It’s that time of year again, budget release. The 2024 tentative budget for Martin County has been released, and it’s a doozy to say the least. $643 Million, an increase of almost 15% has been proposed for the next fiscal year- excluding school taxes. Funding the $84 million year over year increase comes (mostly) from increased taxable property values and a .4 millage point hike on the typical property bill. For comparative sake, that 15% increase is twice the ’21-’22 increase of 7% which was a year that budget was increased following a FY decrease from ’20-’21; and also twice last year’s increase in expenditures.

Some interesting notes from this year’s proposal is the emphasis placed on Roads MSTU (a 34% increase) vs. the 10% decrease in Parks MSTU. Have we decided to address base infrastructure over entertainment complexes? I hope so, but only time will tell.

A far greater question left unanswered if why interfund transfers is so heavy this year- and where is the money going? Of the $84 million increase, one quarter of that ($21 million) is slated for interfund transfers, $17 million of which is simply stated as “requests” by constitutional officers. Though I have only begun to dive into the 565-page document, there is little stated about the funding utilization by constitutional offices. I do know that a comparative analysis of last year’s numbers to the proposed in 2024 show a $16,361,163 increase for the Sheriff’s department (not including Sheriff non-departmental; another $400,000 increase). That is over 19% year over year growth- all with no description or reasoning offered.

It is all very difficult to absorb without becoming angry. For a decade now I have followed the budget of the BoCC, and every year raised several pointed questions. One of the few things I agree with Sarah Heard on is to prioritize necessities over nice things. I believe many would agree that $850k to rectify a decade of disrepair at WoJo park is somewhat reasonable while $655k for 3 months operations of a “golf arcade” -as one commissioner put it, is probably not as reasonable in the way of government’s responsibilities.

This leads me to my question of the year: Where is the counties written list of governmental responsibilities/priorities? I have never seen it in the budget, nor on the county’s website or transparency page. How can we expect the OMB to write a cohesive budget year over year for multi-year buildouts without a prioritization flow chart? Commissioners change, and so do desires, but responsibilities do not. It’s hard to fathom a lack of formal prioritization, but it does explain a few observations (confusion of closure and repair dates for Confusion corner, multi-year drag out of repairs on 76, but immediate takeover of a restaurant/hitting bay and of course the ever-elusive infrastructure back-log).

This year, I invite you to join me in asking the commission to formally author a flow chart of governmental responsibilities and priorities. Do we prioritize our wastewater or our waterpark? Is transparency a priority, and if so, why is the constitutional officer’s budgets approved by the BoCC but not reviewed by the commission and made public to the tax payers? After all, we can’t hold people accountable if we don’t first lay out the policies. Until then we will continue to build mini-amphitheaters while sink-holes open up on the way to the show.

Contact your commissioners and tell them it’s time to put responsibilities and priorities on paper for all their constituents to see.