We keep hearing about how cutting Florida property taxes is going to cause cities and counties to cut the budgets of the vital services like police and fire. The police and fire unions have come out against the tax cuts, because of course they have. Let’s take a look at what that means.
In another installment of “government is spending money like a kid who found dad’s credit cards” we look at the Kissimmee Fire Department. Let’s take a look at their budget and see how money is being spent:
- In FY 2020-21, the department had a budget of $15.07 million and ran 13,500 calls (pdf warning)
- In FY 2021-22, the department had a budget of $16.57 million and ran 15,542 calls (pdf warning)
- In FY 2022-23, the department had a budget of $17.3 million and ran 15,041 calls (pdf warning)
- In FY 2023-24, the department had a budget of $19.9 million and ran 14,549 calls (pdf warning)
Then for the following fiscal year, the department’s budget ballooned to $24.71 million, despite the fact that they didn’t run an increased call volume, having run 14,837 calls, and then for the year after that, the budget climbed again to $31.2 million. So what changed that necessitated such a drastic increase in budget?
The difference between FY23-24 and FY25-26 is a 56% increase in the fire department’s budget in just two years. A big part of that is in staffing costs. The fire department went from a 3 shift model, where firefighters work 24 hours on and get 48 hours off, to a 4 shift model, where firefighters work 24 hours and get 72 hours off. Despite the fact that firefighters are working 25% less, they are being paid the same amount. This does absolutely nothing to increase the quality of service, but the firefighters get a lot more time off for the same money, so there is that. On an hourly basis, firefighters just received a 34% raise.
That’s not the only increase in costs. Administration costs climbed from $3.5 million to $5 million ( 42% increase) in the same time span. In short, the city is simply throwing money around to the detriment of the taxpayer. How did the city get the money? They raised taxes, of course.
These localities in Florida are spending money left and right. It’s time to rein in this ridiculous spending spree. Fire services can afford some cuts, and so can the rest of government.
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