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SLO County supervisors reject plan to raise their own salaries

February 8, 2023

By KAREN VELIE

The San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 on Tuesday against raising their own salaries by 20.8%, with supervisors Bruce Gibson and Dawn Ortiz Legg dissenting.

Supervisors Debbie Arnold and John Peschong had both pledged not to vote to raise their salaries while in office, a promise they have upheld.

Supervisor Jimmy Paulding voiced his concern that his first vote as a supervisor would be to raise his own salary, and voted against the raise noting he needed to build trust with his constituents. During the 2022 election, Paulding was criticized after he claimed he had voted twice against raising his salary while on the Arroyo Grande City Council.

On Dec. 10, 2019, Paulding voted to increase his pay as a council member by 60%, from $405 a month to $648 a month, after voting against the raise a month earlier.

Both Ortiz Legg and Gibson argued that to be competitive and attract candidates for the board, the county needs to increase their salaries.

Gibson and Ortiz Legg then voted to raise their base pay from $90,417 to $109,241 a year, a vote they lost 3-2.

Ortiz Legg, Gibson and Paulding then voted 3-2 to bring back a discussion about tying future raises to a process used for judges.

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Jimmy Paulding building trust??, now that’s a joke, right??


-1

Division in America is not between Right and Left, but between Sane and Crazy.


10

True. The right wing MTG extremists leading the Republican party right now are crazy!


-12

slo Democrats have singlehandedly ruined Downtown thanks to their rose wearing puppet who is currently in hiding…whose the crazy party??? not Republicans! people are hanging out in North County now. Hello????


1

Are you able to elaborate on your accusations or provide evidence? What exactly do you mean when you say that downtown San Luis Obispo has been “ruined”? What is ruined? Can you provide ANY examples? any evidence to back up your claims?


2

Jim Paulding could be earning three times his current salary if he was in private practice. Instead, he chooses to work at tradesman wages in order to serve the community. If anyone thinks that being a responsible county supervisor requires less than 40 hours a week, you’re fooling yourself. To do a really good job as a supervisor there is so much information that needs to be digested, you can work a hundred hours a week and still not have done everything possible to be properly informed on every relevant issue you have to make a decision on. I think Jim Paulding is doing a good job, just like he did, when he was on the Arroyo grande city council, the job that propelled him to his current position. He’s one of the good guys. And no, I am not his campaign manager. I’m a constituent. His decisions are important to me, and I want him to be adequately paid so that he can comfortably live in our community and raise a family here. He deserves that.


-14

If anyone deserves a raise, it would be Jim Paulding. He definitely puts in more than 40 hours per week serving the community. Anyone who doesn’t know this, doesn’t know Jim Paulding. I don’t like seeing all these people from outside his district who unfairly criticize him for their own particular selfish political interests. It’s clear that Jim Paulding works for everyone who wants this community to be a better place for us and the people who come after us. We can only hope that more politicians have the work ethic and integrity of Mr. Paulding.


0

When County workers are paid enough to rent a home in the County, I will support a raise for the County Supervisors.


19

Maybe the goal shouldn’t be to raise salaries and in turn send us into debt faster and/or fail to have money for infrastructure maintenance and instead reduce costs to build housing so the supply is greater and the cost and rents will decrease…….


8

Do these people work a 40 hr week? It seems Gibson,Ortiz, & Paulding more interested in raising their salary while fighting against a raise for the actual workers., but that’s the way it usually works people at top of ladder think they deserve more than the others when the whole system would still work if they were gone


23

I swear as I read the article above , I could hear Circus music playing …The supervisors are clowns .Next we’ll be seeing them driving miniature cars in parades


24

Oh Jimmy! Caught with your hand in the cookie jar….again!


13

Wait… Isn’t Paulding the tie breaking vote who rejected the raise? The liberal shifting his vote with the conservative supervisors. Shouldn’t you be praising him (in this article’s comments at least?!)


16

He didn’t “shift his vote with the Conservative supervisors”. He winced that his first vote would be to give himself a raise. He did not say ‘I will not vote for a raise, now or ever’, like the Conservatives did.


Jimmy doesn’t fool anybody, except those who refuse to see reality. He’s done this before, and he’ll do it again. Just ask him!


9

Praise his vote, come on, do it. You have to give the politicians a cookie when they do something you like. If you always bash the guy, even when he does what you want, you’ll be training him to give up on making the right vote since even that won’t make the voters he’d like to please happy. Even a bad dog deserves a good pet when he does something right. (And don’t use the word “but”, just be happy with your win)


3