"Top Heavy." "Too Many Chiefs?"

You don't talk to too many people in Biscayne Park before you hear from someone who is complaining about Village Hall.  The specific complaint is what many perceive as an awful lot of "staff" for such a small municipality.  It was only eight years ago that we had no Manager and no Assistant to the Manager.  We had five Commissioners, a Clerk, and a couple of other employees, including a part-time Finance person.

It's true that the Commissioners had much more responsibility and got more money than they do now, and the Clerk was, um, haphazard.  It's also true that the Village was not run efficiently, and that many important (essential?) functions did not get done, or at least not done well.

A Charter Review Committee at the time determined that we could not continue responsibly this way, and that we should have a professional municipal Manager, who would run all operations.  The Committee had no trouble convincing the Commission of this recommendation, and the Commission unanimously agreed to surrender its authority to a Manager.  The Commission put its money where its mouth was, too, and decreased its own salary.  Because this functional change required a change in the Village Charter, the matter was submitted by referendum to the residents of the Park, and they, too, agreed.

So we hired a Manager.  Was the first bicycle you ever got, or the first guitar, or the first car, or the first house, top of the line, luxury, no expense spared?  Mine, neither.  We learned a little bit about what it's like working with a Manager, and we decided to upgrade.  It's like every other educational opportunity: we learned something, and we paid for the tutorial.

Most of us thought our second Manager was terrific.  Some of us didn't approve of her.  She accomplished a great deal for the Village, and she tightened things up very considerably.  I never heard anyone say she wasn't a very hard worker.  When she told us she needed an assistant, for whom we would have to budget a good piece of change, she got some distinct resistance.  Not enough to prevent a Commission majority approval, but enough to leave some ill feelings among some Village residents/tax-payers.  Some of that continues to this day.  It wasn't always easy for Ana Garcia to explain, to enough people's satisfaction, exactly what Candido Sosa-Cruz does, and why his contribution is important to the functioning of Village Hall and the whole neighborhood.  Then, and even now, some people simply don't believe Candido accomplishes that much, or has that many responsibilities, or is that important.  And that's sometimes the bottom line: they simply don't believe or accept it.

Ana left, Candido stayed, Heidi Shafran joined us, and Candido is still here.  Questions about that again?  You bet.  What is it exactly these people, Ana/Heidi and Candido, do?  Can it really be that much, and take that much time?  Is it worth what we pay?  Explanations about delineated responsibilities and even accomplishments do not reassure all questioners.

We have now outsourced the sanitation function of our Public Works Department, over which Candido has supervisory responsibility.  The question is quickly raised as to whether that substantial reduction in Candido's responsibility might (must?) mean that we either don't need an Assistant to the Manager, or at least not a full time employee in that position.  I wondered, others have asked me, and you can be very sure I have asked the Manager.  Here is the response.

Candido unquestionably works hard and full time or more, doing what he is doing.  As is true of so much of what should be Village functioning, there are many things we don't do.  Things we can't afford to do.  Things which Candido might be doing, if he had the time, and if we had the money.  If we didn't outsource, Candido had his work more than cut out for him.  He and Heidi would have been quite busy reorganizing and managing our PW/Sanitation Department.  With outsourcing of sanitation, one of the benefits is increased income to the Village, and some of that income is substantial.  It is so substantial that it will allow us to do things we could never do before.  Things like road maintenance.  If Candido has less PW oversight responsibility, he will have new responsibility in other areas.  This is what I have been told, and I believe it.

I'm not a municipal manager.  I don't manage a business, except my own tiny personal professional business.  We went to trouble to find and hire someone we thought would be a great municipal manager.  We wanted someone who knows a lot more about this than we do.  If Ana, and Heidi, tell me we need an Assistant, and they give me what sound like good enough reasons why we do, I am in no position, nor poised, to second-guess them.  My hypothetical reason to doubt them would be to think that either or both of them are lazy, and they just want someone else to do work for them.  And that they both care so little about the Village that they don't mind stressing Village coffers to buy themselves a glorified gofer.  This is not what I believe to be true.

Candido has recently accepted a bigger and better-paying position.  Heidi is faced with the idea of replacing him.  She has told us she intends to "underfill" the position.  She intends to hire someone with less responsibility, and who will accept less pay, than Candido.  I don't know whether this makes sense.  I don't know, and will find out, what motivates Heidi in this choice.  The question for me is how we will get the tasks accomplished.  If a Manager, or an Assitant to the Manager, no longer has to supervise the sanitation function of the Public Works Department, good.  Either we need less help from Village Hall, and they can reduce staffing, or they can apply themselves to other tasks: tasks we didn't have the manpower, money, or wherewithal to do before.

Whether we have an Assistant to the Manager, or how much of one, or how much we pay this person, is not my concern.  Elevating the Village, and providing for ourselves what we as a municipality deserve, is very much my concern.  At the moment, we are failing in our responsibilities to ourselves.  No self-respecting municipality should have streets like ours, drainage problems as we do, and medians that look like ours.  We should not do without relatively inexpensive upgrades, like security cameras and a public address/recording system.  We should not have to hope for grants from someone in order to maintain ourselves.  This needs to change.  It's certainly true we need more revenue.  We also need more initiative and organization.  I think Candido did a great job.  I will miss him, personally and for the work he did.  If Heidi can do her own job and his, I'll be happy to have her do it, and save us the money.  If Ana could have, I'm sure she would have.  Frank didn't have an assistant.  He also didn't do anything.  Should we do the math?