Escambia County has a record $702M budget. Firefighters and EMS will benefit most.
Escambia County is in the middle of the budget process and commissioners are working with their largest budget ever: $701,963,319.
"A lot of hard work, a lot of hours into that budget, a lot of hours behind the scenes, a lot of meetings behind the scenes, just going through it, strategizing and doing different things," Escambia County Administrator Wes Moreno said.
During the Board of County Commissioner’s latest budget meeting, Moreno updated the board on where they are in the process, including adding dozens of positions and defunding dozens more.
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Moreno said the county cut or refunded a total of 106 positions. Of those, 54 positions are paid for through the county’s general fund and are valued at $5.3 million. The county also partially defunded another 52 positions, valued at $2.8 million from the mass transit fund.
Escambia's troubles filling jobs
Most of the affected positions are jobs that the county has had a difficult time filling, like corrections officers and bus drivers for Escambia County Area Transit.
“We had some part-time bus driver positions at ECAT that had not been filled in years, so we just deleted those, and they were all vacant,” said Moreno. “We deleted some (with the corrections department) that were unfilled and then we unfunded some that were vacant. They were down 100 and then they caught up. We had defunded 30, so we gave them back some. We still left about 20 unfunded and we'll just continue to monitor that.”
Moreno said the positions aren’t necessarily eliminated and could be added back if opportunities to fill them arise, as has happened before in the Public Works department. He said they also had 10 positions defunded, but when new hires were found the county again funded five of those positions.
Moreno added that by deleting and defunding some of the longtime vacant positions, the county could afford to add more staff to other departments. They added 73 positions for transportation, fire protection and EMS-related work, valued at $5.4 million.
Moreno said the total change in personnel adds 19 positions for the county. He said recent recruitment efforts have helped them fill positions in corrections, as well as public safety.
He said the county had been struggling to find lifeguards, paramedics and EMTs, but it’s almost full now.
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“You're always going to have a vacancy here and there, but as a matter of fact we just added, in this this budget, 18 new EMS personnel of paramedics and EMTs,” Moreno said. “We’re adding 21 new firefighter positions to fire, you know they were struggling as well. We've been able to recruit and retain and saying how we want to grow and offer a better service.”
Escambia's biggest budget
Escambia County’s proposed 2023/2024 budget is roughly double what it was 10 years ago, credited to several reasons, including growth.
The county’s ad valorem tax grew 15% over last year’s revenue. Last year, the county saw 16% growth in revenue from the tax over the previous year. The county also has different federal monies from COVID economic relief funds.
Moreno said they’re still working through the process determining how some of it will be spent.
“Each department has set their priorities,” Moreno said. “They've told tell me what they need, and we've done a lot of hard work by strategizing to make some of those things happen.”
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Commissioners also want to discuss the Tourist Development Tax, a 5% "bed tax" on short-term accommodations in hotels, apartments, condominiums, timeshare and the like. The county needs to rewrite its ordinances surrounding the TDC after an audit by the Florida Auditor General's found it wasn’t in line with state law.
Commissioner Jeff Bergosh also wants to evaluate how TDC money is spent and is pushing for some of the funding to go to promoting Perdido Key Beach.
To hash out the tax and other budget issues, commissioners are planning to discuss the issues at the next Committee of the Whole meeting in late August or early September.
Commissioners are expected to vote on the final budget in September.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Escambia County 2024 budget cuts ECAT, correction jobs, adds fire, EMS
