Delray task force proposes $1 million in budget cuts

By DAVID SEDORE, Palm Beach Business.com

DELRAY BEACH — Eliminate double overtime for police. Reforming the way city compensates employees for degrees held. Instituting a "convenience fee" for city customers who make payments using credit cards.

These are some of the proposals Delray’s budget task force presented to city commissioners Tuesday that if implemented would save the city slightly more than $1 million. The proposals came in the task force's first report to commissioners since its creation in January.

More importantly the report also provide evidence that there is money that can be squeezed out of the budget without cutting bodies or eliminating services. The process, however, will be both tedious and politically difficult.

“It’s like building a house,” Vice Chairman Howard Ellingsworth said. “There’s no magic bullet here. You have to chip away.”

Said City Finance Director John Safford: “If we can find ways to cut costs and save jobs, that’s what we’re here for.”

The city’s current budget totals $185 million. Revenue is likely to dip in the coming year as property values decline and voter-mandated tax reforms take effect.

Among the findings in the report:

— Sixty city employees make $100,000 or more of which only nine are department heads or assistant department heads. The other 51 are police or fire fighters who have their base pay boosted by overtime and a variety of benefit payments.

— Nearly $138,000 is spent on “double overtime” for police. Double overtime happens when an officer is scheduled to work overtime, say a Saturday after working Monday through Friday, and designates that day to use a “floating” holiday. The officer gets the standard time-and-a-half for working the Saturday, but he or she also gets paid for the holiday.

“We don’t think that is a fair and reasonable cost to the citizens,”  Safford said.

Officers get floating holidays when they have to work Christmas, Thanksgiving or other days that city employees have off.

— The city paid nearly $57,000 a year in overtime to managers who are not legally eligible for time-and-a-half because of their status as supervisors.

— Employees may use vacation and holiday time in calculating overtime pay, a policy that costs the city more than $357,000 annually.

— Delray pays $150,000 a year to allow residents to make a variety of payments by credit card. The city could charge a $1.50 per transaction convenience fee on credit card users and raise nearly $12,000 to help off set that.

The trade-off is that credit cards help save the city money by making transactions easier to process; a convenience fee could dissuade some customers from pulling out their cards and in turn increase costs.

—  Reforming education pay (money given police and fire fighters for degrees held) could save the city $251,000.

— Reforming tuition reimbursement benefits, including reimbursing for master’s degree courses, would save more than $118,000 annually.

— The city could assess 100 percent of its overtime expenses on First Night and collect $32,000. First Night has $52,000 in reserves.

— Similarly Delray could charge nonprofits holding events 75 percent of city expenses instead of the 65 percent now assessed. That would bring in nearly $12,000.

— Switching car allowances for employees from a fixed, monthly amount to system where their paid per mile traveled instead, could save the city $43,000.

Commissioners acknowledged that making many of changes, especially those involving pay and benefits, won’t be popular.

Some of the task force’s proposals might need to be reviewed by the city attorney’s office to make sure they can be done legally under federal and state labor laws. Others might involve contract negotiations with unions.

Still others, such as charging a convenience fee for credit card users, will require commissioners to balance the pros with the cons before determining what direction to take.

As an acknowledgement of the work to be done, the task force said it won’t finish its work before the city completes its budget for the fiscal year that begins October 1. The task force is set to expire next month, and will need an extension to continue. Task force members, however, split on whether the extension should be six months or a year.