Two very interesting articles today.  First, Florida ranked #2 nationally behind Texas as the best state for business according to chiefexecutive.net. By the way, California ranked #50 which is not surprising from the Wall Street Journal article we quoted yesterday.  Second, from the South Florida Sun Sentinel, Boca Raton city officials are meeting today to determine what to do about a $5 million budget shortfall. While it is always a good thing to find ways to cut costs, if Florida is so attractive to business, shouldn’t we also be discussing how to recruit more companies into our area to create jobs, and stimulate new projects that will increase our tax revenue ?

In Chief Executive’s eighth annual survey of CEO opinion of Best and Worst States in which to do business, Texas easily clinched the No. 1 rank, the eighth successive time it has done so. California earns the dubious honor of being ranked dead last for the eighth consecutive year.

This year, 650 business leaders responded to our annual survey, up from 550 in 2011. CEOs were asked to grade states in which they do business among a variety of areas, including tax and regulation, quality of workforce and living environment. The Lone Star State was given high marks foremost for its business-friendly tax and regulatory environment. But its workforce quality, second only to Utah’s, is also highly regarded.

Florida moved up from number three last year to number two. Last year, Florida Gov. Rick Scott penned a tongue-in-cheek letter to Texas Gov. Rick Perry, warning him that Florida is coming after the Lone Star State’s top ranking. Since Scott took office, his administration has enacted business tax and regulatory reforms that have contributed to the creation of more than 140,000 private sector jobs and an unemployment drop of 2.1 percentage points last year—one of the biggest decreases in the nation.

Full Article at http://chiefexecutive.net/best-worst-states-for-business-2012

The following was published in the South Florida Sun Sentinel on May 3, 2012.

BOCA RATON  – Having fewer garbage collections, adding parking meters at beach parks and cutting back on the maintenance of street medians were some possibilities discussed Wednesday by city leaders facing an anticipated shortfall of up to $5 million in next year’s city budget.

City Council members began a two-day financial summit and goal-setting workshop with the warning that after years of belt-tightening, the only way for the city to make deeper cuts is by reducing or eliminating some city services, or by closing some city facilities or reducing their operating hours.

Moderator Lyle Sumek will try to get the Council to agree on an action plan on Thursday.

There were periods of silence Wednesday as Sumek asked for suggestions on where services could be cut.

Council member Anthony Majhess said it’s possible the city can make a case with property owners that it’s worth raising the city’s low tax rate rather than sacrifice existing programs. He said he heard few complaints after last year’s small increase.

“What people are not tolerant of is wasteful spending,” Majhess said.

Another revenue source could be the city’s fire assessment fee, which increased to $80 last year. That’s still well below the $175 average assessment that Broward County homeowners pay, officials said.

In looking at other options, City Manager Leif Ahnell said the city could save up to $5 million a year if it turned over its two libraries to the Palm Beach County library system.

“You have to decide what services you want to provide,” he said.

Ahnell is already including a $1 million-dollar savings in his budget forecast that would be achieved by reducing twice-a-week garbage collections to once a week. Council members talked about offering a premium charge for people that might want to continue twice-a-week pickups.

And two residents better known for their support of the city’s libraries came ready with data that said the city will continue to face problems unless it gets public safety personnel costs under control.

Betty Grinnan and Judith Teller Kaye, calling themselves Boca Citizens for Financial Responsibility, focused on the firefighter pensions that they said are rising at an unsustainable rate. They said reforming personnel costs was preferable to additional program cuts.

“We think you are avoiding the elephant in the room,” Grinnan said. “We’re not here to solve it. We’re just saying you’ve got to deal with it.”

But John Luca, president of the Fire Fighters of Boca Raton Local 1560, said firefighters have already made significant concessions to save the city money.

“The last thing we want to do as firefighters in this community is take away from other programs in the city,” Luca said.

Other suggestions were also mentioned, such as outsourcing code enforcement or building permitting, cutting back on street median maintenance to save up to $3 million a year, or eliminating curbside recycling and going to a system of bulk collections in order to save more than $1 million annually