“In fact, we love our new City Manager so much, here’s a blank check.  Here’s a pen.  The sky’s the limit!”

That’s essentially what the Lauderdale Lakes elected officials said when they green-lighted a sweetheart of a contract for their brand spanking new City Manager, Kelvin Baker.

The former city manager of North Miami Beach and Opa-locka was hired by Lauderdale Lakes on September 28, 2015 and was asked to start on October 1st, the beginning of the city’s fiscal year, before any contract negotiations were even in the works.  As it turns out, negotiations weren’t even needed because, as the Sun-Sentinel just reported, “the contract included just about everything he had asked for.”

Baker’s carte blanche includes a base salary of $165,000.00, six weeks each of paid vacation and annual sick time, and a retirement contribution equal to 18% of his salary.

If that weren’t sweet enough, Baker gets a monthly $600.00 car allowance and $200.00 phone allowance.

The Sun-Sentinel article noted that Lauderdale Lakes’ former City Manager Jonathan Allen, whose salary was $161,600.00, received only “four weeks and two days” of annual vacation and “two weeks and two days” of sick time, and the city only contributed 13% of his pay toward his retirement.

Although the Mayor and Commissioners practically gave Kelvin Baker the moon, they did stop short at giving him “an automatic two weeks of sick time and two weeks of vacation effective the first day he started, which was in his original proposal.”

Way to stand firm, Commissioners!

Despite resistance from the Vice Mayor and one Commissioner, who wanted a more thorough review of Baker’s contract, Mayor Barrington Russell shut down all discussion, claiming it was “”not customary or normal for a commission to be negotiating salary.”

Huh?  That’s a first!

If a city council or commission is not in the position to negotiate the salary of one of their charter employees, who is?

In order to find the answer to that question, I tried to access the Lauderdale Lakes Charter on their website but had no luck.  (If anyone else can find it, please let me know.)

The Sun-Sentinel article noted that Baker’s contract was negotiated with the City Attorney, Jim Brady.

In the real world, a city attorney is also a charter employee of a commission, and one who would not normally be in a position to negotiate anyone’s salary, much less a fellow charter employee.

Maybe the rules of government are different in Lauderdale Lakes, where nobody seems to know who’s on first.

The Mayor said it wasn’t the commission’s responsibility to discuss the city manager’s salary.

Then the city attorney, who drew up the contract, “said he went with the numbers Baker provided because he had received no direction from the commission regarding the financials.”

Apparently, the buck passes everyone on its way out the window.

With no one watching the store, little wonder that Kelvin Baker was able to write his own paycheck.

Imagine the possibilities now that he’s in charge of the city’s entire checkbook.

What could possibly go wrong?

Stephanie Kienzle
“Spreading the Wealth”