Plan funds land buy, 15 deputies — but not IG jobs
Budget proposal holds property tax rates steady for seventh year in row.
WEST PALM BEACH — The entreaties of Palm Beach County’s inspector general did not bear fruit Tuesday night, as county commissioners did not change the proposed budget to include money for the four additional positions he sought.
But the budget, which would go into effect Oct. 1 and hold property tax rates steady for a seventh straight year, does include $3 million to begin the three-year, $9 million process of reacquiring complete ownership of a 571-acre tract of land in the Agricultural Reserve the county co-owns with the South Florida Water Management District.
That purchase would delight preservationists, but it is opposed by two commissioners — Hal Valeche and Steven Abrams — who argue that it’s a bad deal for the county that offers fewer of the farming and preservation protections sought by supporters of the transaction.
Commissioners are expected to set property tax rates at their next budget hearing, scheduled for July 11. A public hearing on the budget will be Sept. 5, and it will be finalized during a second hearing Sept. 18. Because property values are up an estimated 7.1 percent, keeping the property tax rate the same as this year would mean an increase in taxes for property owners in the 2017-18 budget year.
Palm Beach County Inspector General John Carey had hoped commissioners would overrule County Administrator Verdenia Baker’s decision not to include $500,000 in the budget for four additional staff members, part of a 10-person boost Carey is seeking over the next three years.
Baker said she seriously considered Carey’s request but decided that other staffing needs were more pressing. She also did not include funding for all of Sheriff Ric Bradshaw’s request for new deputies.
Bradshaw wants 30 additional deputies in the coming year, part of a 100-deputy increase he says is needed over the next three years. Baker included money for 15 new deputies and is relying on the sheriff ’s office to use federal grant money to pay for the other 15 positions.
Commissioners praised Baker and her staff for presenting a budget that addressed the growing need for services while keeping property tax rates steady.
“This budget is tight as a drum,” Valeche said.
Baker said the prospect of an expansion of the homestead exemption, which would take effect Jan. 1, 2019, if it is passed by voters in November 2018, made her hesitant to add new staff positions. An expansion of the home-
stead exemption would cost the county at least $25 million in lost property tax revenue, she said.
Several commissioners said they support the work of the Office of Inspector General, but they added that they hope the cities, which recently won a legal ruling backing their argument that the county can’t compel them to help pay for inspector general services, will nonetheless voluntarily agree to help pay for that work.
“I think our recourse here is as clear as day,” Valeche said. “We need to go after the cities. They are getting a service and not paying for it, and that is not right. I don’t know how we apply leverage. We can shame the cities, which is my preferred course. You just don’t get something for nothing in this world.”
Carey’s office provides auditing, fraud investigation and contract review services to the county and to each of its 39 municipalities.
Following the recommendations of a grand jury that had been convened to examine fraud, the county established an Office of Inspector General whose coverage area only included the county. After the county and cities established a joint plan to pay for the office, voters in 2010 passed a referendum expanding its reach to include the cities.
That referendum won a majority in each municipality and in the county as a whole. That referendum required an “independent Inspector General funded by the County Commission and all other governmental entities subject to the authority of the Inspector General.” But 15 cities sued, arguing that the county should not be allowed to compel the cities to pay.
In December, the 4th District Court of Appeals agreed with the cities’ argument, a ruling that has had the effect of forcing the county to pay for an office whose services, because of the referendum, still must be extended to the cities.
The county and the Palm Beach County League of Cities are expected to discuss funding for the office at a league meeting next month.
While commissioners did not embrace additional funding for the OIG, they did back a plan to reacquire full ownership of the 571-acre tract known as McMurrain or Pero because it is part of the former McMurrain Farms operation west of State Road 7 that is now farmed by the Pero family.
The county acquired the tract in 2000 using public bond money approved by voters to encourage land preservation and agriculture.
The county sold a 61 percent stake in the land to the Water Management District in 2006 for $13.7 million. When the district’s plans for constructing a reservoir on it changed, it told the county it wanted the land sold.
With preservationists angry that public land could be sold to a private landowner — and possibly developed at a later point — most commissioners balked. They pursued a plan to reacquire a full interest in the property and continue to lease it to farming interests.
But Valeche and Abrams said selling the land made more sense because the county could insist on protections, known as conservation easements, that would make future development difficult.
Those easements would be held by the county, the Water Management District and the state Department of Environmental Protection, Valeche and Abrams noted. Reacquiring a full interest in the property means the county loses the revenue from a sale and has only its easement — not the three that would cover the property in a sale — as a guard against future development, they said.
“It just makes more sense to obtain funds, keep our commitments and have revenue left over,” Abrams said.
Other commissioners, however, were not swayed by that argument.
“I don’t take lightly a request to spend $9 million in taxpayer money,” Commissioner Dave Kerner said, “but it’s clear to me that we have a promise to keep. I think the only responsible thing to do is purchase it back.”