New attack on Daniella Levine seems lame, may backfire

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The latest attack piece on Miami-Dade Commission candidate Daniella Levine Cava says she made $50,000 a year to head the social services backbone of South Florida, which has a multi-million budget.

This is bad?

Okay, okay. Maybe Ladra is minimizing it a bit. The web video clip produced by Good Government Now — Commissioner Lynda Bell‘s ironically named PAC — rains dollar signs over an image of Levine and basically shouts that as CEO of a non-profit social services agency was paid half a million dollars. It’s only in the tiny 4 point fine print that you are told it was over the course of 10 years.

And, by the way, it’s waaaaay under the normal salary for CEOs of non profits.  According to a 2005 study of 332 national charities and foundations, the average compensation for a top executive was $328,000. Keyword: 2005.

Bonuses and expenses put the CEO of the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County above the median that year, when his . salary was listed as $327,575 and he got an additional $51,124 in perks. Again, this was almost ten years ago. The same year, the executive vice president of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation had a salary of $300,000 and benefits and expenses worth $129,000 more.

According to a Tampa Bay Times story, Harve Mogul, president and CEO of United Way of Miami-Dade, was paid more than $600,000 in 2007, not including benefits. Ladra wonders how much he got paid this year from the organization, which boasted raising $1 million at the mayor’s ball earlier this month. Is that going to cover the salary and benefits of the aptly named Mogul this year?

Seems that an average of $50K a year to Levine is a bargain. After all, she was not just the director of Catalyst Miami, also known as the Human Services Coalition of Dade County, but its founder. People may be surprised that she didn’t make more.

By the way, Bell made more than that last year as a commissioner. According to the county website payroll search, Bell made $50,550 last year in salary, car allowance and other benefits. She was paid the most in 2013 of all commissioners.

Related story: Attacks on in heated District 8 commission race

Apparently, Levine and her supporters are not happy with the smear attempt. In a statement, her campaign defended the neophyte’s track record, calling her a “true champion for South Dade,” and turned the table.

“Lynda Bell is clearly afraid to showcase her extreme record and pay-to-play politics as a county commissioner. So she has resorted to attacking Daniella Levine Cava’s nearly two decades of service at Catalyst Miami to thousands of Miami-Dade families,” the statement reads.

“These ads are financed by deep-pocketed special interest groups that want to protect their number one ally on the county commission by distorting the facts about Daniella’s exemplary record.”

I don’t think she should be so upset. She should be thanking Bell and her silly PAC. Ladra thinks the attack ad, the second web video after the first called Levine a carpetbagger, is going to backfire. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Bell and/or her PAC support withdraw it.

But there is one interesting tidbit in the piece that made Ladra’s ears perk up: The video also says that Levine “spends freely” millions of the organization’s funds on staff, lobbyists and consultants. And while Ladra fully expects that every non-profit has a professional staff, consultants and lobbyists who advocate their issues before legislators and get them money, I’m certainly interested in finding out who these consultants and lobbyists might be and how much Levine may have steered their way.

“Daniella Levine Cava is very good at spending other people’s money,” the ad says, which is the title of the piece.

Maybe the ad defending Bell, whose been criticized for spending taxpayer money on special interests and welfare for millionaires, should have centered around that part.

  Daniella Levine, Lynda Bell