Miami-Dade seems to be having one of those do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do moments. At least Mayor Carlos Alvarez is having one, and it couldn't come at a worse time. County commissioners are about to do the heavy lifting on the 2009-10 budget, holding a series of public hearings that will be full of cries of genuine pain from a cross-section of residents about to lose a host of vital services and programs.

Parks will have shorter hours and less maintenance, libraries will be closed another day a week, social programs will be cut or eliminated along with grants to arts and cultural organizations. About 1,700 county workers will lose their jobs. It's what happens when tax revenues plummet and the budget comes up $427 million short.

In his State of the County speech in February, Mayor Alvarez said he feels your pain. He spoke of shared sacrifice and doing more with less. And yet just weeks later, we now learn, Alvarez quietly handed out double-digit raises to some of his staffers. In several cases, the raises came on top of handsome pay hikes they'd received only months earlier.

The mayor says he was just trying to bring his staff's salary up to par with those of the county manager; their offices had merged after voters okayed the strong mayor. Extravagant mayor is more like it. Or maybe hypocritical mayor. You can't call for 1,700 county employees to lose their jobs and the remainder to take a 5-percent salary cut when your employees are getting fatter pay checks.

Clinging to Alvarez's coat tails

An example. The mayor's chief of staff, a nice guy named Denis Morales, now earns more than $206,000 a year, plus another $18,000 in cash and benefits How do you get such a sweet job? A degree from the Wharton School? In Morales' case, you join the police department and hang on to Carlos Alvarez's coat tails.

The mayor, in case you were wondering, makes about $350,000 a year, counting salary and perks. County Manager George Burgess's total compensation is about $450,000 a year, a big salary, but it's a big job. It's the high pay of his large coterie of assistants that rankles -- many pull down well over $200,000 a year.

Miami-Dade County isn't the only place where government salaries are out of whack. In the city of Miami, almost half of the 3,3695 employees make more than $100,000 a year. No fewer than 186 earn over $200,000. The city's top administrator, Pete Hernandez, is the city's 10th best-paid employee. The city attorney and eight firefighters make more than the city manager. The Miami mayor, for the record, gets $150,000 a year plus another $115,000 in other bennies.

Running a big municipal corporation, which is what a major city or county is, takes skill and experience. Talented managers deserve to be well -- but not extravagantly -- compensated. Line employees deserve a fair wage and good benefits. But government salaries generally outpace their counterparts in the private sector and retirement benefits are off the charts.

Pensions increase 400 percent

The upshot is that cities and counties here and elsewhere are going broke trying to live up to their retirement obligations. Miami's pension obligations since 2001 have increased by 400 percent -- you read that right, 400 percent! This year, Miami's budget is $524 million and its pension obligations for 2009-10 total $116 million.

That's a primary reason why Miami is headed toward financial meltdown. Other South Florida cities -- Coral Gables, Miami Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Pembroke Pines, to name but a few -- have similar financial problems stemming from overly generous salaries and pension promises. A typical Miami Beach police officer, for example, can retire after 23 years with a pension of more than $72,000. Retired firefighters in Hollywood recently got pension bonus checks worth $26,000 thanks to a provision in their city contract. It's nuts.

To their credit, some union leaders say they're willing to sit down and possibly make some concessions with city and county leaders if they can be persuaded administrators have cut their spending to the bone. In light of Mayor Alvarez's staff pay raises, I don't think Miami-Dade union bosses will go along. Nor will county commissioners who are talking about slashing the mayor's office budget. Why does he need a staff of 59 and a budget of $8 million?

The real place to begin fixing the fiscal mess in all our cities and counties is renegotiating salary and pension benefits with unions and taking a hard look at executive pay. Mayor Alvarez can start walking the walk, not just talking the talk, by rolling back those outrageous salary increases.

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