Time to look at Deerfield budget, says former mayor
Dear Editor:
The time is now to start taking a look at what is to be a rather tight budget. The former manager transferred $9 million from the undesignated reserve to balance the last one. That option is not open this year. There are only tough choices to be made.
First and foremost is increasing revenues and eliminating expenditures. The city could increase revenue in water and sewer bills by $455,000 by making every multi-family unit pay the same base rate for water and sewer usage. Garbage rates could be reduced by $2.2 million with elimination of the recycling division and a contract for Waste Management in its place. Lower water and sewer and garbage bills might make residents more amenable to increasing the ad valorem, which is tax deductible while those other bills are not.
Now is the time to lease the pier to private enterprise and eliminate $315,000 from the budget. There has to be an increase in beach parking stickers or elimination of the program. Last year, 1,800 residents bought stickers and the city earned $90,000, but it lost a bundle of money on those meters that were taken out of usage. We had 1,800 city residents being subsidized by the other 65,000. The commission has to look at closing the defined pension plan for new hires in the Fire Department. Their pensions are killing us. And there should be no 15 percent incentive pay for any member of that department who never goes out on a call.
If the (Deferred Retirement Option Plan) DROP plan were dropped, those top-heavy employees of the department would retire, making room for advancement of the lower echelon, and the city would save their high-end salaries.
Time also to eliminate a number of managerial positions. Get an actuarial study to determine what the cost would be and how much would be saved in salaries if the city allowed employees with 30 or 25 years of service to retire without penalty — regardless of age. Employees from the recycling division could fill those positions.
Jean M. Robb
Deerfield Beach
Recycling woes
Dear Editor:
This morning, as I set out my trash for pick-up, I was met on the street by a worker from Deerfield Recycling and informed that the vast majority of the plastic I had in the recycling bin was not acceptable. Only bottles with necks would be picked up. All of the other plastic, which I made sure had the recycling triangle on them, had to be taken to the city recycling center or put in the trash can. How inconvenient and backward is that? I was also told that unless the boxes that I had were broken down flat, they might be rejected also. I broke down the boxes, but had to throw the plastic in the trash. No time to look for and go to a center downtown somewhere!
I have been proud of the fact I recycled everything I could to save the landfill space and do a little for the planet. Unless recycling is made convenient and easy, we will never get people to make the effort!
