Lobbying compensation: Small firms are ‘little but fierce’

Image via Colin Hackley.

To paraphrase the Bard, the state’s small influence firms may be but little, but they’re still fierce.

Lobbying compensation reports for the second quarter are starting to trickle in. Florida lobbyists report their pay quarterly. Reports for the period covering April 1 through June 30 are due Aug. 14.

The reports disclose how much pay lobbyists and lobbying firms receive from their clients in ranges covering $10,000 increments up to $50,000, after which the exact amount of pay must be reported.

Florida Politics uses the middle number of the reported ranges to estimate quarterly pay. That still shows some healthy revenue for even the smaller concerns.

Louis Betz & Associates

Louis Betz & Associates could have earned up to $130,000 in lobbying fees last quarter — $100,000 working the Legislature and another $30,000 plying the Governor and Cabinet.

The firm, which includes Louis Betz and Travis Mitchell, represented nine paying principals in the Legislature last quarter.

Five of them — American Traffic Solutions, Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson, Spin, Waste Management Inc of Florida and Ygrene Energy Fund Florida — added an estimated $15,000 to the firm’s coffers over the three-month span. The City of Temple Terrace, Covanta Energy, Crisis Center of Tampa Bay and Mindshare Technologies chipped in an estimated $5,000 each.

The City of Temple Terrace, Crisis Center of Tampa Bay and Waste Management were listed in the same pay bracket on the executive compensation report.

Using median estimates, Louis Betz & Associates earned $95,000 lobbying the Legislature and $15,000 lobbying the executive branch.

Mark Anderson

Mark Anderson and his lobbying partner Joshua Burkett represented 18 clients in the second quarter and brought in up to $200,000 for their efforts.

The duo’s legislative compensation report shows two clients paid an estimated $15,000 apiece: Chief Executive Officers of Management Companies and Woz U Education. The remainder of Anderson’s and Burkett’s contracts netted between $1 and $10,000.

Per the last line of the report, they earned no less than $50,000 plying the Legislature and could have earned as much as $100,000. It was the same case on the executive report, where the team juggled 16 principals.

The same two clients were again marked down in the $10,000 to $20,000 range with the rest netting the pair up to $10,000 each.

Mike Haridopolos

The solo practice of former Senate President Mike Haridopolos earned an estimated $200,000 in Q2, with $105,000 of that haul coming in through legislative lobbying and the balance earned lobbying the executive branch.

Haridopolos’ top paying client last quarter was Larkin Health Systems, which was marked down in the $20,000 to $30,000 bracket on both compensation reports. Larkin was followed by Handex Consulting & Remediation and South Central Florida Express, each of which chipped in between $10,000 and $20,000 during the reporting period.

The remainder of Haridopolos’ contracts were listed in the up-to-$10,000 bracket. If each client paid the top dollar in their range, Haridopolos could have earned $320,000 in the second quarter.

The Labrador Company

Brecht Heuchan’s shop, The Labrador Company, earned up to $150,000 in earnings last quarter, with two-thirds of that sum showing up on the legislative report.

Heuchan represented eight clients in the Legislature.

The Florida Justice Association, Trulieve, Southern Wine & Spirits of America and Wilkes & McHugh each paid between $10,000 and $20,000 for legislative lobbying work. Korein Tillery, Paramedics Logistics Florida, The Richman Group of Florida and the Waterford Institute paid up to $10,000 apiece.

The executive branch report included a similar client roster, with the addition of the Parsons Transportation Group. It and the Richman Group of Florida were marked down at an estimated $15,000 each with the only other paid contract being the Waterford Institute in the up-to-$10,000 bracket.

Using median earnings estimates, The Labrador Company reeled in $80,000 in legislative lobbying fees and $35,000 in executive branch pay.

Sunrise Consulting Group

Sunrise Consulting Group’s new disclosures show as much as $210,000 in legislative lobbying pay and up to $50,000 more in executive branch pay.

The firm, which includes Shawn Foster and Sam Wagoner, showed earnings of at least $100,000 on their Q2 legislative compensation report. The sum came in across 16 contracts, six of which netted between $10,000 and $20,000 each.

Those clients were the Florida Bail Agents Association, the Hernando County School Board, Lake Sumter State College, the Pasco Hernando State College Foundation, Seven Diamonds and the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.

The rest of the pair’s paid clients were in the $1 to $10,000 range. Sunrise’s executive compensation report showed a half-dozen contracts, all of them in the up-to-$10,000 bracket.

Using median figures, the firm brought in $165,000 between April 1 and June 30 — $135,000 via legislative branch lobbying and $30,000 via executive branch lobbying.