It May Have Hit the Fan.

We've done a rough calculation, and we now think we don't have enough in the grant to do all the work of erecting an annex building and renovating the log cabin.  The question is, where will we get the rest of the money?

At the special Commission meeting last night, this question was raised, and preliminary attention was paid to it.  We considered three sources of money.  Well, four.  Unless someone seriously thinks it's five.

Let's take #5 first.  Barbara Watts wonders if we can find even more grants.  The State hasn't suckled us enough.  Someone else should suckle us more.  As far as I'm concerned, 'nuf said.

Bob Anderson's idea (#1) was that we (our Manager) should sharpen our/her pencil more, and find even more dispensible luxury in the budget.  Seven years ago, this was a great idea.  Now, after five years of excellent professional management, it doesn't make sense.  Ana Garcia did sweeping major surgery to Village finances.  The budget was about as tight as it could get.  Heidi Shafran went further.  We are now at the bone, and we cannot meet any but our most life-sustaining needs.  That said, we do have a visible (not generous) reserve which will be about $425K when the new ad valorem revenue starts to filter to us, which is about now.  We'll come to that reserve later.  In the meantime, Bob's proposal was general, or abstract.  He imagines asking the Manager to perform some sort of sleight of hand that will somehow result in a couple hundred thousand more dollars.

Bob's not the only person who looks at Village finances that way.  AJ Gallo, one of our neighbors, typically says the same thing.  But Gallo is specific.  At budget time, he proposes one expense or another he personally considers superfluous.  I get it.  I could look at the budget and do the same thing.  In fact, having spoken to various of our neighbors, I'm convinced that if each of us scoured the budget, we could each find a little here and a little there.  And they wouldn't all be the same superfluities.  If we add them together, we can probably eliminate almost everything in the budget.  We can have really low taxes, too.

But here's the problem.  What AJ Gallo considers superfluous, I, or you, might think essential.  And vice versa.  The fact is, we just created a nice budgetary savings, by outsourcing sanitation, and a number of people were very unhappy about it.  They think we went too far.  And now, we're trying to increase revenue by annexing another area, and again, there are complaints that we are ruining something about the Village.

So I think Bob is very wrong.  I think we've reduced everything that can reasonably be reduced, and any other effort gets too much blowback.  And besides, even attempting further reductions would not raise nearly enough money to cover the imagined shortfall for the construction projects.

Roxy Ross, David Coviello, and, to some extent, Bob Anderson thought we should borrow the shortfall (#2).  Here's my concern about that.  The Village doesn't make money.  It has no way to make money, other than to tax its residents.  So if we don't have the money now, we can't get it and the added debt service in the future, except by taxing ourselves higher.  If that's what we're to do, then let's just do it now, once.

My thinking is to use that $425K we have in reserve, and pay for the rest of the project ourselves (#3).  We actually have the money, and this is a good use for it, since we all agree to do the work.  Bob Anderson, and possibly unspoken others, are afraid to tap the reserves, but we have no use for them.  I would be delighted to use them for something else, like median improvement or any of a number of other projects, but it appears this is not going to happen.  So let's apply it to the annex/rehab.

David Coviello's other suggestion was that we perhaps hold off on part of the project, which will allow us to spend $126K less up front.  But we all agree we should ultimately spend it to complete the task, and Dave must have been thinking we would somehow eventually find the money in the future.  And I agree with Dave.  In fact, my other suggestion (#4) is that if we delay, we step up our efforts to succeed with our annexation attempt, and use the revenue from the annexed tracts to finish the construction job.

But the fact is, it's not necessary to delay, it's not necessary to beat an emaciated budget to death, it's not necessary to borrow money we can't exactly repay, and it's not necessary to wonder who else in the world, besides the citizens of Florida, love us and want to provide for us.  We can do it ourselves.  And in my opinion, we should.