Mayor asks departments for 10% cuts; OMB flags $3M ISD shortfall, ITD outlines modernization work

The Miami‑Dade County Appropriations Committee heard a multifaceted presentation on budget pressures and efficiency measures, including a mayoral request that departments identify 10% reductions where feasible, an Office of Management and Budget (OMB) explanation of a $3 million unrealized‑revenue shortfall in the Information Services Department (ISD), and a Department of Information Technology (ITD) overview of ongoing modernization work.

David Cloudfield of the Office of Management and Budget told the committee that the ISD had a roughly $3 million deficiency driven primarily by unrealized revenue in prior years; under Governmental Accounting Standards Board rules, unrealized revenues had to be cleared out of prior balances. Cloudfield said the general fund used savings elsewhere to close that activity and that the administration plans to work with ISD to identify dedicated funding sources for its services.

The committee discussed a mayoral memo asking departments to prepare 10% cuts. Cloudfield said the administration is reviewing each department’s requested reductions and will prioritize adjustments for the coming budget cycle; he said some departments may require different approaches rather than uniform across‑the‑board reductions.

Margaret Brisbane, director of ITD, outlined efforts already underway to realize efficiencies: consolidation of enterprise IT services, cloud migration and disaster‑recovery measures, legacy‑application retirement (the county supports more than 1,200 applications), automation and AI use cases to reduce routine human work, and data analytics dashboards used by departments to improve decision‑making. Brisbane described use cases — for example, dashboards for public housing occupancy and port cargo revenue — that the department says have produced operational value.

Committee members asked whether the county must use outside consultants such as McKinsey for the mayor’s efficiency review; OMB and administration leaders said the McKinsey engagement is not mandatory for the county to identify savings, but the consultant’s work will supplement in‑house analysis. The administration said it will return to the board with prioritized proposals and any requests that would require contract or license changes.

Ending: The committee recorded unanimous approval of a budget‑amendment ordinance (3D) that included adjustments discussed during the session, and members signaled continued review of departmental budgets and planned reporting on progress toward the mayor’s efficiency goals.