Paint Rosario nattily naive, fiscally fickle

February 2, 1987

This week's Most Frighteningly Dumb True Quote conies from Miami City Commissioner Rosario Kennedy, when informed that it had cost $111,549.71 to renovate her office at City Hall:

"Nobody told me anything about a budget. I was not involved in it at all. I was involved in the colors."

Now, then, isn't this the kind of eagle-eyed public servant you want playing with your tax dollars? Where did Mrs. Kennedy think the money for the new furniture was coming from, Publisher's Clearing House?

It's quite a feat to out-Sergio our county manager and his $9,000 desk, so let's look at some of the goodies in Mrs. Kennedy's den.

You've got your pewter-gray light fixtures ($2,144), your striped pumice-colored lounge chair for $1,056 (and don't ask me what "pumice" looks like), your three gray desks ($3,625) and your 257 yards of wallpaper ($2,380). Then you've got your striped bench seat for $1,134, your six slabs of marble for $320 and your dove-colored carpet for $1,958.16 (and no, I don't have the faintest idea whether dove goes with pumice).

Add to that your six pieces of framed artwork ($959.24), your three dove-gray file cabinets for $2,299 (I wonder what the regular gray would have cost), and your standard Vegas-style mirrored wall for $505.

The Rosario hit parade continues with air-conditioning at $4,769.68. That's for one office, folks. You can install central air in a nice-sized house for about half as much. Are we talking solid-gold thermostats or what?

Then there's the little matter of "parts" for $6,602.24 (probably truckloads of Windex for all the mirrors).

And let's not forget labor: $63,401.74 worth, all performed by faithful city employees who have nothing better to do, since the rest of Miami is in such tip-top shape.

It all adds up to more than $111,500—a mere five times what the city's crack fiscal wizards estimated it would cost. This might seem incredible to you and me, but none of our highly paid government watchdogs at City Hall is the least bit concerned.

City Manager Cesar Odio, for instance, said he wasn't aware of how much was spent on Commissioner Kennedy's new office. But when told (and this is our Second Most Frighteningly Dumb True Quote of the Week), the city manager replied: "I think that's an acceptable figure … I don't know much about costs."

EARTH TO CESAR: That's your job, buster.

While some of the commissioners are more prudent about office expenses than others, the obscene profligacy at City Hall is not Mrs. Kennedy's alone. The city paid an interior decorator $4,000 to pick out the colors (red and gray) for Miller Dawkins' office, and to design a clever mural made out of travel posters. I know a high-school art class that would have done it for free.

By contrast, it's more amusing than infuriating that Joe Carollo spent $92.70 on a security door chime that alerts him whenever someone walks into his office. The purpose, we can only surmise, is to give the commissioner that vital extra half-second to dive for his Uzi, if necessary.

Conveniently most of the commissioners' pillaging of city coffers is never discussed at public meetings. See, the city has this nifty little deal where purchase orders for less than $4,500 don't need the approval of the full commission. That way commissioners can submit reams of invoices for $4,499 and get instant approval—without clogging up the city's very important public agenda.

It's true that Miami City Hall is a creaky old dump in need of repair and renovation, and it's also true that city commissioners deserve offices that are decent and attractive. The sum of $111,549 is neither. It seems beyond belief that careless nitwits could spend this kind of dough and claim not to know about it.

From now on, if any commissioner demands to sit on pumice, let it be the real thing.

For city execs, all work, no play pays off

April 10, 1987

The hottest vacation package in Florida is being offered by the city of Miami, which is paying its top brass big bucks to stay in town.

It's such a good deal that you wonder why every little kid doesn't want to grow up and be a faithful public servant.

The trick is to store up as much "accrued vacation time" as possible. The longer you do this, the more money you get at retirement. Why? Because the city, in all its fiscal wisdom, will pay you for any unused vacation hours at your current top salary scale.

It doesn't matter if you piled up the time 10 years ago while making $10 an hour. If you're now earning $20 an hour, that's the rate at which you get reimbursed.

How big-hearted can a bureaucracy be! This vacation gig is better than an IRA account.Throw in pensions and sick time and you've got yourself a healthy nest egg.

With this kind of incentive, it's no surprise that so many city executives claim they go for years without taking time off. You've got to feel sorry for these tireless souls, toiling at their desks day after day while each summer their pals trundle off to Disney World or Six Flags or Knott's Berry Farm.

As a matter of fact, it might be instructive to locate and publish the time sheets of these working-class heroes—not to test their memories, mind you, but merely to give inspiration to new employees.

The all-work, no-play mentality is so pervasive at City Hall that Miami now has $9.5 million of accrued vacation time on its payroll. Alarmed, the city manager wants to pay some of this in lump sums now, instead of letting the money build up until workers reach retirement.

Under this voluntary payback program, the city has already delivered some handsome checks. Assistant budget director Frank May got $25,085 for 894 hours of unused vacation—no days, 109 nights in beautiful Miami.

Deputy City Attorney Robert Clark cashed in 100 hours at more than $45 an hour. Finance director Carlos Garcia collected 263.5 hours at more than $36 an hour. And budget director Manohar Surana got about $42 an hour for 286 hours of unused vacation. (His $87,000-plus salary is almost as high as that of his New York City counterpart.)

One of the biggest winners was internal audit director Sujan Chhabra. For 18 weeks of vacation time he received nearly $30,000, which, city officials say, he needed for a new house.

Interestingly, only Miami's highest-paid honchos are eligible for this exciting program. City sanitation workers are limited to 100 hours of accrued vacation while many other general employees are allowed no more than 180 hours.

City Manager Cesar Odio himself has racked up 11 weeks of unused vacation during his seven years as a Miami employee. If he elected to cash in now (which he says he won't), Odio would be paid at his current salary rate of about $44.23 an hour—or $20,125.

However, if he waited 10 years and retired from the same job at the same pay, his accumulated vacation time could be worth $45,000 cash, or more.

If, as Odio says, the early vacation payback will save the public money, then perhaps he ought to set an example by doing it himself. As long as it's optional, some employees will continue to hoard their hours and cash out at retirement.

What would really save money is to require workers to take all their vacation the year they earn it. This radical policy is enforced at most private companies because the other method is not only ridiculously expensive, but counterproductive to healthy work habits.

Some people might even say it would be more sensible if all city workers with accrued vacation (no matter how much) were forced to take it right now—say, starting this morning. Just hop a plane and go away for a while. Don't come back until your vacation is used up.

But think of what this would mean: The big shots at City Hall would be gone for weeks and weeks. Why, there would be no one to sit around and dream up these rackets.