Orange County mayor, commissioners could get 25% pay raise
Orange County commissioners, noting counterparts in some smaller counties are paid more, reached consensus this week to boost their pay nearly 25% by switching to a state formula to adjust salaries.
The population-based formula would replace a county method in place since 1996 that calls for commissioners to get a raise Oct. 1 of $6,381, or 7%, to $97,539. The figure is less than pay for commissioners in Brevard, Seminole and Volusia counties, all of which have populations under 700,000.
Orange County has twice as many residents.
Under the state formula, Orange County commissioners each would get a raise of $22,450, or 24.58%, to $113,608 if they vote Sept. 12 to revise the pay ordinance and align their pay with the state formula.
Mayor Jerry Demings, whose salary would jump $44,952 to $227,812, opposed the switch.
The state methodology follows a statutory formula and data calculated by the Florida legislature’s Office of Economic and Demographic Research. It is used to set salaries of Orange County’s constitutional officers — the clerk of courts, comptroller, property appraiser, supervisor of elections, tax collector and sheriff.
All their salaries are $193,419 this fiscal year, except the sheriff’s, which was $229,269.
The county had not revised its formula for raising commissioners’ pay in 27 years.
The current ordinance permits a commissioner’s salary to be adjusted by a percentage that is the lower of the Consumer Price Index or the percentage increase given to non-bargaining employees.
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The discussion was sparked by a proposal floated during last year’s budget hearings by commissioner Emily Bonilla who described board members as “underpaid” and argued that increases were justified “for the important work and sacrifices to our lives we make daily to serve the public.”
Bonilla proposes raises for Orange commissioners, citing ‘sacrifices’ serving the public
Though she pushed for higher commissioner pay last year, Bonilla joined the mayor without explanation as the only two votes against the switch that will raise salaries for the board members.
During the discussion, she focused instead on her office’s budget, saying it was not enough.
Commissioners were given an extra $95,000 in their 2023-24 budgets to hire additional help.
“You have to live within your means,” Demings told her. “We are managing the public’s money.”
Bonilla said she has used public money efficiently.
“I’m gonna make the cuts I have to and I’m gonna have to do a lot of stuff myself … and that’s just going to be it,” she said. “I’ll try to get free interns.”
The 2020 U.S. Census counted about 1.37 million residents in Orange County, fifth most in Florida behind Miami-Dade (2.7 million); Broward (1.94 million); Palm Beach (1.48 million) and Hillsborough (1.45 million).
The Bureau of Economic and Business Research at the University of Florida estimated Orange County’s population in 2021 at 1.45 million.
According to figures from the Office of Economic and Demographic Research, Orange County commissioners were paid less in fiscal year 2022-23 than counterparts in all but two of the most populous counties.
“Sometimes it’s kind of hard to do an apples-to-apples comparison,” said deputy county manager Lisa Snead, noting that Miami-Dade pays commissioners just $6,000 but it has 13 of them.
Duval County’s 19 commissioners are paid $56,804 each.
Snead said Orange County pays its commissioners at a 2007 level under the state formula and, raising the pay to $113,608, works out to about an annual 1.5% salary hike in each of the last 16 years.
The mayor’s pay is higher because Orange County is one of only three out of 67 Florida counties with a “strong mayor” form of government. Miami-Dade and Duval County are the others.
“Our mayor is the CEO,” she said.
Snead described the increase as “insignificant in the grand scheme of a $6.8 billion budget.”
