A reader of mine was wondering how much money North Miami Beach taxpayers have been billed so far for councilwoman Phyllis Smith’s insistence on passing a Seating Arrangement Resolution. Let’s see if we can come up with a reasonable estimation, based on the compensation figures published in the new budget and some highly intelligent guessing by the Gadfly. I’m thinking we are gonna be surprised, if not shocked.
Phyllis brought up this nonsense at a pre-council meeting on June 7, 2011, two weeks after the new Mayor and Council were sworn in. If my memory serves me correctly, Mayor George Vallejo attempted to appoint the individual council members to various committees, when the meeting was hijacked by Phyllis’ demand to be given the seat next to the Mayor on the dais in the Council Chambers. Since that pre-council meeting started at 6:30 p.m. and ended at 7:30 p.m., I’d venture to say that approximately three quarters of that hour was spent listening to Phyllis whine and kvetch. After wearing everyone down with her endless babble, the Mayor conceded that this item would be discussed further at the next pre-council meeting. If he was annoyed at her petty nonsense, you couldn’t tell. For the purpose of keeping score, I will guesstimate that Phyllis’ BS took approximately .75 hours.
The next pre-council meeting held on June 21, 2011 began at 5:30 p.m. The first item on that Agenda was the Pension Workshop, which took over an hour. The second item on the Agenda was entitled “2.2 Council Seating Chart.” I remember exactly how much time was wasted on that item because the Mayor tried to gently cut Phyllis’ rant off by stating that we had already spent 27 minutes on this item. Undaunted, Phyllis bloviated for an additional two minutes, when the Mayor stated, “Now we’ve spent 29 minutes, and nothing else will get done because we have to go downstairs for the Council meeting.” I will never understand how George managed to keep his cool, but he did. He is a true gentleman. Again, I will re-state for the record how lucky Phyllis is that I’m not the Mayor! Let’s add .50 hours to the time sheet so far.
For some reason this topic was not on the Agenda for either the Pre-Council or the Council meeting on July 5, 2011, but I do know both meetings were jam packed with actual City business that the Council had to conduct. I was told it would be placed on the Agenda for the following meeting scheduled for July 21, 2011.
In the interim, three Council members met with City Attorney Darcee Siegel for the purpose of drafting the three part Resolutions R2011-38A, 38B and 38C. I assume they met with her individually, and although I have no idea how long each of these three meetings took, I will guesstimate again that each meeting took about an hour. Knowing that one of the Council members who met with Darcee was Phyllis, I’m probably way underestimating the time she spent haranguing Darcee. I’m thinking she might have held Darcee hostage for a good two or three hours! However, as I have no way of knowing without actually asking Darcee (and I’m not calling her since I’m probably not her favorite person right now), I will low ball my estimate at one hour. Besides, since Frantz Pierre sponsored one of them, Resolution R2011-38B, but pretends he didn’t, we can always pretend that he never met with Darcee and donate his hour to Phyllis. Since Councilwoman Marlen Martell sponsored Resolution R2011-38C, which merely states that the Mayor should decide who sits where, I’m thinking Marlen didn’t take up an entire hour of Darcee’s time. So we’ll just donate Marlen’s hour to Phyllis, too. In any event, we’ll go with a total of 3.00 hours for these meetings.
On July 21, 2011, everyone wasted an entire hour on these three Resolutions at the Council meeting. This hour was spent making motions, seconding motions, amending motions, withdrawing motions, revisiting motions, reconsidering motions, discussions, audience participation, calling the questions, and finally voting. In the end it was an hour wasted because, as you know, none of the freaking Resolutions passed! Had I known in advance that this night would have been a total bust, I probably wouldn’t have spent any time at all trying to tame my unmanageable hair in a futile effort to look somewhat presentable. (Screw it, people! Next time y’all get the ponytail.) Then again, where else can you get such hilarious fun for free? Not too many places.
Well, maybe “free” isn’t exactly correct since I’m about to calculate an estimate of how much this Phyllis Phiasco has cost us so far. We’ll start by breaking down the salaries of all the parties involved to an approximate hourly rate.
The Mayor’s compensation package is $38,395 per year. This is allegedly a part time job even though anyone who knows what George has been doing since he was elected, he’s probably put in at least 40 hours a week so far. Assuming, however, that he’s being paid for a part time position of no more than 25 hours per week, he’s being compensated approximately $29.53 per hour, which we’ll round off to $30.00.
Five of the remaining six Council members get a package worth $33,157 per year. Again, we’ll assume they work about 25 hours per week, even though some of them work way more than that and others work way, way, way less. (No, Phyllis. Photo-op events do NOT count!) This breaks down to roughly $25.50 per hour, which we’ll round down to $25.00 because I like really round numbers.
For some reason, Frantz Pierre’s package is slightly smaller than the others (do NOT crack up here), which comes to $32,970 per year. That works out to $25.36 per hour, which we’ll round down to $25.00 anyway. So, in the end all six Council members get $25.00 per hour, which makes the tabulation even easier.
The other players involved in this mess are the City Attorney ($295,980* per year), the City Manager ($202,909), Assistant City Manager ($167,170) and the City Clerk ($133,219). Since these are all full time jobs, their salaries need to be calculated on a 40 hour work week, and are therefore estimated as follows: Attorney – $142.30 per hour, Manager – $97.55 per hour, Assistant City Manager – $80.37 per hour, and Clerk – $64.05 per hour. (*Completely off topic but to be brought up at a later time, Darcee’s 2012 compensation package is listed in the new budget as $308,748 per year, or an INCREASE of $12,768 AFTER she got a 10% pay DECREASE. Can anyone explain that math?)
Okay, got that all straight? There will be a quiz so pay attention!
Let’s start with the 2.25 hours spent in the two pre-council meetings of June 7th and June 25th and the Council meeting on July 21, 2011. Present at these meetings were the seven Council members (excluding Beth Spiegel on June 7th, but she gets paid whether she shows up or not so we count her), the City Attorney, the City Manager, the Assistant City Manager and the City Clerk. The money spent on all these employees for this 2.25 hours are (figures are rounded off):
Mayor: $67.50
Council: $56.25 x 6 = $319.50
Attorney: $320.00
Manager: $220.00
Assistant Manager: $180.00
Clerk: $145.00
So far the total is $1,172.00 on salaries for the people involved.
Now let’s calculate the approximate three hours spent by the City Attorney and three of the Council members. Darcee’s three hours cost us approximately $425.00. The three council members wasted $75.00 on those three hours. Add another $500.00 to the pot and we’re now up to $1,642.00.
This figure doesn’t include the time Darcee actually spent drafting these three Resolutions, so let’s add another couple of hours on Darcee’s time sheet for good measure for approximately $285.00.
This brings us up to a grand total of nearly $1,900.00 in salary alone for the main characters.
I have no idea how to even begin to calculate how much time or what we paid Darcee’s secretarial staff to type up these Resolutions. Assuming the median salary of $50,000 for a legal secretary at 40 hours per week, and assuming Darcee’s secretary spent about two hours drafting, correcting and redrafting them, at $25.00 per hour, let’s add another $50.00 to the tab, which is now up to $1,950.00.
Of course, none of this includes:
A. The salaries of the IT department who had to upload all this crap to the website, nor does it include the cost of printing enough copies to distribute at the various meetings.
B. The rate for the Chief of Police, who attends just about every pre-council and Council meeting, or any of his staff who also attend. I am not even going to begin to try to calculate these amounts.
C. The salaries for the lighting and sound crew who are on duty during the meetings, nor does it include the clean up crew who work into the night closing up shop.
But, I’m going to guess that by far the biggest expense would be the bloody air conditioning that freezes my tuchus off during these meetings. I’m guessing that thermostat is way below the government recommended 78 degrees. I mean REALLY way below! I’m betting it’s set at least 10 degrees below that. And that sucker costs big time!
I can’t even begin to guess how much the taxpayers have spent on items A, B, or C above to not pass any of Resolutions A, B or C. Never mind the electricity bill we’re being hit with!
For argument’s sake, let’s just add another fifteen hundred bucks for all this miscellany (and I bet I’m shooting way below the mark here), and we arrive at a grand total of nearly $3,500.00 wasted on Phyllis and her mishegas. I wouldn’t be surprised if this figure is actually closer to $5,000.00 but I’m being conservative. Naturally.
All of this reminds me of the kid’s tee shirt that says, “My parents went to Hawaii on vacation and all I got was this lousy tee shirt.” Well, folks, Phyllis made much ado about absolutely nothing and all we got stuck with was the bill. And I’m betting she’s not done with us yet!
CAN YOU SAY RECALL?
Stephanie Kienzle
“Spreading the Wealth”
