Drew Wilson
RSA Consulting Group earned an estimated $1.77 million in lobbying pay last year, newly filed compensation reports show.
With the firm’s fourth-quarter reports in, the annual earnings estimate stands at $890,000 for legislative lobbying and $880,000 for executive branch lobbying.
Florida lobbyists report their pay in ranges covering $10,000 increments. Florida Politics uses the middle number of each range to estimate overall pay.
Firms also mark down a range for their overall pay in each quarterly report. RSA’s reports show they earned no less than $800,000 last year, with a top end of nearly $2 million.
Firm founder Ron Pierce and the team of Kaitlyn Bailey, Edward Briggs, Natalie King represented more than 60 clients in 2019, and many of their customers are tied to the Tampa Bay region.
Their most lucrative contracts included the Tampa Bay Area Regional Transit Authority (TBARTA) and the Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority, both of which paid $120,000 in fees last year.
Other Tampa-area interests included the Tampa Bay Lightning, Tampa Bay Partnership, Tampa Family Health Centers, Tampa Sports Authority, Visit Tampa Bay, Tampa Innovation Alliance, the Hillsborough County Tax Collector and Port Tampa Bay, among others.
Still, the firm has clients beyond Hillsborough and Pinellas. Also on their sheer were major corporations like Uber and statewide groups such as the Florida Association of Community Health Centers, the latter of which tied for the top spot with $120,000 in payments last year.
Beer distributorship Pepin Distributing was also near the top of RSA’s list, with $60,000 in lobbying fees paid last year.
RSA’s fourth-quarter reports came in above their average through the first three quarters, with $460,000 in earnings — $230,000 in the Legislature and $230,000 in the executive branch.
Florida lobbyists and lobbying firms faced a Feb. 14 deadline to file compensation reports for the period covering Oct. 1 through Dec. 31. Compensation reports for the first quarter of 2020 are due to the state in mid-April.
