History: 09-13-2010 @ Miami-Dade County Commissioners Budget Hearing, attending for the first time
Starts at 12:45 on the dial, Commissioner Denis Moss ask for prayers and to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance
The day when the first official budget hearing is taking place. Many important figures and elected officials were in attendance. A rather difficult year, ground rules are set with the public only allowed to speak for two minutes. Listen to the rules of engagement.
Why review history?
The only way to NOT repeat the mistakes of the past is to focus on the lessons learned as we navigate issues and events, but in particular with regard to politics and how to deal with government. We are a government of the people, by the people and for the people but it becomes a rather difficult challenge to learn how the process works.
Top-Down layers:
Click to navigate the above graph: https://www.foreignassistance.gov
As you navigate with your cursor, notice the following amounts under the heading OBLIGATED: Amounts are in Billions
State of Florida
Considerations for the Future
In the United States, aggregate household debt increased by $184 billion in the first quarter of 2024, a 1.1 percent increase from the previous quarter. Since the end of 2019, just before the pandemic recession, debt balances have increased by $3.5 trillion. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, household debt is mostly mortgage balances ($12.44 trillion), followed by auto loans ($1.62 trillion), student loans ($1.60 trillion), credit cards ($1.12 trillion), and other types of debt ($0.92 trillion). For all debt outside of student loans, delinquency has been steadily rising since the fourth quarter of 2021 and credit card delinquencies are now past pre-pandemic levels.[23]?
In Florida, total per capita debt balance has increased to an all-time high of $60,590, just below the national per capita amount of $61,874; in contrast, at the end of 2019, per capita debt balance was $47,440 in Florida and $52,200 nationally.[24] While the vast majority of debt is current, about 4.3 percent (or 2,600 per capita) is late or delinquent.[25]This is all an indicator of ongoing consumer borrowing and, for some, difficulty paying off debt. As debt continues to increase, Florida’s Office of Economic and Demographic Research (EDR) also notes that the state’s personal savings rate continues to be subpar. As EDR postulates: “the savings and credit changes are likely related to the cumulative effects on inflation, which still remain elevated.”[26] These conditions could ultimately affect general sales tax collections, which account for 80 percent of the state’s tax collections and are overwhelmingly paid for by Florida households.[27]
Finally, state leaders’ conversations about the operating budget, trust fund balances, and per capita general revenue spending do not consider the forgone revenue from tax expenditures. “Silent spending,” FPI’s term for the numerous types of tax expenditures in Florida’s tax code, continues to drain billions of dollars in potential state revenue each year. Total tax expenditures will cost Floridians an estimated $25.7 billion in FY 2024-25.[28]. While spending through the state budget takes the form of collecting revenue and appropriating these dollars to be expended, spending through the tax code takes the form of revenue the state forfeits. In either case, the result is the same: public resources are designated, and spent, for a specific purpose.
Miami-Dade County
The Town of Miami Lakes
How does the County work?
Many question Mayor Daniella Levine Cava and have tried to put all blame for County problems on her lap, but:
The way the County works is each commissioner meets with their constituents.
Those that are Republican meet with the Municipality directly
Republicans have cafecito with constituents to then turn around and do nothing that was promised...
The Democrats on the other hand work hard to get the VOTES of their communities and they regularly meet with those they represent.
The difference is that Republican enclaves have wealth so the Commissioners / Elected Officials make plans to TAX us some more while the democrats are on enclaves where poverty may be prevalent and they find a way to get more funds because ALL constituents show up at meetings wearing shirts with slogans that if they had to use their own funds, they would not be able to afford, but the unions and the elected officials make sure they have what they need and it gets passed because ALL commissioners fear the backlash...
First Miami-Dade County Budget Hearing we attended:
Scroll down to find September 13th, 2010
09-13-2010: Waited for hours online observing and learning, entering the Chambers at 5:20 PM, only to get #129. By the time the meeting started, if you multiply 128 people by 2 minutes and the transition, it was very late...
In other words, for a meeting that was scheduled to start at 6 PM... add the initial Pledge of Allegiance, prayer, comments and rules and regulations read into the record, Attorney reads 6.05 Rules of Procedures. Public comments start at 17:00 on the dial... Elected Officials / Important Speakers go first and then, 128 speakers @ 2 minutes each = 256 minutes or 4.26 hours later, which means we finally had an opportunity to speak at approximately 10:30 PM
First to be recognized are the Elected Officials / Important People / the Disabled
Community Council for Dade County is next... the disabled, disadvantaged population, OCD, Opa Locka Commissioner disappointed to hear there are no moneys, Chair of Historical House, American Red Cross Cuban American taxes and insurance are so high she can't live on a fixed income, Youth on Executive Committees Cooperative Extension.
Cut your salaries, everyone agrees the system is broken, we are in a crisis. A teacher asks for funds for students for the Arts: look at the future... Property Appraiser attends to listen to the public, Pedro Garcia @ 01:05:45. CHI... providers of Mental Health, Coronel Hardley Cutler Bay for Community Health of South Florida, Nurses & Doctors for Jackson Memorial Hospital, the Arts, Festivals, Cultural Awareness. Cultural Affairs. Behavioral Health Care. Emergency Rooms CHI, patients that are NOT insured. The Hampton House. Education of Youth to be good members of our society. Haitians ask for help for youth to prevent criminality. Grant programs. Institute for Children's Family Health. Spanish speakers who require translation services for the SNAP program. Advocates on behalf of others who can't speak for themselves asking that more funds be provided and that no more cuts are initiated. Senior Centers / Migrant Communities / Centro Campesino / Volunteer for Seniors Never Alone / Project Success helping students / Miami Dade South Dade County why CHI will no longer be a one stop model? / Paychecks for programs / Historic Hampton House / Community Based Organizations / Abused Women / Mujer provides Mental Health to battered women / Hairstyle works / FARM / Helping Hands... Homeowners that are unemployed and has listened for three hours at people asking for money because they need help, husband is a policeman
领英推荐
09-13-2010 An incredible coincidence
@ 03:22:10 Daniella Levine Cava not yet elected for the Human Services Coalition, her 15th budget hearing and on the eve of her 55th birthday, she was born on 09-14-1955, asks for the roll back rate. 3,000 petitions on the penny wise agenda thanks to a great coalition of groups.
By listening to all the speakers that came before me, I had noticed that almost EVERYONE was there to ask for more. The list of institutions was endless as listed above.
Scroll through the Video Archive and find 09-13-2010 which lasted 8 hours, 24 minutes and 33 seconds. A Public hearing, go to 03:28 on the dial where a gentleman in a brown suit, blue tie, is asking for funds for kids and I am next...
When my turn arrived, I thought... Oh My God, what is the reaction going to be?
Courageously I spoke as clearly as I could, fumbling some of the numbers, I was tired beyond comparison. Here is what I had to say:
@ 03:29:52 Esperanza 'Hope' Reynolds:
Name and Address: The Miami Herald said long time South Florida homeowners get a 2010 tax bill rise even though the value of our homes have plummeted. Those who bought similar size homes during the housing bubble to see their tax bills drop. The reason, something called the recapture rule -did not know yet what that meant- which approved a little known provision now considered a double edged sword all because while assessed values are determined when we buy our homes it is pegged to the sales price of similar homes in similar neighborhoods.
Thus, given the inflated home sales prices of the last decade, our homes are now assessed to match those prices. What we property owners taxed at a higher rate should do is sell our homes for a set price well below the inflated value to force you to base assessments on a new Sales Price.
In 1992, the Save our Homes Constitutional Amendment capped the inflation rate at no more than 3% per year but gave you the right to increase home valuations until we reach market value.
The American Dream is turning into a collective nightmare!
WE HAVE HAD ENOUGH! I said loud and clear!
I am underemployed and I am ready, willing and able to do your jobs for a 1/4 of what you make!
[Notice that behind me sat the now deceased Joseph Adler, American Theatre Director for GableStage, the little theater by the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, he was very displeased to come after me because he was there to seek more funds! We became friends, and I attended a dinner in his honor. He told me he would never forget that night]
[Please Note that as of 2024, Google search: Miami-Dade County, FL Real Estate OverviewThere were 35,901 residential properties sold in the past year 2023 in Miami-Dade County, FL. The median home value in Miami-Dade County, FL is $546,893. There are a total of 809,594 residential properties in Miami-Dade.]
When to my surprise the room went wild, at first I thought something had happened
Dennis Moss got so angry that he interrupted the next speakers to remind the audience they are not supposed to Clap / applaud / telling the audience they are not allowed to provide comments, interrupting more, anyone not observing the rules should be escorted out of the Chambers.
Our neighbor and friend Lina Navarini was there with us:
Alexander Ariano offers a solution, teach Government in Colleges and hire graduates for a 4 year contract at the end of which they return to the private sector completing their civic duty. That will mean that all private industry will be employing those who understand the intricacies of government and how it works adding no further lifetime employment as government employees which is the real cost to taxpayers who are the EMPLOYER!
The press rushed over as we left the chambers.
LESSON LEARNED on 09-13-2010
"The general public was at Miami-Dade County Budget Hearing Chambers to ASK because they have been grouped by the Unions / Special Interests / Corporations / Missionaries / Organizations... but at the INDIVIDUAL LEVEL they all agreed with us!"
We were followed to the Metro-Rail by groups that wanted us to join their particular missions. A young woman asked that we join the 'Tea by the Sea' Coral Gables Republican Party Group and the people we met, the issues we learned, the activism changed our lives in ways that still today overwhelm us.
ABUSED by all... taxed beyond our limit, on a fixed income and older by the day, our only option is to return to work because no one can cope on a fixed income.
On his dying bed, my father encouraged us to get involved to make a difference. We have gained great insight but we find that POLITICS are NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART!
Then-mayor Carlos Alvarez’s 2011 budget included an extremely unpopular tax-rate hike: the maximum rate charged properties in the suburbs went from $974 per $100,000 of taxable value to $1,105, a 13 percent increase. Backlash against the rate increase helped fuel an historic recall of Alvarez, followed by a special election that put Gimenez in office.
The effort to remove Alvarez was led by billionaire car dealer Norman Braman.
"County voters have demonstrated by their ballots that they are tired of unaccountable officials, of being ignored and of being overtaxed in this very difficult recessionary time," Braman said at a news conference.
Alvarez maintained throughout the recall effort that raising taxes was necessary to fill a $444 million gap and avoid cuts to critical social services. He said those affected by the property tax increase had enjoyed an artificially low 3 percent annual cap on tax increases during the real estate boom, and that the last round of contract negotiations had authorized most of the employee raises.
"The defining issue really is the type of government that the citizens of this community are looking for," Braman said. "It's about empowering the people of this community to take it back from the politicians who have been running it, and running it in a way that I think endangers the fiscal future of our community."
67% of likely voters planned to recall Alvarez from office. Only 18% said he should stay.
Braman, a former Philadelphia Eagles owner, gathered twice the 51,000 signatures needed to recall the mayor. County Commissioner Natacha Seijas was also on the recall ballot and removed from office.