TaxWatch Slams Palm Beach County for 'Hoarding Excessive Reserves'

Florida TaxWatch on Wednesday criticized Palm Beach County for "hoarding excessive reserves."

TaxWatch's Center for Local Government Studies, in a "Special Report on Palm Beach County," said officials maintained unnecessarily high levels of unreserved funds compared with comparable counties of Broward, Hillsborough, Miami-Dade and Orange.

Palm Beach County, the report stated, has consistently maintained unreserved funds at 50 percent or more of its total expenditures over the past six years, despite declines over the past two years.

There is no excuse for a county government to hoard excessive levels of reserves over time, said Dominic Calabro, president and CEO of TaxWatch.

This continued trend has resulted in an unreasonable shift of taxpayer dollars to government coffers with no apparent benefit to the public at a time when counties need to find ways to maximize all opportunities to fund core services without raising taxes on its residents, Calabro said in a statement.

The study, which goes on to identify significant opportunities for improvement in the management and utilization of county reserves and assets, can be read here.

In a response issued to county commissioners Wednesday morning, County Administrator Robert Weisman stated:

"The funds [TaxWatch] speaks about are from multiple sources (impact fees, special revenues, bonds, general fund, etc.) which are allocated to multiple projects. The only way funds could be made available to help balance the budget would be to eliminate and de-fund general fund projects that we have deemed necessary.

"We routinely examine project status and one of the ways we have balanced our budgets over the past few years is by taking money from completed or other projects whenever justifiable," Weisman said.