Everyone knows instinctively that the 1957 salary of $6,000 a year for Miami-Dade County commissioners should be changed. The pay should be in line with the enormous responsibilities and major decisions that they are asked to make.

However, as Tuesday’s vote makes abundantly clear, a persistent majority will not give the commissioners a pay raise. So, how do you increase the salary for the office, but not give a pay raise to a sitting commissioner?

Set the date of the salary change four years in the future, after every commission district has an election. Ask: Effective November 2016, should county commissioners be compensated according to state formula, approximately $92,000 a year? The public will have the opportunity to pick who receives the adjusted salary. The voters remain firmly in control. The salary gets adjusted, and no sitting commissioner receives an automatic pay raise.

Terry Murphy, Miami Lakes