Miami-Dade commissioners quietly endorse a big compensation hike for themselves in budget

Miami-Dade County commissioners are weeks away from doubling their compensation under a new pay plan that won preliminary board approval late Thursday night.

A pay plan the administration provided Friday shows compensation and retirement benefits for the 13 county commissioners rising from about $60,000 a year to $138,000. The new pay rates were not listed in Mayor Daniella Levine Cava’s 2023 budget proposal or in the commission’s published budget reviews.

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

Miami-Dade’s County Charter sets commission salaries at $6,000, but expense allowances, car stipends and retirement contributions lift that compensation amount to about $60,000 a year. Each non-salary category increases under the new pay plan, including a pre-tax retirement contribution jumping from $11,500 a year to $61,000.

Commissioners didn’t mention the richer compensation package awaiting them when debating Levine Cava’s $10 billion spending plan at the county’s first budget hearing on Sept. 8. The ordinance needed to implement the pay plan passed on a 9-3 vote, with Commissioners Jose “Pepe” Diaz, Joe Martinez and Raquel Regalado voting no. Commissioner René Garcia did not attend the meeting.

Compensation has been a sore spot on the commission for years.

In 2012, commissioners asked voters to grant them compensation of $92,000, but that referendum failed. It was the sixth time voters rejected pay increases for commissioners in the last 20 years and the 13th time since 1967, according to a summary by the 2017 County Charter Review Task Force. That panel recommended setting commission salaries at about $100,000, matching a state formula used for government employees.

In 2018, commissioners briefly considered asking voters to reconsider an increase in a new referendum but opted not to try. Commissioners in Miami earn about $100,000 a year, according to a 2018 report by Miami-Dade’s Ethics Commission.

Some cash benefits for commissioners are still at levels set in 1998, according to a 2021 review by the board’s Office of Policy and Budgetary Analysis. The report says compensation for expenses from the part-time job doesn’t meet current economic conditions.

Someone earning $50,000 in 1998 — the rough amount of commissioners’ pay without retirement benefits included — would be making $87,000 today if compensation kept up with inflation, according to an online calculator maintained by the federal Labor Department. Under the proposed pay plan, non-retirement compensation would be about $78,000 for a commissioner.

The budget ordinances posted on the County Commission’s agenda Thursday night would implement the administration’s pay plan for commissioners and Miami-Dade’s other 30,000 employees. But the ordinances do not include the plan itself, which was released Friday night by the Office of Management and Budget.

Only the plan shows the detailed compensation amounts that reveal the planned increases for commissioners. With 13 members on the board, the increases of roughly $79,000 per commissioner would cost taxpayers about $1 million a year.

A Levine Cava spokesperson said Saturday the proposed pay increases were requested by the Board of County Commissioners during the budget process.

“This was not proposed by the administration, this was proposed by the BCC in their proposed budget,” said Natalia Jaramillo, deputy communications director for Levine Cava.

The pay plan also lifts a 2012 provision imposed by then-Mayor Carlos Gimenez banning administrators reporting to the mayor from receiving the kind of executive benefits that commissioners receive. Jaramillo said the 2023 budget proposal does not include any executive benefits paid to employees reporting to the mayor.

As chair, Diaz oversees the commission’s budget process. Diaz, who is term-limited, is leaving office in November. A Diaz spokesperson was not immediately available for comment Saturday morning.

The mayor’s budget proposal includes a 1% reduction in property-tax rates. Martinez and Regalado tried to win support for larger reductions in tax rates, but those efforts fizzled when the rest of the board sided with Levine Cava.

The proposed compensation increases are separate from an effort to give former commissioners the chance to earn $25,000 under a new “County Ambassador” program. Under that program, also part of the 2023 budget, the board chair could hire former commissioners as consultants serving as ambassadors at public events.

This story was originally published September 10, 2022 at 11:20 AM.