Flashback:
COMMISSIONER LYNDA BELL VOTED NOT TO RESTORE THE 5% TO THE UNION EMPLOYEES (they gave it voluntarily with the promise that it will come back):
Lynda: those are not big salaries you are reciting. Instead you should be embarrassed by the SMALL average salary of Miami Dade residents that you mention -- that is what you should be working on. Increasing their salaries. BTW, most of those people rent and don't pay property taxes so raising the taxes won't effect them it will more likely effect the county workers with the $60,000 salaries. Use some logic.
COMMISSIONER DENNIS MOSS VOTED YES TO RESTORE THE 5% TO THE UNION EMPLOYEES:
On the Moss video there is some interesting footage of Gimenez (starting at 7:37) and a Union Boss (starting 11:07 - please supply his name) replying. Very telling. (I thought it worth watching at 14 minutes as well)
This was a 12 hour meeting. I reduced it to 20 minutes. If you can't even watch that, I don't know what to do to help you readers. I had a hell of a time reducing it and watching it all.
WATCH THE DAMN VIDEOS - especially on Lynda Bell.
At the same time this was going on we are TALKING ABOUT GIVING PUBLIC LAND TO A SOCCER STAR FOR A STADIUM. Where are the priorities?
18 comments:
The county is in this mess because of THOUSANDS of friends and family of insiders, commissioners, top administrators who routinely get county jobs and are favored for promotions. This is well known within the county. Someone has to pay, so it is the majority of other employees right now. The Port is one of several departments that serves as an example of this and also rewards political contributors and commissioner insiders with taxpayer-funded travel junkets. Juan Kuryla is the new Carmen Lunetta.
Miami-Dade County has 27,000+/- employees. That is 4,000 too many. Disgraced Mayor Carlos Gimenez has been a horrible administrator and he should resign. How can Gimenez possibly justify spending so much time trying to give a spokesmodel $500 Mil in waterfront land, for free? Gimenez should be reducing head count, pay and benefits.
I watched the tape. Even Lynda Bell knows many County employees are vastly overpaid. She read a list of County employees making $30 to $70 per hour, plus benefits. She knows many residents who make $8 to $10 per hour. Even Bell can see the disconnect.
The speaker in question is known in the union as the Right Rev. Rabbi Mark Richards esq.
Lynda Bell is Talking about Yearly not Hourly. Pay Attention.
She Did Mention someone made $22 An hour. Watch it again.
No One can live on these kinds of funds. She said most people don't make 70,000. Well that is wrong so we make more wrongs? People can't live on that a year with a family. Ask Osterholt who makes $250,000.
Thanks for the post. I love Miss Bell "we have to accept the mayor's numbers are the numbers"
LOL
As we have all learned since December, the mayor's numbers are whatever he wants them to be at any given moment. Bed tax, health trust, proprietary funding, development bond money CRA's.... All fungible on the mayors spread sheet. A $200 million gap last month has magically changed to $60 million as election grows closer.
My favorite; Bed tax money exclusively for convention centers? Nope! Moved through the zoo into the general fund!
Clearly Miss Bell is confused about the underlying purpose her job discription.
In fact it IS the job of Ms Bell to fact check and ask tough questions about the numbers or we will continue to follow the mayors agenda which is to layoff cops in order to fund sports franchise and campaign contributors parking garages.
Oh and BTW she got the medium wages wrong too.
Interesting at the same time she is trash talking county salaries she managed to get her daughter a part-time job as a 311 operator (however I don't hear that mentioned in her family saga).
It's also interesting the mayors first budget had across the board 10% pay cut would include part-time 311 operators.(and would've exempted his staff, county attorneys... The usual suspects)
But the mayor suddenly reconsidered across the board pay cuts and is now offering a 15% cut in health care benefits. Since part time 311 operators are not offered health care benefits they are effectively spared any cuts.
follow the money. Commissioners voting in favor of returning the 5% received campaign funds from unions or their lobbyists or other favors. It's not out of the goodness of their hearts, and certainly not to benefit taxpayers.
this is the same Lynda Bell who requested 5 million pot of money to be given for a parking garage to be built by Wayne Rosen. Lynda Bell vists China and demanded to be put up in 5 star hotel on the taxes payers back.
New Bell statement released today:
Important Statement Regarding the
2014/15 Miami-Dade County Budget
As a resident of Miami-Dade County, I highly value our county family of employees and greatly appreciate their service to our community. Elected to serve as a commissioner to look after the best interest of this county, it is not lost on me that all salaries and benefits are paid by taxpayers. In fact, last year when I voted to hold the line and not raise taxes, I knew that returning the full five percent would result in layoffs and service reductions. That was simply unacceptable.
It's important to note that, when it comes to actual compensation, residents have not been told the whole story. A considerable portion of their taxes are going to pay for salary supplements and excessive benefits - not services. In the upcoming budget year, $113 million of extra benefits are slated to "snap back." These supplements do not buy you a single extra service; in fact, they will result in a reduction of services.
As the County faces a significant budget gap, thousands of employees receive additional pay supplements designed to increase salaries by up to 45%, resulting in inflated and unsustainable adjusted pay salaries. The current County pay plan defines 187 pay supplements in addition to an employees' base salary and benefits. These redundant supplements include pay for just showing up to work, first responder pay for the first responders, and extra benefits for simply performing the job they were hired to do.
For example, one of Miami-Dade County's top paid employees earns over $210,000, enjoying seven supplemental pay adjustments, increasing his salary by a whopping 38% in addition to a $225 bi-weekly incentive.
With some employees collecting upwards of ten pay supplements, how can any public servant in good conscience propose laying off police officers or fire fighters who are on the front-lines saving lives when there are so many, who through the years, have accumulated layers of extra pay resulting in six figure salaries? The public needs to know that by eliminating supplemental payments and excessive benefits, we will unencumber approximately $230 million, more than enough to cover the current service level gap, avoid reduction in positions, and properly fund our Miami-Dade County Public Library System in its entirety.
Taxpayers should ask themselves if the County should be paying up to seven levels of "career development" supplements to reward employees for knowing how to perform their job. Is it not ironic that the County awards certain employees with an incentive just for showing up for work?
Total supplemental payments have increased by nearly $13 million over the last three years alone. Additionally, in the last 12 years every bargaining unit's salary has increased between 59% and 120%.
We must put an end to the culture of entitlement created by labor leaders. If we truly hope to find a long-term solution to Miami-Dade County's budget woes public servants should be treated no differently than any other hard working taxpayer who receives a well-earned salary and benefits. No more no less.
Now, as we all know, labor negotiations have trapped Miami-Dade County residents in the center of an abrasive budget battle between union representatives who are calling for an increase in property taxes versus those of us who refuse to raise taxes on residents who can ill afford them, as a result of the weak economy.
Union representatives must bear in mind that their members will be adversely affected, as well as the same community they swore to serve. This intransigence serves no one. However, by coming to the negotiating table, they can be part of the solution. They hold the key in becoming part of a better, stronger and greater Miami-Dade County.
Lynda Bell
Thanks for all your hard work in listening to and then condensing for our consumption. They have many structural issues. The first thing they should do is get out of things that are outside their primary mission. Giving public land and taxpayer money to billionaires for their playpens is one of them. How can they even be having this conversation and at the same time trying to figure out how to give away public land to another sporting interest? There is a disconnect.
It looks like the Mayor is not dealing in good faith with the employees. I think Mark Richards is right, and if all parties sat down together, they could find plenty of fat. Other institutions are doing it, why not the county? By not doing so, the Mayor automatically cedes his power to the Commission. And the Commission wants both the Mayor and the employees to make the hard calls. But because the Mayor fails to negotiate, they won't. So as Ricahrds says, it is a mess. The Commission will make the call.
I think we are going to have to go back to a professional manager/ commission form of government again. This is not working.
Once again lynda waves here imaginary paper on which are written the names of a few dozen outlier employees and tries to make the case all 15,000+ workers. This is the mayors Spanish language radio stump speech. I wonder when Bell is going to learn the mayor lies, to her, to the union and to the public.
Since Mrs. Bell is not at the bargaining table, i wonder where she arrives at the notion labor is suggesting increase in taxes. Quite the opposite. Labor sees the waste fraud and mismanagement more than anyone. They know the administration has not even begun to clean its own house. They see expensive and "creative" financing deals made for well-connected that do not pass the smell test.
On the other hand I HAVE seen the union comment about the out of wack six-figure salaries, travel allowances, cars, phones, insurance and other hidden perks in executive benefit packages offered to management. These fat cats are not outliers but the norm (as Doug Hanks pointed out in the Herald) and none of these fat cats are represented by a union, they serve at fhe pleasure of the mayor and the BCC.
So how about leadership and setting the example with the administration. Labor is constantly under the gun of outsourcing. Let's see how many harvard MBA JDs I can buy for $250,000 a year in the private sector. What? County attorneys don't have to have an ivy league Masters degree? Then why are they paid like they do?
Bell is all over the place in a desperate act to somehow help her fledging re-election bid. Bell voted FOR the snap backs and is now criticizing it. This is the same SnapBack that the wonderful and talented Mayor Gimenez proposed to the unions because he knew best and had forecasted a thrresomes plan
Oops...Three year plan
I admire Lynda Bell for this piece. I am sure someone helped her write it but it sheds a bright light on many of the tricks played by unions and others to steal from hardworking taxpayers. I hope Daniela Cava reads it and if she is elected she will help curb the abuses. Taxes should go down not up.
Was this regarding the Jackson 5%?
Bell and Gimenez and many others complain about the tricks played by the unions to boost the income for union members. There are hundreds of tricks. $300 per month cell phone allowance? What normal person pays $300 per month for service? Take Home Vehicles? Permanent pay increases for taking a 30 hour course? Clothes allowance? Full pay for sleeping on the job? etc etc
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