Critics say the City of Miami is spending too much taxpayer money on employee salaries. A recently elected city commissioner agrees, and proposed a pay transparency portal that has just gone live.
A recent report from WLRN News partner Coconut Grove Spotlight found that 70% of Miami’s annual budget is spent on salaries, and a growing number of city employees make more than $200,000 per year. While employee pay is usually the biggest expenditure on any large organization’s budget, City Commissioner Rolando Escalona thinks that number is too high.
"I do believe that 70% of all the money we collect to go into salaries is a lot of money. We should manage to lower that number," Escalona told WLRN in an interview.
In an effort to bring transparency, Escalona proposed an online portal where any member of the public can search a city employee and find their full salary and biweekly pay. That item passed at a February meeting and, after several months of testing, the portal is officially open to the public as of this Wednesday.
Members of the public can search any city employee, including city commissioners and police administrators, and see their annual salary, last paycheck amount including benefits, and how much they've been paid to date.
For example, Escalona has an annual salary as a commissioner of $58,200. City Manager James Reyes (whose legal first name is Jems), is paid $475,000 per year.
"Our residents are busy. Sometimes they just don’t have the time to send two or three emails to get a public records request. So this will make it easier for them," Escalona said.
The portal was modeled on a similar tool already used by Miami-Dade County.
