By Rich Pollack
It has been a year since Highland Beach split from Delray Beach and started its own fire department, but a fight over who still owes the other money — and how much — is heating up again.
In late March, attorneys for Delray Beach sent a letter to Highland Beach Town Manager Marshall Labadie requesting the two municipalities attend nonbinding mediation to determine how much the town owes the city.
In response, Highland Beach sent a letter to the attorneys for Delray Beach saying the town sees the advantage of settling the dispute without going to court, but it won’t do that until it receives detailed records it has been seeking for several years.
Delray Beach, according to its letter, believes the town owes it more than $540,000 that was identified during an audit by the Florida Auditor General’s Office.
In his letter back to the city, Highland Beach Town Attorney Len Rubin wrote that the town believes the city actually owes it money because it overcharged the town almost $238,000 for fiscal 2021 and 2022.
The letter also contends that Highland Beach requested the same information on which it based that finding for four prior years back in 2023 and has yet to receive that information or other records, including those to support Delray Beach’s contentions that it owes the city money.
“We’ve been asking for those records for years and we’ve never received any records that support their claim,” Labadie said. “Before we talk mediation, show us the records.”
Delray Beach City Manager Terrence Moore said his city is continuing to work on determining how much Highland Beach actually owes for services provided.
“We remain in the process of determining what that looks like,” Moore said.
One possible scenario is that Delray Beach could ask Highland Beach for a portion or all of $2.2 million — mostly in pension costs — that the state’s audit showed should have been billed to the town but never was.
In his letter to the attorney representing Delray Beach, Rubin said the town wants to see the long-sought records before it will agree to mediation.
“To fully evaluate the city’s latest claim and to allow the town to fully review and comprehend the city’s position prior to mediation, the town is requesting copies of all records relied upon by the city to arrive at whatever figure the city believes the town owes,” he wrote.
Rubin outlined four specific sets of records the town wants, including daily rosters of employees who worked in the Highland Beach station under a long-standing agreement.
Moore said Delray Beach is in the process of compiling those records.
“The city of Delray Beach looks forward to a productive path forward,” Moore said. “We’ll provide the relevant information so they can prepare accordingly.”
For more than 30 years, Delray Beach provided fire service to Highland Beach by staffing a town-owned fire station. In April 2021, Highland Beach leaders voted to end the relationship in part because they felt the city was overcharging them. The town’s new fire department took over in May 2024.
During the final years of the partnership, Highland Beach disputed the way Delray Beach calculated how much it was owed.
In recent years prior to the split, Delray Beach began using the actual costs of the 211/2 firefighter paramedics assigned to the station in Highland Beach to determine the town’s cost for service, about $5 million per year.
Highland Beach has argued, however, that the agreement between the two municipalities clearly states that such cost should be calculated based on the average “in-rank” cost of fire rescue personnel throughout the city.
The different interpretations of the agreement could be one of the focal points of any mediation. When that will happen is up in the air.
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