UPDATED: Three of Miami-Dade County’s 10 employee labor unions have reached tentative agreements with a suddenly friendlier 
administration that they now have to take before their members for approval.
Three more meetings are scheduled for today and it certainly looks like Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos “Cry Wolf” Gimenez is more eager these days to strike deals.
“We’re hoping to wrap it up today,” AFSCME Local 199 President Andy Madtes told Ladra Thursday morning, about an hour before the meeting begins at 10 a.m. “He told me yesterday that he didn’t want to fight any more. He wants to move on to the bigger issues of the county, which I think you’ll agree are many.”
Wait, what has caused this sudden sea change?
Could it be he wants to avoid the rush of employees crowding County Hall’s Commission Chambers and taking up hours of time at the budget meeting to whine about how badly they are treated? Could it be the fear of a recall effort spearheaded by retired firefighter Capt. Jack Garcia, whose son died in the Fourth of July boating accident and who begged the mayor to refund the fire boat, just in case? Could it be the power shown by employees and the different labor leaders who banded together in the last couple of months, and especially Tuesday, to boot an incumbent commissioner from the dais? Could be because that incumbent was one of his loyal pocket commissioners?
It could be a combination of any of or all of these things. But whatever it is, it looks like labor negotiations are at a 180 degree turn from where they were just eight weeks ago.
Read related story: 5 things to know about Mayor’s $6.2 billion Miami-Dade budget
In recent days, the mayor and his administration have reached handshake agreements with the leaders of the aviation workers union, the solid waste union and the professional and supervisory workers. In it, the mayor drops his demand to extend benefit concessions made five years ago and scheduled to end next month. Yes, these are the same “snap backs” that Cry Wolf Gimenez said weeks ago would break us and cause massive layoffs.
But wait, there’s more! If the unions act now, the mayor also promises to commit to using additional property tax dollars that come in over projected ad valorem revenues to give employees a cost of living increase in 2017. Cost of living increase? Did that come out of the mayor’s mouth?
Yes, according to his statement Tuesday afternoon. He called it “an innovative way to responsibly manage Miami-Dade County’s future employee costs.” I could call it something else: Passing the buck. Mortgaging the future. Because it starts in 2017 — a year after his would-be re-election (if he is not recalled first).
In exchange, however, the unions must accept a redesigned healthcare plan that requires workers to choose between a cheaper plan with more restrictions or their existing plan but with higher premiums.
All three unions will put the agreement to their members, but they are expected to sign off on it.
“I very much appreciate the willingness of the leadership of both Local 1542 and Local 3292 to sit down with my administration in order to craft responsible solutions to our budgetary challenges,” a confident Gimenez says in a statement released Wednesday. “As I’ve stated on numerous occasions, I remain committed to ensuring that our government is more efficient and has sustainable operating costs.
Three more union leaders are expected to meet with the mayor or his staff today.
Of those, Madtes represents the largest number of employees and seemed very optimistic.
“We’re close,” Madtes told Ladra. “We’re hung up only on one issue. I want to make sure we get a 1 percent restored from concessions taken in 2011. Everybody else has gotten them back.”
Madtes had said earlier that he had concerns about the healthcare redesign because the administration has not provided him with enough details. But he told me Thursday morning that he had gotten some answers to his questions and felt that the issue had to be addressed proactively. Madtes spearheaded this healthcare reform and served on the healthcare task force tasked with finding savings and options on the table for what is a $445 million healthcare plan. He said one of the items being negotiated is that a healthcare sustainability committee continues to study ways to save, including investigating claims that he says are paid unchecked.
“We gotta get our arms around it now. Four years from now it is going to be too late,” Madtes said.
Madtes told Ladra that the mayor is “rethinking how he wants to deal with us,” and suggested that they have monthly meetings to address ongoing issues proactively.
Read related story: Budget score — county unions, 0; NCL/Consultants, $413 mil
Other employees and union leaders have expressed a concern about the healthcare options not going out to bid in a competitive market and question whether more savings could have been found. Madtes said that may be part of the final agreement: a commitment to go to bid for a new administrative plan manager.
PBA President John Rivera, who perhaps has the most contentious relationship with Gimenez — and has anyone else noticed that Latina woman taking a more high-profile role? — told Ladra Tuesday night that he had no meetings scheduled this week or next week with the mayor.
But even with them, there has been an olive branch: Gimenez acquiesced last week to the PBA request that he change their negotiator, Tyrone Williams — who had been the lead negotiator for the union for several years.
Gimenez told Rivera in the memo dated Aug. 19 that he did not believe there was a conflict of interest because Williams worked for the PBA 12 years ago. But, in the interest of moving negotiations forward, he designated Human Resources Director Arlene Cuellar as the lead negotiator.
See? Even the PBA gets some love.
Read related story: Carlos Gimenez scolds police director — ‘layoffs may not come’
And sources close to the mayor tell Ladra that there will not be any police officers fired after all, even though 110 remain on the chopping block right now.
But while these pending resolutions with the employees seem like a step in the right direction, it still seems like it came after a lot of needless hand-wringing and posturing. And maybe these abrupt turnarounds and sudden savings should make us all skeptical of the new song and dance.
After all, we don’t call him Cry Wolf Gimenez for nothing.
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The strong-arm demand of money from our bi-weekly paychecks, was never across the board fair. Executives from Jackson Memorial along with the majority of commissioner’s staff were never accessed the 5%. Those not covered by unions are still getting shafted.
As a county employee, I wish my administration had the courage to demand unionization. While under exempt status, they are reduced to a pathetic state for a professional, unable to honestly speak their minds about operating procedures. As long as they fear, the department is the shell of what it once was. The direction is haphazard. We are on autopilot.
If the problem is a deficit, why continue to apply the same methods, every intellectual knows that solving the problem with the same strategy will yield the same results. Try something different. So many others States work on the root cause of the problem, solve the issue at hand. We County employees contribute to the mileage as well and now are forced to contribute to health insurance–without an option to opt out and choose another insurance outside of the County. I’m forced to work a second job to make up for what the Mayor has taken…approximately 28% of my check. Someone who has worked hard and long to make it up the management. This is just criminal.
How about the employees under the Mayor’s purview? Still waiting, going on 6 years of no living wage increase or merit increase due to outstanding performance reviews.
Somebody help these people. They have been and continue to be shafted.
They are still being assessed the 5% insurance deduction. No one else in the county just those under the Mayor’s purview. Also, no longevity bonus for those under the Mayor’s purview. Inequity and unfair-Hallmarks of Mayor Giminez’s administration.
Recall is imminent.
“Before becoming the city’s top administrator, he served for 25 years with Miami’s Fire-Rescue Department, the last nine of them as its chief, where he oversaw a $52 million budget. He is a graduate of the John F. Kennedy School of Government’s program for senior executives in state and local government at Harvard University.”
Our Mayor earned a bachelor of public administration degree from Barry University, and then a certificate for a Program for Senior Executives in State and Local Government at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 1993.
This certificate, giving him the claim of Ivy League Harvard status, is a two week course.
Yes, that is why everything the Mayor does is in the extreme. He has no overall background in business. He’s a manager. His management style is through bullying and intimidation. It worked so well that weak-willed county administrators enabled his “vision” to become a reality at the cost of sane fiscal planning and reasonable balance to the budgets.
Passing the buck is Carlos Gimenez’s historical repertoire. His policies only delay taxes being fairly distributed now until after 2020 when they should explode due to his negligence at paying today’s bills today.
Four of his decisions that leave a trail of fiscal mismanagement:
1) A plan to use Miami-Dade property taxes for an expanded Miami Beach Convention Center is helping county Mayor Carlos Gimenez narrow a looming budget gap.
As part of a complicated swap with Miami Beach, Gimenez wants to delay paying $18 million in property taxes to the resort city this year and another $14 million in 2016.
In exchange, Miami-Dade would add about 20 years to the life of a special taxing district around the Lincoln Road area — which is forecast to cost Miami-Dade about $800 million in diverted property taxes during the extension through 2045.
By resetting the current 2023 retirement date of the City Center taxing-district, Miami-Dade would allow most of the diverted taxes to go toward a $580 million redevelopment of the decades-old convention center.
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/07/03/4217474/convention-center-deal-would-briefly.html#storylink=c
2) Miami-Dade finds a way to have tourists help pay for police — but only briefly
The Gimenez administration drained $50 million in hotel-tax reserves, then used the money to replace property taxes that subsidize Zoo Miami and other parks. Now the surplus is gone and local taxpayers will have to provide the funding.
BY DOUGLAS HANKS
[email protected]
Miami-Dade County collects more than $90 million a year in hotel taxes, and state law mandates that the money can be spent only on culture, tourism and sports stadiums.
But County Mayor Carlos Gimenez’s administration found a way to use the restricted dollars to help keep prison guards on duty, place more shelter dogs with owners and fund pension payments for police officers.
How did they do it?
Over the course of two years, the Gimenez administration drained about $50 million in hotel-tax reserves earmarked for future debt payments on Marlins Park. It then used the hotel funds to replace property-tax money that ordinarily subsidizes Zoo Miami and other county parks, allowing Gimenez to spread the saved local dollars throughout the bureaucracy.
Among the biggest gainers this year in money generated by countywide property taxes: corrections, animal services and police.
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/05/29/4146147/miami-dade-finds-a-way-to-have.html#storylink=cpy
3) As City Manager of Miami: City of Miami fire fee. Gimenez has gushed endlessly during his campaign how he left the city of Miami fiscally sound when he resigned as city manager in 2003. But he always fails to note that he was the chief champion of the city’s controversial fire fee, which was instrumental in balancing Miami’s books during the years it was in place. But in 2002, the Florida Supreme Court deemed a similar fire fee unconstitutional. The decision meant Miami had wrongfully collected as much as $90 million from taxpayers. Indeed, two years later a Miami-Dade circuit court judge deemed Miami’s fire-fee ordinance illegal.
4) As City Manager of Miami – The Miami Parking Surcharge. In another failed attempt to shore up the city’s finances without raising property taxes, Gimenez was a strong advocate of the city’s 20 percent parking surcharge. For years, anyone parking in the city had to pay the additional tax which generated $13 million a year to the city. At one point, Gimenez and Miami elected officials wanted to extend the surcharge for 40 years to help the Florida Marlins build a stadium. Imagine that? Thankfully the surcharge was also struck down as unconstitutional.