I spoke to a county employee who said their salary was cut 8% last year and another 8% this year. Now they are being presented with another 5% pay cut and the unions have drawn a line in the sand. That would make it 21%. Are the county workers making $25,000 cut 21%? How can you survive? 21% is a pretty big nut even when you are making $50,000. Of course if you are one of the 39 County Attorneys making over $200,000 (most over $250,000 in 2009-10) a year that wouldn't be so bad. Are their salaries similarly cut like the lower level employees? It does seem awful that the only way to balance the budget is to do it on the backs of staff -- but not on the backs of your recent hires. People plan ahead based on what has been coming in. When you have a mortgage, buying a house based on your salary, this large a pay cut can bury you.
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| From the Sunshine Review |
You would think the County Commissioners would have saved for a rainy day during the heady times when inflated property values had money flowing into County coffers. Nope, they spent like drunken sailors then and who suffers for that, not them. Now we have a County Commissioner like Lynda Bell who doesn't want wetlands violators to pay fines. Why not? We need the cash. Why would you cut what brings in money? How about cutting district offices and cars? Start with Bell's lavish new office.
There has to be a way to make meeting the budget gap more equitable. Mayor Gimenez, you can start by not putting up all those stupid signs all over the county giving credit to the Commissioners for public works projects. And stop the parties given in districts. To tell the truth, I didn't mind that tax increase. It was needed to rescue the county from exercising no forethought for years. It sucked but I paid the increase with no complaint.
The County Commissioners are between a rock and a hard place in deciding whether to override Mayor Gimenez's veto on January 24th. Maybe they need to see a clear choice of what could be cut instead. Don't make this a Sophie's choice -- not just 550 layoffs or 5%. Look for other cuts. Squeeze the budget. The Miami Herald is opting for the additional 5% squeeze over layoffs. I am not so sure. Maybe it could become a choice of 200 or 2% with some more work. Little changes might add up -- like instead of free public transit for some - how about a reduced rate card? Or can county worker perks be tweaked for saving (like drop the Dental plan and make a reduction of 2 sick days a year):
- Pension plan through the Florida Retirement System
- Dental
- Disability
- Medical
- Life
- Deferred compensation program
- Paid vacation
- Sick days
- Paid holidays
30 comments:
The vast majority of County employees ( and City employees) are vastly overpaid. They still get Defined Benefit pensions. Almost no one in the private sector gets that benefit.
Ever visit County offices at 9:15 and 4:45 and watch employees arrive late and leave early?
Almost no one in the private sector gets "take home" vehicles.
Gimenez needs to keep cutting pay and benefits starting with his own overpaid new hires.
You get a job with the County in 2002. You get married and buy a house and have a baby all the while banking on your income. New hires need to be let go instead of cuts of 20%.
I have been at the county dozens of times doing public record requests and have seen some employees talk on the phone excessively but the vast majority are working hard for the entire time I am there.
Every union has a different deal and non union workers have the worst deal. You can't say 21% for all. Depends on who you talk to on how large the cut is.
County employees are lucky they are not unemployed. Dozens of County employees worked on the disastrous Marlins deal which diverts over $3 BILLION of the taxpayers money to a foreign privately owned company. Yes, the Marlins are owned by a company based in Nova Scotia. Gimenez's new hire Ed Marquez was a promoter of the Marlins "deal", now under investigation by the SEC.
What about all the homeowners who saw their condos lose 50% of their values? Who is bailing them out?
The county workers also saw their condos lose 50%. They are not asking for a bailout on their homes. This is not about housing and county workers are not asking to be bailed out, they are saying enough is enough. Do I agree, I don't know. I just think there could be other things to cut at this point. Maybe employees would agree to a bigger deductible on their health insurance. The rank and file are not responsible for the Marlins deal. They just do what they are told...the Marlins deal falls on the shoulders of Commissioners and it is a contributing cause of this shortfall.
Miami Herald:
Mayor Giminez has also proposed cutting base pay for employees instead of requiring higher contributions to health insurance. Instead of a 10% healthcare contribution, there will be a 8% base salary reduction. This, along with previous salary reductions, amounts to a base pay cut of 11% to 21%. The changes are estimated to save $135 million while the county currently faces a $409 million budget gap in the next year. -- http://sunshinereview.org/index.php/Miami-Dade_County_employee_salaries#cite_note-1
You say you spoke to a county employee who said their salary was cut 8% last year and another 8% this year. Now they are being presented with another 5% pay cut. I will tell you that your county employee friend is a liar. County employees will claim that they are experiencing a pay cut if they don't get expected raises or if they have an additional expense such as the new pension contribution.
In fact, no county employee has EVER taken an actual pay cut. They have only been required to take a healthcare deduction that maintains their bloated salaries so they can get a higher pension and receive higher overtime pay. Also, EVERY unionized employee received a 3% COLA increase over the summer thanks to Carlos Alvarez and his irresponsible 2010-11 budget.
Ask your lying county employee friend to specify how his/her salary was actually cut. I bet you will hear a lot of stuttering and stammering.
I work for the corrections department I am getting hit with a reduction in salary of 23% if that wasn't so bad my husband works for correction also and is getting hit with a 23% reduction this is a major cut from our household. With these reductions my house will be going in to foreclosure.
Thank you for letting everyone know that Miami Dade County employees have contributed a hefty amount and have made major sacrifices.
County employees last year had to pay and continue to pay 5% now an extra 5% is now asked from employees. This year contract reduces us in our base salary another 8%. That is if someone knows how to add it is 18% of our salary. I am a professional with a graduate degree and I cannot ends meet. Anybody who lives in Miami except the mayor with his perks knows how expensive it is rent, insurance, car insurance, children's clothes, food in this county. I have a grandchildren and I cannot pay for his junior college. Only a person who works and gets payed (por la izquierda) and do not pay taxes does not have medical insurance because they go to Jackson and we the county employee pay for this from our taxes and now our big salary reduction can say we are overpayed.
Last anon, a temporary 5% deduction for healthcare costs is not a salary cut. The salary remains the same. The proposed second 5% healthcare deduction is also not a salary cut. You are lying about an additional 8% cut and, assuming you fall under a collective bargaining agreement, you are ignoring the 3% raise you just received. This just shows all county employees are liars.
P.S. The healthcare deductions are temporary. They have an expiration date in the union contracts.
The 3% that was just received was negated with a 3% contribution to the pension system. That 3% contribution saved the county millions of dollars in this and future budgets on employee pension costs. Only the PBA members received a 10% "parity" pay increase in the last contract.
After two months on the job Gimenez had to present a budget to the county. He did so. Two months was not enough time to identify all the little changes necessary to achieve closing the budget deficit. The commission supported his budget, now they don't.
The pressure of the unions representing their rank and file has worked. It adds to the now building deficit.
Now Gimenez is forced to have his administrators cut jobs. It won't be enough we are now 4 months into the new fiscal year.
The reorganization Gimenez promised is under way and the evaluations of what has to be done versus why do we do that will result in more savings. But this was not possible during the time between election and budget presentation of two months. The commission majority used Gimenez's future reorganization as their argument. One has to wonder why they never thought of reorganizing, I can remember Gimenez saying the county was overstaffed and bloated three or four years ago, he got very little support.
As is their custom the Martinez led board abandoned their prior September vote and now wish to fast forward the Mayor's own proposal as if it were their original thought. PBA President Rivera took advantage of the impasse and the Mayor to build his voting bloc. Anyone notice the PBA dues being reduced? Just asking. That's a mighty fine looking watch on Rivera's wrist.
Let county employees take care of their own dental and life insurance. What would that save?
From the point of view of tax payers, the county needs to both reduce the number of employees and reduce compensation. County compensation is very complex and the attempt to simplify it down to "an 18%" cut as one commenter said is just misleading.
Your comment about Rivera is great. He is the biggest showman of them all. During the hearing, the budget director explained that when you take into consideration the increases the police union was granted last year, the actual effect on their salaries was still a net increase.
Rivera says county staff keeps throwing around all these numbers and he acts like he doesn't know what the staffers are talking about. He is being so deceptive. He has a staff of people and lawyers who understand the PBA contract better than any commissioner. He really has no shame.
Last point: what if the Mayor CAN find additional money? Why should it go automatically to the PBA? If the county finds new money to offset cuts, they should put it into the unions THAT COOPERATED. Giving the cops the money just encourages this kind of gamesmanship.
Even with another 5% health insurance contribution, Miami-Dade County employees will still be among the highest paid government workers in the United States. Take a look at what employees make in similar jobs with other counties or with the State of Florida. I am sick of their whining.
As a non-union county employee, I can tell you there are cuts. Each of my paychecks is currently $500 then they were about 2 years ago. That, too me, is a reduction.
FRED ARE YOU CG JR ?
Fred,
Shhhhhhhhh! Please don't expose our lies and allow the truth to be known about our nonexistent pay cuts. We have a great scam going on here. We even had G.O.D. concerned about us.
Fred: I see you are trolling over here now. I agree, the "H is H" blog has gotten a little boring lately.
I'm a county employee. I don't ride around in a fire truck or cruise around in a police cruiser. I don't report to work at the Stephen P. Clark Center. I work in the field for the Parks Department. I am a part time employee who makes a 5% health insurance contribution for health insurance that I AM NOT ELIGIBLE for, and now you want to take 10%? Being part time means I'm not eligible for merit increases, so I'm now making less per paycheck then when I started to work with the county. Gee...Sorry for my whining.
To Fred - I am a non - union DC employee in parks. We are almost all part time with no perks no benefits. I can tell you that my lousy $11.34 per hours is now closer to $9.85 per hour now. If that isn't a pay cut then what is it?
County Commissioners: You are asking for a $92,000 pay raise. You ought to be ashame of yourself. Giving you this money will not stop your misguided ways.
For years, county employees received an automatic five percent merit raise PLUS a three or four percent cost of living raise EVERY YEAR. It could not be sustained and a salary correction was long overdue.
Bravo, Mr. Mayor!
Why is it that the newspaper has not called Gimenez on the fact that his beloved firefights got a contract as they wrote it AND netted a 1% raise while other county employees were taking a hit?
For years, there was pay inequity between police and firefighters.
Several years back the commission brought the two contract and pay scales together. Now the police officers are being slammed for getting that increase when it just matched their pay scale to other emergency employees.
I agree that Rivera is juvenile in his behavior. He is doing a piss poor job of explaining the police position to the public.
I do know police officers that have lost their jobs, been demoted and been forced to eat that pay cut. They are not lying. I know the numbers because I have asked for them to prove it.
And far as the part-time employees go.... HOW dare the county make them contribute to a benefit that they are not entitled to. That is like making every one in the nation pay property taxes when they don't have property.
County employees have never received an automatic pay raise every year or an automatic COLA every year.
There are so many other needless projects that could be cut - like kicking out entities that are losing money and being subsidized by taxpayers. We are far from acting like there's a financial crisis. Going after employees is easy tea-party politics. Gimenez needs to get real. Let's start identifying true money losers and financial black holes County is involved in. Go through it department by department with no sacred cows.
How about County start renting out the empty office spaces it has to private entities or shutting down buildings altogether.
The 5% merit raise was given to 98% of the employees so it was as close to automatic as you can get. There was only one person in my small department who did not receive it because of a bad evaluation. A COLA was given every year until 2008. It was like clockwork. The percentage fluctuated but there was ALWAYS a COLA. Non-union employees always got the same percentage for the COLA as the unions. I know because I am a County employee (exempt, job basis professional).
the florida retirement system will only absorb local pension plans that are 100%, no BS, fully funded. otherwise every municipality and county would just dump their woefully under-funded pensions onto the state's lap.
now, that might even the score a bit, for all the unfunded mandates the most recent governors and legislators dumped on local governments (and then blamed local governments for being too bloated, which they of course were, but made far worse by tallahassee).
I read one post that said, "why give all the money to the cops?"
Why not? They are the ones that fight for your lives and safety on a daily basis! Oh, my bad... you don't want an officer to show up at your house when it is being burglarized!
My husband has been with the police department since 1998 (part of which he was reserve for), and this past year was shot in the line of duty as he and his partner were trying to stop a man from murdering his girlfriend and her brother. On Friday, January 13, 2012, he was handed a letter stating that he "does not have sufficient classified service rights to exercise at this time for any County position", and his last day is February 2, 2012.
My husband has never thought about leaving the police department. Not after being shot, not after having to pay more for our health insurance, not after having to pay for his take home car, not after having to work holidays, not after taking furlough days... and now this is how he and all his colleagues are being repaid for all their hard work?
Thanks Mr. Mayor for leaving my husband jobless and our family without health insurance. I heard you have to have police officers (county officers) outside your house to make sure you are safe during this layoff period... wow... you are a coward.
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