Police Take Nearly 40% of West Miami’s Budget as City Prioritizes Public Safety

In 1947 the City of West Miami was founded by four businessmen who wanted to incorporate when Miami-Dade County planned to reduce the cocktail hours and ban gambling rooms. Today, West Miami is home to more than 7,200 residents and has one police department that caters to the entire city.

With the continuous growth of the city since 1947, West Miami has a police force consisting of 22 full-time officers, several part-time and reserve officers including some civilian personnel. The West Miami Police Department (WMPD) provides services to residents 24 hours a day, and seven days a week.

To provide for the salaries, expenses, etc. that come with protecting a city, West Miami has allocated over 3 million dollars of its budget towards the police department. The City of Miami currently has a projected budget of over 8 million dollars for 2023, concluding that 37.5% of the city’s budget goes directly to the police department.“If you look at the budget, it's pretty straightforward,” said Mercedes Leon, Finance Director of West Miami. Funds are allocated through general funding expenditures and revenue streams for the city. General funding expenditures are a combination of several factors like the city commission, legal services, executive services, finance services, police department, parks, and other services as well.

Revenue for West Miami comes in many ways like taxes, property fees, business licenses, parking tickets, and even red-light camera revenue. “The revenues we review… in March and more or less we have a pretty good idea of what the revenue is, and then we calculate for our budget for next year.” Leon said.

Funds and revenue count toward the police department services such as house checks for when residents go on vacation. If an owner notifies WMPD that they will be away for a period of time, officers will perform daily house checks to ensure security of homes while residents are away.

Residents of West Miami also receive services like security surveys, a full home security inspection by a city detective, and have fingerprinting services, vehicle equipment certifications, and bicycle patrol officers.

According to the Miami-Dade County website, West Miami is most vulnerable to motor vehicle theft and robberies with over 253 police reports in the last six months just for those two items. Over a period of five years, the police department budget has had more than a 17% increase for their allocated funds budget.

Leon mentions that the increase in WMPD funds is not related to safety concerns but related to equipment purchased for the department in the last five years. “They’ve purchased three new vehicles, that was like one hundred thousand dollars that we had to put in the budget that in prior years we didn’t,” Leon said.

The police department is owned and operated by the city of West Miami. Although similar safety and security services, such as the fire department in West Miami are not associated with the city. The one fire department near West Miami city hall is owned and operated by Miami-Dade County and not by the City of West Miami. “It belongs to Miami-Dade, so we don't have them in our budget whatsoever,” Leon said.

With the police budget steadily increasing over the past several years, so has the salaries for WMPD officers.  The finance director also mentions that salaries for police officers need to be competitive in order to compete with other larger cities in Miami-Dade County. “We’ve lost a few officers to other cities, so we have to stay competitive,” said Leon. According to a job posting from the City of West Miami official website, a part-time police officer can expect to make $20.44 an hour. Also, according to a report in 2020 from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, full-time WMPD officers can make an average annual salary of $71,0000. This is in comparison to an annual salary of $69,752 for a City of Coral Gables police officer which is a larger police department near West Miami.

Residents are able to review the annual budget on the City of West Miami official website and can also attend bi-weekly commissioner’s meetings at city hall to voice their opinions. If you are a curious or concerned resident about how the City of West Miami is disposing of your taxes on the police department, there is an outline of expenditures and revenues available for WMPD and other departments in the city’s annual budget report. For more information, contact the finance department at 305-261-9914 or email mercedesl@cityofwestmiami.org with questions or concerns about the city budget.