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Miami Lakes council rejects consultant contract, directs staff to run internal compensation study
Summary
The council voted to decline awarding a $23,500 external compensation study and instead directed town staff to prepare an in‑house compensation review and return findings to the council.
The Miami Lakes Town Council on May 20 voted to withhold awarding a $23,500 contract for an external employee compensation study and instead directed staff to conduct an in‑house review and bring results back to the council.
Council debate focused on tradeoffs between hiring an experienced consultant and using limited staff capacity. Manager and supporters argued a professional firm (Evergreen Solutions, the top scorer in the RFP) would produce a comprehensive comparability and total‑compensation analysis and save staff time; opponents and several residents argued staff can gather the same benchmarking information at lower cost and that the town should direct funds to immediate compensation increases or bonuses.
Council Member Ray Garcia offered and won an amendment directing the town’s human resources and manager’s office to perform the study internally, returning recommendations to the council for further action. The council recorded the vote to proceed with the internal approach rather than awarding the consultant contract.
Key details: The originally proposed outside contract was roughly $23,500; councilors cited a broader $65,000 carry‑forward package that had combined several spending requests earlier in the budget process. Several public commenters urged that limited dollars be used directly for pay increases or benefits rather than on consultants.
Next steps: Staff will assemble job descriptions, comparable municipal salary data and a draft report for council review; the town manager said staff capacity is limited and that an internal study will require reassigned work but can produce actionable recommendations.
Why it matters: Compensation studies inform retention and recruiting decisions for municipal staff. Council members said retaining skilled employees is a priority, but the final path chosen favors an internally produced analysis intended to lower immediate consultant spending while producing a baseline for possible future pay adjustments.
