The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 (with 2nd District Supervisor Gregg Hart dissenting) on a 2.5 percent salary increase for the elected offices of the treasurer-tax-collector, the sheriff, the auditor controller, and the clerk-recorder-assessor, and gave the District Attorney’s Office a 3.5 percent raise after a long debate in the county chambers.
The county Human Resources Department presented the board with several options for the elected officials’ salary increases during its Aug. 31 meeting. During discussions, supervisors realized they needed a better system in place to address future concerns about fairness and equality.
County District Attorney Joyce Dudley said during public comment that the District Attorney’s Office should be seeing a larger increase in her salary because of her experience, education, and years of service.
“Your electeds heard from a fellow elected that a resolution was being put forward that hired department heads got a 5 percent raise and electeds half of that, 2.5 percent. We were shocked and believed that we would be receiving the same amount,” Dudley said. “I was surprised to learn that the district attorney was supposed to be in parity with the public defender and county counsel.”
As it stands, the district attorney makes less than the public defender and county counsel, and the district attorney should receive a higher increase to make it equal among the county’s legal offices, she argued.
“It’s impossible to consider all of these comparisons and not conclude this is discriminatory, unwarranted favoritism with taxpayer money,” Dudley said.
Fifth District Supervisor Steve Lavagnino said calling it favoritism when it’s a difference of a couple thousand dollars—the district attorney makes $254,000 while the county counsel makes $256,000 and the public defender $258,000—was difficult to hear. For him, it’s a balancing act between what’s fair to officials and county employees, and to the public’s expectations.
“It’s tough. I don’t ever want to do this again. This was worse than when we were doing our own salaries because [I could] decide I’m going to take a hit and make my own decision and take less because it’s the right thing to do. It’s hard to tell someone to take less,” he said.
Third District Supervisor Joan Hartmann argued that Dudley and other elected officials should be getting a larger increase in salary because it could attract more people to work in county government or run for elected office.
“It’s important we do attract top people as department heads and have people run for these positions; it’s often people who have other means and can afford to run for these jobs, so I believe in paying market and I’m in favor of [an option] that gives some kind of parity between elected leaders and appointed department heads,” Hartmann said.
The issue with that, 2nd District Supervisor Hart argued, is the disparity that will come between higher-ups and employees.
“I think that when you’re giving percentage increases to the most highly paid people in the organization, it is a much more significant raise than what other people in the organization are getting, that’s a simple fact—by order of magnitude it’s four to five times [larger]—and that magnifies the problem, not fix it,” Hart said.
Supervisors agreed to focus on this year’s wage increase—with 3.5 percent going to the DA’s Office for equality between all county legal offices—and decided to create a future wage system that’s fair, which will come back to the board before June 2023.
This article appears in Sep 1-8, 2022.
