“It will be a fiscally responsible budget, with a priority on maintaining the construction of affordable and working-class housing, investing in infrastructure, various public transportation projects and the environment,” Levine Cava said at a press conference on Monday, July 15.
Constitutional offices
The councilor recommended that the Commission, which must approve her proposal, maintain the same millage rate to preserve the current level of services and “ensure that we can cover the costs of the new constitutional offices, especially during this transition year.”
One peculiarity of the fiscal plan presented by the mayor is that “this year voters will elect five constitutional offices officially separate from county administration: the sheriff’s office, the tax collector, the property appraiser, the clerk of courts and the supervisor of elections,” the mayor said.
Levine-Cava explained that although the offices will be independent, “we must fund them through the general fund,” and assured that the cost of the transition to the constitutional offices will be about $30 million in the first year and that her top priority is to work diligently to “ensure that our residents receive the same level of efficient services, without interruptions or delays.”
According to the mayor, who represents 2.8 million residents, maintaining the millage rate is lowering taxes. “Thanks to the cuts in the last two years we have the lowest tax rate since 1986,” she said, but acknowledged that many residents continue to struggle with the rising cost of living.
Affordable housing
One of the mayor’s main priorities has been the construction of affordable housing. Two years ago, she promised to build 32,000 units.
In June 2022, it stated that its goal was to have 18,000 units by the end of 2023. According to the county’s affordable housing report (Housing Affordability Tracker), As of April 2024, 3,562 units had been completed and 5,514 were under construction.
Presenting the proposal, the councillor said: “We continue to build thousands of additional units for the working class and affordable housing. Today there are about 8,700 multifamily units under construction with direct county financing.”.
Infrastructures
He also said he would continue to work on modernizing the county’s economic engines: the port and the airport. The latter is being invested in $1.7 billion. He said that $1.7 billion will be allocated $264 million to the Northeast Corridor“a fundamental project to better connect our community,” and indicated that the Better Bus Network public transport plan was being implemented, “after 40 years of status quo.”
“The Southern Corridor, connecting Homestead to Dadeland, will be completed this year, and we are working to stay on track to deliver on the long-promised Northern Corridor.”
Finally, the budget for fiscal year 2024-25, which is scheduled to be discussed and approved by the County Commission next September, will focus on priority investments for the community such as housing, transportation, public safety, small businesses, the environment, families, seniors and animal health.
Commission Chairman Oliver Gilbert said the current administration is taking on projects that should have been done 40 years ago. “We can’t expect to be a world-class city without rapid transit. We’ve been saying for too long that we’re going to do something. It won’t be easy, it won’t be cheap. But right now we’re paying $8 billion in traffic congestion a year. You can’t expect to get better for free. We have to invest in infrastructure for this community and for the future.”
You criticize
For its part, Pedro Garcia, county property appraiser, He said that “maintaining the tax rate, increasing the budget to 12.697 million dollars and also raising the garbage collection rate is leading the owners to a critical situation”.
Despite this, Garcia said there are a number of important expenses in the county, such as the modernization of MIA and the construction of affordable properties, that must be maintained. He said that when we talk about affordable housing, we have to refer to the cost of rents. “But what can building owners do if we increase taxes, insurance, the price of maintenance materials? They definitely have to raise rent prices.”
On the argument that the creation of five constitutional offices in the county justifies having a larger budget, the assessor said he believes the current increase is not based on those costs. “There will be five separate offices. But the only one that is really new is the Sheriff’s Office, which does not exist, but the others are up and running.”
Finally, the appraiser suggested that with the increase we had of approximately $42.6 billion in taxable value (i.e. up 10.7% from 2023)The most appropriate and correct thing would have been to lower the tax rate to avoid increasing taxes.
For the third consecutive year, Garcia has written a letter to the 34 mayors of the county’s cities and the Miami-Dade Commission in which he advocates for them to lower the millage rate so that taxes do not rise.
For its part, Manny Cid, Mayor of Miami Lakes and candidate for county mayorsaid the budget is designed to eliminate the middle classfavoring only the extremely rich and poor.
One proof of this, according to Cid, is that many people are selling their homes and moving to other states, while large companies buy these properties to turn them into Airbnb rentals.
He also suggested that the mayor’s affordable housing policy is seeking to create dependency on the government by offering these units for rent rather than encouraging ownership.
Regarding the increase in the number of county employees contained in the budget, the candidate compared the situation to the patronage in Chicago, where government employees are increased to secure future votes.
“Their program for the future of the county is to eliminate the middle class, to create more people dependent on the government, so that this will guarantee elections for the liberals, which is what they have done in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.”