I can already hear the howls of outrage about the proposed pay hike for our Board of Supervisors. What I don’t hear is an understanding of how hard they work, and how grossly underpaid they have been for far too long.
Consider this:
According to a recent survey of comparable counties, Santa Barbara County Supervisors are paid 32.8 percent less than the median pay of their counterparts. In fact, they are paid 27.8 percent less than their own chiefs of staff.
“Their current salary is equal to what an entry or journey level professional might earn in the county organization,” according to the staff report accompanying the recommendation. Yet these are the people who are responsible for all county programs and departments. They are expected to know about all of them and to make decisions that affect everything the county does.
If you haven’t interacted much with the supervisors, you may not know that they work seven days a week, early and late. They read volumes of material; take endless meetings with constituents and staff; sit on dozens of committees; visit site after site … and more. To be paid 32 percent less for the same work as supervisors elsewhere, while living in a county with incredibly high housing costs, is simply unacceptable.
Just because elected officials are public servants doesn’t mean they deserve poor pay. Even with the proposed increase, they will make far less than department heads or executives in the private sector. If we want talented, committed people leading our county, we should pay them a wage that reflects the importance of what they do, and how hard they work doing it.
Lee Heller
Santa Barbara
This article appears in Feb 27 – Mar 9, 2025.