Political Currency: Most Brevard County legislators, elected officials are millionaires

Brevard County is run by millionaires.

According to a recent FLORIDA TODAY review of state financial disclosures, most Brevard elected officials at both the county and state levels report a personal net worth close to — and, in some cases, many times over — a million dollars.

The review comes as years of sky-high inflation and spiking housing and insurance costs across the state have contributed to a growing affordability crisis. Even as the focus on culture war issues at the state level has filtered down to local politics, more people are struggling to pay for basic necessities, hitting the state and county's poorest residents the hardest.

Buffered by considerable net worth, elected officials can seem removed from the day-to-day financial challenges of life in the Sunshine State.

The issue of politician wealth isn't new, but it does raise an important question: just how representative are our representatives?

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Some Brevard County legislators worth tens of millions

Many of Brevard's state legislators are wealthy, even by the standards of the Florida Legislature.

State Sen. Tom Wright (R-Port Orange), whose Senate District 8 covers part of North Brevard, reported a net worth last year of $35.6 million, making him the second wealthiest state senator behind Sen. Jason Pizzo (D-Hollywood). Pizzo was worth $60.5 million, according to the Florida Commission on Ethics.

Rep. Randy Fine (R-Palm Bay) was among the wealthiest members of the Florida House, with a reported net worth of about $28.8 million. Fine, who terms out of the Florida House this year, is running for the District 19 State Senate seat currently held by Sen. Debbie Mayfield (R-Melbourne).

(Mayfield's net worth in 2023 was $3.7 million, according to the ethics commission. She also cannot seek re-election due to term limits.)

Rep. Robert Brackett (R-Vero Beach), meanwhile, posted a net worth of $10.9 million, followed by Rep. Thad Altman (R-Indialantic) with $4.3 million. Brackett's district includes portions of South Brevard.

Bringing up the list was Rep. Tyler Sirois (R-Merritt Island), who reported a net worth last year of about $380,000, and Rep. Chase Tramont (R-Port Orange), who reported about $115,000.

According to a December 2022 report from the News Service of Florida, the average net worth among Florida legislators was $3.9 million in the State Senate and $6.2 million in the State House. (The House number was likely skewed by the inclusion of freshman Dade City Republican Rep. Kevin Steele, whose $408 million net worth was more than all other House members combined.)

More than half of all Florida state legislators reported a net worth exceeding $1 million last year, according to the disclosure forms.

Average Brevard County resident likely worth much less

That's not to say these politicians are getting rich off the public dime. Wright's assets include a longtime pair of successful, Minnesota-based manufacturing businesses. Fine famously made his millions as a gambling consultant in Las Vegas before entering office.

Mayfield tripled her net worth in 2021 after she and her husband acquired shares in electric vehicle company Rivian Automotive, owned by R.J. Scaringe, Mayfield's stepson.

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Many officials were successful business people before public office, which could help explain their success in the political arena, according to Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida.

"Some of it could be that they are hardworking, ambitious people," Jewett said. "The characteristics that help people become successful monetarily, sometimes those same skills translate to helping you get elected."

Still, it's a world apart from the average person in Brevard County, where the median household income in 2022 was $71,308 and 10% of the county's 627,000 residents lived below the poverty line, according to a January 2024 report from the Florida Legislature's Office of Economic and Demographic Research.

Wealth statistics, generated by the U.S. Census Bureau, don't include county-level data, making an apples-to-apples comparison difficult. But according to a June 2023 Census report, only 28.6% of Floridians surveyed in 2021 had a net worth greater than half a million dollars.

On the national level, the median wealth of Americans between the ages of 18 and 64 — a range accounting for about half of all Brevard residents, according to census data — fell between $30,500 and $276,000.

Even among older Americans, median net worth topped out between 70 and 74 years old at around $374,000. About 25% of Brevard residents are over the age of 65, census data shows.

What explains the wealth gap?

There are a lot of reasons elected officials are often much wealthier than the people they represent, Jewett said.

He didn't discount that some may take advantage of their positions to line their pockets, by making backroom deals or being privy to exclusive money-making opportunities.

But a more direct explanation is that it takes time and money to run for office, something wealthier people tend to have a lot more of, Jewett said. The annual salaries for legislative positions — at the state level, at least — tend to be low, making it harder to earn a living for candidates who depend on a working salary.

Members of the Florida House and Senate make an annual salary of $29,697. Brevard County Commissioners make significantly more at a current salary of $60,273, according to the Brevard Supervisor of Elections website.

Having a lot of money is obviously an advantage in elections themselves, which can get expensive, Jewett said. "If you're fairly wealthy, then you have the ability to jumpstart your campaign through self-funding, and that gives you a leg-up on candidates that don't have that ability," he said.

Wealthier people also typically run in the same social circles, making it much easier to raise the funds needed to run a successful campaign, Jewett said. That could help account for the wealth among officials at the county level, where fundraising circles tend to be tight-knit.

Wealth on the Brevard County Commission ranged from about $849,000 to $5.2 million, in the case of Commissioner Tom Goodson, a former State House representative and longtime business owner. Recent addition Commissioner Jason Steele was the outlier with just $50,000 in reported wealth, disclosure forms show.

Of the other Commissioners, Rita Pritchett was worth about $1.2 million, John Tobia was worth about $950,000 and Rob Feltner reported about $849,000, according to disclosures.

Brevard's Constitutional officers aren't doing too shabby either. Property Appraiser Dana Blickley and Clerk of Courts Rachel Sadoff each reported a net worth between $1.3 million and $1.5 million. Sheriff Wayne Ivey broke the million-dollar mark for the first time last year, records show.

Tax Collector Lisa Cullen was somewhat more in line with the national median, reporting about $338,000 in 2023.

Different challenges mean different priorities

The worry is that the wealth gap means our representatives may not be as likely to tackle the issues that matter most to their constituents — something Jewett said is supported by data.

"What the research suggests is that it can make a difference in the kinds of issues our elected officials care about and in the policies they push," Jewett said.

Leading requires a certain amount of understanding of the challenges people face, and it's a lot easier to understand those challenges when you are living them firsthand, he said.

"It makes a difference in your day-to-day life: what do you want out of government, and what challenges do you face in life? And if you're a very wealthy person, you still have challenges, but it's a different set of challenges than the working class and poor people," Jewett said.

"If a larger percentage of our elected officials were from the working class, you might expect a lot more bills that would benefit the working class."

Eric Rogers is a watchdog reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Rogers at 321-242-3717 or esrogers@floridatoday.com.

This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Brevard County is run by millionaires. Here's why that could matter