James L Knight Center

Miami mayor, manager expect to reduce employee furlough proposal

Miami City Manager Johnny Martinez said Thursday he has no plans to fill the chief financial officer slot created by last month’s departure of Larry Spring.

Instead, the city’s budget and finance directors will report directly to the city manager, Martinez said in a wide-ranging interview with The Miami Herald’s editorial board. The move would eliminate one of city’s highest-salaried positions as administrators try to fill a $53 million budget hole, possibly by imposing 22 furlough days on the city’s 4,100 employees next year.

Martinez and Mayor Tomás Regalado focused primarily on budget issues, repeating what they said last week: The budget they proposed was rushed at the request of commissioners, and the two believe they can trim the furlough option through a host of revenue drivers, like leasing space to the company building the Port of Miami tunnel, and raising dockage fees at marinas.

Other ways they plan to cut into the shortfall include paying less to the city’s $225,000 yearly lobbying team, and reforming a policy that allows non-union employees to bank unused sick and vacation time and then cash in those hours when they retire.

If necessary, the mayor and manager said they may balance the budget by squeezing concessions from any of the four unions that haven’t had a contract in place for about a year.

As for the city’s depleted reserve fund, Martinez said the city is considering borrowing money to beef it up to about $80 million, or 10 percent of the city’s overall budget, as mandated by an ordinance that came out of the ashes of the city’s last fiscal crisis in the mid-‘90s. Then, they said, they would find other revenue streams, perhaps created by taking control of some marinas, to pay off the debt.

The other option is for the city commission to change the requirement and give the city more time to bolster reserves, Martinez said.

Despite plans to introduce new revenue streams — including trying to sell downtown’s James L. Knight Center — the mayor said he believes there is still fat to cut.

“Miami does not have a revenue problem,” Regalado said. “It has an expenditure problem.”

Martinez also addressed a hiring freeze put in place two years ago, before he became manager. The city has filled more than 200 positions since. He said he preferred to call it a “hiring watch,” adding that there were positions that had to be filled, including lifeguards, police officers and senior posts in the city manager’s office.

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