Miami-Dade mayor proposes $9 billion budget despite COVID

Miami-Dade is freezing hiring and projecting longterm deficits, but the coronavirus won’t stop county spending from topping $9 billion in 2021 or prevent the work force from growing slightly, according to the budget proposal from Mayor Carlos Gimenez.

Thanks to federal financial relief and projections of revenue growth, the spending plan doesn’t impose layoffs or service cuts for the budget year that begins Oct. 1. The police department plans to hire about 170 cadets, some libraries are expanding their schedules, the county’s beefing up its environmental regulation staff, and construction is planned to start on a $300 million new rapid-transit bus system in South MiamiDade and a $267 million courthouse in downtown Miami.

Overall spending is up a modest 1.6%, from $8.9 billion this year to $9.05 billion in 2021.

Property-tax rates remain flat in the budget, though rising real estate values would increase property-tax revenue an estimated 5%. In a budget message, Gimenez said a primary goal for 2021 was to avoid layoffs. Overall, the county expects to fund 28,599 positions in 2021, up less than 1% from the 28,409 this year.

Still, the coronavirus crisis is a dominant theme in the three-volume spending plan, which includes budgets for the county-owned Miami

International Airport, PortMiami, the transit system and county jails.

Miami-Dade suspended transit fares in March to reduce COVID exposure on buses and at Metrorail stations, and $49 million in federal CARES Act relief covers about 6% of the Transportation Department’s $743 million budget for 2021.

Washington sent $200 million in COVID aviation relief. Miami International Airport’s budget doesn’t show passenger volume recovering through 2025, when projections show the international hub still down 2 million passengers from prior estimates.

“I often anticipated the development of my final budget as the mayor of Miami-Dade County,” Gimenez, a Republican congressional candidate, wrote in his final budget message before he leaves office in November 2020. “As we all know, the COVID19 pandemic changed everything.”

Cities are pressing MiamiDade to share a larger chunk of $474 million in coronavirus government relief, pointing to their own budget holes that need filling from COVID expenses. Miami-Dade commissioners must approve how the county spends its federal COVID dollars.

The budget plan presented by Gimenez heads for commission votes in September.

It lays out financial forecasts that show steep revenue shortfalls arriving in later years, once a new mayor takes over.