Former Miami-Dade commissioners could earn $25,000 a year under new ‘ambassador’ program

Before term limits force them out of office, Miami-Dade County commissioners may create an “ambassador” program paying them $25,000 a year to continue attending public events.

An item in one of the eight budget ordinances up for a preliminary vote Thursday night includes language creating the new “County Ambassador” program for former county commissioners.

Their duties would be “participation in county-sponsored events,” “meeting with dignitaries or other special guests visiting Miami-Dade County” and “providing consultant services” to the board’s chair. Compensation would be capped at $25,000 a year per former commissioner.

Launch of the ambassador program wasn’t mentioned in Mayor Daniella Levine Cava’s three-volume budget proposal released in July, but was included in the legislation commissioners must pass to enact the budget. It’s not known how much the program might cost.

The proposal is part of the County Commission’s $45 million 2023 budget, which funds offices and support staff for the 13-seat board, said Jennifer Moon, head of the commission’s budget office.

Term limits voters enacted in 2012 kicked in for the first time in 2020, forcing the retirement of five commissioners. Another five are set to leave in November. Commissioners currently earn about $40,000 a year in salary and cash benefits.

When news of the proposal spread online during Thursday’s budget meeting, the plan drew ridicule.

“So $25K for photo ops,” Alicia Arellano, who lost a bid last month to represent District 8, posted on Twitter. “How about: ‘Hell no!’ “ wrote Martha Bueno, who lost her bid to represent District 10 in the same election.

Juan Zapata, a former Miami-Dade commissioner who represented District 11 until 2016, called the plan “shocking!” Florida Sen. Jason Pizzo, D-Miami, issued a statement that stated: “This is an example of why people hate politicians. It’s wasteful.”

During Thursday’s budget meeting, Commissioner Eileen Higgins also criticized the idea of having former commissioners serving as ambassadors under the control of the sitting board chair.

“I have very deep worries having commissioners in District 5 in any ribbon cutting I’m attending and I’d have no control over that,” she said.

The language in the budget ordinance states it would be up the current commission chair to hire ambassadors from willing former commissioners.

Ambassador requirements laid out in the ordinance are that any former commissioner who wasn’t recalled by voters and “has not been criminally indicted and found guilty arising directly out of his or her official duties while serving in an elected office.”

A Levine Cava representative referred questions to Moon, who said the idea “came from discussions between current and former commissioners.”

The item passed the first of two required votes late Thursday night as commissioners advanced the budget ordinances. Oliver Gilbert, the board’s vice chairman now in the second year of his first four-year term, called the Ambassador program a good use of the commission’s “retirees.”

“The idea was first of all to make use of the extraordinary amount of institutional knowledge we’ve had on the dais previously,” he said. “We always need people who know the county to say good things about the county.”

This story was originally published September 8, 2022 at 9:31 PM.