Miami-Dade tax vote hurt disabled
Miami-Dade county has been dealing with a steadily declining population as jobs dry up in the sunshine state. The county has been steadily firing city workers in order to keep the budget in balance but is at the point that they cannot release any more employees and still perform basic city and county functions. The county decided last night to keep the property taxes at the same level as an enticement for potential new residents to move to south Florida. Unfortunately the budget under this new plan can no longer fund basic programs for the disabled including meals for the elderly, domestic violence counseling and grants to start new businesses. (Source: Miami Herald)
The county has been trying to deal with a $444 million dollar shortfall from fewer taxpayers living in the county and those that cannot do for themselves are now under attack. More than 1000 protesters filled the Dade County hall waving banners and demanding to be heard. After seven hours of testimony from home owners and those that need basic programs the county offers, city commissioners decided to leave property taxes at previous levels. During the heated exchange between protesters and officials, commissioners shut down people that demanded to know why top county officials received large pay bonuses at a time when budgets were steadily shrinking.
It is a sad day for those that live in Dade County as it is obvious that more and more programs to help the disabled are going to either be shrunk or cut out completely. The disabled live off of Social Security Disability payments which essentially allow you to live in a tiny apartment and pay for food. That is it. Many depend on county programs that provide food and medical services to those that cannot afford to pay for these bills. It is unclear what the disabled are going to do to feed themselves when food programs are cut off but something needs to be done. All of Florida is under extreme stress of losing virtually all of it’s high tech companies to the "research triangle" from Atlanta to Charlotte, NC to Nashville. Engineers and computer specialists that made $80-$125k a year were paying for large houses that allowed the city to thrive and pay for services the disabled need to live. Under governor Lawton Chiles, most of those companies moved out of the state during a recession. Now without companies like IBM, Sun Microsystems and Siemens tens of thousands of engineers have moved to the research triangle, leaving a giant hole in the budget. These "halfbacks" as they are called, are finding that their tax, energy, and insurance bills are almost half what they were paying in Florida. Others found out what these engineers did and now Florida is fighting a steady flow of residents out of their state.
Spinal Cord Resources moved from Fort Lauderdale 8 months ago to Atlanta and found bills to be much cheaper and better schools and universities very close to the city. Also, major spinal cord research facilities are in Atlanta including the Shepard Center, Georgia Tech and Emory University. Florida has it’s hands full trying to figure out how to get higher paying jobs to an area that has been decimated by bad political decisions and a recession that is entering it’s second year of existence.
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