they use, the state sales tax, funds that they get, and other revenues to distribute to the school districts. Then there’s a formula for how the school districts can then use property taxes to get up to what the equivalent fundings are. So very complex, but making sure that every public school student would have the appropriate funding for them to get a good education.”
Fantasy Fest is coming up.
Scholl said, “It lasts basically 10 days. It starts October 17 this year. Of course, the Goombay Festival down in Bahama Village will be that weekend, and then the Fantasy Fest will build up during the next week to the parade on Saturday, the 25th. That Friday night will be the locals march. That’s always a big event down here, but events every day, and of course, that schedule is available online for those who live here that want to participate, or anybody else, the visitors that come down here and enjoy that whole festival week.”
The commissioners recently unanimously voted to not move forward with widening the lanes on US 1.
Scholl said, “We get really good input, nonstop. Every day we’re talking to the constituents and business owners and everything, and trying to make sure, I say it’s always a balance of the economy, the environment and quality of life. Those three things are very, very important as government entities down here to make sure that our decisions are not going to upset that three legged stool. So all those are my focus when I’m looking at proposals. Of course, public safety is a big element of all of that, too, as a quality of life issue for me, especially hurricane evacuation, if that becomes necessary, we need to make sure we can support that as best we can, and that was part of the impetus for looking at removing the restriction on four lane roads, not saying that we were going to demand that FDOT make it all four lane, but there are certainly areas where it would help efficiently improve traffic flow on a daily basis and support evacuation. I know FDOT has already looked at the bigger bridges for replacement. We’ve had a briefing on the Seven Mile Bridge, and we had a briefing on the Long Key Bridge. And Long Key Bridge has gone from a replacement to a significant repair job that they’re going to do on Long Key Bridge here in this next year, but all the bridges like that, for me personally, I think they should be four lane bridges, because if you have a bad mishap on a bridge that totally blocks the road, a mishap on the normal road, US 1, typically there’s room to get around it, but the two lane bridges, don’t allow that. And we had back in 2005 those of us that were here, there was a significant mishap on the Seven Mile Bridge where a gasoline tanker truck got in an accident with an SUV and caught fire, and that was very bad. Fortunately, the fire was extinguished before there was major damage to the bridge, but that was certainly a possibility, and in that event, then nobody’s leaving the Lower Keys. So those are just concerns that need to be considered when we’re making decisions.”