Florida taxpayers paid $11.7 million to 197 "communications" and "legislative affairs" employees working for state agencies, a Florida TaxWatch study found.

Adding standard state benefits, the total outlay climbs past $14 million, or $38,467 each day, TaxWatch reported.

"The levels and number of administrative and support bureaucratic staff has been forced to shrink, but too many in our state bureaucracy defy the gravity of downsizing," said TaxWatch president Dominic Calabro.

To conduct its study, TaxWatch this month contacted every state agency requesting the names and titles of employees whose primary duties involved communications or legislative affairs, and cross-checked and verified each name against the list found on www.floridahasarighttoknow.com.

TaxWatch said it found many of the titles "were surprisingly misleading." Of the communications workers, for example, only 59 percent have titles that would readily identify them as such. Legislative affairs workers fare even lower, coming in at just 51 percent. In each case, the employees were engaged in communications or lobbying efforts for their agencies. Legislative offices were not included.

Among the report's overall findings:

• Salaries of 126 communications department workers in state agencies exceed $7.3 million annually.
• Salaries of 71 legislative affairs employees total more than $4.3 million a year.
• The median salary of full-time communication employees is $57,559, a figure slightly higher than the $57,000 median for legislative affairs employees. However, the mean salary in legislative affairs was substantially higher at $61,540 versus $59,173 in communications.
• At the top end of the salary scale, five communications workers earn six-figure salaries, with the highest coming in at just under $124,000 a year, while three legislative affairs workers top the $100,000 mark, with the highest earning $140,000 annually.
• Workers in these fields fare better than the average state employee, who earns an average salary of $38,540. The typical legislative affairs worker tops that by 63 percent while the average communications worker exceeds it by 55 percent.
• Generally, a young person's game, the median tenure in communications is 6.6 years, compared to 5.6 years in legislative affairs.  The longest tenured employee with communications has 38 years of service with the state, while the longest serving legislative affairs employee has 38.6 years.

The ranges for compensation do not appear, at first glance, to be dramatically different than those earned by information officers at Florida's larger counties, cities and school districts -- where six-figure salaries are not uncommon at the top end.

What's more, local governmental agencies often hire outside public-relations firms to handle special projects, in effect doubling down on the cost of "spinning" the public.

Veteran Tallahassee reporters say that deepening layers of well-paid administrative spokespersons do not necessarily make the information flow speedier or more transparent. Conversely, a bureaucratic system that shields decision-makers from the press can be more turgid and opaque to the public.

But Barbara Petersen, head of the First Amendment Foundation in Tallahassee, said it's not clear from the TaxWatch report that there are more layers of bureaucracy.

"One thing we know for sure is that getting information out of government is getting harder every day. Does that mean we don't have enough [information] people or they're not well trained enough? It's hard to know from the report."

That said, Petersen added, "It's a fairly steep learning curve in terms of figuring out how things work" in Tallahassee.

In what some see as an ironic twist, fiscally conservative Gov. Rick Scott has three of the top-paid communications professionals in his office:

Hayden Dempsey, legislative affairs director, $140,000; Brian Burgess, director of press relations, $110,000; and Jonathan Costello, legislative affairs director, $110,000.

Other top-paid state employees identified by TaxWatch as having "communications" as a primary responsibility:

• David Langham: deputy chief judge of compensation claims at the Department of Administrative Hearings, $123,922.
• Charles Stampelos, deputy chief judge at the Department of Administrative Hearings, $120,320.
• Dick Kane, public administrator for communications at Department of Transportation, $106,441.

After Dempsey in the governor's office, the second- and third-biggest earners in the "legislative affairs" category are:

• Ron Poppell, director of legislative affairs for the State Board of Administration, $116,300.
• David Westberry, communications director at the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, $114,000.

"There is no excuse for government waste at any level at any time," Calabro said. "Every tax dollar spent should gain the highest return for the taxpayer.

"In a budget year where critical programs are being cut to balance the budget, it is time that our leaders take a serious look at all positions, determine which are essential to the mission of our government and cut the excess. This is what Florida families and businesses have been doing and must continue to streamline," Calabro said.

One public-relations professional in Tallahassee, speaking on condition of anonymity, offered a balancing point of view:

“Florida can cut back in all areas of government, communications and legislative staffers included. However, the majority of legislative and communications staffers I’ve worked with over the years are not your average state employee; rather, they are constantly on call to deal with crises, work extremely long hours, and deal with political pressures that may be intrinsic to the job, but are nevertheless difficult.

"Did TaxWatch review the average education level and qualifications of communications and legislative employees as compared to ‘the average state employee’?" she asked. "If we’re serious about cutting government spending, we should look at all sectors, not just those employees who are most visible.”

Read the TaxWatch report here.

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Contact Kenric Ward at kward@sunshinestatenews.com or at (772) 801-5341.