Why is it that our supervisors, when pushing through raises for themselves, always refer to what other counties are paying? And I’m not just talking about SLO County. This goes on everywhere. Recently in Contra Costa County, supervisors there stated “we are the lowest-paid in any urban county in the state.” Their base pay is $97,000 with a county population of 1.1 million people. Compare that to SLO County’s supervisors, who just gave themselves a 5 percent pay increase and are now making $86,000, with a population of less than 300,000.
It’s a vicious circle. Every time these folks give themselves a raise, the next county says they need one, then the next, etc. Some county supes are wising up. They’re tying their salaries to that of superior court judges. When these judges receive a raise, they do also. These are automatic raises without their constituents even realizing it.
As for giving themselves raises, a better idea would be to put it on the ballot every four years and let the people of this county decide what kind of job you’re doing. Seems pretty simple to me. Wonder if any on our current board have the guts to let the people decide.
This article appears in Jan 22-29, 2015.