Who earns the biggest piece of the public-salary pie in Miami-Dade County?
In many other municipalities, it might be the mayor or perhaps the top cop, but that's not the case in Miami-Dade. Instead, county data on employee pay shows that the majority of the county's most well-compensated employees are lawyers who work in the County Attorney's Office — including the county's top-paid employee, who rakes in $205,000 more than Mayor Daniella Levine Cava — who in 2020 cut her own pay from $250,000 to $200,000 and wouldn't come close to sniffing the top 20 either way.
From attorneys to doctors to (spoiler!) more attorneys, here's a list of the 20 highest-paid Miami-Dade County employees as of September 2024, arranged from highest to...not-quite-so-high:
1. Geraldine Bonzon-Keenan, county attorney: $405,012
2. Jess McCarty, executive assistant county attorney: $394,159
3. Gerald Sanchez, first assistant county attorney: $394,159
4. Steve Bass, assistant county attorney: $370,743
5. Ralph Cutié, director of Miami-Dade Aviation Department: $363,303
6. Ken Pyatt, deputy director of Miami-Dade Aviation Department: $362,806
7. Eduardo Gonzalez, assistant county attorney: $358,721
8. William Candela, assistant county attorney: $356,725
9. Jimmy Morales, chief operations officer for Miami-Dade County: $349,686
10. Bruce Libhaber, assistant county attorney: $348,734
11. David Murray, assistant county attorney: $348,197
12. Roy Coley, director of Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Department: $345,168
13. Kenneth Hutchins, chief medical examiner: $344,609
14. Cynji Lee, assistant county attorney: $343,125
15. Bernardo Pastor, assistant county attorney: $342,817
16. Terrance Smith, assistant county attorney: $341,283
17. Lynda Slade Bendavid, assistant county attorney: $340,943
18. Marlene Klein, assistant county attorney: $340,567
19. Debra Herman, assistant county attorney: $340,303
20. Jorge Martinez-Estevez, assistant county attorney: $339,459