RPB ROTARY DANCE AT DREHER PARK SEE PHOTOS, PAGE 3
P.W. CHAMBER TALKS HEALTH AT JFK SEE STORY, PAGE 7
T H E W E L L I N GTO N
TOWN-CRIER
Wellington’s Hometown Newspaper
INSIDE Opinion
Volume 30, Number 37 September 11 - September 17, 2009
ART SOCIETY OPENS SEASON
Balancing Needs Of Taxpayers With The Needs Of Everyone
In this difficult budget season, governments have been making tough decisions, trying to balance the needs of taxpayers seeking relief against citizens demanding adequate service. So far, area governments have used both tools: making deeps cuts, while raising the tax rate to make up some of the shortfall caused by falling property values and statewide property tax reform. Page 4
News
Acreage Residents Divided Over Water
A meeting at Seminole Ridge High School last week showed sharp divisions among Acreage residents on the option of connecting to Palm Beach County water utility lines. Page 2
The Wellington Art Society kicked off its 2009-10 season with its annual open house and membership drive Wednesday night at the Royal Palm Beach Cultural Center. Several local artists were on hand with samples of their work. Shown here is Nancy Tilles with her oil painting Butterfly Seduction. MORE PHOTOS, PAGE 5 PHOTO BY DENISE FLEISCHMAN/TOWN-CRIER
Wellington Begins Four-Day Work Schedule On Sept. 28 Royal Palm Hosts Senior Wellness Fair
A senior wellness fair was held Tuesday at the Royal Palm Beach Cultural Center. The event was sponsored by the Area Agency on Aging. Page 7
Family Fitness Fair This Saturday At Ultima Fitness
Ultima Fitness/Xtreme Tae Kwon Do of Wellington will hold a Family Fitness Fair on Saturday, Sept. 12 to provide fitness education, screening and services for children and families. Page 8
Sports
Wolverines Open Season, Topping Olympic Heights
It took just one game for the Wellington High School varsity football team to match its win total from last season. Behind a strong performance from its defense, the Wolverines won their season opener last Friday night 10-0 against Olympic Heights. Page 15 THIS WEEK’S INDEX NEWS ........................ 2 - 9 OPINION ......................... 4 CRIME NEWS ................. 6 BUSINESS .................... 10 SCHOOLS ..................... 12 PEOPLE ........................ 13 CALENDAR .................... 14 SPORTS ....................... 15 COLUMNS ..................... 16 Visit Us On The Web At WWW.GOTOWNCRIER.COM
By Ron Bukley Town-Crier Staff Report Due to budget constraints, staff at the Village of Wellington will convert to a fourday work week beginning Sept. 28, operating Monday through Thursday. The four-day work week will save more than $300,000 annually, Assistant Village Manager John Bonde said, largely through reductions in energy and water use. “That’s our best estimate,” Bonde told the Town-Crier Thursday. “That would be one less day out of five that we would be open, and we would have reduced energy use and bills associated with staying open. We’re still paying people for a 40-hour week. Instead of working five eights, they’re working four tens. We’re not impacting people’s take-home pay.” Village offices will be closed on Fridays beginning Oct. 2, except for the Safe Neighborhoods Office located at 1100 Wellington Trace and facilities that have been reserved for private activities. Village Manager Paul Schofield said the four-day work week would present both advantages and disadvantages. On the positive side, field crews would spend less travel time going to their work sites. “There will be a reduced mobilization of work crews,” he said. “There is some improvement in the field crews mobilizing fewer times a week.” Village offices should experience some improved efficiency with longer workdays, although Schofield expects it will take time to see those results. “We will have a period of adjustment,” he said. One of the reasons for closing down on Fridays is that
the public doesn’t come in as much on that day, Schofield said. “However, we are facing the simple fact that being closed on Friday will not be as convenient as it could be,” he said. Schofield said the village had considered other costcutting alternatives to the four-day work week, such as trimming either employee hours or positions, or eliminating village services. The village did decide on an unpaid weeklong furlough for employees between Christmas and New Year’s Day, except for essential services. “If you get three people show up in that period, it’s a lot,” Schofield said, adding that employees will be on duty to answer calls for services. The decision was made to put more money into programs such as law enforcement and foreclosure education, Schofield said, explaining that crime trends are changing in Wellington, while at the same time, the village has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the region. Bonde said the four-day week would not reduce employee salaries because they will still work full-time hours. “It’s just what days they work and how long they work during the day,” he explained. At a budget workshop in July, Wellington Village Council members were concerned whether residents would still receive “five-day service” in a four-day work week, Bonde said. “What they mean by that, is if they call a phone number for the village, will they still get somebody to answer it five days a week? The answer is yes,” Bonde said. “We’re going to utilize staff
and assign them to our Safe Neighborhoods Office.” The Safe Neighborhoods Office, the former utility customer service building on Wellington Trace, is already open six days, and Bonde said staffers there will take phone calls on Friday, both general calls for which they will take messages and emergency calls that would be routed to proper agencies. “We’re on call seven days a week anyway — and it will be routed to the appropriate staff,” Bonde said. “If it’s just a standard call, a non-emergency call, they will take a message and follow up with the appropriate staff the following work day, which will be on Monday.” Regular office hours for the building department, planning & zoning, code compliance, utilities, public works and administration will be from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Thursday. Recreation will operate Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. and on weekends as scheduled. Bonde said the extended Monday through Thursday hours would actually be of benefit to many residents whose working hours coincide with the village’s current operating hours. “By the village opening at seven in the morning and closing at six in the evening, they could actually do business with the village on their way to work or on their way back from work four days a week,” he said. “So the window they have to do business with the Village of Wellington is actually expanding, not contracting.” For more information on village services, call (561) 791-4000 or visit www.ci. wellington.fl.us.
Serving Palms West Since 1980
2010 Wellington Budget Sets Tax Rate At 2.5 Mills By Ron Bukley Town-Crier Staff Report While many municipalities are hard-pressed to make ends meet during these trying economic times, Wellington is in a good position to weather the storm, Village Manager Paul Schofield said this week. On Tuesday, Sept. 15, Wellington will hold the first of two public hearings on the village’s 2010 budget. The proposed budget of $83 million is $20 million less than that of the current year, but still retains funding for significant capital improvement and maintenance projects, Schofield said. “We have been reducing expenditures over the last several years,” Schofield told the Town-Crier Thursday. “It started when [former village manager] Charlie Lynn was here. The last budget he proposed was $113 million, which was down eight to ten million from the prior year. The budget I proposed last year was down from $113 million to $103 million.” Schofield said revenues are down in virtually every area, with the village now deriving practically no income from traditionally lucrative building impact fees and connection fees. Gas tax and sales tax revenues are also down. “Everything is down,” he said. “By the same token, many operating costs are up.” Insurance and other commodities are more expensive, Schofield noted. Wellington is also adding
more deputies to its law enforcement service to make sure that the difficult economy does not manifest itself in a higher crime rate. The village agreed to an increase of $400,000 for the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office next year, which includes $250,000 for new deputies. The village is also putting more than $1 million into its Safe Neighborhoods project, which targets some of Wellington’s older, declining neighborhoods for improvements. Schofield said the village is spending a significant amount to improve drainage, a need demonstrated by flooding along Pierson Road caused by Tropical Storm Fay last year, as well as cleaning up entrances and repairing roadways, mainly along Forest Hill Blvd. “We’re trying to put it back to the Wellington we all know that it can be,” Schofield said. “If we as a city are telling banks and property owners in these economic times that they have to maintain their property, then we’ve got to do it, too. This is leadership by example.” The budget under consideration at next week’s hearing proposes a millage rate of 2.50 mills, below the socalled “rollback rate” of approximately 2.8 mills that would maintain property tax revenues at the same level as last year. While that is slightly highSee BUDGET, page 17
RPB Council OKs Lean Budget With Lower Tax Rate By Ron Bukley Town-Crier Staff Report Despite a sharp reduction in taxable property value, the Royal Palm Beach Village Council approved a tax rate reduction for the 15th consecutive year at its first public hearing on the 2010 budget Thursday. The proposed tax rate of 1.93 mills is down .04 mills from last year’s rate of 1.97, which is a reduction of two percent. It is 20.9 percent lower than the “rollback” millage rate of 2.44, Finance Director Stanley Hochman said. The rollback rate is the tax rate that would bring in the same amount of revenue as the previous year. According to Hochman, the average value of a home in Royal Palm Beach is currently $144,500, down from $173,000 last year. With a standard homestead exemption, the average property owner will pay $182.39 in municipal taxes next year, down $59.92 from last year, for a tax decrease of 24.7 percent.
“We find ourselves in an unusual position relative to other municipalities across the state,” said Village Manager David Farber, noting that Royal Palm Beach is able to lower its tax rate while other governments are raising theirs. Farber pointed out that by outsourcing many services in recent years — including water utilities, law enforcement and fire-rescue — the village has been able to keep costs low while improving services. “We now find ourselves in a situation that by virtue of our fund balance and some decisions we have made in terms of reducing our work force, we are in a position that we can weather this storm, certainly this year, probably next year, and maybe the year after without having to dip into our fund balance,” he said. Hochman said the economic downturn has resulted in $890,000 less in ad valorem taxes, $500,000 less in See RPB, page 17
County Trims Budget, But Hikes The Tax Rate By Ron Bukley Town-Crier Staff Report County commissioners approved a reduced operating budget of $1.109 billion at the first of two public budget hearings Tuesday. The county’s total operating budget contrasts with last year’s $1.128 billion budget, a decrease of $18 million. In order to achieve the cuts, County Administrator Robert Weisman said he had to mandate ten-percent cuts to nearly all departments, which included the elimination of more than 600 staff positions. Although the budget is reduced overall, it still includes an increase of $27 million for the Palm Beach County Sher-
iff’s Office. Some three hours of public comment was dominated by people urging the commission not to cut the $3 million Sheriff’s Drug Farm program. The 4.344 millage “rollback rate,” an increase from last year’s rate of 3.781, would make up for the devaluation of property in the past year, Weisman said. Some commissioners had discussed increasing the millage to only 4.29, which would have cut another $7.5 million from the budget, according to Weisman. “I will support the 4.344 mills because that will give us what we need to continue,” Commissioner Burt
Aaronson said. “If we go backward or lower it, we’re going to have a greater problem next year. This is not a one-year thing. I don’t think that anybody here sitting in this audience can think that next year the economy is going to be booming and construction is going to be going wild once again. Hopefully, in three or four years all these things are going to come back.” Aaronson said he had received letters from people who wrote that they don’t want more taxes and from people who wrote that they want services such as parks and recreation, public libraries, and police and fire pro-
tection to remain intact. “You can’t have all the things if you don’t pay taxes,” Aaronson said, mentioning that last year he had recommended a compromise of 3.98 mills, which was not approved. “If we were at 3.98 last year, we wouldn’t be in the jam that we’re in today,” he said. “So as long as we keep on extending ourselves, saying, OK, we can’t bite the bullet, you’re not going to have a bullet year, you’re going to have a hand grenade.” Commission Chairman Jeff Koons said the 2011 budget is projected to be $100 million less than that of the coming year.
“There’s no way of walking out without hitting on the sheriff’s budget when it’s basically almost half of our budget,” Koons said. “It’s going to be brutal next year.” Commissioner Steven Abrams said he would have favored cuts to specific departments over reductions across the board. “I’m disappointed that this budget does not create a more efficient model that we’re going to need for the future,” Abrams said. “Make no mistake about it — we’re going to have the Drug Farm discussion next year because we are going to be having to identify further cuts, and that See COUNTY, page 17