There has been much misinformation and downright hysteria about the 5% “group health care contribution” that Miami-Dade 
employees want to stop giving as per their contract. But very little in the way of basic truth.
Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos “Not So Golden Boy” Gimenez doesn’t want us to understand the whole picture. That’s why he goes on Spanish-language radio and calls this a pay raise rather than the paycheck restoration the county promised five years ago. He doesn’t want commissioners to get all the information or any evidence that may nick away at his bogus and ridiculous arguments. That’s why he didn’t waive the “isolationary period” so that commissioners could hear from both parties before the impasse hearing vote.
So, in Ladra’s zeal to pull back that curtain and expose the wizard (read: Gimenez) at the levers, let’s look at five things I bet you did not know about this famous 5%.
1. Not everybody pays the 5% “contribution” to a group health care trust fund established in 2009. Most of the people at the top don’t. That means the executives at Jackson Memorial Hospital don’t, but the nurses do. Some or all of the county attorneys don’t, but the guy who clears the drains in the street does. Most of the staffers in the commissioners’ offices don’t. Maybe some commissioners, like Chairwoman Rebeca Sosa, pay it out their office fund. But the bottom line is it doesn’t come out of the employees’ bottom line, er, paycheck. The bulk of the people who pay that 5% are the lowest paid employees. Well except for your five deputy mayors, all of whom were hired in 2011 when the mayor was first elected. Ladra erroneously thought they would have been able to “opt out,” also, but I was wrong. Sorry for making that mistake. Facts, are important, Deputy Mayor Genaro “Chip” Iglesias. And thank you for setting me straight. But Ladra is human, sorta — I guess I had you confused with the attorney’s office. Iglesias made sure to tell me that he and the other deputy mayors still pay 10%, when the rest of the county workers went back to 5% in 2012. But maybe it’s one of the reasons they have such inflated salaries. Because your $225,000 a year deputy mayor won’t miss $22,500 as much as he might miss $20,000 — or even $10,000 — from a $200,000 annual salary, say. How magnanimous of you. Meanwhile, the average county worker, whose base salary is about $50,000, probably misses $2,500 a lot more.
2. This is not for personal health care coverage. I have heard people say that county workers should pay their health care premiums just like everybody else. But they do pay their healthcare, which has been increasing every year. Emilio Azoy, president of the water and sewer department’s union, pays about $600 a month for him and his family, for example. Then he gets another 5% taken out of his paycheck to cover the “group trust fund” — basically the healthcare contribution that the county is supposed to make. The 5% deduction is an additional contribution that the employees agreed to — temporarily — in order to help out during hard times.
3. The 5% is less than a third of what employees gave up in 2009 to “roll up their sleeves and work together.” Most employee unions agreed to a total of 16% in concessions — that’s government speak for money they give back — in the 2009 negotiations. If they get their 5% back, they are still making the other 11% in concessions.
4. There is a surplus in that heatlhcare trust fund, so the “hard times” are over. The State of Florida Office of Insurance Regulation reports that Miami-Dade County had $81 Million in surplus holdings in the healthcare accounts. State officials would like to see a a self-funded account that can pay 60 days of claims . For the county, that would be $61 million. Instead, Gimenez has piled up an extra $20 million in this account that can reportedly only be used for healthcare claims. The extra cushion does nothing for our bond ratings. And every indication is that the surplus will grow anyway since the county has had to pay less in claims than projected for the last three years.
5. Nobody is minding the store. There is no oversight board to monitor, track and manage this “healthcare trust fund.” It would be nice to have some trustees oversee this $400 million account. Today, the only “overseers” are the mayor, the finance director and the budget director. It is a three person “committee” that consists of the boss, himself, and two of his lieutenants. Not too transparent if you ask me. The only time the commission gets a glimpse of the fund is if they happen to review the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report. And that CAFR has reported erroneous information in the last couple of years. No one is minding the store, except the mayor.
There are probably other things we don’t know, because the mayor doesn’t want us to have all the information.
The 5% shouldn’t be political but it has turned into political collateral. The mayor wants to look like he’s holding the line on taxes. What he’s doing is holding employees hostage for his political gain.
Commissioners did the right thing by voting in the majority to restore the 5%. Twice. The mayor did the pushy, tyrannical thing by vetoing that decision, because he didn’t like it, and he was able to rule with the support of a minority.
Which is what looks like will happen again. Unless one of the five commissioners who voted against the 5% restoration grows a pair between now and then and changes his or her vote — just to show the mayor that this is a democracy, not a dictatorship.
Miami-Dade: Five things you didn’t know about the 5% added by Ladra on
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