Orange County Commissioner (District 4) and Mayoral candidate, Linda Stewart believes to help balance the Orange County 2011 fiscal budget, which would likely be cut by 7 percent, consideration should be given to consolidating certain departments and services between cities and counties. Stewart made these observations in an exclusive interview recently, with West Orlando News.
“Consolidation is a huge thing. I think we have failed to look at this. We need to look at how we might be able to combine some services with the cities, in order to realize cost savings for all parties,” Stewart said. “We are both struggling with our budgets, but I certainly think there is room for consolidating. We can look at code enforcement, parks, the fire departments …..and not have two different departments, which really cost a lot more money to have two than one.”
Stewart added, “I would be advocating for consolidation, not of the entire city and county, but of departments or services within departments that we could combine and still be efficient.”
