Orange County Commissioners want a 25% salary boost, subject to public hearing | Orlando Area News | Orlando

As Orange County leaders work to finalize a budget for the next fiscal year, they’re eyeing a new formula for calculating their publicly-funded salaries that could give them a 25% pay raise, effective Sept. 17.

Mayor Jerry Demings and county commissioner Emily Bonilla, who represents Winter Park and Bithlo in District 5, were the only two to vote against the idea.

The county’s other five commissioners were in favor.

“Orange County, in terms of population, is the fifth largest county [in Florida],” Lisa Snead, Assistant County Administrator, said in a presentation to the county commission Tuesday. “However, if you look at the wages of the commissioners, we are at the bottom of that.”

Orange County commissioners are currently paid about $91,000 annually. Mayor Demings is paid $182,860.

The new formula they’re eyeing — a state formula used by several other big counties — would boost pay to $113,608 for commissioners and $227,812 for the mayor.

Of the county’s public officials, only Orange County Sheriff John Mina, with a salary of roughly $229,000, would make more than Demings.

Part of the rationale for the boost is that commissioners in smaller, neighboring counties like Osceola and Seminole are paid more: $98,623 and $102,132 respectively. Other high-population counties in Florida — like Broward and Hillsborough — also offer higher pay.

“There’s a lot of expectations of us in the community,” said Emily Bonilla, who first proposed a change to the salary calculation last year, prompting staff to come up with a market analysis.

A mother of two sons, Bonilla told Orlando Weekly she often works 60 or more hours per week. Her family, she said, would readily tell anyone that she needs a better work-life balance.

During 2022 budget talks, Bonilla got flack from fellow commissioners and others for proposing a 21% salary increase for commissioners. Landlord apologists called her “hypocritical” for wanting higher pay as she pursued a cap on rent hikes.

“I just think… the optics and the timing is all wrong,” Demings said at the time, the Orlando Sentinel reported. He wasn’t keen on Bonilla’s rent control idea either.

This year, Bonilla has sparred with Demings not over salary talks but over her district office’s budget.

The board of county commissioners (which includes all six commissioners and the mayor) previously agreed to allocate funds for all six districts to hire a third aide.

But Bonilla said, based on a review of funds allocated for her office this year, that a portion of the funding (allocated specifically for that reason) was missing from her district’s slice of the pie.

Each district was given an extra $95,000 in the next year’s budget to hire another staffer — about $60,000 for salary, plus about $30,000 in benefits.

“I was denied $33,000 for my office budget,” Bonilla told colleagues. “And now we’re looking at raising our salaries, which doesn’t benefit our residents. It benefits ourselves.”

The actual numbers reveal a complicated picture. Budget documents show that Bonilla’s District 5 is set to receive the second-highest amount of funding next year out of all districts, behind District 6.

Each district has different community needs, Bonilla told Orlando Weekly. Hers — and District 6, covering Pine Hills and Tangelo Park — generally get the most allocated.

Actual percentage increases for each district, however, vary.

This year, a breakdown of District 5’s operating budget versus the amount that’s allocated for “personal services” — the cost of district staffers’ wages and benefits — demonstrates a lack of funds for an additional aide, Bonilla said.

She presented this issue to her colleagues during a July 13 budget work session.

“I wasn’t asking for anything more than anybody else was getting,” Bonilla told Orlando Weekly.

But her presentation wasn’t received warmly by all.

“The way I take what you’re saying, Commissioner Bonilla, is that you should have more in your budget than any of the other commissioners,” Demings said. “That’s the way I hear what you’re saying — is that your office should have more.”

Several of her colleagues also questioned her request for more funds. The general message was: accept what you’ve been given, and work within your means.

“We’re not like the federal government,” Demings said. “We cannot spend money that you do not have budgeted.”

Commissioner Mayra Uribe, representing District 3 (whose office is set to receive more than $30,000 less than Bonilla’s), questioned Bonilla’s operating budget.

“If you don’t have the employees, what are you spending your funds on?” Uribe asked. “Because I’m not saying that you don’t need to have your employee, but you’re significantly higher than all of us.”

Bonilla told Orlando Weekly her office is stretched thin with the work she wants to accomplish. She keeps a mass email list, hosts a talk show on YouTube, “Emily Tells All,” spotlighting the work of local nonprofits and county programs, and tries to spread word about community events and town halls of interest to the general public.

“I’m trying to do some job fairs right now and different things like that to be able to help people with economic development, financial stability, some financial education,” she said.

“There’s so much that we as commissioners could do, but we’re limited on what we can do by how much staff we have.”

She also tries to help spread the word about all of the programs and services the county offers.

“We have all of these services that are available to our residents and they don’t know about it,” Bonilla said. “I was getting a lot of comments from our divisions and agencies about how they need help to get the word out there to the public, on what services they have to provide.”

County administrator Byron Brooks and Mayor Demings told Bonilla on July 13 that next year’s budget had already been prepared.

“What we brought to you was a balanced budget,” Demings told her. “So any increases to that balanced budget means we’re going into the reserves, quite frankly.”

A county’s reserves essentially serve as a “rainy day” fund — sometimes literally, for emergency assistance following a hurricane or other natural disaster. But Orange County’s reserves are exactly where the proposed 24.58% salary boosts for commissioners would come from — and would cost the county $179,000 in total.

“It was very hypocritical and selfish,” Bonilla told Orlando Weekly of the proposal. “What I asked for, for my office, it wasn’t OK to take money out of the reserves.”

She doesn’t disagree with the salary boost, per se. “It’s just that I feel it’s selfish that when it comes to the pockets of the commissioners, it’s not a problem.”

Salary talks

The Board of County Commissioners were presented with four different proposals Tuesday, offering pay increase options for commissioners ranging from 7% to 24.58 %.

After Bonilla’s pitch for higher commissioner salaries last year, county staff this year put together an analysis of salaries in Florida’s 15 most populous counties, based on 2020 U.S. Census data.

Orange County was the fifth-most populous county in 2020, home to 1.37 million residents. Today, it’s closer to 1.43 million.

Staff found a pay gap between commissioners in Orange County compared to other populous Florida counties. So, they came up with options to close it.

The first option was to keep the county’s current formula, which adjusts commissioners’ pay based on either a percentage increase or decrease of the Consumer Price Index, or the percentage increase given to other non-bargaining (i.e. nonunion) county employees — whichever is lower.

That formula, baked into the county’s charter, was first established 27 years ago. It hasn’t been updated since (while the cost of living in Orange County has).

That option would have raised the mayor and commissioners’ pay by 7%.

Other pitches from county staff included:

1. Adjusting the salaries to those at the same level of the non bargaining employees, which would have offered a 7% raise.
2. Adjusting the salaries based on a state formula, which is population-based (and because Orange County would be playing catch up) would offer a 24.58% raise.

   3. Adjusting the salaries based on the average median market data, which would offer a 12.88% raise (i.e. the happy medium).

There was little discussion or debate Tuesday over which option was more prudent.

District 6 commissioner Michael Scott, who also serves as coordinator for Orlando’s My Brother’s Keeper mentoring initiative, motioned to shift to the state formula. It would deliver the highest pay raise for them ($22,450) and the largest cost impact to the county ($179,000) out of all options presented.

The pay raise would represent just a sliver of the county’s tentative budget of $6.8 billion for the next fiscal year, running Oct. 1 through Sept. 30, 2024, which is meant to lay out a spending plan for county programs and services.

Commissioners Christine Moore (District 2) and Nicole Wilson (District 1) seconded Scott’s motion, prompting laughs from those on the dais.

In a 5–2 vote, the majority opted for the state formula option, with Demings and Bonilla voting against.

A subsequent motion from Scott, passed without discussion also by a 5–2 vote (with Bonilla and Demings again voting ‘no’), would revise the county charter to adjust their salary increases in the future to align with that of other non-bargaining employees.

Despite the optics, the move doesn’t place them in any unique position compared to other Florida counties.

Broward County, for instance, home to 1.94 million residents in 2020, pays its nine commissioners $113,608 annually. So do Hillsborough and Palm Beach counties, based on that state formula — which dates back to 1885, and has been altered a couple of times since.

Controversy surrounding salary boosts for public officials isn’t uncommon.

Last year in Brevard County for instance, commissioners approved a modest 3.3% pay raise for themselves over public objection from critics.

That bump affected their budget by just $16,300 according to Florida Today.

Making ends meet as a county leader

Orange County Mayor Demings — a former sheriff and Orlando police chief who’d get a $45,000 pay raise from the state formula proposal — reported a net worth of $2.1 million for last year, according to public filings with the Florida Commission on Ethics, required by public officials under state law.

Scott, who motioned for the nearly 25% pay boost, reported a net worth of $0 (the value of your assets minus total liabilities), and $172,372 in total income, attributable to the Orange County government ($91,000) and the city of Orlando ($81,372).

Wilson, a lawyer representing District 1, reported a net worth of $423,000 (and over $562,000 in income from Orlando Health in 2022, in addition to her commissioner pay).

Moore, of District 2, didn’t file her mandatory financial disclosure report at all. They’re due July 1, although a grace period is in effect through Sept. 1.

Commissioner Mayra Uribe reported a net worth of $427,000, only listing income attributable to her role as county commissioner. Bonilla and Cordero did the same, reporting net worths of $362,691 and $999, respectively.

But it’s not just the Orange County commission that’s seeking a raise this year.

Many county offices and agencies are seeking more funding, including the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, which could see a $23 million boost to its operating budget under a tentative proposal approved by the county commission earlier this month.

This isn’t all set in stone, however.

The county’s budget for the next fiscal year is still subject to public hearings, which are scheduled for Sept. 7 and Sept. 21 at 5 p.m.

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