Is it just us, or do city managers keep failing upward?
WakeUp NMB is once again bewildered, though not surprised, by how city managers who leave behind a trail of questionable decisions in one city are quickly recycled and rewarded in another.
Just recently, our former City Manager, who left North Miami Beach citing personal reasons, was hired by the Town of Surfside as an interim manager at a rate of $20,000 per month.
Surfside has about 6,000 residents within a single square mile. For comparison, North Miami Beach has more than 40,000 residents across five square miles. If the workload here was too much, it is hard to imagine that moving to a smaller but politically intense community with elections around the corner will be any easier.
During this manager’s time in NMB, the city was left with a $12 million revenue shortfall, covered by draining $12 million from our $17 million emergency reserves. Add to that a $250,000 annual salary plus benefits, along with a steady reliance on consultants and contractors for almost every decision.
Curiously, no consultant was used for the no-bid trolley contract, where a basic review would have shown the ridership could never justify the expense.
Before this most recent administration, NMB had a manager who seemed to favor keeping things within familiar circles. Contracts were routinely approved just under the $50,000 threshold to slip through without meaningful review, while consultants with friendly ties were hired.
A project originally capped at $10,000 ballooned into a $68,000 taxpayer-funded fiasco, delivering no benefit to the city. That tenure ended with a $280,000 severance package and no accountability.
And before that, NMB welcomed a manager who came from a residential-only town of about 3,000 residents and a land area of just 403 acres, the same town our previous manager came from. It was a major leap in scale and, unfortunately, in cost.
Under that administration, the city’s $38 million water-plant reserve was completely encumbered through wasteful operations tied to a loosely written contract with a private partner. Better oversight or simply better judgment could have prevented that loss. Despite the results, that manager soon found another position elsewhere, seems to be doing quite well, but left NMB in a hot, expensive mess.
And yes, this is only a small snapshot, a tiny glimpse of what was left behind after each of these managers moved on.
North Miami Beach has become a training ground for expensive mistakes, poor oversight, and revolving-door management. Each departure leaves taxpayers with less money and fewer answers, while other cities seem eager to hire yesterday’s headaches at tomorrow’s higher rates.
To our neighbors in Surfside, we sincerely wish you luck. You may want to keep your consultants on speed dial.
