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City Scours Expenses For Savings

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By GEORGE WILKENS

The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 9, 2008

PLANT CITY - PLANT CITY - Soaring costs and plunging revenues have created "the perfect storm" of a budget year, prompting city leaders to scrutinize expenses large and small and consider fees for emergency response to traffic accidents.

At the initial budget workshop June 24, Plant City commissioners pondered $1.9 million in proposed cuts for the budget year starting Oct. 1, some as basic as laundering the city hall welcome mat less frequently and shutting off outdoor lights late at night.

"This budget year is the perfect storm," with the impacts of Florida's Amendment 1 forcing sharp cutbacks, City Manager David Sollenberger said at the start of the two-hour workshop. "We're looking at big things, we're looking at small things," he said.

Swapping the "city hall throw rug" twice monthly instead of weekly, will save $4,680 a year, Sollenberger said.

Turning off city hall's exterior accent lights at 10 p.m. will cut $2,076 in annual electricity costs, projected to increase 10 percent early next year.

Removing from municipal buildings the six leased payphones - including one in city hall used only 12 times in a recent month - will save $6,200 a year.

More sizeable cuts, however, will be possible by eliminating a $488,000 storm water subsidy, unnecessary in the wake of the recent increase in storm water fees to recoup the full cost of providing the services.

Additionally, a $386,700 reduction will be achieved because property insurance premiums were overstated last year, which came to light only after the current budget was adopted, Sollenberger said.

Other big-ticket items include the previously announced annual savings of $182,500 by terminating city bus service on June 27.

The proposed budget shows a $123,450 cut for Bruton Memorial Library, reflecting the sum slashed by the Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library System.

An additional proposal is to reduce the city's annual contribution to the Greater Plant City Chamber of Commerce by $25,000. The chamber, which serves as the economic-development arm of the city, dealing with businesses seeking to locate here has, in past years, received $100,000, Sollenberger said.

The proposed budget also eliminates $64,410 for annual upkeep of the 1914 Plant City High School Community Center, 605 N. Collins St. Maintenance of the building will fall upon the East Hillsborough Historical Society, which manages the building.

Additional budget proposals include implementing user fees many cities rely upon to offset the cost of emergency response to traffic accidents. "They're controversial. People don't like some of them," conceded Sollenberger.

If adopted, the emergency response fees traditionally paid by auto insurance companies would not be levied upon Plant City residents, Sollenberger said.

"Motor vehicle crash fees" levied by police and fire rescue departments elsewhere indicate Plant City could gross $300,000 annually from the charges.

Based upon Winter Park's fee, for example, Plant City Fire Rescue would have billed for more than $181,000 during 2007. Winter Park's fees range from $435 for a crash without injuries to $1,800 when a hydraulic tool is used to extricate a victim.

The crash fee Ocala police adopted in March, for example, would generate $100,000 to $150,000 annually for Plant City, according to Cost Recovery Corp., the Dayton, Ohio firm that does the billing for Ocala.

The proposed elimination of two of the city's three fire inspectors to save $137,200 annually, is one "I don't really feel good about," Sollenberger conceded.

"You have gone down to the bare bone minimum," Commissioner Mary Yvette Thomas Mathis told Sollenberger, adding she realizes deep cuts are necessary. She cautioned, however, against cutting too deeply into public safety, especially eliminating fire inspectors. "That one truly concerns me," she said.

Inspectors' salaries could be offset by implementing fees for annual fire inspections of commercial buildings, generating $110,000 yearly, Fire Chief George Shiley has suggested.

"The commission seemed to be agreeable to doing the fees and retaining the fire inspectors," Sollenberger later said.

The city awaits the Hillsborough County property appraiser's certification of the taxable value of property within the city, and revenue projections from the state. Preliminary projections, however, indicate revenues for city's general fund budget will be down 5.2 percent, to about $25.6 million.

Annual salary increases for city workers are yet to be addressed. "We will know what we can do" by the 4 p.m. July 14 budget workshop, Sollenberger said. "I think it's a morale problem" for employees to go without annual raises, and the city will "get in a hole it's hard to dig out of."

Proposed reductions impacting the Recreation and Parks Department include cutting or reducing programs to save $66,500. Other proposals eliminate flowering annuals, reduce mulching and irrigation and implement a menu of user fees.

Those proposals will be discussed at the next workshop, to include input from recreation director Jack Holland.

Other money-saving proposals include:

•Saving $10,000 by reducing the number of cellular telephones used by employees.

•Selling or leasing the former Young Street YMCA.

•Requiring annexation applicants pay for required legal advertising, an estimated $12,000 savings.

•Charging the Community Redevelopment Agency $60,000 for city staff support.

•Eliminating the $9,600 annual donation to the Tampa Educational Cable Consortium, nonprofit operator of The Education Channel.

•Reducing one street department employee to half-time, a $15,000 savings.

Reporter George Wilkens can be reached at (813) 865-4433 or gwilkens@tampatrib.com.

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