Miami-Dade County commission set for budget showdown, hearing ThursdayPolitical Cortadito

Sheriff gets her millions; firefighters still up in the air

Budget season is usually messy, but this summer has been a full-on disaster. And Thursday night at 5 p.m., Miami-Dade residents get their first chance to sound off at the budget hearing before commissioners take their first vote.

Mayor Daniella Levine Cava has been in cleanup mode for weeks, backtracking on the most controversial cuts she dropped on July 15 like a ton of bricks. Remember? Arts funding, senior services, even mowing the grass at the neighborhood park were on the chopping block. Commissioner Marleine Bastien, usually an ally, called it a “community train wreck” and a “budget without soul.” Commissioner Kionne McGhee said “working families are left out.” And they weren’t wrong.

Now, suddenly, between borrowing some funds from the future and tweaking here and there, La Alcaldesa suddenly found almost enough money to fill her $402 million hole. How does that happen?

The loudest battle, of course, was with newly elected Sheriff Rosanna “Rosie” Cordero-Stutz. A change in Florida’s Constitution required Miami-Dade to spin off its police agency into an independent sheriff’s office after the November 2024 election. The Republican lawwoman cried foul earlier, saying that the mayor’s budget was “defunding the police” because she got “only” $55 million more. She wanted $94 million more than what the Miami-Dade Police Department got last year.

Last week, the mayor blinked. Levine Cava announced an extra $31 million for the Sheriff’s Office, bringing Rosie’s total to about $1.1 billion. That fight? Defused. “This is a victory for every resident, family, and neighborhood in our county,” Cordero-Stutz said in a statement. “With these resources secured, the Sheriff’s Office can continue to meet the needs of a growing community.”

So, that means the sheriff must have also done some belt-tightening. She asked for $94 million, got a total of $86 million and can still meet all her needs? So, $8 million was what? Padding?

But don’t think the drama is over. There are still plenty of hot potatoes baked into this budget:

Parks lifeguards: Gone at natural swimming holes like Matheson Hammock. That cut survived.
Charity & arts grants: Some money is back, but nonprofits are still short about $11 million.
Water rates: Levine Cava scaled back her 6% hike to 3.5% after Commissioner Raquel Regalado stepped in. But it’s still an increase.
Garbage fees: They’re expected to go up, even as the future of solid waste disposal in the county is a dumpster fire.
Senior centers: Little River stays open. South Dade? Still slated for closure.
Transit: The MetroConnect shuttle gets the axe, unless an alternative pops up. Bus and rail riders still face a 50-cent fare hike. MetroMover might start costing up to $100 a month for downtowners. Tolls on the Rickenbacker Causeway to Key Biscayne are slated to go up by 200%.
FIFA: The public and some commissioners question if now is the best time for the county to shell $46 million in cash and services to the FIFA World Cup related activities (read: parties).

The big fight now is over the mayor’s plan to dump $28 million in chopper costs onto the fire rescue department to pay for air rescue services themselves through their separate tax. Currently, the county pays out of the general fund to operate the four helicopters that fly critical patients to the hospital to get them there faster and douse brushfires from the skies.

But here’s the rub: The choppers serve every inch of the county — even the five municipalities that don’t pay a penny into the fire district: Miami, Miami Beach, Coral Gables, Hialeah and Key Biscayne. And, basically, Levine Cava’s idea is to let those people ride for free while the other municipalities and the people in the unincorporated county areas foot the bill.

Levine Cava insists she’s protecting “core county services” while keeping the property tax rate low. She says her original proposal was a “snapshot in time” before her staff nailed down more one-time surplus dollars. But her critics aren’t buying it.

Commissioner Roberto Gonzalez mocked her on social media: “It looks like, after the self-induced ‘perfect storm,’ as she calls it, the ayor followed the imaginary yellow brick road to the pot of money that was waiting right where she left it,” Gonzalez wrote Thursday on the platform formerly known as Twitter. “Enough with the games and storytelling, we’re not in Kansas anymore!”

So, now the stage is set for Thursday’s first public budget hearing at County Hall. Residents, nonprofits, cops, firefighters, seniors, and straphangers all get their turn at the mic. Two minutes, if Commission Chairman “King Anthony” Rodriguez feels generous. Otherwise, they’ll get 60 seconds. Then, the commission takes its first vote on the mayor’s ever changing proposal.

Round two comes later this month. And Gonzalez says he wants a change order by the Sept. 18 hearing that fully funds the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Department’s air rescue operations. He was flanked by Commissioners Rene Garcia and Natalie Milian Orbis and Congressman Carlos Gimenez — who had to jump into the debate — at the fire union’s press conference last week where he demanded that police and fire be fully funded. The fire union has threatened legal action.

“What we have is no longer a mismanagement of funds,” Gonzalez said in a video posted on his Instagram. “What we really have is a failure to prioritize the things that are important to the residents of Miami-Dade County.

“I am sick and tired of the shell games,” said Gonzalez, who has seemed to be campaigning for higher office recently. “The mayor says that we’re in a deficit. Then she says that we’re not in a deficit. The mayor says that she lost money. Then she says that she found money. Folks, there is one thing that we cannot play with, and that is the safety and the lives of our residents.”

Some things never change on the 29th floor — and that includes finding magical drawers of money when you most need to.

Speaking of which, enter Gimenez, the former county mayor. Because, por supuesto, he shows up at press conference to wag his finger at his Democratic successor. “They need more money, more units, more firefighters,” Gimenez, a former fire captain and city manager, blasted as he stood with fire union leaders and firefighters.

Excuse Ladra while she coughs up a hairball. Because we all remember when this same Gimenez, as county mayor, proposed rolling “brownouts” at fire stations — putting one or two units out of service every shift and rotating which neighborhoods would lose coverage. That was his idea of fiscal responsibility. Now, he’s suddenly the defender of Fire Rescue’s funding?

Levine Cava’s camp wasn’t having it, either. As Gimenez spoke, her comms team blasted out a slick video of La Alcaldesa, smiling, “setting the record straight,” and praising firefighters as “heroes” while touting the raises and new trucks she’s delivered in her five years. She insists the helicopter shuffle is just an accounting move: “The services remain unchanged, and the public will not be impacted.” Her budget folks point out that Fire Rescue has actually grown 10% under her watch and say delays are about land costs and backlogged fire truck orders, not dollars.

The union isn’t buying it. “Lives hang in the balance,” union president William “Billy” McAllister warned. “When seconds count, sometimes we’re minutes away.”

So, now, we’ve got the firefighter-turned-mayor-turned-congressman tag-teaming with union leaders and Republican commissioners against the current mayor. The same guy who once pitched cutting back fire coverage is now crying wolf about a “dangerously unfair” budget.

Ladra says grab your helmets, gente. The helicopter fight is only fueling the flames as commissioners get ready to take their first budget vote Thursday night in a meeting that might look look less like a policy debate and more like a campaign commercial.

Ladra can’t help but wonder if the congressman is going to make an appearance.

The first public hearing of the Miami-Dade 2025-2026 proposed budget starts at 5:01 p.m. Thursday at County Hall, 111 NW First Street, and can also be seen online on the county’s website.

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