Vice mayor’s absence leaves Doral council deadlocked on 2025 budget
Political tensions escalated during Doral’s second budget meeting on Tuesday night as disagreements over employee salary increases left the council deadlocked. With Vice Mayor Oscar Puig-Corve absent and no agreement on allowing his remote participation, all votes ended in a 2-2 tie, forcing the city to delay the approval of the next year’s budget until Sept. 30, when Puig-Corve is expected to attend.
Puig-Corve, currently in Japan, had sent an email to the City Clerk on Sept. 4, according to public records, notifying that he would be unable to attend the budget meeting because of a “personal commitment.”
Mayor Christi Fraga did not support his participation online, referring to the vice mayor’s trip as a vacation. Councilman Rafael Pineyro sided with the mayor in rejecting his remote involvement.
The heated debate, lasting over an hour and a half, primarily centered around Fraga and Councilwoman Maureen Porras, who clashed over proposed salary increases.
During the first budget hearing on Sept. 3, City Manager Rey Valdes proposed a 7.5% cost-of-living increase along with a 3% merit raise across the board for all staff. However, Porras argued it wasn’t fiscally responsible, noting that the city’s current salaries are already above market averages and that the pay range for certain positions exceeds the market standard.
At that time, the council approved amendments requested by Porras, which would result in a 3.5% cost-of-living increase but no merit raises.
On Tuesday, during the second budget hearing, Porras again proposed a 3.5% cost-of-living adjustment for all employees but added the possibility of allowing up to a 7% merit increase. She also proposed a 7.5% cost-of-living increase for police officers specifically.
Additionally, Porras called for proposed cuts to the mayor’s outreach coordinator position, as well as trimming roles in the public affairs department, including a salary adjustment for the department director. And she recommended reducing funding for promotional activities and advertising, while pushing for the creation of a grant writer position and raising the salaries of the Public Works and Parks & Recreation directors.
Porras justified the staff reduction in the mayor’s office by questioning the production of materials like the mayor’s podcast, “In the City con Christi.”
“The city is being used to host some sort of podcast, and I don’t think the taxpayers should pay for that,” she said. “I think that if you want to use private funding, you should. In fact, you have used private funding to try to keep candidates off the ballot.”
Fraga responded that not a single public dollar is used to produce the podcast, saying that all contributions come from private funds and that her office discloses every gift it receives.
Fraga proposed a 3% cost-of-living adjustment and a 3% merit increase, while opposing the staff cuts suggested by Porras. She argued that the proposed cuts were politically motivated and accused Porras of engaging in political maneuvering that ignored critical issues, such as the need for additional police department positions. Fraga also pointed out that, just months before the budget discussions, council aides had received a significant 40% funding increase.
The mayor suggested that Porras was unhappy the city manager had not proposed the cuts himself and that he was not living up to the expectations of Porras and the two other council members who had appointed Valdes in June over Fraga’s objections, Puig-Corve and Digna Cabral.
“They wanted a political operator, which is what they expected in bringing in a hand-picked person. That’s why I didn’t support it,” Fraga said.
The mayor pushed to move forward with the council’s agreement following the first hearing, which included the approval of amendments requested by Porras that would result in a 3.5% salary increase or cost-of-living being set, pending further discussion at the second hearing.
“I showed here today that I was willing to find consensus, and they were not willing to find consensus,” Fraga said.
In response, Porras accused Fraga of grandstanding.
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At one point of the deadlocked discussion Tuesday, Porras said she wasn’t going to support any amendment of her proposal or any other proposal that wasn’t hers.
Fraga told el Nuevo Herald that the three council members who typically vote against her proposals —Puig-Corve, Porras and Cabral, who supported Porras’ budget proposals — were being politically manipulated. “They came today with a political agenda of cutting key positions, communications, transparency and public safety infrastructure,” she said.
Porras stated that they were “stuck in an impasse” after the mayor and Pineyro decided that Puig-Corve could not participate.
“We want to ensure that the budget reflects the input of all five council members, and when the vice mayor was excluded, it undermined the effort to pass a unified budget,” Porras said.
The budget proposal approved during the first reading was set at $137.5 million, reflecting a 25.3% increase from the $109.8 million approved in 2023, with a $7 million increase in operational budget, $12 million increase in general fund and $8 million increase in capital improvement.
Ironically, Fraga supported the city manager’s budget despite not backing his appointment in June, whereas the three council members who approved his hiring now oppose his budget.
City manager faces potential salary reduction
An hour before the second budget hearing, a special meeting was scheduled to discuss and evaluate City Manager Rey Valdes’ salary and performance in his three-month tenure. However, the meeting was canceled because of a lack of quorum. Fraga and Pineyro were attending a Miami-Dade County Commission discussion on the county’s garbage incinerator, which ended with a deferral until Nov. 6.
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Porras called the special meeting to address concerns about Valdes’ salary and performance. Public records show his salary, set at $245,000 in June, is nearly $7,000 higher than that of his predecessor, Barbara “Barbie” Hernandez, who was fired in January over conflict of interest allegations. City Hall sources told el Nuevo Herald that the proposed reduction would slash Valdes’ salary by more than $40,000, representing an 18% cut if approved by the council.
That salary was initially approved in June by Porras, Puig-Corve and Cabral when they voted to hire Valdes. At the time, Porras defended the salary, saying the council was prepared to pay even more than that, up to $300,000 for the right candidate.
“We wanted to attract talented, professional people, and we didn’t want to leave anything out,” she told el Nuevo Herald.
The special meeting Tuesday was strategically planned before the budget hearing to prevent Valdes from receiving an automatic 5% raise, scheduled for Oct. 1 as part of his contract. Porras mentioned that the meeting would be rescheduled before the final budget hearing on Sept. 30, where the council is expected to reduce his salary.
Although Porras expressed confidence in Valdes’ ability to fulfill the position given his experience as deputy city manager, she noted on Tuesday night that “he needs a little guidance and should take the time to learn and listen to certain things.”
Valdes, a retired major from the Miami-Dade Police Department with 33 years of service, including in the narcotics bureau and homicide division, served in Doral from 2018 to 2022 after his retirement. He initially worked as the police department’s spokesperson, later becoming a special assistant to the city manager and eventually deputy city manager under Mayor Juan Carlos Bermudez. Valdes resigned in December 2022 after Fraga took office.
This story was originally published September 18, 2024 at 1:31 PM.
