Drew Wilson
Capital City Consulting earned over $6.3 million in the second quarter, placing it among the most lucrative firms in the state.
New compensation reports for the second quarter show Capital City Consulting netted about $3.2 million lobbying the Legislature and another $3.1 million lobbying the Governor, Cabinet and state agencies.
Florida Politics estimates lobbying pay based on the middle number of the per-client ranges firms listed on their compensation reports. Contracts are reported in $10,000 increments up to $50,000. Firms are also required to register overall earnings ranges. However, firm-level ranges top out at $1 million, a threshold that Capital City Consulting routinely clears.
Founded by Nick Iarossi and Ron LaFace, Capital City Consulting represents clients across a broad swath of industries, from health care and education to utilities and gaming.
Last quarter, CCC’s top clients in the Legislature included the Associated Industries of Florida at $75,000, Amalgamated Transit Union at $70,000, Adelanto HealthCare Ventures and Gartner at $50,000. The firm listed 230 legislative lobbying contracts in all, and range reporting indicates they may have earned as much as $4 million in the Legislature.
Capital City Consulting’s executive compensation report boasts the second-largest total of all firms in the Sunshine State. It lists more than 275 lobbying contracts, including three that break the cap on range reporting — professional services firm Horne LLP paid $75,000 in Q2, PCI Gaming paid $60,000 and Contender Boats paid $54,000.
Several major corporations also rely on the Capital City Consulting team, which in addition to Iarossi and LaFace includes Anthony Carvalho, Justin Day, Megan Fay, Kenneth Granger, Maicel Green, Dean Izzo, Ashley Kalifeh, Andrew Ketchel, Drew Meiner, Joseph Mongiovi, Jared Rosenstein, Scott Ross and Chris Schoonover.
The firm also includes Brian May, Rodney Barreto, Miguel Abad, Felipe Angulo and Tim Gomez, who joined CCC after it merged with Prodigy Public Affairs as part of an expansion into the South Florida market. Those lobbyists are primarily focused on local clients. The reports filed with the state do not include revenues from local and non-state lobbying work.
Among the better-known businesses on their client sheet are 3M, Adobe, Amazon, AT&T, Chick-Fil-A, CVS Health and Delta. CCC also represents numerous state associations and trade groups, such as the Florida Cultural Alliance, which successfully pushed for greater state arts funding during the 2023 Legislative Session.
The upper end of per-client ranges indicate CCC may have earned as much as $4.1 million lobbying the executive branch.
The quarterly haul is a step up from the first quarter, when CCC filed its first $6 million-plus reports. The firm’s growth has accelerated rapidly over the past two years — in the second quarter of 2021, CCC earned about $4.5 million and in Q2 2022 the firm reported $4.75 million.
Capital City Consulting’s annual total crossed the $20 million mark for the first time last year. With half of 2023 in the books, the firm appears poised to smash that total by a few million dollars.
Florida lobbyists and lobbying firms faced an Aug. 14 deadline to file compensation reports for the period covering April 1 through June 30. Compensation reports for the third quarter are due to the state on Nov. 14.
