As fear grows over the federal government shrinking its response to natural disasters and shifting duties from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to local communities, Monroe County is slashing costs in next year’s budget.
Among the cuts: membership in a landmark regional climate compact that helps plan for such events and staffing positions tied to disaster response, including the director of emergency management.
The Monroe County Board of County Commissioners met Tuesday to debate its proposed $678.5 million budget for the next fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.
At the meeting, the board approved additional budget reductions in the amount of $2 million, which includes withdrawing from the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Compact, according to a commission statement.
The proposed budget will shrink about 5% and eliminate 40 positions. Half of those jobs are currently filled. Staff being let go include the chief of flood plain operations and a staffer overseeing mitigation efforts in the resiliency department. Four employees tied to emergency services were terminated, including a planner for special needs residents.
A deputy fire marshal and a fire rescue division chief positions will be cut. The county director of emergency services, which handles the immediate aftermath of a storm, will now oversee long-term planning as well. Free and reduced rideshare programs are also being cut.
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The cuts will boost reserves that can be tapped after a storm from $10 million to $14 million.
“Everything’s being done in case of possible FEMA changes,” said county spokesperson Kristin Livengood. “After Irma we had trouble getting our trash picked up. So the communities were just really concerned that we have the money on hand to get our processes started immediately after a storm just in case.”
Dropping out of the South Florida Regional Climate Compact will save the county about $100,000, she said.
Monroe County was a founding member of the compact in 2009 when the four counties in Southeast Florida came together to coordinate sea rise projections to plan for growing risks from flooding and more intense hurricanes. Those projections were among the first such local estimates and helped put South Florida in the spotlight for how to prepare for rising seas and global warming that risk billions of dollars of property.
For the last decade, the compact helped the four counties, from Palm Beach to the Keys, come up with regional strategies to protect them from sunny day flooding, coastal erosion and more intense rainfall fueled by climate change.
As one of the state’s most vulnerable areas that barely sits above sea level, Monroe County provided the testing grounds for strategies like eliminating septic tanks that can fail as groundwater rises and elevating roads.
It’s not clear what effect Monroe County’s withdrawal from the compact will have. In an email, Broward County Resilience Chief Jennifer Jurado said members hadn’t yet had a chance to discuss the matter fully, but would in the next two weeks.
“Will certainly require discussion,” she wrote.
In addition to FEMA cuts, county officials also worry about changes in state property taxes and drop in tourism and property taxes.
County Administrator Christine Hurley said in her memo to county commissioners that efficiency audits that identified cuts also reflect federal and state Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, priorities. That includes eliminating “activities in support of wrong, unlawful or anti-scientific ideologies.”
“In a different economic environment, I would have welcomed the opportunity to present a budget centered on growth, new initiatives, and expanded services,” she wrote. “But that’s not the landscape we are working in today.”
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