Eliott's Insight: Fiscal Conservatives Promise To Watch Over Taxpayers' Money

The campaign is over, let the belt tightening begin. My guests on News & Views this week are two new county commissioners—one from Broward, the other Miami-Dade—who ran as fiscal conservatives vowing to hawkishly protect the taxpayer's money.

Let's face it; the feeling among residents in both counties is that our tax money is being squandered to run bloated bureaucracies. Many residents feel salaries of county employees are out of hand, especially in Miami-Dade, where about 10 percent of the workforce makes more than $100,000 a year.

"I've been called cheap," Miami-Dade Commissioner Lynda Bell told me when I asked about her spending practices. "People are upset about spending and they're upset about the raises given to county employees."

Bell, a former Homestead mayor, says she cut the size of government in that city by 14 percent without impacting essential services.

Commissioner Chip LaMarca, the only Republican on the Broward County Commission, says he believes commissioners should have taken a pay cut when they voted to slash Broward's budget by about ten percent last month.

"My fellow commissioners didn't cut their own salaries," LaMarca said. "If you can cut library hours and other services then you should be able to cut office budgets, staff salaries and your own salary."

Bell also wants to look at making administrative cuts in Miami-Dade, but when I asked her about the rather generous $800,000 she's getting to open a district office, she didn't sound like the same tight-fisted fiscal conservative she made herself out to be at the beginning of the interview.

"You're talking about reaching out to 110,000 voters in the district," Bell said, adding that she needs a district office to better provide constituent services to her district in South Miami-Dade.

Still, she promises to watch the budget like a hawk.

"I think everything is on the table," Bell said. "We're taking a very good look at everything as we're staffing. We're going to be a tight ship and be an example for everyone else."

Good to hear. Now let's see if the new commissioners live up to their promises. Like I said, let the belt tightening begin.