Miami commissioner cuts proposal to bring back elected officials’ pensions

The latest attempt to roll back the pensions of Miami city commissioners is on hold for now, marking another hurdle in the effort to revive a program that once guaranteed lifetime monthly payments to former elected city officials.

The proposal to bring back the pension program, which was frozen in 2009 during the financial crisis, passed an initial vote in July and was set to return to the City Commission in September for final approval. But the article’s co-sponsor, District 1 Commissioner Miguel Angel Gabela, now says he wants to put the issue on hold.

“For now, I’m taking it back, because I don’t want it to be a distraction,” Gabela told the Miami Herald on Tuesday.

Commissioner Christine King, who is the chair of the commission, was Gabela’s co-sponsor of the plan to revive elected officials’ pensions. King argued that the city commissioner job — though it’s part-time on paper — is like a “24/7” job.

King’s office did not respond to questions about Gabela’s plan to delay the article.

Gabela did not provide a specific date, but said he would like to bring the pension proposal back for a second and final vote.”whenever the committee wants to talk about it again.” He added that if the pensions are ultimately approved, he will not personally enroll in the program.

“I don’t have to because I have the business income,” Gabela said. However, he argues that the pension is important for future commissioners. “You have to pay people. People have to live,” he said.

The City Commission approved the pension proposal in an initial 3-2 vote last month. Commissioners Damian Pardo and Manolo Reyes voted no. At that meeting, Pardo floated the idea of ​​sending the question to Miami voters, but the deadline has now passed to put it on the November ballot as a referendum.

Under the latest version of the pension proposal, Miami’s elected officials would become eligible to receive a pension either after they begin their seventh year of service and reach age 62, or after 10 years of service and reach turned 60 years old.

The pension amount would be equal to half of their highest compensation with the city, with annual increases of 5 percent until it equals 100 percent of their compensation during the term. Officials would also be entitled to a 3% cost-of-living increase each year after they start drawing their pension.

City commissioners earn a salary of $58,200. But with added benefits like car and cell phone allowances, their annual compensation comes to about $100,000.

The following former Miami elected officials currently receive a city pension in the following amounts, according to a recent city analysis:

• Manny Diaz: $6,875 per month or $82,500 per year

• Angel Gonzalez: $4,794 per month or $57,528 per year

• Wilfredo “Willy” Gort: $8,488 per month or $101,856 per year

• Tomás Regalado: $7,046 or $84,552 per year

• Joe Sanchez: $6,283 or $75,396 per year

• Marc Sarnoff: $5,039 or $60,468 per year

• Michelle Spence-Jones: $10,601 or $127,212 per year

Spence-Jones collects the largest pension of any elected official in the city’s pension system.

“Political Barter”

Putting the retirement proposal on hold, Gabela said he is busy focusing his energy on his efforts to expand a community redevelopment agency from downtown to the west in his district’s Allapattah neighborhood. That agency, called the Omni CRA, is tasked with reducing “slum and squalor” in the city’s Omni neighborhood, an area north of downtown in the 2nd District.

Omni CRA is chaired by Sector 2 Commissioner Damian Pardo. It is currently awaiting City Commission approval for a “life extension” that would guarantee funding through 2047 so it can complete projects such as a collaboration with Miami-Dade County Public Schools to relocate a public high school on land known owned by the city. like Biscayne Park. The public school plan was previously dropped in favor of an agreement with David and Leila Centner to build a sports dome on the field, which is across the street from their private school, Centner Academy.

READ MORE: In Miami’s $10 million Centner Academy contract that beat the public school’s expansion plan

Facing pushback over the deal’s ties to criminal corruption charges against former city commissioner Alex Díaz de la Portilla, the Centners pulled out of the deal in March. (The Centners have not been charged and have denied any wrongdoing.)

Speaking to the Herald, Gabela said the public school plan is possible because of him. “I’m the guy who stopped the Centners,” he said.

But in the months following the Centners’ withdrawal, Gabela sought to use his vote to approve the Omni CRA life extension to secure funding for his district to address pressing issues like poverty and homelessness. He opposes approving the Omni CRA life extension unless it includes an expansion in his district.

Commissioners supported Gabela’s efforts and twice postponed a vote on Omni CRA funding — much to the dismay of Pardo, who argued there are other ways to fund Gabela’s district that don’t involve changing Omni CRA boundaries.

“These two things can happen and should not be used as political bargaining chips at all,” Pardo said at a meeting in June.

Gabela said there was no alternative that would get funding to his district fast enough.

The Omni CRA extension is scheduled to come back before the City Commission at its first meeting in September.