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County supervisors in line for holiday pay raise

December 8, 2014

slo county signOne week after granting themselves $1,000 each from county coffers, San Luis Obispo County supervisors will consider approving a 5 percent boost to their own paychecks.

At last week’s board of supervisors meeting, the board voted unanimously to award a one-time $1,000 payments to all full-time county workers and pro-rated amounts to part-time employees. The payments, which are described as offsets to rising health care costs, will cost the county more than $2.4 million.

On Tuesday, county officials will ask the supervisors to grant themselves salary increases of about $4,000 annually. If approved, the base salaries of each of the supervisors will increase from approximately $82,014 to $86,115.

In total, the proposed pay raise would cost the county $31,815 annually in salary and related costs, according to a county staff report.

Funding for the salary increases would come from operational savings, if available. If not, the board would likely transfer the money from general fund reserves or contingencies.

Human resources staff is using a county compensation study to justify the proposed pay raise. The study concluded that the supervisors are compensated 14.9 percent below market value.

In order for the pay increase to take effect, the supervisors must pass an ordinance, which requires holding a second hearing. The supervisors are expected to give final approval for the raise at their Dec. 16 meeting, which is the final time board is scheduled to convene in 2014.

If approved, the pay raise would take effect on Feb. 15.


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Below market value? A study paid for by? You want fair? Very Easy. Let the public vote on this. That’s fair. Supervisors obviously are going to make this happen. The message loud and clear. Tough shit folks, we can and will, take more for ourselves. This is the time to start searching for qualified candidates to run for office. Vote out these cancerous power drunk bloodsuckers whose number one goal is to line their own pockets completely disregarding public outrage. They just strategically bought the votes of county employees by quickly tossing them each a thousand bucks each, just in time for Christmas and now they’re blatantly taking theirs. Thousand for you, four thousand for us. Bernie Madoff would be proud. Very slimy. Paso_citizen you are spot on. There is something very very wrong with the system.


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Notice the BOS “primed” every County employee with a $1000 gift before broaching the notion of gifting themselves with a whopping 5% raise. Through strategic baiting of County employees now, the BOS is assured of their overwhelming support in future elections. If YOU are a County employee who is in receipt of a bonus check for doing nothing, will YOU cast anything other than a “Yes” vote for a supervisor(s) who thoughtfully arranged for your gift? This arrangement is spelled F-O-U-L with a lingering stench!


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You nailed it Mariposa. Bribery plain and simple. What follows will be the supervisors raising our rates, asking the public to give more.


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Diamond, not “will be”; rather, ALREADY ARE! Los Osos Community Services District (LOCSD) is in the throes of raising water rates by a mere fifty percent (50%). LOCSD will go through the motions of making it seem as though LOCSD water ratepayers have a say in the matter; but if LOCSD handles the process in the same manner as the most recent rate increases (and in the same manner as Nipomo Community Services District), they will make it so difficult to protest that most ratepayers will “fall asleep at the wheel.” The deck is already stacked, and it’s NOT in favor of the ratepayers nor in their best interests.


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The County employees never asked for this “bonus”. In fact, employees were sent a message about 2 weeks ago saying that “all of a sudden” the board was feeling altruistic.


The average worker (I’m a nurse, I am not a “lazy” person by any means) is expecting their family insurance to increase by $300 a month as of January.


Raises? Since 2008, my take home pay has decreased. I pay $350 a month in to a pension that may not be solvent.


I cannot speak for every County job, but I can speak for nursing jobs here. We have a very difficult time recruiting and retaining qualified people. The pay at top salary is $6-15 an hour less in any other nursing job. County nurses work in jails, at our mental health units, with the homeless. We work with CWS helping children removed from parents unable to parent due to various reasons. We help families in crisis. We protect the public through communicable disease investigations and monitoring of patients with tuberculosis, etc.


That said, in the years since the “great recession”, I am told I have received about 4% in “actualized” COLA. That might seem greedy to you all, but in this same time period, social security recipients received 14%. I guess those nickels and dimes are supposed to really add up…


Ultimately, I am a SLO county resident who pays my taxes, loves my community, and loves helping people in my role was a nurse. It just so happens that I also happen to be a County employee. I have the same worries you all do. How can I afford all my bills, etc?


Just my opinion. Not all employees are bad. And very few get 100k* salaries….


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awe….the government constantly squeezing us with their monopoly on force and power so they can live a better and better life than the constituents they serve…..


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Most of the crap they put up with is a result of the crap that they create.


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I’m getting 1.7% raise. I’ll bet I need the money more than they do. Well what do I

expect? My wife and I raised two families, paid the rent for another family and adopted

two kids. And I was honored to do it. And blessed enough by our Lord to be able to do it.


Now I count on the 1.7% to pay for food, gas, house payments, and co-pay insurance. I

am lucky to be able to keep the house , buy gas, and food for all of us still at home. Even the few great grandkids try to find jobs here and there to help their old great-

grandparents.


The kids are up for Sainthood. Thank you Lord for the opportunity to serve others rather

than just myself.


God Bless, & Merry Christmas


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On a scale of 1-10 how would YOU the public rate your supervisor’s performance?

Be honest…this is the only survey that REALLY counts.


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The stupe for my area is gibson and I rate him a 0


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Well seeing as we had the 1k give away last week and now this, all I can say is EVERYONE remember this if ANY of these assholes coming asking for money within the year. If they do, tell them to get bent!!!! If you can give this away then things must be good on the books right???


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“One week after granting themselves $1,000 each from county coffers, San Luis Obispo County supervisors will consider approving a 5 percent boost to their own paychecks”


How in the world is this even legal? Don’t we get a say in the matter?


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We do get a say. If we don’t like what they do we can vote them out come the next election — or ask harder questions during the campaigns before we vote for them. Keeping in mind that this is still a proposal, it will be interesting to see which supervisors vote for it and which vote against it.


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We tried to vote one out a couple elections ago and the stupid people of this district voted the fool back in,you can’t fix stupid.


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You go OTOH. Ask all the tough questions you want but that is no guarantee you’ll get straight, honest answers. What more did District 2 voters need to see from Bruce Gibson before they were forcible enough to vote him out? It seems likely, now, that County employees were responsible for re-seating Mr. Gibson for yet another round of dishonest, evasive politics.


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Hmm…


Typical Local Unified School Teacher.

– Week off for Thanksgiving

– Weeks off for Christmas and New Years

– Week off for Spring Break

– Months off during Summer Break

– Days off for other Holidays

– $64,000+ Salary Per Year


$82,014 to $86,115 for a BOS to put up with our crap. Hell, I wouldn’t do that job for 100% raise. Not a fan, but there’s other government waste to worry about than this.


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I 125% disagree with your conclusion that the BOS puts up with crap – therefore they

deserve a pay raise.


Christ all-mighty – if putting up with crap counted, I would have gotten a huge pay

increase by now.


But really, the biggest crime (in my way of thinking) is that there is something very wrong

in a system that allows someone to give themselves a raise.

If, and it is a big if, the BOS does such a great job, there should some other way to

‘reward’ them for that than allowing themselves to give it to themselves.


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I agree that supervisors do have to put up with a lot of crap and that a pay raise might be justified — if they were giving quality representation (which at least 2 of them aren’t). But I don’t trust their comparative “compensation study.” These thing have been abused too often to allow government employees in different counties to engage in an endless cycle of justifications for raises. I also think that their compensation package should be subject to a vote of approval by the general public during an election before it goes into effect.


What I disagree with you about is your one-sided presentation on teacher benefits. I am not sure about the actual pay rate but it sounds a bit high for some school districts. What you ignore is all the effective overtime during the school year that many (most?) teachers put in both evaluating/grading papers and assisting with LOTS of extra-curricular activities. And the teachers have to put up with more crap than the BOS. It begins with undisciplined kids which they are often forbidden to handle (fear of lawsuits) in the way needed to over-bearing parents who demand special treatment for their little snowflakes or bullies. Then there are endless bureaucratic demands to do things in a specific way whether they have a better idea or not and occasionally demands to do things that are downright stupid and counter-productive.


They earn their salaries and their time off if they are even reasonably competent. There are some things the teachers unions do (excessive protection of incompetence, unreasonable “defined-benefits” retirement plans) that are worthy of criticism but that doesn’t mean that most teachers are a bunch of over-paid leaches.


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