The City of Palm Coast has eliminated several job positions in its government as it strives to meet tighter budget goals, a city spokesperson announced Friday. Six positions have been eliminated and one long-serving employee has resigned.
The positions eliminated by the city government are as follows:
- Animal Control Officer
- Code Enforcement Manager
- Land Management Coordinator
- Landscape Architect
- Temporary Animal Control Officer
- Temporary Staff Assistant
In addition to these positions being eliminated, one of the city’s longest-serving employees resigned of their own volition. Heather Priestap, an animal control officer for 24 years, followed two of her department’s employees in leaving the city’s employment.
Another of Palm Coast’s longest-tenured officials was laid off in the cuts. Palm Coast Code Enforcement Manager Barbara Grossman has been with the city for two decades. She was among those suddenly informed her job no longer existed.
According to a Saturday report from FlaglerLive, the employees who were laid off were not merely asked to leave. They were escorted out of City Hall by other employees.
“Decisions like these are never easy and are made only after careful evaluation of the organization’s operational needs and long-term financial responsibilities,” the city’s spokesperson said Friday. “We sincerely appreciate the service and contributions of the employees affected by these changes and wish them the very best.”
“After 24 years working for the City of Palm Coast Animal Control I handed in my resignation,” said Heather Priestap in a social media post. “It’s a bit scary. It is a highly stressful job all around from the work it’s self, being on call having everyone second guess your decisions. Extreme budget cuts when everything you need is going up in cost to already struggling employees to keep up with the demand of the citizens. To hard working dedicated employees being fired and walked out of the building with not having a clue it’s coming. Leaving everyone else in the department wondering if they were next was the wrong way to go about it. Restructuring should not happen like that. It was a horrible day all around.”
Why Palm Coast Eliminated a Half-Dozen City Jobs
Palm Coast’s spokesperson said these cuts are in line with “the City’s ongoing efforts to align operations with the fiscal direction established by the City Council”. This references an ongoing push to keep residents’ tax bills from increasing year-over-year. The elimination of six positions should bring savings of close to half a million dollars.
The Council last month instructed the finance department to prepare a budget that would allow the adoption of a rollback millage rate. This would decrease tax rates so that the city would yield the same property tax revenue as the prior fiscal year. The only source of revenue increase would come from new construction.
City Manager Mike McGlothlin advised the Council that cuts to employee salary expenditures would lead to reduction in service. Vice Mayor Theresa Carli Pontieri, who last month voted against a slightly higher maximum possible property tax rate, herself suggested cuts to Code Enforcement in order to facilitate a rollback rate.
On a broader scale, Palm Coast is one of many municipalities preparing to potentially lose out on almost all property tax revenue whatsoever. If Florida voters pass Amendment 3 in November, the vast majority of local property taxes would be phased out over several years. One of the city’s most vital revenue streams would effectively dry up, likely forcing sweeping cuts.
I understand that the code enforcement officer who was sexually harassing a woman in the W section still has his job and that is not the first internal complaint against him