Remember the free transit rides between now and the end of the year announced by Miami-Dade County last week? It turns out the estimated $9 million price tag tied to that generosity wasn’t properly cleared, and Mayor Daniella Levine Cava is putting the blame on Eulois Cleckley, director and CEO of the county’s Department of Transportation and Public Works.
Cleckley has been suspended for two weeks without pay starting Monday.
According to the Miami Herald, which broke the story, Levine Cava said in a memo that the agency’s recent announcement of a pause in fares was made “without any awareness or approval.” That included a vetting by the Office of Management and Budget on how much free boardings of Metrorail and buses until year’s end would cost the county.
Cleckley was hired out of Denver two years ago, where he was serving as public works director. At the time, The Miami Times reported that hiring from outside the region to run a county department was considered a rare move for a county mayor.
According to published reports, a May 12, 2021, offer letter for the post listed his salary at $270,000 a year. In Denver, Cleckley oversaw 1,300 employees and a budget of about $340 million. In Miami-Dade, he’s responsible for a budget about twice that size and a payroll of roughly 4,000 people.
The temporary free fares are part of a promotion to raise awareness of the “Better Bus” initiative launch, a community-led effort designed to make public transportation in Miami-Dade more efficient, readily available and rider-friendly, so more people can get to where they need to go faster. Miami-Dade’s transit system has long been criticized as being impractical and inconvenient.
The promotion will remain, but Cleckley’s suspension puts the massive bus realignment effort in the hands of the county’s chief operations officer, Jimmy Morales, who will oversee Transportation and Public Works while Cleckley is out.
Levine Cava has previously suspended two other agency directors this year. The director of management and budget was suspended in July for failing to renew authorization of a state fuel tax, costing the 2024 budget about $17 million in projected revenue. The head of animal services, who resigned in September, was also suspended this summer amid allegations of misuse of county veterinary services.