Long before he was hired as the City Manager for North Miami Beach, we had been following Arthur “Duke” Sorey’s less than stellar career as a public administrator in the City of North Miami.
In North Miami’s CAFR: A True Story in Snapshots, we reported that Duke Sorey took a $9.1 million surplus in March of 2016 when he was appointed SIX YEARS ago as Interim City Manager and turned it into a nearly $14.7 million deficit by September of 2019.
By January of 2020, Duke had already applied to be appointed as permanent City Manager twice, he was passed over for the job twice, and both times “demoted” back to the position of Also-Ran, a/k/a Deputy City Manager.
In May of that same year, Theresa Therilus was chosen over Duke and thirteen other contenders for North Miami’s top job.
She then proceeded to undo the disaster created by her predecessor.
Deputy Duke tried his best to stick it out, but he couldn’t suffer working for someone with brains and, especially, two X chromosomes.
As far as Duke is concerned, women are good for one thing, and one thing only.
As it turns out, we were right about Duke Sorey’s incompetence all along.
Unfortunately, North Miami’s gain is NMB’s loss.
We warned North Miami Beach residents of the impending disaster when the four Criminal Commissioners, Michael Joseph, McKenzie Fleurimond, Paule Villard, and Daniela Jean, snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by scraping Duke Sorey from the bottom of North Miami’s barrel to be their City Manager.
Obviously, no one paid attention to the warning signs, and the rest — along with North Miami Beach itself — is history.
A Miami’s Community News editorial published today, City of North Miami Announces Stunning Financial Turnaround, fittingly pointed out [emphasis ours], “For the first time in SIX YEARS, the City of North Miami (NoMi) has reported a budget surplus, due in large part to City Manager, Theresa Therilus, who joined the City in 2020.”
SIX YEARS, you say?
Coincidence? We think not!
City Manager Therilus did what Duke Sorey claimed was impossible — she cut the budget by more than $9 million, and turned his gaping deficit into a $4 million surplus.
As Interim/Deputy City Manager, Duke had always delayed publishing the Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports (CAFR) until the last possible minute in June each year.
With Theresa Therilus at the helm, the North Miami FY2020-21 CAFR was published in mid-April.
North Miami Beach residents, on the other hand, still have no idea what their City’s financial condition was at the close of its fiscal year on September 30, 2021.
Judging by the wild, non-stop spending at City Hall since Duke’s tenure began, it will not be a pretty picture.
We also fully expect that the once healthy $30 million in reserves is already at or near depletion.
Duke’s only saving grace was the fortuitous gift of federal dollars in the form of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, which most likely kept the City from realizing a gaping deficit last year. North Miami Beach will receive a final disbursement of those funds this summer, which will help Duke close out FY2021-22 slightly in the black.
After that the well will run dry.
Beginning October 1, 2022, expect the annual budget deficits to begin.
The good news is that this train wreck can be stopped on November 8, 2022.
It’s a long shot, but it can be done.
On election day, Paule Villard MUST be voted out of office.
And the seat being vacated by Commissioner Barbara Kramer MUST be filled by a quality candidate who is not a crony of either Paule or any of her three co-conspirators on the dais.
If North Miami Beach residents don’t want to see their City follow in North Miami’s former footsteps, they have only one shot at turning this sinking ship around.
ON NOVEMBER 8, 2020 PLEASE VOTE RESPONSIBLY!
Stephanie
Finally, a Good News Story. I followed your Theresa Therilus segments, Stephanie, and was positively giddy at the thought of a local government success story. Thanks for sticking it out ’til things turned around in NoMi.
Now, onto NMBi – Vote like your Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness depends on it. Because it does.
Cheryl, don’t get too excited. North Miami is still a total shit show, especially with election fraud. On one hand, the dire financial situation had nowhere to go but up since the city was headed for bankruptcy. On the other hand, three of the elected officials cheated to win their respective seats, so there’s that.
Someone suggested that I was too kind to Theresa Therilus in that she also received money from the American Rescue Plan Act, which helped her balance the budget and end up with a small surplus. While this is true, keep in mind that North Miami ended FY2019-20 with a “a total fund deficit of ($5.0 million) of which ($12.2 million) was an unassigned fund deficit [reserves],” according to its CAFR for that year. North Miami Beach, on the other hand, closed that same year with “combined ending fund balances of $46.6 million,” of which “38.7% or $18.0 million of this amount is available for spending at the City’s discretion (unassigned fund balance) [reserves],” according to its CAFR.
In other words, North Miami had a huge mountain to climb to get out of the hole, while NMB ended that year with a surplus and a healthy reserve.
It will be interesting to see if Theresa can maintain North Miami’s upswing next year.
It will be more interesting to see how Duke will have destroyed North Miami Beach in one short year.
Just saying.
Not only is Duke The Nuke Sorey a disaster for NMB, but from what I hear and know, he’s brought all his knuckle heads from our city with him and is still bringing more.
It is too bad that most people do not read in this world and can not add simple math. when it comes to reports, budgets, and financial statements. From page 177 of North Miami’s CAFR: First Warning – ” For fiscal year 2021 the General Fund reported a fund balance in the amount of
$3,897,785. The City received American Rescue Plan Act funding, of which $5,000,000
was used to offset the General Fund deficit fund balance.” Second Warning – “In the current fiscal year, the City relied on a one-time land sale transaction to fund a portion of the General Fund’s operating activities. If the General Fund’s expenditures continue to exceed operating revenues, and management and those charged with governance fail to establish financially sound budgets and implement a fund balance (deficit) reduction plan going forward, this could result in a state of financial emergency as defined in Section 218.503(1), Florida Statutes.”
If you want to read about the increase of water & sewer receivables by $ 1.63 million dollars to $ 18,076,425 on page 181, it is there in plain black and water on paper with no fancy colors and no fancy photographs!
North Miami’s CAFR has receive 3 audit citations which 2 audit citations are repeated findings. It should be a major concern to leaders at City Hall but the mayor and city council are back to partying again and spending taxpayers funds with no opposition!
https://www.northmiamifl.gov/DocumentCenter/View/13125/2021-Complete—Annual-Comprehensive-Financial-Report-PDF
Jim, when NMB’s CAFR is out I can’t wait to hear your analysis. I’m sure it will be the same snow job.