Mayor offers unions raises ahead of vote on budget
Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava is proposing 8% pay increases over three years for county union members as commissioners object to some budget plans.
Miami-Dade County workers would see compensation increases of 8% over three years in the latest contract offer from Mayor Daniella Levine Cava in her first round of extended labor negotiations since taking office in November.
In a memo to county commissioners last week, Levine Cava said her administration had offered union members a 2% one-time bonus in the first year of a threeyear contract, followed by 3% cost-ofliving increases in years two and three.
For an employee earning $74,000 a year — roughly the median compensation in the Miami Herald’s analysis of the county’s 2020 payroll — that would mean about $6,000 in extra pay over 36 months.
“This proposal would represent the best three-year package for Miami-Dade County’s workforce in over a decade if ratified,” Levine Cava wrote to commissioners on Thursday.
Her administration did not release the cost of the proposed raises. County budget officials say a 1% cost-of-living adjustment requires between $10 million and $12 million more from the general fund the year it is implemented.
The general fund is a roughly $2.2 billion pool of revenue mostly funded by property taxes that covers core government expenses.
That range of costs for a cost-of-living increase would put the expense of the proposed raises between $110 million and
$130 million over three years, since the secondyear raise carries over to the third year as well.
Unions represent most workers on the county payroll, which at more than 29,000 positions is the second-largest in MiamiDade, behind the school system.
The proposed pay boost comes as Levine Cava is using a historic influx of federal dollars to increase spending for 2022. While her $9 billion spending proposal in July showed a less than 1% decline in the county’s $5.7 billion operating budget, a commission analysis found adding in federal dollars to the calculations made it a 2% increase.
COMMISSIONERS TO VOTE ON THE BUDGET
The proposed raises aren’t included in the budget proposal for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, and neither are the other pay increases unions may negotiate for a final deal. The budget includes about $86 million in spending increases tied to more positions, expanded services and higher grants, according to the commission analysis. Those enhancements are helping set up a potential fight with a commission now backed by its own budget office headed by the county’s former budget director, Jennifer Moon.
In a presentation Thursday to commissioners, Moon outlined her staff’s analysis of the Levine Cava proposal and identified roughly $85 million the board could add to the 2022 budget based on rosier revenue forecasts than the administration presented.
“The additional revenue can give the board flexibility to fund priorities,” she said.
Commissioners on the video call pointed to Levine Cava spending increases they might want to block as well.
Rebeca Sosa, a Cubanborn commissioner who represents a district centered around Miami International
Airport, questioned why Levine Cava wants to spend $750,000 to create a New Citizen’s Support Program for residents who have arrived from other countries. “We have a lot of people living in the streets,” Sosa said. “Let’s take care of the homeless. Let’s take care of our low-income families who have been suffering here for years.”
Sosa also questioned why the Levine Cava budget includes a 3.7% increase in water fees while the county continues to suspend service cutoffs for people who don’t pay their bills — a COVID-relief measure then-Mayor Carlos Gimenez started in the early days of the pandemic.
“Thank God there are a lot of job opportunities out there,” she said. “But then you are going to increase the [fees] to the ones who pay?”
The county’s Water and Sewer Department said it has about $25 million in overdue accounts, which Commissioner Raquel Regalado said is about
$13 million above the county’s typical level of
unpaid water and sewer bills. Regalado said she’s interested in using COVID relief dollars to try and make up some of that lost money. “We’ve been carrying this for a long time,” she said.
Joe Martinez, a commissioner who might run for sheriff in 2024 when the position becomes an independent office again, questioned why Levine Cava’s budget has $52 million for a renovation of the county police headquarters in Doral. “Be fiscally prudent... Because rainy days will be coming,” Martinez said. “I mean, I’m sure the new sheriff would love a new building — but who knows?”
Moon suggested using some of the extra revenue identified in her office’s analysis to beef up reserves in the county’s homeless agency, which saw its emergency fund cut from more than $4 million to $1 million during the pandemic. She also said the extra money could be used to fund the mayor’s proposed cost-of-living adjustments (known as COLAs), as well as other requests from unions.
UNIONS BACKED LEVINE CAVA CAMPAIGN
Unions were a central part of the coalition that backed Levine Cava’s 2020 campaign, and labor leaders have scored victories since she took office, including an expansion of paid sick leave this week to the county’s contracted security guards.
But labor negotiations have been tense under her new administration, with unions calling Levine Cava’s preliminary raise offer an insult. That offer only involved cost-of-living adjustments of 1% in the final two years of the contracts, with no bonus.
“The unions were upset because our men and women have been working since the pandemic — never stopped,” said Se’Adoreia Brown, president of the Local 199 AFSCME chapter, which represents front-line county workers at Parks, PortMiami, and other agencies. “It was offensive.”
She called the latest Levine Cava offer “a good proposal” but one that still doesn’t address other economic needs for county workers. Brown pointed out that while county workers in police and fire received COVID pay bonuses, workers she represents — including senior-care home aides — did not. Her union represents park janitors and others who must report to duty during COVID surges, since they “don’t have the luxury of a work-from-home scenario.”