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Coffee Talk (Tampa edition)
Long lines not expected
Just as forecasted, Hillsborough County Court Administrator Michael Bridenback will begin fiscal 2004-05 with a budget of about $5 million less than what he started with last year. It was apparent to Bridenback during the recent legislative session that the urban courts would shoulder the burden of the voter mandate to shift court funding from the counties to the states.
"The final result is we have less resources on July 1 than we will have on June 30," Bridenback says. "We were only one of three to five circuits that experienced that. The funding (shift) was successful as far as providing equity throughout the state. Meaning someone with a case in Pensacola would have the same basic services as someone in Tampa. The urban courts that had significant contributions from the county are either treading water or lost a little bit."
The actual net loss in Hillsborough is closer to $2 million, Bridenback says. About $3 million of the 13th Circuit's administrative budget was transferred to other court-related agencies. "I would estimate somewhere in the neighborhood of a $2 million net loss and about 20 positions," he adds. "Primarily the cuts are coming (from) mediation and administration."
But Bridenback doesn't expect court users to notice anything drastically different - at least for now. "I don't believe anyone coming to court on July 1 will notice the difference," he says. "I think down the road - six months, nine months - there may be some delays starting, say, in the mediation program."
Of the 20 positions selected for elimination, Bridenback says, about eight are actually classified as layoffs. Workers who are about to retire presently staff four of the positions targeted for elimination. That tentatively means a net layoff of four workers. And any other cuts would come from vacant jobs. "We've been dealing without those positions for four to five months," he adds.
Recruiter comes to Tampa
The paychecks of local bankers and mortgage brokers may be about to get a little heavier. And it isn't just because the economy is getting better.
Another executive search firm is hanging out a sign. Parker & Lynch, a division of MPS Group Inc.'s Accounting Principals recruitment subsidiary, has opened an 11th U.S. office in Tampa's West Shore business district. San Francisco-based Parker & Lynch trolls for mid-level and senior managers in the accounting and finance fields.
A news release from MPS headquarters in Jacksonville mentions that Parker & Lynch uses a national database of job candidates to fill the needs of corporate clients across America.
Local boy doesn't forget roots
Enough with the regulatory paper work. And what's up with those credit unions? They should have to compete on an equal footing.
It was not a gripe session at a convention of bankers. No, it was the vice chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s board of directors. He is one of the regulators.
John M. Reich recently testified before a U.S. Senate committee. His prepared remarks looked as if they'd been prepared by your friendly neighborhood banker - after the front door was locked for the day.
There's a reason for that. Reich used to be a community banker himself, right here on the Gulf Coast. For more than 20 years, Reich worked his way from controller of a Fort Myers bank to president and chief executive of a Sarasota bank that became part of the defunct Citizens & Southern Bank network. The remnants of C&S were eventually absorbed into Bank of America.
A staunch supporter of community banking, Reich told the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee: "They are a major source of local credit."
Reich used his June 22 visit to Capitol Hill to present a list of industry grievances before the folks who have saddled bankers with some of the 801 changes to federal regulations that have been enacted since the 1980s savings and loan crisis.
"There were good and sufficient reasons for many of these rules," Reich says. "However, 801 regulatory changes over a 15-year period is certainly a lot for banks to digest, particularly smaller community banks with very limited staff."
A 1998 Federal Reserve Board survey quoted by Reich found that regulatory compliance costs make up about 13% of the average bank's non-interest expense. That would be equal to $36 billion for the entire American banking industry in 2003.
Community banks may be flourishing on the Gulf Coast, as is the banking industry nationwide in recent years. But Reich says one in 10 American banks under $100 million in assets - his definition of a small community institution - was unprofitable last year.
The encroachment of full-service, tax-exempt credit unions onto the turf of for-profit community banks has increased difficulties.
"I am a strong proponent of market forces determining economic outcomes. If community banks lose out in a fair and square competition with competing institutions, so be it," says Reich. "But if smaller banks are weakened in the market not by competition or technology, but inadvertently or unintentionally by the disproportionate effect of regulatory burden, that outcome seems to be inequitable and unfortunate."
Coffee Talk will wait to see if Reich's appeal makes any difference in Congress.
The free-marketeer fit right in when he left banking to work for former U.S. Sen. Connie Mack, R-Cape Coral. His last bank job was at Sarasota's old Coast Federal Savings & Loan, where he lasted just six months. According to his resume, Reich quit due to "lack of management support" and a failure to reach a consensus on the direction of Coast Fed. He notes that Coast Fed was sold a short time after his 1989 departure.
Reich, who obtained his MBA from the University of South Florida, was a top aide to Mack until 2001, serving the last four years as chief of staff. He went on the FDIC board three years ago. After his FDIC term is up, Reich, 64, now a resident of Alexandria, Va., has said he plans to retire.
Correction
Justin Oppmann of the Juggernaut Agency, which volunteers in the Terri Schiavo case, works from a New York City office even though he uses a Washington, D.C., telephone number. The business is not home based. GCBR incorrectly reported otherwise in the June 11-17, 2004 issue.
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