Math Battle

To start off, the WayneWho staff would like let those who lost their jobs with the county last week know that our thoughts are with you. Our thoughts are also with the many others who were recently downsized, restructured, or let go because of the bad economy. And finally those in the small to medium business community who have recently closed their doors and ended what at one time was their life long dream, we are thinking of you as well. History will tell the stories of the 'difficult' economic times we faced during these years, but they will never do justice to how hard it has really been on so many. No story writer is that good.

Today at the Osceola County Commission Meeting that will be held conveniently at 1:30 in the afternoon, we will find out if Osceola County Government will continue to write the story of what happens when you add one bad policy on top of another. They have a chance to show the community that they can use their collective brainpower to do something more than lightly toast some bread. While the WayneWho staff does not fault this sitting commission, except for Commissioner Smith who has been incompetently sitting on Mt. High for far too long, we do blame their reactionary style of mismanagement for the current situation. Lay-offs, terminations, and downsizing were always going to happen, but the situation could have been handled much better. Past commissions allowed the government to continue to grow without envisioning a day when revenues would drop and what would be done when that day arrived. Now we see the reverse reaction of reducing government to meet revenues without a plan on how the basic services government has been charged with are going to be accomplished. While some from Mt. High are quick to point about how they are in command of the situation, we would point to the incompetence of allowing WFTV to broadcast the crying faces of employees in the process of being terminated. On what could be considered a pretty bad day for those employees getting the "its the taxpayers fault we're letting you go" speech, our county does not have the tact to keep the individuals' emotional reactions from being aired on local TV? Actions like these do not fill us with much confidence in today's Fire Fee discussion.

The rest of the story...

A Fire Advisory Board has been meeting for some time, at the direction of the county commission, trying to find a way to fund a $23.9 million budget that was approved by the county commission. From what we have been able to put together, the budget was set by staff, approved by the commission, and then given to an Advisory Board to figure out how to pay for it. The idea was to adjust the county's Fire Fees to pay for the services. The board worked with a professional consultant to develop the best possible way to accurately and fairly spread the large increase around to help keep the cost to individual residents as low as possible. Through the analyzing of fire call and response data, the board developed a billing calculation that is going to more fairly charge those entities that generate calls for service. It was easily shown that residential calls only make up about 47% of the calls for services leaving commercial and industrial calls making up the rest. Of course the development community does not want to pay increased fees, so they argued that the math was wrong. Several in the development community went back through the numbers with the Advisory Board and the consultant only to find out the the math was correct. 1+1 still equaled 2 and non-residential fire fee assessment rates needed to be raised considerably to generate the $23.9 million dollar budget that the County Commission had established to maintain the current level of service.

It's a simple story, but one that may not have a simple ending.

The Commission has already sent this issue back to the advisory board once because they were not happy with the outcome. They just cannot believe that 1+1 could equal 2. Today they will hear the issue for the second time and we doubt they will be more more happy because the numbers are still showing that the development and large commercial structure community are going to end up paying double the fees they have currently been paying. Changing the math will mean that fire services will be cut, putting the community at risk. It is one thing to cut library staff, but it is a whole other issue to cut the capability of public safety.

While the WayneWho staff does believe that there should be a serious debate on this issue today, because the increased fees on industrial and large commercial properties will directly affect economic development efforts, in the end the Fire Assessment Fee needs to be approved as recommended. The data accurately supports the adjustments in collections and the budget has already been approved. Trying to make 1+1=3 doesn't make much sense.