or, The Other Amendments
Possible amendments to the Clay County Home Rule Charter, our local constitution, get discussed frequently here at MCS. No one, though, has brought up two proposed amendments making the petition-signing rounds, even though the petitions were initiated by Citizens for the Protection of Voters' Rights, a political action committee whose formation was announced on this website.
One of CPVR's proposals affects the formula used to determine County Commissioners' salaries, establishing equal pay for all Commissioners, including the new four-year chairman, assuming there is one after the election.
The second proposal would require a two-thirds majority, instead of the current 50 percent, of voters to approve any change that would eliminate an elected position in Clay County government.
Those two proposals are in direct conflict with the two amendments sponsored by Citizens for Term Limits and Accountablity Committee that are already certified and will appear on November's ballot. This is another example of why this year Clay County voters will have some real choices to make.
Because the broad topics of the amendments proposed by those two local political action committees are somewhat similar, let's compare them.
Commissioners' Salaries:
Both of the proposed amendments call for bigger pay cuts for County Commissioners who are already scheduled for some sizable pay cuts. Right now, the five members of the County Commission are making a little over 60K (plus some pretty decent other benefits) in an annual salary based on a formula straight from a Tallahassee government office building cubicle. The formula includes automatic pay raises based on the county's population increase.
Two years ago, though, voters approved an amendment to add two at-large seats to the County Commission. That amendment called for the total salaries of Commission of the seven members to remain the same as the five. After this November's election, Commissioners will begin drawing only five-sevenths of that current 60K-plus, somewhere around $43,000. Plus, of course, the annual population-based pay hikes.
The current CPVR amendment proposal would make the salary 60 percent of the rate (60K-plus) currently used, instead of five-sevenths. That would be about an another 11 percent cut from the pay cut set at 43K. If this amendment passes, County Commissioners can expect a salary somewhere a little more than 36K. That puts it right in the ballpark with the CTLAC-sponsored amendment, which calls for a salary of $37,000. So what's the difference in the two?
The CPVR amendment is based still on a percentage of the state formula and would still provide for annual raises as long as Clay County's population continues to grow. The faster the growth, the bigger the automatic pay raises. The CTLAC proposal is a little more traditional. If County Commissioners think they've earned a pay raise, they'll have to go to their boss and ask for one. Any pay hike would have to be placed on the ballot and approved by Clay County voters.
Super-majority Amendments:
Again, the proposals from CPVR and CTLAC have some similarity in that each calls for an increase from the current 50 percent of voters needed to approve an Amendment to the Home Rule Charter.
CTLAC's amendment would establish a 60 percent threshold (the same percentage of voters required to approve an amendment to the State Constitution) for passage of any and all Charter Amendment proposals.
CPVR's amendment would establish an even higher threshold (66.6 percent) for voter approval - but only for amendments concerning one specific issue, the possible elimination of an elected position. All other possible amendments would need only the current 50 percent plus 1 of the voters to change the Charter.
Sounds to me like the Citizens for the Protection of Voters' Rights' amendment proposal is more concerned with protecting the number of elected officials than voters rights.
This proposal is designed to muddy the waters if CTLAC's proposal to stop the two at-large seats from being added to the BCC is passed by voters. Just imagine. If both the CPVR amendment passes (with 51 percent as currently required by the Charter) and the CTLAC amendment to eliminate the at-large positions also passes (with more than 50 but less than 66.6 percent of voter approval), there's 99.9 percent chance that the number of County Commissioners won't be determined by voters, but one single person wearing a long, black robe and swinging a gavel. And a 100 percent chance taxpayers will foot the bill.
Hopefully, if these two CPVR proposals do reach the ballot, voters will recognize the differences, support CTLAC's "Keep It Simple" amendments, and vote no on CPVR's convoluted "State Formulas and Special Case-Only" pair of proposals.
Michael S. Mann
michaelsmann@comcast.net [1]