A look at the 100 highest paid people on the city payroll leaves the reader with several impressions. First, we have a lot of well paid people working for the city. Second, we have a lot of people working for the city. Third, there seems to be a lot of overtime being paid. In the business world, companies sometimes declare bankruptcy in order to get away from cost structures that they can’t maintain, but can’t change because of contractual agreements. Is this the position New Smyrna Beach finds itself now? And if not now, then when?
The good part of a situation like this is that there are a lot of opportunities to make cuts. We could cut people. We could cut salaries. We could manage our overtime better.
While there are plenty of opportunities to reduce payroll costs, it is always difficult to make these reduction decisions. I’m glad I don’t have to make them.
If we don’t get a grip on our finances here the City of New Smyrna Beach might have to declare bankruptcy some day. Believe it or not that might not be all bad because in receivership the city finances can be reformed without political pressure.
Historically it has always been much easier to raise tax revenues than to cut costs.
However, with the business slowdown and credit problems, the citizens of New Smyrna are not in the mood to solve the problem the old fashioned way.
Maybe the most painless way to do it is with pay reductions and better control of overtime while letting natural attrition reduce the size of the workforce.
There are other opportunities to reduce the city budget. One of the most obvious is to sell off the municipal golf course.
It should be emphasized that good efficient cost cutting takes planning and time and has to become part of the “culture “ of the organization.