City study suggests SLO employees are underpaid

August 19, 2014
Katie Lichtig

Katie Lichtig

By JOSH FRIEDMAN

The chief building official for the city of San Luis Obispo receives a base salary of more than $100,000 a year. But, according to a recently published city study, it is well below the industry standard.

On Tuesday, the San Luis Obispo City Council will discuss the compensation report, a study that compares San Luis Obispo worker pay to that of public employees of other California cities. If the compensation study is any indication of the direction city salaries are headed, then employees are in line for pay raises.

The compensation report, which staff compiled under the guidance of a paid consultant, concludes that 50 percent of city employees receive pay below industry standard.

The study singled out several city jobs as positions that are compensated well below the median. For instance, San Luis Obispo’s chief building official earns a base salary of $107,250 a year. The median salary for the position among comparable cities is more than $125,000, according to the report.

In addition, San Luis Obispo currently pays its deputy public works director a base salary of about $122,000. The report indicates that the median pay for the position is approximately $143,000.

Critics of the study suggest that city staff inflated the median salaries in the report by selected cities that compensate generously to use as comparisons.

For example, the Santa Monica city manager receives a base salary of more than $350,000 a year. Neighboring Culver City, which did not appear in the study, pays its city manager a maximum salary of a little more than $250,000 a year. Santa Monica pays its chief building official about $176,000 a year and its network administrator $117,000. Culver City compensates those workers at approximately $149,000 and $96,000 respectively.

Human resources staff stated that it included Santa Monica in the benchmark report because both cities have coastal locations with tourism-based economies and nearby universities.

The only nearby cities included as comparisons are Paso Robles and Santa Maria. City staff did also use the county of San Luis Obispo as a benchmark.

In the report, city staff claims that it placed a focus on statewide coastal cities because San Luis Obispo competes with them for employees. However, the report also says that 57 percent of applicants for city jobs reside in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara Counties.

Nevertheless, human resources staff opted not to use the local private sector labor force as a benchmark which would have lowered the median income. Staff did, though, include analysis of the local labor market in the overall study, as directed to do so by the city council.

Although San Luis Obispo worker pay may stack unfavorably when compared with cities like Santa Monica, city employee compensation has actually spiked in recent years.

Since 2000, general fund staffing costs have approximately doubled, rising from about $21 million to around $42 million currently.

When unions enter negotiation with the city, though, they will have some bargaining chips. Some employees are currently enduring pay cuts from the last round of negotiations, and while the city is very indebted, it also has an investment portfolio of approximately $90 million.

Following the compensation study hearing Tuesday, the council will meet again in closed session on Aug. 26 to discuss a bargaining strategy. Then on Sept. 23, the council will hold a public hearing on employee pay.

Soon after that hearing, city management will likely begin negotiations with representatives of its largest employee group, the San Luis Obispo City Employees Association.

A ballot measure to renew the city’s half-cent sales tax is on the November ballot, and much of the debate over the initiative surrounds whether or not the city has used the tax revenue collected to backfill rising employee salary and pension costs. If the sales tax initiative were to fail, city management has said there is a possibility staff will receive pay cuts.


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ROTFLOL. LOL. LOL.


Underpaid? Give me a break. Or better yet vote NO on Measure G. This shows where your tax dollars will continue to go, as they have for the past eight years, into higher salaries and benefits for overpaid city employees.


Mike Clark is the only city council candidate OPPOSING Measure G. He’s got my vote on that alone!


Who is Mike Clark? I don’t think he is on this Council. We have Mayor Marx, Councilmembers Christianson, Smith, Ashbaugh and Carpenter.


Is Hanford in the wage comparability study? It’s larger that SLO, but should be similar otherwise.


This type of study is an ongoing task for most government employees. Just like the study to find out how a new tax should be worded to have the best chance of passing. This is disgusting the employees are paid adequately or the would not have taken and/or remained at their job. Imagine if employees of a business went to the owners and said hey we did a study and found that we are underpaid. What a joke this city is, instead of doing their jobs they waste time trying to figure out ways to extort more and more from the taxpayers.


NO ON MEASURE G!!!


unfortunatley it is not just one city. too many have a sense of entitlement. i, for one, just bought a place in WY, 25 miles from a town of 900.


I just got back from scouting various places in Idaho, will return soon to do more investigating. The exodus is coming.


The median home value in Santa Monica is $1.2M so I should be able to sell my house for that. I didn’t even need to pay someone to do a study to arrive at that conclusion.


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Best laugh I’ve had in a long time! Oh wait, you’re serious?


Only in San Luis Obispo would a City so blatantly put this study before the public while asking for continued tax dollars by Measure G-14.


We all know that Ms. Lickit is the former manager from Santa Monica and that hereby ends the similarities of these cities.


FACTS: Santa Monica is located on the Pacific Coast Highway

(SLO is located 11 miles from the beach)


Santa Monica population: 90,000 (SLO: 45,000)

Santa Monica is bordered on three sides by the city of Los Angeles, Malibu to the north, Pacific Palisades on the northwest, Brentwood on the east, West Los Angeles on the northeast, Mar Vista on the east, and Venice on the southeast (SLO: Morro Bay, Avila, Pismo Beach and Santa Margarita).

Santa Monica nearby attractions Los Angeles LAX (8 miles), Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm, Hollywood Hall of Fame, Universal Studios, Magic Mountain, Staples Center, etc. (SLO: Morro Bay, Hearst Castle, Pismo Beach),


Santa Monica has over 1,900 permanent employees (SLO: 360)

Santa Monica has over 600 job classifications (SLO: ???)

Santa Monica 2013-14 annual revenues: $504,258,13 (SLO: $114,431,112)

Santa Monica 2013-14 annual expenditures: 525,949,011 (SLO: $111,356,500)

Santa Monica Public Works manages Santa Monica Airport (SLO: County of SLO)

Santa Monica operates its library system (SLO: County operated)

Santa Monica operates its transit system (SLO: contracts out)

Santa Monica operates its animal services (SLO contracts out)

Santa Monica operates community cemetery (SLO: none)

Santa Monica operates Civil Auditorium which is currently closed but the City is going to reinvent into a Cultural Center (SLO: Ludwig Center)

Santa Monica Pier Aquarium (SLO: Petco)

Santa Monica has Flying Museum, Art Museum, Heritage Museum, History Museum (SLO: Jack House, Art Center, County Museum, the Adobes).

Santa Monica University College (inside the City), Emeritus College (inside the City, Community College (inside the City), Pardee Rand Graduate Schhol (inside the City), Art Institute of Los Angeles (inside the City), Emperor’s College of Traditional Oriental Medicine (inside the City) – (SLO: Cal Poly outside the City, Cuesta College outside the City)

Santa Monica restaurants are cutting edge cuisine, providing most ethnic as well as traditional American cuisine. Anyone been to Chart House, Chez Jay or La Vecchia Cucina?

Santa Monica has multi 5 star hotels (SLO: Has Apple Farm plus 37 other hotels).

Santa Monica has over 3,500 hotel rooms (SLO: 2,100)

Santa Monica has Tongva Park & Ken Genser Square,

6.2 acres of winding walkways, rolling hills, expansive lawns and lots of kid-friendly play areas (SLO: Laguna Lake).

Santa Monica has the pier offering direct contact with the beach and ocean, plus the famous Santa Monica Pier housing a Carousel and full over-the-water amusement park.

Santa Monica has Muscle Beach, Santa Monica State Beach (SLO: SLO Creek – please do not enter).


Vote No***Vote No***MEASURE G-14***Vote No***Vote No


“Only in San Luis Obispo would a City so blatantly put this study before the public while asking for continued tax dollars by Measure G-14”


I agree with you but it is not just SLO. It’s (un)civil servants. I’ve worked from the U.N. to local goverment. entitlement. i was never taught to think that way


What a great posting! This Lichtig thing needs to go…


The Scam Goes On and On and On and On


This is exactly the scam that California City, County and State Employees have used for the last thirty years to get their pay and benefits to ridiculously high levels. It used to be your reward for working a civil service job (what government jobs used to be called) was in return for lower pay than the private sector you got a good retirement with great benefits. Over the years the City Managers, Human Resource personel, union leaders and others discovered the formula to inflate the salaries of the CA civil service workers. It is called the Compensation Report which is a highlight of this story.


The Compensation Report, in this case, is written by the San Luis Obispo Human Resource Department, whose staff will themselves benefit from an inflated compensation report. What happens is they highlight the jobs that they can show some statistic somewhere that shows those jobs that are underpaid. In this case, a perfect example is using Santa Monica, but leaving out Culver City. The excuse for doing this – Santa Monica is a Coastal city close to a university. So is Culver City! Culver City is probably closer to the ocean than San Luis Obispo in that only Marina Del Rey, which is quite small, is all the land between Culver City and the ocean. In addition, Loyola Marymount University is located a few hundred yards to the south of Culver City.


The San Luis Obispo Human Resource Department is trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the City Council and people of San Luis Obispo. Why? For personal greed. The Human Resource Department Employees salaries are also based on the very Compensation Study they have prepared. If other city employee salaries are raised in the city, their salaries will be raised also. So the Human Resource personnel have every greedy reason to skew the compensation report in every way they can to see their salary and benefits raised also.


The City Manager always goes along with these studies because their salary will also go up. As the department managers’ salaries, below the City Manger, get raised the City Manager then argues to the City Council their salary is not keeping up with the mangers’ salaries so the City Manager’s salary should be raised.


Here is the biggest scam of all. Once the San Luis Obispo employees get their salaries and benefits raised the Santa Monica City employees will have a compensation report done showing how their compensation used to be above the San Luis Obispo City employees, but now is only equal to the San Luis Obispo employees’ salary and benefits. Therefore, the Santa Monica City employees need a raise is salaries and benefits to keep appropriately ahead of the San Luis Obispo City employees.


What amazes me is the utter ignorance of the people of San Luis Obispo to let their City’services be cut back to pay for these obscene city employee salaries and benefits.


Compensation Reports do not allow normal market forces to dictate the pay. The truth is those in the private job sector have long known they take a substantial pay cut to live in SLO County. City employees should also take a substantial paycut. Incidently, if salaries were cut 20% across the board do you really think no qualified people would apply for city jobs in San Luis Obispo?


I do predict the people of San Luis Obispo will once again allow the wool to be pulled over their eyes. Normally I wouldn’t care because I don’t live in San Luis Obispo. The problem is the City employees where I live will use the new, higher employee salaries and benefits of the SLO employees to justify why their salaries should be raised. And the scam goes on and on and on and on.


“The compensation report concludes that 50 percent of city employees receive pay below industry standard. ”


So if 50% are below, 50% are above, this makes the average about right. So trim the ones that are above average and give it to the below average workers to center our city wages.


Quit trying to use logic, it won’t work with the government.