Baker’s salary as deputy in range of other counties’ administrators
WEST PALM BEACH — As deputy administrator for Palm Beach County, Verdenia Baker already earns about as much as many of the state’s county administrators whose ranks she will soon join, an analysis of salary fifigures by The Palm Beach Post shows.
That analysis, conducted as of administrators in Florida’s eight largest counties by population. The top executives in those counties, all urban, have an average annual salary of $227,897.
Baker’s current salary is $222,000.
But two of the executives surveyed, Mayors Carlos Gimenez in Miami-Dade and Alvin Brown
in Jacksonville-Duval, are publicly elected to lead consolidated governments. While they perform many of the duties typically undertaken by county administrators, they are paid considerably less than non-elected county administrators, who are answerable not to voters, but to the commissioners who appoint them.
The average annual salary of appointed county administrators is $255,784. That average is slightly less than the $266,916 annual salary of the man Baker is succeeding, County Administrator Bob Weisman.
Weisman, whose salary is second only to Broward County Administrator Bertha Henry’s $304,673, retires in August.
Baker, who has served as Weisman’s deputy for more than 14 years, was hired to succeed him after the county considered
Broward County: Bertha Henry
Pinellas County: Mark S. Woodard
Orange County: Ajit Lalchandani
Jacksonville-Duval: Alvin Brown a pool of 80 candidates. Negotiations on her contract are expected to be concluded soon. A finalized contract could be presented to the Palm Beach County Commission in late June or early July.
Pay for county administrators has risen sharply in recent years, underscoring the growing complexities and higher stakes of the job.
Hillsborough County Administrator Mike Merrill, for example, had his salary raised last year from $217,360 to $260,000, according to The Tampa Bay Times. That’s a single-year boost of $42,640.
Merrill’s pay is now firmly in line with that of other appointed county administrators. Merrill also shares with some county administrators a similar path to the job, one that opened with the less-than-amicable departure of his predecessor.
At least five of those currently leading the state’s largest, urban counties stepped over or around a messy departure on his way to the top job.
Weisman’s predecessor, Jan Winters, resigned when he learned he had lost the support of a ma- jority of county commissioners. Mark S. Woodard’s predecessor as Pinellas County administrator was fired. Merrill’s predecessor in Hillsborough County was fired, too.
Lee County Manager Roger Desjarlais (akin to the county administrator) was hired after his predecessor resigned. Board members there had grown increasingly dissatisfied with her performance.
Gimenez was elected in Miami-Dade after his predecessor was recalled by voters.
Rita Ossolinski, who manages state and affiliate relations for the International City/County Management Association, said the average tenure of county administrators nationwide is actually on the rise and now stands at seven years.
But, excluding the elected mayors in Jacksonville-Duval and Miami-Dade, administrators in Florida’s large, urban counties have anywhere from 22 to 29 years of experience working for those counties. Not all of those years have been spent as county administrator.
Baker has 28 years of experience in Palm Beach County, having worked her way up from budget analyst. Weisman has been county administrator since Winters’ resignation in late November of 1991. He said that while pay has increased, the job has changed, too.
“If you go back before 1990, there were only five county commissioners,” he said. “The job has gotten more complicated. There are more people to deal with. The issues have gotten more complicated.”