St Pete Times - "Governor Sinks Good Water Policy"

Today’s St. Pete Times editorial is a must-read if you’re getting concerned about Florida’s sensitive natural resources and what’s going to happen now that the state’s resource protection laws are being dismantled so methodically, arrogantly and shamelessly.  Find the original piece HERE  (http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/article1174072.ece) 

Here are some quotes: 

“Governor Sinks Good Water Policy”

Piece by piece, Florida's water policy is being dismantled.

… the Scott administration pressured the Southwest Florida Water Management District to eliminate its local basin boards, and its executive director to resign.

… the administration is overturning decisions by water management districts to buy property to protect water supplies.

… Such political interference by a governor is unprecedented, and it undermines the professional management of the state's water resources.

… Environmental advocates cannot recall a previous administration overruling the technical expertise of water management districts in land-buying decisions.

… Scott's maneuvers also break from the state's decades long, bipartisan commitment to land conservation.

Trey Starkey, grandson of the family patriarch who assembled the (Starkey) ranch and recognized the value in preserving it for future generations, has figured out the state's new policy. "It's, 'Don't buy any more land,' ...

Scott's …  disregard for local control and environmental science has damaging consequences for future generations.

(added hi-lighting is mine)

Let me hasten to mention, this post is not intended to be a diatribe against Governor Scott.  He signed on to accomplish a mission.  It’s only now, though, that we’re getting to see what that apparent mission is and how he plans to go about it.  It is also becoming apparent that it may be time to begin saying what some have already said and many more of us REPUBLICANS need to begin paying attention to.

Forget that his only claim to fame before now was nearly being sent to prison for committing a multi-million dollar fraud against you, your parents, your children, and your nation’s retirement medical program, Medicare.  Never mind that even though he escaped jail time, the company he built, and over which he was the CEO, was fined nearly two billion (BILLION!) for actually carrying out the fraud (“In 2000, the company pleaded guilty to at least 14 corporate felonies and agreed to pay $840 million in criminal fines and civil damages and penalties. The company agreed to further settlements in 2002, paying an additional $881 million in fines.”).  Never mind that even though he built the company and was the CEO, he claims no knowledge of the criminality within his company which was obviously systemic and company-wide.  Never mind that during his trial he plead the fifth amendment 75 times stating in essence that he wasn’t going to answer the prosecutor’s questions because his own words would be used to incriminate him. Never mind that he spent over $73 million of his own money to “win” the election. 

No, just never mind all that.   It has no significance now.  The fact remains, despite these amazing truths which we knew about when we walked into the ballot booth, “we” elected him anyway and gave him the power to do what he’s doing. 

I don’t know about you, my friend, but I have a rising sense of dread, just the same, in the back recesses of my mind and deep in my gut.  The hope I blindly held that he would know what he is doing and that he would make - wisely - the hard decisions that need to be made, is fading and the question replacing my hope is, alas, what have we wrought upon ourselves? 

Those who have specific political or business agendas and believe that this new governor will help achieve them will continue to defend him.  These are the so called party “faithful” who vote not for what is best for the state or country but for what is best for the party, and the power and the favor that comes with being victorious. Doesn’t matter who wins.  The matter is that the Party wins.

There’s something to be said for the tough decisions we need in order to reduce the cost and intrusiveness of our government, but to suggest an ailing economy is adequate reason to sacrifice Florida’s future, as is being offered, is an abomination.

SWFWMD's Media Release Re Basin Board Demise

Here's the May 24th official communication from the district announcing the firing of the Basin Board Members “in order to increase efficiency.” 

So much for local control over how much you will be taxed and upon what those taxes will be spent!  If I get the drift here, the basins all together must have on hand, meaning in the bank, $40 million for cooperatively funded projects (not sure if this includes funds from the District fund which is a uniform tax levy across the district).  Now the Governing Board, comprised of members from across the district and controlled out of Tallahassee, will decide who gets that money and how it will be spent as opposed to folks from your basin.

Also notice the estimated savings of “$350,000 - $400,000” proposed to be saved by doing away with those pesky, inefficient basin boards.  Okay, maybe so.  In the greater scheme of things, however, that’s a mere pittance and a small price for keeping local control of hundreds of millions over multiple years.

Last point.  I was looking at the district’s current budget recently and saw where the Inspector General’s office had a budget of $440,000.  Now, I have no complaints about the Inspector General who worked there when I did or the fact that the legislature forced the district to put one there.  But, good grief, that’s a one-person office.  If there’s such a demand for greater efficiency, that’s one place they could have looked instead of tossing out the 40-plus unpaid volunteers who have been guiding the district in local needs and limiting taxes for 50 years.

I know it sounds like harping, but everything we see points evermore toward a Tallahassee scheme to gain control of the district’s authority to levy a property tax for purposes that will be directed from Tallahassee.  Here’s the media release:

          Governing Board Approves Resolution to Merge the District’s Eight Basin Boards

In order to increase efficiency of operations and reduce costs, the Southwest Florida Water Management District’s Governing Board approved a resolution today to merge the budgets of the District’s eight Basin Boards into the Governing Board, while keeping a reduced Cooperative Funding Initiative to fund regional projects.

The District’s eight Basin Boards provided guidance for local programs and projects that were specific to the watershed basin they protected. Through the Cooperative Funding Initiative, the Basin Boards worked with local governments and organizations on water resource projects that benefited local communities. Half of the money for these projects came from the Basin Boards and the other half came from the local government or local cooperator.

Merging the eight Basin Boards into the Governing Board is expected to save $350,000 to $400,000 annually.

Under the proposed FY2012 budget, $40 million will remain available for cooperatively funded projects throughout the District’s 16-county region. The funding will be administered by members of the District’s Governing Board.

“Through the Cooperative Funding Initiative, the Basin Boards have played an integral role in the District’s ability to implement water resources projects at the local level and to involve residents, organizations and local governments,” said Dave Moore, District executive director. “We are committed to continuing the work of the Basin Boards through cooperative funding and other initiatives.”

Basin Board meetings scheduled in June will be canceled and future meetings will no longer be held.

By the way, I have yet to receive a copy of the actual resolution requested on May 24.  If and when I get it, you'll see it.

It (Florida) is going to get ugly

Dear ______,

Here are the best answers to your questions I can come up with.  They’re based upon my understanding of the law and the accounting processes used at the District but may not be precisely correct since I’m neither a lawyer nor a CPA.

1.  Can the District "generate/fund/tax" projects on a "basin by basin" basis?

Ans.:  Legally, yes, but this is what they are saying is so inefficient that they’ve fired all their basin board members and are moving the tax decisions normally made by the basin boards to the district’s governing  board.  No longer will local citizens be able to set the tax levy for the projects of their choosing.  Further, in order to not lose the .5 mil taxing authority that the Legislature has parceled exclusively to basin boards within SWFWMD, the district is saying it will continue to levy the basin tax at the governing board level.  Frankly, there may be some intentional obfuscation here.  This is how they responded to a reporter’s questions:

“… the District was going to continue to levy the Basin Board millage rates without the Boards meeting to vote on their millage rates. Staff explained that the budgets of the Basin Boards were rolled (??) into the Governing Board. The District will be setting the millage rate in order to achieve the $107 million ad valorem cap. Although we won’t know what that millage rate is going to be until we receive the certified taxable property values from the property appraisers in July, it could be somewhere around .41 mill. As a result, residents will see a savings on their property taxes.”

I’m not clear how they’re going to reduce the levy on property owners just by “rolling” ( I think they actually mean combining) the basin tax with that of the governing board.  The reduction to the taxpayers is more likely due to the 36% tax revenue cutback mandated by the Governor and legislature.

2.     What kind of financial information does the District have these days that are tantamount to a Balance Sheet"? and,  an "income and expense statement"? Can I get these on line?

Ans:    It may be there somewhere but I could not find online a report that depicts the status of the district current income vs. its current expenses or something similar to a balance sheet, although I know these numbers are tracked closely internally.  However, you might look HERE (http://www.swfwmd.state.fl.us/files/database/site_file_sets/36/FY2011_Budget-In-Brief[1].pdf) to see what its anticipated revenues are for the fiscal year 2011. 

The District’s total budgeted anticipated revenues from all sources for 2011 is $279,807,363.  Of that amount, The district’s current tax levy (0.3770 mil) is expected to generate $131,852,163 and the basins all together will generate $122,159,462.  The basins’ taxing millage rates range from 0.0 for the Green Swamp basin (because the governing board levy absorbs those costs) to 0.26 mil for the Pinellas Anclote Basin.

So … before the 36% reduction is applied, the unavoidable conclusion is that $122,159,363 formerly levied by local basin boards for local basin projects will in the future be levied by a regional board controlled, de facto, by Tallahassee.  Additionally, these revenues will be levied uniformly across the district causing taxes from a low maintenance basin to be spent in other basins where maintenance and program expenses are higher thus violating a 50-year trusted mechanism put in place specifically to prevent just that from happening.

3.     Are any of the "basin projects" funded with debt? or, have they been funded with cash on a current basis?

Ans.   The latter.  The district has wisely never incurred debt though often tempted.   The first time occurred when the district was given the unfunded mandate to assume the state water quality regulatory programs pursuant to the Warren S. Henderson Wetlands Protection Act in 1984, found in Sections 403.91 - 403.929, Florida Statutes (F.S.).  The district was forced to enlarge its headquarters office in Brooksville to house the greatly expanded staff administering the act would require.  The second time occurred when the district was mandated to purchase lands under the Preservation 2000 and Florida Forever Act (§259.105, F.S.) (nationally heralded environmental land acquisition programs).   More land could be bought quicker, and debt amortization revenues theoretically would be generated from a state trust fund created by revenues from the Documentary Stamp Tax on private land transactions.  Other districts did borrow funds for these purposes and may still have debt obligations.

4.     What kind of cash does the District have to fund its requirements? 

Ans:   In short, I believe the district has ample funds available to fund its core programs but those programs are being greatly reduced or have been subsumed by unfunded state mandates.  The SWFWMD and SFWMD districts have been asked to reduce large cash reserves thay have on hand and reduce millage rates.  The reserves at SFWMD to the south, however, are said to be needed to meet the its local portion of the Everglades Restoration program.  The reserves at SWFWMD are, I’m told, mostly to provide matching dollars for local water supply and other water management programs.  Due to the inability of the local governments to match district funds because of crashing property valuations, however, this reserve is probably larger than it should be and can be reduced.  This cost-sharing program has been highly valued by local governments and the district because, instead of having to require locals to meet statutory-based water management standards through regulation, it’s a program that uses cash incentives to generate positive support for a project that will accomplish the same objective.  Not only do they want to do it but they get help doing it  Thus, a win-win.  The program, however, will most certainly now have to be significantly reduced because of Tallahassee mandated cutbacks.

As an aside, the more I get into this the more it's apparent the districts are being squeezed into a no win position.  On the one hand, Tallahassee has inundated the districts over the years with unfunded mandates that push the high cost of such programs onto the backs of private property owners.  On the other, the district's ability to fund what they've been mandated to do is being taken away.  What Tallahassee should do is return those programs back to DEP and leave the water management districts to their core missions, if anybody can figure out what they might be these days.  Of course, we all know this will never happen because the impact on the state budget would be huge and not politically doable.  But, should it happen anyway, these programs, which are critical to Florida's future, will simply be done away with just as what happened this past session to the growth mangement laws which were developed over the last 30 years. 

 

Stay tuned, I fear it (Florida) is going to get ugly.

New E.D. at SFWMD,"... necessary change in how we do business."

The new Tallahasse chosen-one for director of the South Florida Water Management District, Melissa Meeker, has arrived!  In her first communication to district staff she announced yesterday that stern changes are ahead for the 19-county organization which is responsible for the management of the huge, plumbed system known as the Florida Everglades and for supply of drinking water for much of south Florida's Gold Coast.  Here's what she had to say:

From: Meeker, Melissa 
Sent: Wednesday, June 01, 2011 4:03 PM
To: all_groups
Subject: Announcement from the Executive Director

All Staff:

It is my privilege and honor to begin working today as your Executive Director.  While this is a time of new beginnings, there is no doubt that we have a tough road ahead, which will require tough decisions and a necessary change in the way we do business.

In line with Governor Rick Scott’s priorities for lowering taxes and growing the economy – and with policy direction from the Governing Board - we will develop our most austere budget in over a decade. We owe it to the taxpayers to limit spending, eliminate unneeded bureaucracy and refocus the agency on its core mission.

We will no longer take on responsibilities outside of our purview or operate with inflated budgets and salaries. Instead we will reorganize the agency around its statutory responsibilities, flatten the management structure to be more in line with the rest of the state and get on with the business of water management.

These changes will begin at the top with the District Leadership Team. As attached, I am restructuring the executive management of the agency to ensure we place the greatest emphasis on mission-critical functions with fewer layers and lower salaries. I have asked the following to serve on my leadership team: 

·         Bob Brown will serve as my Assistant Executive Director overseeing regulation, water resources and administrative services. His nearly three decades of experience will help me guide the agency in a new, fiscally-conservative direction.

·         Tommy Strowd will serve as Director of Operations, Maintenance and Construction, overseeing flood control operations, land management and capital construction projects.

·         Terrie Bates will serve as Director of Water Resources, overseeing our water supply, science and modeling functions.

·         Sharon Trost will assume the role of Director of Regulation

·         Doug Bergstrom will serve as the Director of Administrative Services overseeing our budget, business and mission support functions.

·         Ernie Barnett will take on the newly-created role of Everglades Policy Director to refocus and reshape our role in ecosystem restoration.

·         Deena Reppen will serve as my Chief of Staff and oversee our external affairs.

In the days ahead, the new leadership will be meeting with you to discuss these organizational changes. We will then start the difficult work of reshaping this agency to both reflect our new financial framework and to deliver the core services this organization was created to provide.  We are embarking on a new course, but it is a course that will rebuild our reputation and lead to our long-term success. 

Melissa Meeker

Attachments:   Executive Management Organizational Chart

                        Leadership Team Bios

Melissa Meeker

Best wishes, Melissa.  You and the district do, in fact, have a tough road ahead.  Be consoled by the fact, however, that it'll be no different than the way it's always been down there.  It's a very complicated world south of Lake O, probably more so than with any of the other water meanagement districts because of all the divergent and powerful interests perennially at each others' throats.  Staying true to the district's core mission will require you to first identify what that is.  Once found, and if you achieve resetting the district back to that point in time, your greatest challenge will be keeping it there.  Please don't lay the difficulties you'll face entirely upon your staff.  "Mission Creep" is a game the legislatuire either allows or constrains depending upon how its own whimsical interests are served.  Governors, too, have been known to participate in this little game, the outcome of which inevitably will be laid at your feet.  It's not if.  It's when.

Good Luck!  Seriously.

Why Basin Boards in the First Place?

Well ... today, June 1, 2011, was the first day since the Southwest Florida Water Management District was first created in 1961 that there are no basin board members serving the taxpayers within the southwest district.  Fifty years.  Why the SWFWMD Governing Board made this decision is a puzzlement because basin boards have always been so important to those who stand for insuring their water management taxes would not be spent outside their basin and would be levied by themselves, private citizens who live there and know why those taxes are needed.  Real republican values. 

All that is changed now by the simple, unannounced, perhaps illegal adoption of a resolution by the SWFWMD Governing Board.  Exactly one week ago today on May 24 during an advertised meeting, the governing board, with nothing on the agenda to indicate it was coming, summarily disbanded its seven basin boards and dismissed over 40 board members associated with them.  It would be effective in seven days at midnight, May 31^st … last night!

The conversation had been in the mill for some time, we’re told, but few if any basin board members knew it was actually going to happen when it did.  And, it seems, still fewer knew why, except that it was needed to cut back on staff time.  The word I have heard over and over about what happened is, "shock".


I received an email today from a basin board member in which he describes the call he received today (June 1) from the Governor's office.  Here's the written message:

I got an interesting (ie courtesy) call from the Governor's office just a few minutes ago. A young lady (at least that was my speculation) called to let me know that "the Southwest Florida Water Management District has decided not to have anymore basin boards so of course, the Governor will no longer be making basin board appointments". I thought about giving her my thoughts on the issue but I could tell that she likely didn't know a basin board from a wall board so why waste my breath. I did tell her that I had been following the demise of the basin boards to the extent that it was discussed in a public forum. She didn't get that either so I just said thanks for your call.

Keep up the good work,

Since the reasons why basin boards were created in the first place are most likely suffering from the wear and dust of time ("heifer dust"?), it may be worth revisiting just why they were considered so important in the first place.  One thing is certain.  They were certainly considered important enough at one time  to be put into law (1961) and remained important enough to have survived 50 sessions of the volatile Florida Legislature, one of the most unpredictable bodies in the world.  So it is not unreasonable to ask why they were disbanded so quickly without any public notice, and without any opportunity for the residents of the basins to be told why.  Basin residents have been left only to wonder what happened and why their basin taxes will now be levied by the District Governing Board instead of their neighbors. 


All the concern about who is levying taxes and where the money is being spent is apparently no longer operative.  It’s the Republicans who did it.  I'm a Republican, and it was a wrong thing to do.


SWFWMD was created in 1960 after Hurricane Donna swept across southwest Florida, not a particularly violent storm but a very wet one.  Major flooding was caused on four primary rivers in the area resulting in major damage: the Oklawaha River to the north, the Withlacoochee River further south, the Hillsborough River, affecting downtown Tampa, and the Peace River which starts in the Green Swamp east of Tampa and drains south through four counties to discharge into Charlotte Harbor.

Using the model represented by the Central and Southern Flood Control District (now called the South Florida Water Management District) which covered some 19 counties in south Florida including the Everglades and the upper third of the St. Johns River, SWFWMD was created to be the sponsor of a local federal flood control project.  The project in southwest Florida would be called the Four River Basins, Florida Project.


Based upon flood control concepts in place at the time, the project designed by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed a number of major structures and flood detention areas on all four of the rivers of the region.  The plan was to prevent a repeat of the '61 disaster using structural means.  (This was before The Greening of America  published in 1970 by Charles A. Reich and before Silent Spring published in 1960 by Rachel Carson had gained national prominence)  All of the associated infrastructure represented major costs.  Although the federal program determined that the Corps of Engineers would build it and the federal government would pay for most of it, the balance would have to be paid by the local sponsor.   That responsibility would be 17% of the construction cost, as I recall, and 100% of the cost of the land upon which to build it. 

Given this scenario, the legislature during its 1961 session took a number of actions germane to where we are today.  The statute creating SWFWMD (Chapter 61-691, Laws of Florida) would:

1. Create the district consisting of 16 counties including parts of Levy and Marion Counties to the north, Sumter and Polk to the east and Charlotte to the south, 10,000 square miles.  An area the size of Vermont, as Dale Twachtmann would say, one of the District's first Executive Directors;
2. Establish a Governing Board of 9 members to direct the affairs of the district;
3. Authorize the Governing Board to levy a property tax to pay for its expenses.  (This was before the 1968 revision to the Florida Constitution which afterward required a referendum of the affected voters to approve any additional levy of property taxes.
4. Authorized creation of basin boards. 

The act did more than this obviously but this is what is most significant today.

Briefly put, community leaders involved in how the district was going to pay for its operations and the local share of the federal project were concerned about who was going to pay for what.  The Hillsborough River flows directly through downtown Tampa.  Major flooding there in 1960 and in the future could mean unheard of damages and loss of life without major, costly protection.  The non-federal share of constructing the planned, massive project would have to be shared by everyone in the 16-county district unless a way could be found to assure the property owners in another basin would not be taxed to pay for the project in the Hillsborough River Basin. 

It was a thought that goes back to the very foundations of the country.  People should not be taxed for purposes that do not serve their interests, or by people not lawfully representative of those being taxed.  Granted, there were ample examples existing where taxes were being levied by people not living in the area where they were being collected or spent.  Nevertheless, this was an opportunity to exercise the principle, to insure control remained close to the people, and it worked.  The tax, the creation of the district, and the establishment of a local sponsor for a critically important flood control project gained public support and approval, and the rest is a 50-year history of hundreds of successful and necessary projects being completed for people and being paid for by those same people.


This is the same reason there are five water management districts today instead of one statewide.  It's because the residents of south Florida were not enchanted with having to help cover the cost of this expensive new project in the Tampa Bay area and vice versa.  Similarly,  the folks in north Florida obviously would not relish the thought of paying for either the Tampa or the south Florida projects.

So the question remains, why did the governing board toss 50 years of principle out the window so fast and so secretively without reasonale public notice or any opportunity for those affected to know why before it was done?  Again, the idea that it was needed to save a few bucks worth of staff time is laughable.  The reason is as clear as a blue Florida sky after a rainstorm.  It appears to be part of a larger scheme to gain control of the funding capacity of the five water management districts, not to rein in their spending but to wrest control of their taxing authority and give it to Tallahassee for state purposes despite constitutional prohibitions to the contrary.  It's becoming pretty clear.  Many lawsuits have been filed over just such nonsense and this may be no exception.  The plot continues to thicken with every session and with each new legislative leadership that thinks it has found a stupid mother goose sitting on a golden egg.


 Next: What would be the potential consequences if the decision to disband the basin boards was not accomplished according to law?