Summer jobs at center of Miami-Dade mayor’s plan to reduce shootings as murders rise
Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava wants to spend more than $5 million to boost the county’s summer-jobs programs for the next two years as a way to steer teenagers away from the street violence that has been on the rise since 2020.
The money would come from $10 million in naming-rights revenue that Miami-Dade will receive through 2022 from the FTX crytpocurrency exchange’s sponsorship of the county-owned arena where the Miami Heat plays.
In March, county commissioners approved a plan by Levine Cava and Commissioner Keon Hardemon to spend the naming-rights dollars on programs aimed at curbing violence, rather than using the money to cover the county’s arena expenses.
“We need to get these children off the streets this summer,” Levine Cava told commissioners Wednesday at a special meeting called to discuss the FTX money. “We must move quickly.”
The spending plan for the FTX revenue brings the first big policing decision for Levine Cava, who took office in November and holds the powers of a county sheriff. Six of the county’s 13 commissioners are new, too.
Levine Cava’s plan favors youth programs over policing.
The mayor this week unveiled her “Peace and Prosperity” plan for the FTX dollars, with the bulk used to expand existing programs aimed at summer jobs, paid internships and other efforts to get children earning stipends or low wages when school goes on hiatus.
The two-year plan would spend about $4 million expanding the county’s Fit2Lead program for children ages 12 to 17. It combines recreational activities and, for older children, training with job placement. Another $1.6 million would expand internship programs already funded by the county, the school system and other entities.
The Levine Cava administration said the expanded programs could accommodate an additional 1,800 children per summer. Another $500,000 would go to youth programs run by the county’s police department.
Her plan also sets aside $300,000 for businesses to install surveillance cameras in high-crime areas and $340,000 to beef up the police department’s online investigations unit. Police administrators have said youth shootings often start with disputes on social media.
Oliver Gilbert, the former Miami Gardens mayor who was elected in November to represent that area of Miami-Dade as the county’s District 1 commissioner, said he didn’t want the FTX money spent solely on steering children away from crime while communities face immediate threats from people already causing harm.
“We have to save our kids, But if we want to slow down the shootings over the summer, we are going to have to do the hard work,” he said. “These prevention programs are good. We’re going to need to deal with the other end of the spectrum, too.”
Hardemon, whose district includes the arena site, cautioned commissioners against using the relatively small FTX revenue to supplement a police department with an annual budget topping $780 million.
“This isn’t the only money we have,” he said. “Remember, we have money for policing. We have an entire budget.”
FTX ARENA DEAL FUNDING ANTI-VIOLENCE PROGRAMS
FTX is set to pay the county about $90 million over 19 years, but the naming-rights deal is front-loaded so that $10 million will be paid by the end of 2022. Commissioners get to distribute 30% of the FTX dollars within their districts as part of the allocation process — a spending category that requires board approval but is rarely denied.
The remaining 70% is
dedicated to the mayor’s plan, which is supposed to steer the FTX money into anti-violence programs across the districts based on where shootings are the most common.
At Wednesday’s meeting, members of the public representing advocacy groups, non-profits and churches urged elected leaders to take action quickly on gun violence. Homicides were up 13% in 2020 and are up another 11% through May, according to county data of crimes committed outside
of city limits.
“I’m tired of going to murder scenes as a pastor,” said Theo Johnson, pastor at Sweet Home Missionary Baptist Church in the Perrine area. “I’m tired of having to comfort mothers and fathers who have lost another child.”
Levine Cava’s report included data on shooting deaths for each of the 13 commission districts.
Four were well ahead of the others. Hardemon’s District 3, which includes Miami’s Liberty City neighborhood and other areas with high poverty, had the most, with 64 gun-related homicides in 2020, followed by Jean Monestime’s District 2 to the north, with 52. In
South Miami-Dade,
Kionne McGhee’s District 9 finished third with 42 homicides, and 30 for Gilbert’s District 1.
Some districts had gun deaths in the single digits, such as the coastal District 4, represented by Sally Heyman, with four gunrelated homicides in 2020, and only three for District 7, which includes some affluent areas of Miami and its southern suburbs and is represented by Raquel Regalado.
Levine Cava, a former social worker and lawyer in Florida’s juvenile-guardian program, said the summer-job programs would divvy up slots by commission districts using data on shooting incidents. She said she’s eager for the board to follow through with the plan to steer the arena dollars to parts of the county that need the most help reducing gun violence.
“I really think it’s a remarkable moment,” Levine Cava said. “You’ve got commissioners across districts that do not have this problem that are fully in support of spending this money in a way to address this issue.”