ATTN: The Alachua County Labor Coalition (ACLC) is a 501(c)4 and does not endorse candidates. We will print all candidates’ responses to our questions on our website and share them via our email newsletter.
County Commission Candidate Anna Prizzia
1) Do you support paying a living wage to all County workers including part-time, temporary, seasonal, and contracted workers? The ACLC defines a living wage at $15.39 an hour, the MIT Living Wage Calculator rate for a family of four with two working adults and employer-provided healthcare.
a. What is your plan to get us there using the Alachua County Government Minimum Wage ordinance?
b. How will you ensure contracted workers are paid the set wage?
c. What ideas do you have to help improve wages and benefits for workers throughout our community?
All workers deserve a living wage, and as one of the largest employers and government leaders, we have a responsibility to lead the way. We must also encourage the labor market to increase all workers’ pay through our contracts and sub-contracts. I believe the county has made good progress on this effort and is on track to offer this wage by 2021. To ensure contractors are participating, I think we must require that they provide robust proof of staffing and wages during the bid process and implement an audit process for contracts with our EO and purchasing office to ensure compliance. To improve wages and benefits for workers throughout our County, I think we need to first encourage our other institutions and major employers to adopt our living wage. We also need to focus on health care as a target. Healthcare is often the most expensive, or one of the top 3 expenses, for a business. It is so expensive that many small businesses cannot provide it at all. There are new models arising that provide fair, fully transparent pricing to employers or individuals at high quality centers that offer comprehensive preventive and primary care services. These centers focus on long term relationships, transparent data and information sharing, quality comprehensive care, and health outcomes. This is a complete reverse of the existing model of reimbursement schemes that are fee-for service and have impaired providers from doing the primary job of healing by focusing on sick care and transactional services. True health care leadership comes from stewarding not only physical, but also social, economic, and physical environment factors of a community, which account for half of outcomes – often referred to as the social determinants of health. A model that allows an employer or individual to pay a risk adjusted fixed fee per patient for all services, and in some cases add additional payment or shared savings for meeting experience, quality or utilization targets would bring dramatic shifts in costs and health outcomes. These savings, in turn can be passed on to individuals in wages and other benefits. The County could lead the way in offering this healthcare model and allow other local businesses and organizations to join.
2) Do you support providing paid administrative leave for part-time, temporary, seasonal, and contracted county workers in the event of emergency work closures (e.g., hours missed due to hurricanes, pandemic, etc.)?
Yes, it is critical to protect our workers and to ensure they can still provide for themselves and their families in the event of an emergency.
3) Do you support a “Renters Bill of Rights’” which would:
a. Ensure universal licensing and inspections for all rental properties?
b. Inform renters of their rights under existing laws?
c. Offer an alternative to courts to settle disputes over security deposits and damages?
d. Protect renters from high utility bills by enacting policies that require landlords to make basic investments in energy and water efficiency?
Yes, I support a Renters Bill of Rights. I believe renters in this community deserve basic rights and protections for safe, affordable housing. Currently the burden of our inefficient and aging housing infrastructure is unduly placed on renters. The bill of rights, and resulting upgrades for compliance, would decrease the cost of living for thousands in our community. It would also reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which are a threat to us all. I believe we could use public funds for low-interest loans for low-income housing improvements to reduce the burden on landlords, and offer an easy, anonymous online and phone hotline to report non-compliance.
4) What role should local government and private developers play in ensuring that there is adequate affordable housing in our community? What is your plan to help our community overcome its current shortage of affordable housing?
I believe we need to develop public-private partnerships to build and enhance tools such as a community land bank, community land trusts, and community development corporations to have mechanisms to compete with traditional development, and to build and retain affordable land and housing. Ideally, we would fund these with linkage fees or impact fees, which are established by local government so that developers cover their proportional cost for providing affordable housing. Unfortunately, the Florida Legislature has effectively preempted this by requiring that local government give the developer something of equal value for the imposition of a linkage fee. Due to new legislation, local governments would have to provide the developer with some offset to the cost. The Florida Legislature also effectively preempted inclusionary zoning in 2019 with the same mechanism. Due to this recent legislation, local government is really limited in what we can do directly with funding without a surtax focused on affordable housing, which I would support. Therefore, one of the things I have been working on as a community advocate and hope to continue as a commissioner, is the effort to bring a Community Development Finance Institution (CDFI) to town. We need a financial institution that will use this designation to help build and protect ownership and economic opportunity for all. CDFIs can offer responsible financial services, lending to small businesses and nonprofits, develop real estate that focuses on affordable housing and local business development, and promote fair financial practices, such as ending predatory lending. Essentially, CDFI is a special designation that allows the organization to do things that traditional banks cannot do. It lowers thresholds for credit scores and requirements for lending and allows investment in projects that would otherwise be considered “risky.” The federal reserve has done analyses of our community and have found a that a CDFI is a critical component missing. This contributes to our incredible disparities because it means we lack access to capital and investment. We need a CDFI working proactively in our community as a resource for projects for affordable housing, justice, equity, and so much more.
5) Federal and state laws give most workers the right to form and join unions. Do you support the right of all private and public sector workers to organize a union? Would you publicly support workers in our community who are seeking workplace rights, including a living wage and the right to union representation?
Yes, I do support the right to organize and unionize. I have been a part of discussions and efforts to include a $15 minimum wage at UF, and to add this to their service contracts, and would publicly support all these issues as a commissioner.
6) Do you support a local hiring preference that includes the use of responsible contractors and certified apprenticeship programs for taxpayer-funded projects?
Yes, I support a local hiring preference, and a provision that includes the use of responsible contractors and certified apprenticeship programs. Apprenticeships are a powerful solution that equip workers with the technical and helps ensure workers have the experience and skills to deliver the quality needed for a given job. For the local preference, I understand that there is a limited workforce in our immediate area, so we would need to create a tiered set of standards to meet demand. Apprenticeship programs also offer a work-based learning strategy that should be explored as workforce development strategy. With a growing gap in skilled workforce, these certified programs could offer paid opportunities for career training and higher wages for youth, unemployed, and underemployed in our community.
7) Do you support lowering the Sheriff’s budget and diverting funds to social services?
I do support reforming the Sheriff’s budget, the de-militarization of our police force, and increasing support for social services. I am in favor of re-prioritizing the budget first, and then directing savings to developing a community policing model and other social service and diversion programs. I think first steps are to: – implement body cams and dash cams for all officers – provide better training and mental health counseling support for officers – have a a third-party evaluation of all jail operations and our processes for hiring, promotion, and evaluations for officers, and – build a transparent, anonymous hotline for police issues It is important to note that, while County commissioners set sheriffs’ budgets across the state, they have little say over how sheriffs spend the money. When Sheriffs do not like the budget commissioners give them, they can appeal their budget to the governor and Cabinet, which have favored sheriffs over the last few decades. Alachua County sued the Sheriff in 2017 after she diverted $500,000 the county assigned to vehicles toward raises for deputies. Judges sided with the Sheriff. I will work to push for reform, but I will also focus on ways we can reduce arrests with a unified intake center that offers mental health counselors and social workers that can review cases and refer people to the services they need, rather than being arrested. I will also look at how we can enhance and expand our diversion programs to keep people out of the justice system.
8) How will you reform the Alachua County Court Services, which recommends cash bail over 90% of the time?
A cash bail system criminalizes poverty, as people who are unable to afford bail end up in jail while they await trial for weeks or even months. Cash bail perpetuates inequities in the justice system that are disproportionately felt by communities of color and low-income individuals. I am in favor of a community-sponsored release program, where defendants will be able to choose a community-based organization that will support them on release by providing services, such as court date reminders, transportation, and referrals to any needed social services. I believe that pretrial reform must include a broad coalition of stakeholders, including those in every step of the pretrial process. The reform process needs to include judges, prosecutors, public defenders, law enforcement, civil rights and civil liberties groups, and community organizations, especially those that include people hurt by crime and people who have been incarcerated. I feel strongly that the criminal justice system is a public service, and all aspects of it should be collectively funded through tax dollars, and that we need to remove fees associated with pretrial release which can distort policy decisions and create perverse incentives and conflicts of interest.
9) The Alachua County Commission is responsible for facilities and utility-related costs at the jail including the current inmate phone contract. Do you support making this contract more equitable so that incarcerated people can stay connected to their loved ones?
Absolutely. There should not be a barrier to our inmates communicating with their loved ones, and we should provide a free or affordable option for phone, electronic, and have unrestricted mail for letters and books.