Gordon Short

Candidate name: Gordon Short

Seat sought/district: Fire District, Seat 2

Party, if applicable: N/A

Age: 63

Education/degrees: BA in economics University of Michigan, 1978; MA in management Central Michigan University, 1980

Occupation and place of employment:  Retired CEO

Time in the district in which you are running; years of residency in Lee County:  15 years

Business or professional experience applicable to the office you are seeking: Served on four corporate boards. Retired as CEO of a company with 150 employees and $28,000,000 in sales.

Political Experience/offices held: Board member, Healdsburg Unified School District

Civic/Community involvement: Have served on the advisory board for the Lumpkin School of Business at Eastern Illinois University and was on the board for the Healdsburg Unified School District.

Family: Wife Nancy

Military Experience: N/A

Website: N/A

Fire District questions and thoughts

* The Fire District is 24.2% of the tax bill, much higher that any residence I have owned. Has this been benchmarked? Polk County and Winter Haven 13%.

* Dedicated staff that wants to do it right.

* If we did a clean sheet of paper approach would we look like we do?

* Why does the 2019 annual report that is 33 pages long only have one page of financial information?

* Personal services were $4,583,162 with 30 employees, so $152,772 per employee, how can this be reduced?

* Retirement is 25.5% of wages, $699,516, METALfx 4%. Should a 401K retirement be considered? What would the savings be? What about a defined contribution, not benefit?

* Medical $22,185/employee, METALfx $6,935/ employee. How can this be reduced? Employees pay no premium, have no copays and have deductibles reimbursed with Tasc cards.

* Workers compensation $4,114/employee, METALfx $1,129/employee. How can this be reduced? 

* What would the ROI be of building a new fire station between the Center and St. James City and eliminating the fire station in the Center?

Why are you running?  See above-cost/taxes can be reduced with similar service 

Planks of your platform: See above

Top three issues:  See above