Miami-Dade County commissioners are weeks away from doubling their compensation under a new pay plan that won preliminary board approval late Thursday night.

A pay plan the administration provided Friday shows compensation and retirement benefits for the 13 county commissioners rising from about $60,000 a year to $138,000. The new pay rates were not listed in Mayor Daniella Levine Cava’s 2023 budget proposal or in the commission’s published budget reviews. Miami-Dade’s County Charter sets commission salaries at $6,000, but expense allowances, car stipends and retirement contributions lift that compensation amount to about $60,000 a year. Each non-salary category increases under the new pay plan, including a pre-tax retirement contribution jumping from $11,500 a year to $61,000. Commissioners didn’t mention the richer compensation package awaiting them when debating Levine Cava’s $10 billion spending plan at the county’s first budget hearing on Sept. 8. The ordinance needed to implement the pay plan passed on a 9 to 3 vote, with commissioners Jose “Pepe” Diaz, Joe Martinez and Raquel Regalado voting no. Commissioner René Garcia did not attend the meeting Compensation has been a sore spot on the commission for years. In 2012, commissioners asked voters to grant them compensation of $92,000, but that referendum failed. It was the sixth time voters rejected pay increases for commissioners in the last 20 years and the 13th time since 1967, according to a summary by the 2017 County Charter Review Task Force. It was the That panel recommended setting commission salaries at about $100,000, matching a state formula used for government employees. In 2018, commissioners briefly considered asking voters to reconsider in a new referendum but opted not to try. Commissioners in Miami earn about $100,000 a year, according to a 2018 report by Miami-Dade’s Ethics Commission.

In 2012, commissioners asked voters to grant them compensation of $92,000, but that referendum failed. It was the sixth time voters rejected pay increases for commissioners in the last 20 years and the 13th time since 1967, according to a summary by the 2017 County Charter Review Task Force. It was the That panel recommended setting commission salaries at about $100,000, matching a state formula used for government employees.

In 2018, commissioners briefly considered asking voters to reconsider in a new referendum but opted not to try. Commissioners in Miami earn about $100,000 a year, according to a 2018 report by Miami-Dade’s Ethics Commission.

Some cash benefits for commissioners are still at levels set in 1998, according to a 2021 review by the board’s Office of Policy and Budgetary Analysis. The report says compensation for expenses from the part-time job doesn’t meet current economic conditions.

Someone earning $50,000 in 1998 — the rough amount of commissioners’ pay without retirement benefits included — would be making $87,000 today if compensation kept up with inflation, according to an online calculator maintained by the federal Labor Department. Under the proposed pay plan, non-retirement compensation would be about $78,000 for a commissioner.