On September 17, 2019, the North Miami Mayor and Council voted to pass a budget for the upcoming Fiscal Year 2019-20.

And it meant absolutely nothing.

They told former City Manager Larry Spring to cut the special events budget down to $400,000 … only to end up adopting a budget to actually spend $662,476 — over 65% more than they promised to spend.

And that’s not even including the unbudgeted $491,471 that they spent – so far – on the extravagant Super Bowl event as of February 6, 2020.

Which is the date of the most recent vendor checks paid out according to the city’s website.  It’s anyone’s guess what else has been paid out in the last two weeks.

The North Miami politicians also voted to give themselves a 20% raise for all their “hard work” on behalf the residents.

But that figure was also imaginary.

Last fiscal year, the North Miami Mayor’s Office cost taxpayers a total of $177,334.

Mayor Philippe Bien-Aime’s office is now costing taxpayers an outrageous $246,750, which is an actual increase of more than 39%.

Last year, each of the Council Members’ Districts cost taxpayers the sum of $144,049, with the exception of then Councilman Philippe Bien-Aime (District 3), who received an additional $1,800 a year for “Dependent” insurance coverage, bringing his total up to $145,849.

Raise your hand if you’re a North Miami employee – you know, the people who actually do all the work for the city – and you get free insurance coverage for your dependents.

Anyone?

We didn’t think so.

Councilmembers Scott Galvin, Carol Keys, Mary Estimé-Irvin, and Alix Desulme, now each get $194,044, which is an actual increase of more than 34%.

We can’t help but wonder why North Miami politicians even bother to pass a budget at all since no one ever sticks to it.

It’s not as if North Miami elected officials weren’t already grotesquely overpaid.

As we explained in What Planet do these people live on?, in January of 2018, the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust published its second report on the “Compensation of Elected Officials in Miami-Dade County.”  We reviewed the total compensation of the elected officials’ salaries, as well as the managers’ salaries, in all thirty six municipalities and prepared a handy-dandy spreadsheet in order to compare how North Miami stacks up to all the others.

Twenty-nine of those municipalities have a council/manager form of government, while seven have a strong mayor, who also serves as its chief administrator and is compensated accordingly.

For simplicity, we combined the base pay and expense allowances for each of the the mayors and council/commission members in their respective columns.  We also listed the base salaries of the city managers.

Of the County’s council/manager municipalities, the Mayor of Miami, who serves 453,579 residents, was the top earner with a compensation package of approximately $111,500.

Even with less than 14% of the City of Miami’s population, North Miami’s Mayor, who serves the fifth largest city, was the second highest paid in the County.

Shockingly, North Miami’s Council Members earned more than any of their counterparts in the entire County!

Although it’s been two years since the Ethics Commission published these salaries, we’re pretty confident that North Miami politicians are still at the top of the pay scale … and still scandalously overpaid.

And yet, so far this year the City of North Miami continues to operate at a deficit.

According to North Miami’s Real-Time Debt Clock™, the city is now in the hole for $4,153,430.77.

In fact, the financial situation in North Miami is so dire that Interim City Manager Arthur “Duke” Sorey was forced to implement a “hiring freeze across all funds, including grants,” according to a Memorandum he sent to the Mayor and Council, City Clerk, City Attorney, and Department Heads on February 4, 2020.

North Miami residents and employees deserve better.

Stephanie