At last week’s City Council Meeting, several residents spoke up to support the Miami Springs Police. In fact, some residents urged the City Council to raise taxes to avoid any cutback on services.
Now, before we get further along this story, we want to address something right now. There has been an online rumor that the City Council is attempting to “Defund the Police.” That is false and fake news.
Here’s what’s really happening: The Miami Springs Police Union is negotiating with the attorneys representing the City of Miami Springs Police. As you might expect, the Police Union is going to ask for a lot…(as they should). The City of Miami Springs attorneys will attempt to negotiate that down (as they should as well). Ultimately, the negotiations will typically result somewhere in the middle. That’s the normal back and forth that happens with a negotiation.
However, to claim that the City of Miami Springs is attempting to “Defund the Police” is the kind of hyperbolic BS that truly needs to be called out.
Now, for the record, we have a long standing track record of supporting the Miami Springs Police Department. We want to hire more police. In fact, the City of Miami Springs has budgeted to add more police officers. That’s a good thing.
We all know that we need more funding, ideally in the form of bed taxes, to hire more police to attend to all the calls the City of Miami Springs Police Department gets from the hotels. We fully support this.
What should our Police contract look like? Well, we’re not the richest city in the county. So we shouldn’t expect to pay our Police the highest salaries or the best compensation package. We’re also not the poorest city. We shouldn’t pay our cops the lowest package either. Our Police officers are incredibly important to our community and we need to support them with a fair package that shows them how important they are while also being fair to the residents of Miami Springs that can only afford to pay so much.
Police Vehicles
Now, part of the police compensation includes the take home vehicles. So let’s dive into one of the bigger police expenses outside of salary, the police vehicles:
After Ford stopped producing the venerable Crown Victoria Police Interceptor, many departments switched to Dodge Chargers and Ford Tauruses. Ford later discontinued the Taurus leaving the Charger as the primary police sedan. Ford did introduce the Ford Explorer Police Interceptor SUV. The Miami Springs Police Department which used to be dominated by Ford Crown Victorias (shown above) now has a hodge podge of vehicles including Chargers, Tauruses, Ford Explorer Police Interceptors, and the big Chevy Tahoes.
Now, as you know, Police vehicles get heavy use and abuse. In our small city, there’s no highway mileage. It’s all city use. Constant stop and go. Then, these cars are idling as officers write up reports. And of course, these police vehicles are then used as take home cars as an added employment benefit to the officers.
As a Police Chief who wants to get the best for his team, I can see why Chief Guzman has acquired some of the big Chevy Tahoes. They’re bigger. They’re more comfortable. And they are safer. Unfortunately, they’re also the least fuel efficient of the bunch. With gas approaching nearly $4.00 per gallon again, we may need to think about some of the more fuel efficient options going forward. Again, Miami Springs is not the richest city nor the poorest. A mix of the more fuel efficient Explorers and Chargers seems to be what is right sized for our city.
Let’s be fair
The cost of living in Miami is skyrocketing. Everything is more expensive. From groceries to gas to rent. Our officers should receive a fair compensation package with a proper cost of living adjustment (often referred to as COLA) that takes care of our police and is also fair to the tax payers. And if that means we need to cut elsewhere, then so be it. But let’s be fair and let’s not take the Miami Springs taxpayers for a ride, either.
Now, the City of Miami Springs has a City Council Meeting on Monday where they will have the first reading of the millage rate for the upcoming budget. The residents are welcome to attend and share their feedback with the Council in person. Of course, you can also share your thoughts in the comments below or via social media.
Good. Defund MSPS. There’s no reason a city like ours needs to spend this much on police. Especially when they are nowhere to be seen when you really need them. They could sit in the circle and write tickets for people failing to yield and they’ll have their whole budget in an hour.
You obviously have no clue how a police budget works. The police chief was asked twice to cut the budget. This first by 5%, then an additional 2% on top of the 5. Taking away resources and equipment the officers need to protect and serve this community aka defunding. Those are the facts and you can visit the department and find out for yourself. 201 Westward Dr.
MSPD officers take pride where they work and how they serve the community. Response time is 2 minutes or less at any given point inside the city limits. That is also a fact, you can pull the numbers if you think I’m lying again.
The fact of the matter is, if the city and the union don’t come to a rational agreement soon, the city will see a mass exodus from MSPD. The response time to any call will be 10,15,20 minutes if not more. Mirroring MDPDs response time, which is ridiculous. The city will spend triple the amount of money in new hires, training, and paying out overtime so there’s an adequate number of officers patrolling our city. As the saying goes don’t play with fire or you might get burned, and you get what you pay for.
Back the blue and support our police. Speak up and let the council know. Keep the services status quo and do not jeopardize the safety of the residents. The end.
Seriously? A $700k cut? Keep lying. A $700k cut would result in at least 7 fewer cops next year. Truth is, the city is adding an additional officer. Where did you get a $700k cut from?
Back the blue, but don’t be pigs.
The council proposed to cut the police budget by 7%. That’s roughly $700,000. That is in fact defunding the police. Your story is misleading and it’s not fake news, it’s fact.
As for the vehicles portion, ideally more fuel efficient vehicles would be great. The fact is these manufacturers aren’t producing vehicles quick enough. The turn around time to get a single vehicle is over a year and a half. Police departments need to take what is available at the moment. Which is exactly what happened with the Tahoes. The MSPD vehicle fleet is falling apart. MSPD cannot afford to wait that turnaround time on “fuel efficient” vehicles. You’ll have officers with no vehicles if you do, thus less officers will be patrolling our city.
Crime is skyrocketing. Last week alone there were roughly 30 vehicle burglaries and 5 vehicles stolen from our city. Also, a dozen or more catalytic converter thefts. Our officers need all the support they can from our city administration. Cutting the budget, nickel and diming the police contract is not the answer. Residents need to speak up if they want to keep referring to Miami springs as the beautiful Miami springs. Because it’s not going to be so beautiful if this path continues.