Gainesville City Commission keeps Fire Assessment Fee at current rate, hears proposals to close Ironwood and cut GPD officers and body-worn cameras

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At a Special Meeting on May 28, the Gainesville City Commission heard presentations about proposed budget cuts for fire, police, parks, and public works and voted to hold the Fire Assessment Fee at its current level.

Because there is uncertainty about the amount of transfer payments (if any) from Gainesville Regional Utilities for FY25, the departments were asked to provide budgets to respond to both cases. The summaries below are for the case in which the transfer is eliminated. The full presentation can be seen here. 

This was the second in a series of budget meetings. The previous meeting, which discussed the budgets for the Charter offices, is described here.

Gainesville Fire Rescue

Gainesville Fire Rescue (GFR) proposed a $1.6 million decrease in salaries and benefits from the General Fund (including a reduction of 4 FTEs, including one vacant Community Resource Paramedicine Program Coordinator position, two filled CRP Responder positions, and one Captain who will be reassigned to a different position) and a $58k decrease in operating expenses, for an overall decrease of about $1.7 million, or 6% less than the FY24 adopted budget. 

Other proposed cuts include eliminating Emergency Management operations (staff will be reassigned to other roles) and reducing overtime funding.

Gainesville Fire Rescue also gets funding from the Fleet Management Services Fund and the Opioid Settlement Fund. 

GFR Chief Joseph Dixon said the Community Resource Paramedicine reductions equate to a reduction of one functional unit; he added that statutorily, the County is responsible for emergency management, and the department will still have the skill set to do “the same thing, we just basically wouldn’t have a full-time Emergency Manager… It’s great to have your own emergency management team, but if I had to make a decision based upon losing other positions or readjusting the way that we’re doing it, that was a decision that was made.”

Proposed cuts are a response to the possible elimination of the transfer from GRU to General Government

Mayor Harvey Ward said, “So to be clear, on this entire presentation, when we talk about program and service impacts,… if the utility chooses to transfer $15.3 million, which is what they are in the process of transferring this current budget year, which is less than half of what they transferred the previous year, then those programs and service impacts are not addressed… [If they transfer $15.3 million], then those positions don’t go away.”

City Manager Cynthia Curry: the proposed cuts are not recommendations at this point

City Manager Cynthia Curry said that the information presented by the departments does not represent the recommendations of her office and that she was looking for comments from Commissioners that she could take into account when she makes her recommendations.

Commissioner Bryan Eastman asked how much was cut from the FY24 budget as a result of the City Commission’s decision to reduce the transfer to $15.3 million from the $34.3 million transfer paid in FY22. Curry responded that it was “19, almost 20 million” and 125.5 FTEs, 30 of which were filled. However, the final approved budget actually increased over $2 million from the previous year’s approved budget. 

Eastman responded that “last year was a pretty hard series of budget cuts in which we cut more than this – we cut $19 million but there were also some vacancies… We trimmed some fat that needed to come off of the top of our General Government, but also a lot of good folks lost their positions and we eliminated some very good programs. And so now we’re here talking about even deeper cuts… So I just wanted to give that context of why we’re now talking about things that I think are much closer to core services.”

Gainesville Police Department

Gainesville Police Department (GPD) proposed a $2 million decrease in salaries and benefits from the General Fund (including a reduction of 21 vacant positions, 20 of which are sworn officers) and a $257k decrease in operating expenses, for an overall decrease of $2.2 million, or 5.3% less than the FY24 adopted budget. 

The proposed cuts include a reduction in overtime funding, the elimination of the body-worn camera contract, and the elimination of set-aside funding for a replacement armored SWAT vehicle. 

Interim Chief Moya: “We are already short-staffed” and overtime personnel are needed to staff shifts

Interim GPD Chief Nelson Moya said the department tried to balance the cuts between personnel, operating expenses, and technology. He said, “As you know, we are already short-staffed to begin with, our folks are working harder with less, which plays into another one of our decrements, which is the overtime. In fact, most of our shifts, at any given moment, are staffed with, in part, overtime, because we don’t have those FTEs to put in those seats.” He also proposed freezing the Assistant Chief position because that is his position and he is currently serving as Interim Chief, so “obviously we could save some monies by freezing my position.”

Moya said that reducing overtime funding would be “a huge sacrifice into what our shifts will look like. Although we would remain operational, the quality of the service that we would deliver would be in question. Obviously, our zones may not be staffed… We would probably arrive at a bare minimum standard to remain operational but [would] have to look at the entire city, what zones remain staffed and what don’t, based on call load and volume.”

Moya: Elimination of body-worn cameras would be “a step backwards”

Moya said the department is in the final year of a five-year contract for body-worn cameras that will cost $620,000 for FY25. He said eliminating the cameras would be a sacrifice because “as you can imagine, in this day and age in policing in America, that causes a significant impact because now we’re talking about officer accountability, transparency, evidence collection, but we would remain operational. There are still agencies throughout the country that operate without body cams.” He said he believed it would be “a step backwards” to eliminate body-worn cameras and it would have “a considerable impact on the community trust that we’re so desperately trying to build and maintain.”

He said the funding for the SWAT vehicle is part of a plan to replace the current vehicle in 10-15 years; the vehicles cost about half a million dollars. 

Commissioner Reina Saco: “As an attorney, my opinion is that it will cost us a lot more than whatever we are saving in this one year if we do not have those cameras.”

Commissioner Reina Saco said she was “not okay with [getting rid of] our cameras, or the contract… And as an attorney, my opinion is that it will cost us a lot more than whatever we are saving in this one year if we do not have those cameras… I cannot accept that we do not have cameras.”  She said she understood the cut for the SWAT vehicle and hoped it could be added back to the budget in future years.

Saco asked whether the sworn officer positions had to be eliminated or could just be unfunded for the coming fiscal year. Curry responded, “For now, this was the recommendation… and we discussed freezing and leaving the funding in or eliminating – at this juncture, we went with this option. It could go either way.”

46 sworn officer positions currently vacant

Saco asked how many officer positions are currently vacant, and Moya said there are 46, including the 20 that are proposed for elimination. Saco encouraged Curry to “figure out another way” to construct the budget without removing body-worn cameras.

Commissioner Casey Willits also said it was “hard to accept” the idea of ending the body-worn camera contract. He said he had “mixed feelings about body cameras because I don’t think the promise of them have panned out.” He said he thought there needed to be significant “community conversation” about the issue, and with the ballot referendum on GRU governance also pending, “I’m worried about the amount of conversation we need to have the next couple of months.”

Curry: “We have not made recommendations to you”

Curry told the Commission, “The targets that are there are not targets that are created based on any priority… We have not made recommendations to you based on what you’re seeing here. We’ll do that once we finish with all the department presentations and come back. And this is probably one that clearly would not be in the recommendations coming back to the Commission.”

Commissioner Bryan Eastman: “All of these are bad cuts.”

In response to a question from Commissioner Bryan Eastman about staffing for patrol units, Moya said, “We are already inadequately staffed,” which is why he allows Watch Commanders to call in overtime officers “every day to fill in as needed.” Eastman said he agreed that “all of these are bad cuts.”

Commissioner Desmon Duncan-Walker also said she would not support cutting body-worn cameras. 

Commissioner Ed Book said there may be an opportunity to reduce the amount of the body-worn camera contract without eliminating it and that all large contracts should be reviewed before the next budget meeting to find savings.

Ward: GRU transfer was 10% of FY24 budget

Ward said that the $15.3 million transfer from GRU is “just a little under 10% of our $156 million-ish budget… and we’re not talking about reducing public safety by 10%…  But when we talk about taking 10% of the total City revenue away, yes, it hurts.”

Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs

The Department of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs proposed a $274k increase in salaries and benefits, including a reduction of one Recreation Supervisor, and a $1.16 million reduction in operating expenses, for an overall decrease of about $891k, or 7.5% less than the FY24 adopted budget.

The proposed reductions include a phased closure of Ironwood Golf Course programs, with employees assigned to other programs; the elimination of events at Bo Diddley Plaza; the elimination of enhanced funding for summer youth programs; a reduction of one vehicle; the elimination of 25% of the aquatics part-time temporary staff; and the elimination of funding for the Wilhelmina Johnson contract.

Recommendation to close Ironwood is “preliminary”

Executive Chief of Staff Cintya Ramos said the recommendation to close Ironwood was “preliminary… It eliminates some staff and some programming.” Director of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs Roxy Gonzalez said the proposal is to eliminate open play for golfers, golf lessons, youth golf programs and camps, community outreach programs, high school and middle school golf, and tournament space for fundraisers. She said the phased closure would stretch over three months, with a closing date of January 1, 2025. She said general landscaping services would still be required to maintain the grounds, and utilities could not be turned off, but usage should be significantly reduced. 

Gonzalez said the cuts to pool staffing would require a reduction in pool hours.

Saco confirmed with staff that there are still plans to make improvements to the Wilhelmina Johnson building (funded by grants or Wild Spaces and Public Places), and Gonzalez confirmed that the programs there will continue, but the City does not plan to contribute additional funding to those programs.

Public Works 

The Public Works Department proposed a $450k reduction in salaries and benefits, including the elimination of 6 FTEs (three filled), and a $956k reduction in operating expenses, for an overall decrease of about $1.4 million, or 8.2% less than the FY24 adopted budget.

Along with the cuts in positions, the proposal is to reduce utility and operational funding and realign various programs to other funding sources. Public Works Director Brian Singleton said that although the department did not meet their budget target for expenses, they added $500,000 revenue from IQ Fiber for special construction techniques and $250,000 from GRU for permitting services. He said the position cuts would delay pothole repairs and repairs of tripping hazards on sidewalks, leading to a potential exposure to more litigation and claims. He said they would need to prioritize “safety repairs” and would no longer have the capacity to do “aesthetic things.”

Budget “unknowns”

Summarizing the presentation, Ramos said there are still unknowns with homeless funding, including required expenses to comply with new State laws on homeless encampments and the expiration of the City’s contract with GRACE Marketplace. She said the GRU transfer is still unknown, along with revenues and costs associated with services provided to GRU via Service Level Agreements. 

Public comment

During public comment, two people asked the Commission to keep Ironwood open.

Ward: These cuts “don’t have to be before us”

Ward concluded, “So obviously, there are a variety of millions of dollars of difficult cuts before us, but they don’t have to be before us. I’ll repeat, they don’t have to be before us… I would encourage everyone to focus on the truth that right now, there are no cuts to be made if the utility provides the transfer as it currently exists.” He said it will take “lots and lots and lots of communications… from the community” to persuade the GRU Authority to maintain the transfer at its current level.

Eastman agreed, saying, “You can only cut so much before you start cutting into things that really matter to people, which we did last year, and we’re doing it again this year.”

Fire Assessment Fee

During a discussion on setting the Fire Assessment Fee, Commissioner Casey Willits made a motion to return the methodology for the assessment to the Demand Capacity methodology used from 2010 through FY23. He has repeatedly argued that the methodology adopted last year unfairly penalizes multifamily structures. The motion failed for lack of a second.

Saco made a motion to adopt the staff recommendation to keep the Fire Assessment Fee at the current rates; there was a second, but it was inaudible.

Commissioner Ed Book agreed that it was “unfortunate” that apartments over 10 units saw disproportionate increases under the methodology adopted last year, but “where I come down… here is that I’m not in favor of any cost increases for anything to our taxpayers.” He said he would be interested in revisiting the issue “once we get past this budget year.”

Eastman also supported a future conversation but said, “I think that with all of the volatility that’s happening this year, we need to just move forward with what we’ve got at the moment.”

The motion passed 5-1, with Willits in dissent and Commissioner Cynthia Chestnut absent.