Commissioners' pensions would count only their $6,000 salaries under Nov. 18 proposal

Update (Nov. 12, 9:13 p.m.): Suarez is pitching the pension change, and a second item on the same Nov. 18 agenda, as a way to help cover the revenue the city expects to lose under Amendment 3, CBS Miami reported Thursday. The second item, resolution R7 AC, would repeal the cell phone allowance, car allowance and monthly stipend paid to the mayor and each commissioner, retroactive to Oct. 1, 2025, according to the city attorney’s memo. It has been listed as not reached at 13 meetings since July 2025, and the memo asks the administration to be ready to state its cost; it gives no figure itself. CBS Miami reported that the allowances can reach about $2,600 a year for a phone and $9,500 for a car, that a separate mayor and commission allowance can reach $42,000 a year, and that Suarez estimates the two measures would save about $500,000 a year. He told the station he wants receipt-based reimbursement instead of lump sums. “We are part-time elected officials,” he said. Mayor Steven Meiner told the station the city’s finances are strong, pointing to tax-rate cuts and record reserves, and said he has consistently voted against stipend and pension increases; CBS Miami noted he cast the only vote against the March 2024 increase in stipends and allowances. A state study projects the amendment could cost Miami Beach more than $11 million in 2027, the station reported.

Miami Beach’s mayor and commissioners would earn smaller city pensions under an ordinance set for a first-reading public hearing at the Nov. 18 City Commission meeting, according to the agenda.

Elected officials can now join the Miami Beach Employees’ Retirement Plan. Their benefit is 4% of final average monthly earnings for each year in office, up to 80%, and the plan counts as earnings their total W-2 compensation plus any other payments or allowances, according to the plan language in the agenda packet. Under the proposal from Commissioner David Suarez, earnings from elected office after the ordinance takes effect would count only the salary set in the City Charter: $10,000 a year for the mayor and $6,000 for each commissioner, the city attorney’s memo says.

The ordinance would also raise the time needed to vest from four years, or one full term, to five years for anyone first elected or appointed after it takes effect.

Suarez’s original version, referred to the Finance and Economic Resiliency Committee in February 2025, would have moved newly elected officials out of the pension plan entirely and into the city’s defined contribution plan, the memo says. The committee sent it back to the commission for more discussion in May 2025. The item was scheduled for the July 22, Sept. 10 and Oct. 14 meetings and not reached each time. State law requires an actuarial statement of its cost before a final vote; the memo says that will come before second reading if the measure passes Nov. 18.

A companion Suarez ordinance, set for 2:31 p.m., would make city employees forfeit their pension, except their own contributions, if convicted of certain felonies against minors, including sexual abuse, trafficking and child pornography, committed while working for the city. It would apply to service earned after the ordinance takes effect and adds to forfeiture rules already in state law.

The elected officials’ item is set for 2:30 p.m. in the City Hall commission chamber, 1700 Convention Center Drive.