Michelle Lincoln, Monroe County Commissioner and Mayor Pro Tem, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s been going on in the county.
The county has been discussing the budget and it looks like there will be some cuts.
Lincoln said, “It’s never fun to be the one to cut a budget. It’s never fun to be the one that looks at the fiscal responsibility that we have and say no to our favorite not for profits, and to say no to our staff. They are family and yet, just like we do in our own homes, when times are tough, you have to make tough decisions, and that’s pretty much where we were put this year from like a perfect storm of federal government doing cuts with FEMA and federal government slashing programs, and then our state governor wanting us to be more efficient with the services that we provide on a county and local level, and the rumblings we heard last year with property tax cuts, and that hasn’t gone away. In fact, just this week, the governor appointed his new Chief Financial Officer, who has already come out very strongly stating he is going to dive into local and county budgets and determine where spending can be decreased. I say all of that, and we remain strong with fighting for Home Rule, yet we don’t want to jeopardize the funds we do get from the state. We do get over $20 million in our Florida Forever. We, this year, received, I think, about $45 million in funds. So we have to be very careful. It’s like walking a tight rope on how we make sure we’re trying to meet the needs of our community, yet are following these new guidelines that are being implemented upon us as we speak. Daily, we’re getting new letters from the governor’s office requesting more information on how we’re spending our money and giving us indication that they do not want us to spend any money on non governmental organizations, and unfortunately, that’s what all of our HSAB funds fall under. So this summer, we’ve asked our staff to look a little deeper into what we do fund in those not for profit grants, and to figure out if there’s any redundancy, if there’s any other agency in our county that’s providing those services. So we do have our work cut out for us. We did set our millage rate. It cannot go above it, but it can decrease. My goal this year was to have a flat budget, a flat millage rate, not increase it, not decrease it, but keep it what it was last year. We had to bump it up to meet another $2 million that we weren’t able to cut. Over the summer, we’re going to look at some more spending that we’re doing and seeing if we can’t make another couple million in cuts.”
Conch Connect will also be discontinued.
Lincoln said, “This was a pilot project, and I always love to say that, because this was a study, and our goal for this was to remove multiple cars off the highway and help provide a first mile last mile service for our industry workers that live in Stock Island and work in Key West and the vision and the goal was for Conch Connect to pick up multiple workers in the neighborhood and get them to work, and then also to provide for them that ability after work to go to the grocery store and not have to carry all of their groceries on the bus. That was the goal of this and the user ship has exceeded what we thought. But when we were given the report from Richard Clark on the specifics of who was using the Conch Connect, it was one person going from their residence to work, so it never achieved that goal of getting cars off the highway. It was still one car for one car. It maybe helped alleviate parking, which is another whole issue, but we set out our original intent on this was for it to pick up more than one person, like carpooling and take multiple people from the apartment complex where they live to work, and that would have achieved the goal, and it didn’t do that. We saw that immediately in year one. It was for a two year study. However, the county was responsible for a $450,000 copay for the study, so that immediately can save us almost a half a million dollars by not having this study continue this year, because we saw what the results were. Add to that, one of the stipulations that the governor put on us with the new efficiency in government DOGE was not to have county taxpayers’ money pay for a service that competes with the private market. When you look at Uber and Lyft and taxi cabs, that’s the private market, and we were being perceived as competing with that private market and also with it, not achieving what we wanted. So we’re stopping it now. In our last county commission meeting, I stated, I want us not to scrap it forever, but to come up with a new way of doing it, where it met the goal of picking up multiple people in their neighborhoods and getting them to the bus location, the bus stop, and likewise, getting them from where the bus lets them off, and getting them to where they work. So we’re having to step back from that and reassess it. We are going to cease it August 15, because we have the funds budgeted until that date, and that gives all those riders who were using this service ample time to reassess and figure out what to do. Maybe it will involve businesses saying to their employees, hey, you all enjoyed this. Why don’t you all figure out a carpool system or a way to use the Uber or use Lyft to pick up multiple employees and get them to work or figure something else out. None of this is fun. I know at the budget meeting, I made a comment that apparently has upset and offended some of the people who sit on the human service advisory board. Those are all appointed positions that they spend days and days going through all of the grants and really working extremely hard to decide what grants are going to be approved and at what funding source, what amount. I made a comment that was misinterpreted, or maybe it came out of my mouth incorrectly, and I in no way, shape or form, meant to indicate that they played favoritism or that they were not taking their job seriously, because that is not what I meant. So I need to apologize to Mary Stella, who is the chair of the human service advisory board, and to that committee there, I did not mean to imply that that they were not taking their job seriously, because I know that they do.”
The first public hearing of the adoption of the tentative budget and millage rate will be Wednesday, September 3, at 5:05 pm at the Harvey Government Center in Key West, and the final public hearing will be held Wednesday, September 10, at 5:05 pm, at the Murray Nelson Government Center in Key Largo.
Lincoln said, “So stay tuned and stay engaged.”
The county attorney also received two prestigious awards.
Lincoln said, “We’re absolutely so fortunate to have Bob and his staff, and the work that he has done for our county, for the state, it has been recognized as it should, and I’m just so proud of him and his team, for this acknowledgement and kudos to him.”