Read more in the Miami New Times
Inspired by President Barack Obama's commencement address at Miami Dade College together with a wonderfully revealing piece in this weekend's Wall Street Journal titled "California Prison Academy: Better Than a Harvard Degree," here is our advice to newly minted college graduates:
Forget the private sector, join Miami-Dade County instead!
There used to be a time when college graduates competed for jobs on Wall Street or created new jobs on Main Street all on their way to middle class prosperity. These days, and in the midst of tough economic times, why go through all that hassle and uncertainty when a job at Miami-Dade County is the most secure and lucrative way to get ahead.
Consider this from the WSJ article:
As a California prison guard, you can make six figures in overtime and bonuses alone. While Harvard-educated lawyers and consultants often have to work long hours with little recompense besides Chinese take-out, prison guards receive time-and-a-half whenever they work more than 40 hours a week. One sergeant with a base salary of $81,683 collected $114,334 in overtime and $8,648 in bonuses last year, and he's not even the highest paid.Sound familiar?
Sure, Harvard grads working in the private sector get bonuses, too, but only if they're good at what they do. Prison guards receive a $1,560 "fitness" bonus just for getting an annual check-up.
Most Harvard grads only get three weeks of vacation each year, even after working for 20 years—and they're often too busy to take a long trip. Prison guards, on the other hand, get seven weeks of vacation, five of them paid. If they're too busy racking up overtime to use their vacation days, they can cash the days in when they retire. There's no cap on how many vacation days they can cash in! Eighty officers last year cashed in over $100,000 at retirement.
The cherry on top is the defined-benefit pension. Unlike most Harvard grads working in the private sector, prison guards don't have to delay retirement if their 401(k)s take a hit. Prison guards can retire at the age of 55 and earn 85% of their final year's salary for the rest of their lives. They also continue to receive medical benefits.
Miami-Dade County offers such benefits to "public servants" and they only get better the longer you stay with the County. Click here the County's employee benefits highlights.
You don't even have to work all that hard or be good at what you do. Just think that the current county manager, Ms. Alina Hudak, lists on her official biography that she "has also managed the County's intensified oversight of the Jackson Health System." We all know how well that is going!
And former County Manager George Burgess. He left Miami-Dade County with a multi-million dollar deficit and financial scandals in several departments. In his taxpayer funded golden parachute, Burgess gets, among other benefits, a severance of one year of base salary, $326,340, plus deferred compensation of $22,000. He and his family will get medical and dental coverage until he’s 65 years old, and will also get an expense allowance of $3,000 a month and a car allowance of $600 a month until March of next year.
Similarly, recently departed bureaucrat Harpal Kapoor, whose greatest claim to fame is leaving the Miami-Dade Transit department in complete financial shambles, will receive a lifetime pension derived from his $242,000 salary.
For the sake of argument, if Mr. Kapoor takes 50% of his former salary as a pension, he will continue to make over $121,000 a year for life. We all know that the percentage he gets to keep is much higher however. And all this for running a department into the ground.
Alvarez, Burgess, Hudak, Llort, Kapoor, and the rest of the County bureaucracy can always rest assured that no matter how bad their decisions, no matter how much taxpayer money they squander, no matter how much animosity they incur from taxpayers, they can all count on a lifetime windfall once they leave.
Why would anyone then enter the risky world of the free market economy, when economic security can come from County government, and the pockets of captured taxpayers?
