The Hernando County Board of
County Commissioners will be considering a Resolution at its meeting this
coming Tuesday asking the Governing Board of the Southwest Florida Water
Management District to reconsider its intent to move the headquarters of SWFWMD
from Hernando County to Tampa as its staff has recommended.
This is an extremely
important matter for Hernando County and all the counties in the northern area
of SWFWMD including Levy, Marion, Sumter, Citrus and Pasco, as well as the City
of Brooksville.
I hope you will
consider attending this meeting and show support for your commissioners and the
adoption of the resolution. The meeting will be at 9:00 a.m., Tuesday,
May 26, County Courthouse Brooksville, in the Hernando County Commission
meeting room.
B a c k g r o u n d
SWFWMD started reducing staff
several years ago in response to the Recession. Without reference to the
extent or manner by which the District carried out the reduction, everyone
generally agrees the economy was down and a thoughtful reduction of at least
some regulatory and legal staff was appropriate to reflect the reduced economic
activity.
At the same time SWFWMD
apparently began efforts to develop a long-term business plan that would
attempt to determine “where the district was going” and how it would get
there. Meanwhile, the Governing Board also began relocating staff
to Tampa in the interest of “greater efficiency” and without saying there was
any underlying intent to move the headquarters of the District to Tampa, until
Friday a week ago.
On that date, May 15, 2015,
at 1:22 p.m., the Executive Director of the District, Robert Beltran, issued an
email to all district staff via “Internal Communications” saying,
“I
wanted to let you know that based on the findings of the District’s Business
Plan, there is a presentation and resolution on Tuesday’s Governing Board
agenda recommending that the Tampa Service Office be designated the District
headquarters or principal office.”
No public notice
There was no public notice
this was going to happen. In fact, the Resolution was not shown on the
agenda. Nor was it announced anywhere publically that it was going to be
recommended to the Governing Board. Neither the resolution nor any
reference to it could be found within the 260-page packet of informational
materials accompanying the Agenda. It became known only because an anonymous staff
member who received Beltran’s email forwarded it to a non-staff member who then
forwarded it to me.
Because it was done so
surreptitiously, it appears the purpose was to prevent those who will be most
affected by the move from learning about it and having an opportunity to let
their positions be known; or, it was mistake so egregious that it now demands
the entire matter of relocating major district services and operations to Tampa
should be abandoned and the completed relocations reversed.
Hernando County’s
Legislative Delegation steps up
Senator Simpson appeared
before the Governing Board that Tuesday to voice his position firmly against
the move, face to face with the Board members; and Representative Blaise
Ingoglia registered his opposition to the district’s proposed action in a media
release jointly issued by Senator Simpson and the Representative.
The real plan
The district’s orchestrated
response, repeated over and again by board members and staff, is that there are
no immediate plans to move existing staff from the Brooksville location
and, thus, they reasoned to Senator Simpson, Hernando County and City of
Brooksville representatives who also attended the meeting, there will be no
economic impact. Both staff and District Governing Board members
disingenuously and conveniently never mentioned the impacts already caused by
relocating to Tampa the hundreds of management and technical service positions
once housed at the headquarters building in Hernando County, including: Well
Construction permitting staff; Environmental Resource permitting staff; Water
Use permitting staff; Regulation Production And Administration staff;
Executive, Administrative and Support staff; Field Compliance staff, and; Legal
staff.
It was
an intentional deflection meant to mislead. However, by implying
accurately that there would be no economic loss because there would be no
further reduction in current payroll levels, the claim was also a de facto
admission that significant economic damage is occurring and will continue to
occur as a result of the hundreds of employees already removed to Tampa.
This appears to have been the
strategy all along. Make the moves slowly over a period of time and
justify them as being in the interest of greater efficiency during a global recession.
Then make the claim once completed that it only makes sense to designate the
Tampa field office as district headquarters because most of the staff and
operations are already there.
SWFWMD’s justification
1.
Tampa is most Centrally located
site
a.
Better access for public and
Governing Board
Comment – It appears the real
reason for the move is to provide easier access for Board members to get to
meetings. Over the years, the district has constructed three major
offices: Brooksville, Tampa and Sarasota. Each of these buildings were designed
to accommodate meetings so the Governing and formerly existing local Basin
Boards could meet and engage the local citizenry; the basin boards of that area
would always hold their regular and special meetings in the closest office; and
the Governing Board could meet in any of them from time to time as gestures of
good will to move government and its decisions closer to the affected public.
The district covers some 10,000 square miles. It is not good will to indicate
the Governing Board will always meet in Tampa because it’s convenient for Board
members. Any location for million dollar public facilities is not for the
convenience of Board members. It is for the convenience of the
public. Board members are temporary. The public and the facilities
built to deliver services to them are permanent.
2.
Site for Governing Board meetings
Comment – Yes, this is
true. The building was originally built so it could be used regularly by
the several basin boards of the Tampa bay area and the Governing board from
time to time. It can and should continue to be used by the Governing
Board perhaps on a rotating basis with the Sarasota and Brooksville offices.
There is no justification, however, for consolidating staff in Tampa when a
multimillion dollar facility designed and built to house them already exists in
Brooksville. The moves to Tampa that seem almost whimsical have likely
consumed most if not all the available space there which was never intended to
accommodate headquarters staffing levels. Remember, the relocations that
have occurred happened during a time when the staff was reduced by 40%,
according to Paul Sentf former SWFWMD chairman. If most space is taken
now at that level, once the economy becomes reenergized the District will need
to begin hiring again - that is if it intends to return to carrying out its
statutory duties - and then the “need” will be to build another bigger and
better but duplicative District headquarters in Tampa. This is
practically an unavoidable, terribly wasteful and ill-advised scenario if the
headquarters staff isn’t moved back to the building intended for them in
Hernando County.
3.
Consolidations have already
occurred
a.
No immediate plans to move
additional staff
Comment – This is hardly
comforting in light of the damage already done to the residents of Hernando
County, its sister counties north of Tampa Bay, and the City of
Brooksville. It is also a disingenuous claim in light of the relocations
already perpetrated which are causing and will continue to cause compounding
economic losses to the area for years to come. It will not be a one-time
loss.
4.
Tampa is fastest growing area
Comment – The fastest growing
area doesn’t mean the only growing area. A rising economy
will lift all boats. There will be an increasing need for effective and
responsive resource regulation and management from Marion and Levy counties on
the north, to Charlotte and Sarasota Counties on the south of SWFWMD.
Resource management and regulation is not necessarily needed most in the
“fastest growing” area. There are huge problems to be resolved throughout
the district that will require the District’s concentrated attention. In
fact, there seems to be little relationship to the Tampa area perhaps being the
fastest growing and the argument that the district’s headquarters should,
therefore, be located there. Agricultural interests will necessarily be
concerned that the focus of the district is now, as former chair Senft put it,
on the “bright lights of the big city.”
5.
Largest educated labor pool
Comment – This point should
actually be offensive to all the counties not considered part of the “educated
labor pool” to which it mysteriously refers. It also ignores the fact
that good, steady, important jobs that pay reasonably well, combined with
reasonable benefits and a reasonable retirement program, will always be able to
attract talented employees to do complicated tasks. It also reflects a
serious lack of knowledge of actual SWFWMD experience during a number of very
serious economic ups and downs. It is not location near a university that
brings qualified candidates. It is a host of other factors. During
good economic times, for example, when technical consulting businesses are
flourishing and professional salaries are higher than those a government
organization can pay, higher qualified candidates will be more difficult to
attract. When opposite conditions exist and consulting opportunities are
on a down turn, better qualified candidates gravitate to government jobs that
are less affected by temporary economic conditions and provide steady income
with much greater reliability for their families. Highly technical
positions will not be filled by new university graduates and new
university graduates can be easily attracted to good job opportunities no
matter the location.
6.
No reduction in quality of services
Comment – Not sure what the
point is here. There would certainly be no reduction of services caused by the
District headquarters remaining in Brooksville. There must be concern
that loss of services was a possibility by being located in Tampa. For
over 50 years there has never been an issue with delivery of services caused by
the District headquarters being in Brooksville. In fact, as offered by
James Kimbrough of SunTrust Bank at the Tuesday meeting, in many cases it has
been an advantage by offering neutral ground for powerful urban governments to
meet and resolve expensive legal battles over resource related issues.
The so-called Tampa Bay Water Wars, which was, in fact, a decades-long series
of historic, precedent-setting legal battles, is a prime example.
7.
Majority of the district staff will
be retiring over the next ten years
This is a red herring
argument. While the statement may be true, the fact is no additional
hiring will take place until vacancies actually occur. When there is an
important vacancy, the recruitment process will typically be nationwide, not up
and down Tampa’s Fowler Avenue. Filling vacancies will be easy or
difficult in each case as it always has been, depending upon the level of
expertise required, the economy, and the nation-wide availability of that
particular expertise. Actually, many of these vacancies will likely have
nothing to do with STEM positions and simply represent normal turnover that
might be expected within an agency over such a long time frame. Consider
that the district just fired some 40% of its workforce. Now it is
suggesting there will be a problem filling vacancies in five or ten years so
it’ll have to move the headquarters to Tampa! Nonsense.
______________________________________________
This whole exercise of moving
the majority of District staff from an existing multi-million dollar state of
the art facility in Brooksville to Tampa will ultimately prove to be a
monumental waste of time, energy and public dollars if allowed to
proceed. It has been handled unprofessionally and purposefully out of the
public eye. The arguments used to justify the move are weak and
appear politically contrived. The legislature, the county commissioners
of all the northern counties of the district, and the public should be
outraged.
