Many Florida Keys residents and local businesses these days are cutting deeply -- and painfully -- into their budgets, finding new ways to save a dollar by making do with less or without.
Eating in, driving less, using less air conditioning and sometimes finding the bill that can be eliminated by shutting off cable television or the home phone have become commonplace. Businesses respond to their customers' increasingly frugal habits by cutting hours -- and, unfortunately, staff -- in order to weather the lean times.
The pressure is on, and has already proved too much for more than a few businesses that have shut their doors, and for residents who have packed up and left.
Unfortunately, because paying taxes is not optional, most tax-levying government entities here in the Keys don't seem to feel the same financial squeeze -- at least not to the extent of those who are bankrolling local government. From Key Largo to Key West, tax estimates arrive showing big jumps to the bottom line, and -- more importantly -- more of a bite out of personal finances than some can bear.
Where is the government equivalent of rice and beans for dinner? Where are the deep and painful cuts that show a sacrifice of more than just the luxuries?
We don't dispute that local governments and agencies have made some cuts in their spending -- belt tightening that representatives and elected officials already are trotting out as examples of fiscal responsibility. But much more could have been, and should have been cut. While residents and businesses deal with the immediacy of financial shortfalls by necessity, too many in government deal with declining tax revenue by dipping deeper into the pockets of taxpayers, who can do little to stop it in the short term.
Services and staffing, some of which we have championed in the past, are ripe for cutbacks in these dire times. In a perfect world with a robust economy, citizens can more easily provide the resources and staff that enhance quality of life, improve the speed and quality of services and keep the machinery of government in tiptop condition. But this isn't a perfect world, and it's not five years ago. An extra biologist at Florida Keys Mosquito Control, for instance, is like a surf and turf dinner out -- a lovely thought, but just not practical right now.
Rather than playing it safe and avoiding the heat that comes with reducing staff and services, officials countywide should have been more proactive.
Clearly, there will be complaints when lines are longer, when permits are processed more slowly, when seaweed is not raked from the beach as frequently. But when convenience and customer service are weighed against tax hikes -- some as high as 28 percent -- during a major recession, it doesn't take a psychic to take the public's pulse.
Marathon stands out among the crowd of taxing entities in terms of the bottom-line budget. The city reduced its spending -- and thus what it collects from residents -- by 10 percent.
Even so, Marathon residents will feel little relief in the big picture, as city taxes are only a portion of the overall bill. Tack on the tax bites of county government, the county school district, Florida Keys Mosquito Control and others, and it becomes apparent that residents -- especially registered voters -- must apply more heat. Unfortunately, the eleventh hour is tolling this tax season, and there is little chance of a significant course change.
The only surefire remedy for voters is a good memories.
-- The Citizen