Pinellas County has too many municipalities that try to take on too many financial responsibilities. I say that with much trepidation because I know many residents like their small enclaves. I get the attraction, and I’d be the first to say that we must protect the character and vibe of our many neighborhoods.
But Pinellas with less than 1 million people has 24 municipalities. Compare that to Hillsborough, a geographically larger county with nearly 1.5 million residents, which only has three cities — Tampa, Temple Terrace and Plant City. In Pinellas, many of our municipalities are too small to be taking on so many governmental tasks. And while I’m certainly not advocating for creating blotted bureaucracies or one homogenous and characterless county, the municipalities within Pinellas need to find ways to be more efficient.
As an example, take Kenneth City, a town of about 5,000 people tucked between St. Petersburg and Pinellas Park. Times reporter Jack Evans recently highlighted how it has had six town managers, at least three town clerks, three attorneys and three police chiefs — all since 2021. The entire city employs 21 people, only seven are not police officers. How can you have continuity with that type of turnover? How can you attract top talent to manage the organization? Budgets simply are not large enough to hire an administrator with the expertise nor provide them the resources necessary to properly run a municipality. This is a perfect example of where the city leadership should consider outsourcing some of its services, joining another city or being absorbed by the county.
Travel through nearly any part of Pinellas County and you’ll see small towns with their own city halls, municipal service buildings and other expensive duplicative infrastructure. And we are talking small — Redington Beach with 1,380 residents, Indian Shores with 1,193, Belleair Shore with less than 100. And in Pinellas, the mostly densely populated county in the state, many people don’t know where the boundary of one place ends and another begins.
That duplication costs money, money that could be spent to address other challenges — or simply returned to taxpayers in the form of lower tax rates. Elected officials call for more affordable housing and for lowering the cost of living but fail to address the opportunities they have to save money. The opportunity exists to share police forces, solid waste collection, recreation facilities. The list goes on.
We already have some successful examples of sharing resources. Some smaller municipalities contract with the Sheriff’s Office to provide law enforcement. And we have a library cooperative across the county where residents can go into any library and check out a book regardless of what city they reside. More of Pinellas’ small municipalities should look harder at ways to build economies of scale that save taxpayers money and still provide a high level of service.
Like individuals, inflation has hit cities hard in recent years. Small municipalities can also struggle to retain and recruit employees. Being a part of a larger organization offers more budget flexibility, cross training in case of departures and is more attractive to employees with the potential to grow into higher-paying positions.
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Explore all your optionsWe have had a strong economy for several years, and the time to prepare for more difficult times is before the next significant downturn. One of the most challenging obstacles of merging municipalities or even fostering additional cooperation is allocating costs — which municipality will pay and how much? No city or town wants to be burdened with an unfair amount. It is not easy and rarely perfect, but it should ultimately result in better and less expensive services. It will take elected officials with vision, who value serving their constituents above protecting their fiefdoms.
Frank Hibbard is the former mayor of Clearwater.