A key state senator said Thursday he would take aim at expressway authority directors who make more than the secretary of the Florida Department of Transportation, potentially opening up another front in a brewing fight over the agencies.
Some Tampa Bay-area lawmakers have already raised concerns about the prospect of consolidating the local authorities, an idea that was derailed in the last legislative session. But lawmakers are looking at the authorities, and the state support for them, as a potential way to save money as the budget continues to grow tighter.
The new idea — hatched by Sen. Don Gaetz, a Niceville Republican set to become the chamber’s president next year — would actually use the state funding for the organizations to provide leverage on another front. Gaetz said he plans to offer a budget amendment that would strip state funding from any of the authorities who pay their directors more than DOT chief Ananth Prasad.
“When we’re penny-stacking in this Legislature, trying to make sure that people who live in nursing homes and babies who are struggling for life in neonatal intensive care centers receive basic services, we can’t be shoveling dollars out of the state treasury to authorities that have enough money to pay their executive directors excessively,” Gaetz said.
Gaetz said he had already rounded up some support for the idea, including from Sen. Jack Latvala, a St. Petersburg Republican who has vocally called for any expressway consolidation ideas to be brought up early in the session and dealt with apart from the state budget.
Prasad, while making clear that the compensation issue was the Legislatures call, said he believed all the expressways’ directors make more than he does. When told that, Gaetz responded: “Then we’ll crack a lot of rice bowls.”
Gaetz made the comments after a meeting of the Senate Transportation, Tourism and Economic Development Appropriations Subcommittee. During the meeting, Gaetz and Sen. Mike Bennett, R-Bradenton, expressed outrage over the directors’ salaries.
“I just can’t quite get that through my thick head over here,” Bennett said.
In all, Prasad said, the DOT’s budget request for the coming fiscal year includes $12.3 million in payouts to the expressway authorities.
At a meeting with reporters later Thursday, Senate President Mike Haridopolos did not shut the door on the idea of looking for savings from the expressway authorities, saying instead that everything needs to be considered as the Legislature looks to close a budget gap that could top $2 billion.
“Any way that we can reduce overhead costs so we can put more into building roads as opposed to the bureaucracy behind it, is a good idea,” said Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island.
By Brandon Larrabee
