Troubled, bloated Miami-Dade ‘PR’ dept is investigated

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As if we needed another reason for a complete overhaul of the county’s communications department, another top administrator in what amounts to our government’s in-house PR department was forced to resign recently after she was found to be using department resources for her personal business on county time, according to sources at County Hall.

Carol Higgins, an executive producer at Miami-Dade TV in the Communications Department, was allowed to quit last month rather than be accused of theft and fired. That not only means that the 15-year employee (she worked 5 years part time before that) will get a retirement based on her $100,600 salary, rather than a rap sheet. Instead of suspending anybody who knew about it, the county quietly ushered Higgins out in an effort to sweep everything under the rug so nobody notices that this bloated communications department is out of control and a waste of taxpayer dollars.

That’s how the county responds to these kinds of abuses.

This is the same department, after all, that produced that embarrassing Harlem Shake “motivational” video in 2013, which offended many county employees and residents with its stereotypes, promotion of alcohol during work hours, air humping and sexual innuendos. The same department from which Director Henri Sori — who was already asked to leave because of the video, according to sources — was forced to resign in April after hushed allegations of sexual harassment.

Read related story: ‘Harlem Shake’ video producer at Miami-Dade resigns

After Sori split, the name was changed from the Community Information and Outreach Department to the Communications Department and Inson Kim, a longtime aide to Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez and consummate bureaucrat, was tapped to head it. Not because she was experienced in media relations or TV production, mind you. Simply because she wanted a director’s position and had paid her political dues. The new job and title came with a salary increase from $126,000 to $155,000.

The department is in charge of all the TV production for the county, from the self-serving infomercials on the Animal Services department or our water and sewer projects to interviews with commissioners and broadcasting live from the county commission and committee meetings. It also runs the 311 call center and “maintains” the county website (which, until recently, still listed a county manager). In 2013, Higgins was on the team that won a regional Emmy for their “The Most Interesting Pets In the World” video on adoptable shelter animals.

But is that really what we want to spend our tax dollars doing? Maybe we should make indie films, too! And do we really need 180 people to do that? And, in a county where each different department has their own public information specialist, do we really need to spend almost $20 million for what amounts to a propaganda department? The budget has increased by $4.5 million in only three years.

Okay, let’s take out the 311 center, which amounts for $12 million (and if there is waste in the rest of the department, there is likely waste there). Do we need to spend $9 million on the rest?

Apparently not. An employee told Channel 7 News that staffers spend “a lot of time just sitting around, watching TV, watching movies on their iPads, shopping online.” Another source confirmed to Political Cortadito that

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  Carlos Gimenez, Inson Kim, Miami-Dade County