After years of flush spending and tax-rate cuts, Miami-Dade County is now facing the steepest budget crunch since the 2008 financial crisis.
A top deputy to Mayor Daniella Levine Cava on Wednesday laid out a looming financial squeeze for Florida’s largest local government. The administration is predicting a nearly $400 million shortfall next year for the county’s $3.6 billion general fund budget that pays for the core services of police, jails, transit and parks and relies on property taxes for the bulk of its revenue.
“We have some very difficult decisions to make,” Carladenise Edwards, the county’s chief administrative officer under Levine Cava, told the County Commission’s Appropriations Committee at an afternoon meeting. “If we don’t pivot, and we go straight into the storm, it could be devastating.”…