San Luis Obispo County administrators seeking large raises

June 20, 2022

By KAREN VELIE

After battling against giving line-level staffers raises of more than 3% a year, the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors is set to approve raises of up to 23% for county administrators and management staff.

As part of the consent agenda, on Tuesday the Board of Supervisors is slated to approve modest raises for the 2,400 line-level employees represented by unions and larger pay increases for administrators, department heads and management staff. County administrators recommend awarding raises to higher level employees that greatly exceeds what they propose for the county’s line level staff.

Proposed raises for the county’s 2,400 represented employees is slated to cost the county $4,620,091 this year and $5,253,091 the following year.

The proposed raises for the county’s 500 administrators, officials and management staffers is slated to cost $5,199,000 this year and $9,796,000 next year.

On top of the modest raises all county employees are slated to receive this year, many county administrators, officials and managements staffers are also in line to receive equity raises.

In order to determine equity raises, the county conducts a survey of a selected group of government agencies and private businesses and determines if the management wages in SLO County reach the average rate of the compared entities. If not, county administrators propose equity raises to meet the average.

Proposed yearly and equity raises for the next 25 months include a 23% bump in pay for the library support services director and a 22.72% raise for the library director.

Many managers and officials are in line for 17% to 19% pay increases, including County Administrative Officer Wade Horton, Health Agency Directors Penny Borenstein and Nick Drews, Animal Services Manager Eric Anderson, Deputy Agriculture Commissioner Martin Settevendemie, District Attorney Dan Dow, Assistant District Attorney Eric Dobroth and all social services division managers.

While the 15.56% increase in pay proposed for County Counsel Rita Neal appears to fall short of other department heads, it is in addition to a 20% pay hike the SLO County Board of Supervisors voted to give Neal in 2020 that provided her a compensation package of $374,579 a year.

 

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