Cambria general manager’s raise scrapped, for now

April 28, 2016

Cambria

By KAREN VELIE

Amid growing outrage, the Cambria Community Services District will not be voting Thursday to approve a contract giving the district’s general manager a 38 percent pay increase. The agenda change appears to be prompted by public complaints following a CalCoastNews exclusive article on the proposed contract.

In addition, CalCoastNews has discovered large discrepancies in information about salaries the district provided to the state and salary amounts provided to the district’s board.

Since the board voted in 2011 to make Jerry Gruber its general manager at a salary of $150,000 a year plus benefits, his salary and benefits have steadily risen. The contract staff removed from the agenda would have grown Gruber’s salary to $221,984 by July 2020, or with benefits to about $310,778 a year.

A staff report discussing the proposed contract claims Gruber is currently making $167,240 a year in regular pay and does not provide the amount the district pays for his benefit package.

However, the amount of pay the district provided in its report in 2015 to the California State Controller’s Office does not reconcile.

According to California State Controller’s Office, the district paid Gruber $197,429 in total wages with a benefit package of $79.043, for a total of $276,472.

Gruber did not respond to the question of why the salary he reported to the state varies by more than $30,000 from this week’s staff report.

In March, because of financial shortfalls, the district raised its water and sewage rates by 116 percent. In January, while members of the public were fighting against the rate increase, the board was already negotiating a large pay raise for Gruber.


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Hurrah for Karen !!! The citizens of SLO County are so fortunate for CCN and Karen!!!!


Does Supervisor Gibson know what is going on? Does he care? Or is he so busy with things outside his district such as campaigning for certain candidates in other districts and pushing his water agenda for the county – one that benefits a few wealthy land owners.


Bruce Gibson is too busy stealing from the County taxpayers himself putting his live in girlfriend as his County assistant with a real nice salary and benefits. Why should the taxpayers pay for his piece of fluff!


Fn crooks.


Thanks again CCN for looking out for the little guys.

Well done citizens, keep the pressure on.


Look at the history the CSD’s just in this county. That taxpayers have lost millions at the hands of those who thought they could manage their community. Case in point…Los Osos. Then Oceano, and now Cambria.

When does this government sponsored maleficence and thievery end? It ends when the CSD’s are done away with.


I believe that it would be in the publics best interest to require other special districts, CSD’s and or the County to reconsider their money pot before allocating all dollars. Clearly the money pot is filled by the public and to segregate various expense categories does not create different money. Management dollars are clearly the same monies as is required by, for example, the distribution of water (revenue for the money pot). Therefore a State mandate to cut back on water use equates to a funding cut in management as a whole too, not a raise in fees to compensate. The color of money used by the taxpayer is only one, as should be the case when it is budgeted by Government. To often Government accounting resembles divide and conquer, conquer more for personal gain.


Can anyone out there explain to me why these public service jobs pay such ridiculously high salaries? I mean, is there some rocket science or some such involved? Differential equations? Administrative work, a quarter million bucks a year? I’m a Cal Poly Engineering grad; no way I could pull a quarter million a year around here…


Why???, because they can and either they think those paying the money won’t complain or can’t do anything about it.


Simple, it’s the board http://www.cambriacsd.org/cm/board-directors/board-members.html


Also 3 seats are open this election. Time for some reasonable Cambria people to step up.


I’m sure they have extreme personal and professional LIABILITY potential, thus need pricey insurance, etc. which is why they charge so much… what? No? ZERO liability? ZERO responsibility? OK, I have no idea why anyone in government makes over minimum wage.


What a bunch of self serving CROOKS…


But be on the lookout folks…like a Vampire it’s not dead!

They will just wait till the flap calms down and try to sneak it through without the bright lights of scrutiny. Now we find irregularities….do we have another Los Osos CSD on our hands here?


Oh…and where is the Tribune on this story?


When is the last time the Tribune broke a story of public tax dollars being wasted?


They are the establishment they should be policing…the watchdog is dead.


Who reads the Tribune to know when they last broke a story PERIOD?


The prostitutes at the Ragbune are busy sleeping with the Johns (politicians) around here.