This week, Miami District 3 Commissioner Rolando Escalona announced the launch of the publicly accessible online salary portal. Escalona, who recently replaced Commissioner Joe Carollo, pledged on the campaign trail last year that one of his first legislative items would be creating an online salary portal.
“Transparency and accountability are essential to building trust between government and the residents we serve,” Escalona said in a statement this week. “This new salary portal gives our community direct access to public information in a way that is clear and easy to navigate. Residents deserve a government that remains committed to openness at every level.”
Up until now, city employee salary information has been available through a public records request. But the process of obtaining records through the city’s official public records system can be cumbersome and lengthy.
The change puts the city on par with Miami-Dade County, which already has a searchable online database of county employee salary information.
As it stands now, the three highest paid city employees by salary are:
- City Manager James Reyes, $475,000
- City Attorney George Wysong, $417, 642.12
- Deputy City Attorney Kevin Jones, $361,725
While Lopez will be making $25,000 less than his predecessor, his starting salary is $80,000 higher than Morales’ when he was first named chief. In Feb. 2022, when Morales formally transitioned from interim chief to chief, his starting salary was $245,000, according to Morales’ offer letter. Then in April 2024, Morales was given a substantial raise to the $350,000 salary he currently makes.
The new online portal shows salary information, but not total annual compensation. For example, it lists city commissioners’ salaries at $58,200. But with the other perks that include cell phone and car allowances, Miami commissioners’ gross annual pay is about $100,000.
The database does, however, show year-to-date gross pay for each employee. For example, as of May 29, 2026, the database shows Miami commissioners’ gross year-to-date pay at about $44,000.
The city employee who’s made the most money so far in 2026 is Jose Perez, director of the Office of Capital Improvements, with $223,866.74 earned so far this year, according to the database.
The database also includes years of service for each employee, and gross pay in their most recent paycheck.
© 2026 Miami Herald. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
