I was reading the Miami Herald when I came across this story by Matthew Haggman, “Miami Dade mayor hands out big raises to top advisors”.  I got sick when I read it.  First of all none of these people deserve any raises mainly because they are already over paid for what they do.  Miami-Dade County is broke like the City of Miami; repairs to the county roads not getting, sidewalks are not getting done, buildings not getting inspected as require by law, and too many corrupted people in the justice system.  People are leaving Florida and Miami-Dade County and the number one reason is corruption within the government.  The Court System is totally corrupted and is in need of repairs, mostly remove all of the judges and start over again with new ones.  Anyone working for Miami-Dade County should never receive a raise if they are making $100,000 or better and the county should eliminate the cost of living raises altogether for anyone.  This should be the policy for anyone working at any government agency whether it is Federal, State, County or City. 

The recession has brought hard time for so many people.  Carlos Alvarez said ``Make no mistake, we are in for some tough times, we are all in this together.'' Yea, Right, Carlos Alvarez makes about $2,953.91 per week which equals to $245,393 per year which is over paying him by $145,393 per year.  Then after saying “Make no mistake, we are in for some tough times, we are all in this together” gives all his staff salaries raises from ten percent and higher.  If we are all in this together where is my raise?  Did you get a raise?  I would like to be in it together with his staff and get that type of money.  County Manager George Burgess makes $343,515 per year, Assistant Manager Alina Hudak makes $258,967 per year, Cynthia Curry makes $253,767 per year, and Ysela Llort with a salary of $247,045 per year.  All of these salaries listed are before the five percent cut.  Remember that $250,000 per year is equal to about $4,807 per week and his staff is close or above that.  How can you be a strong Mayor if everyone in your staff is making more than you do? 

About Carlos Alvarez giving out raises to his staff, evidently he had already made up his mind over a year ago to lay off 1700 hundred low salary people to be able to pay for the raises for his staff.  Where else would the money come from?  He had to have a way to pay for the raises since Miami-Dade County has been broke for more than a year ago from mis-management and corruption.  Then in July 2009 he tried to hide the raises by dating March raises back to September 2008 so when Commissioner Sally Heyman had asked Mayor Carlos Alvarez for personal salaries and executive benefits packages for each of the individuals from January 2009 through today.  What she received was a non-complete package of what she really wanted which consisted of a spreadsheet which did not include Denis Morales or Robert Villar’s pay raise because of the back dating of raises.  By backdating the raises it would appear as if there were no raises given in 2009 which was what Sally Heyman had asked for and received. Instead of saying that they were covering the raises up when Victoria Mallette, the Mayor’s spokesperson, was asked, she re-clarified it by saying that raises were classified as retroactive back to March 2008 to justify her answer and by the way she had a salary increase of fifty-four percent in 2008, too.  The bad part is that Carlos Alvarez knew exactly what Sally Heyman wanted and went the short way to, I guess, so that no one would see what really see the raises that took place.  If this would have gotten by without anyone noticing great, but that did not happen.  It’s like deceiving the people that trusted him to do a good job for the people that voted him in office.

Now what do we do from here? I think that we need to put all government salaries in the hands of the voting public.  I think that all government salaries should be capped at $100,000 per year and no more.  If they want the job then they already know what the salary is and if they don’t like it they do not have to apply for the job.  Then if the people think that a person needs a raise then they vote on it and not the politician.  After that person leaves the job that had a salary increase then the salary automatically goes back to the original salary of $100,000 for a new person replacing that person.
What the Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Alvarez did and the way he did it should not be allowed now or ever.