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Who are the highest paid SLO County officials, employees?

May 15, 2023

By KAREN VELIE

At a time San Luis Obispo County is facing a $5 million budget shortfall, some elected officials and department heads continue to seek large increases in pay.

After refusing to provide line-level staffers raises of more than 3% a year, in 2022 the SLO County Board of Supervisors approved raises for county administrators and management staff of up to 23%. Now, three members on the board of supervisors are eyeing a 26% increase in their own pay further exposing the differences in compensation provided county officials.

While both supervisors John Peschong and Debbie Arnold pledged not to vote to raise their salaries while in office, Peschong also refused to accept pay raises during the past four years. In addition, the perks and benefits each supervisor garners varies widely.

Supervisor Bruce Gibson has regularly collected more in benefits than his counterparts on the board, while Peschong has regularly sought the least in compensation. Gibson collected $27,710 more than Peschong in 2022, according to Transparent California, a database of pay and retirement benefits.

SLO County supervisor total pay in 2022
1. Bruce Gibson – $156,196
2. Debbie Arnold – $148,155
3. Lynn Compton – $136,623
4. Dawn Ortiz-Legg – $136,493
5. John Peschong – $128,486

SLO County supervisor base salaries
1. Bruce Gibson – $90,418
2. Debbie Arnold – $90,418
3. Lynn Compton – $90,418
4. Dawn Ortiz-Legg – $90,418
5. John Peschong – $86,115

The county’s top earner in 2022 was Daisy Ilano-Ramos, the former director of County Mental Health. Ilano-Ramos received $545,359 in pay and benefits, according to Transparent California.

Sheriff Ian Parkinson collected the second highest total, receiving $450,325 in pay and benefits from the county.

SLO County’s highest earners in 2022 (total pay and benefits)
1. Daisy Ilano-Ramos, former mental health director – $545,359
2. Ian Parkinson, sheriff – $450,325
3. Wade Horton, former county administrator – $400,952
4. Dan Dow, district attorney – $396,725
5. Rita Neal, county counsel – $392,826
6. Penny Borenstein, county health officer – $379,856
7. James Hamilton, auditor, controller, treasurer – $355,438
8. Daniel Milei, director information technology – $344,582
9. Trevor Keith, director planning department – $338,403
10. John Diodati, director public works – $338,103

In all, the county employed 3,656 workers, 2,263 of whom were full-time employees. The median compensation for a full-time, year-round county employee was $122,940, according to Transparent California.

Employee compensation totaled $350,199,241 in 2022, accounting for nearly half of the county’s budget.

The SLO County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 in May to bring back a discussion about raising their own salaries by 26%, with supervisors Arnold and Peschong dissenting. The board is scheduled to vote on the proposed raises on Tuesday.

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Hilarious, Diodati is not even an engineer, no qualifications whatsoever, just a $300,000+ political animal.


39

You know the justification for these insane salary’s is always “ that’s what other counties pay!” Ok. Ignore that for a minute and now justify these pay levels. I bet you can’t. What do these people really do for the money? Is the job so hard and complex that 50 to 80 % of your everyday workers, who are paid a fraction of what these supervisors make, couldn’t do the job? I doubt it. And you get to raise your own pay?! What a scam!


69

“But trust us, any additional money in new taxes and fees we get will be used for infrastructure maintenance and services”, yeah right.


56

2009—> Supervisor Bruce Gibson said he’s proud of the pension benefits the county has been able to provide for its employees, but said the times were changing.The San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Oct. 11 to begin to deflate ballooning county pension costs. Facing a $299 million unfunded pension fund liability, the supervisors instructed the county administrator to negotiate with county worker unions to raise employee contributions by nearly four percent and create a second, less favorable tier of benefits for new employees. https://www.newtimesslo.com/news/supervisors-pledge-to-rein-in-pension-costs-2937445


25

Thanks Karen for pointing this out. Public employee compensation is out of control. It appears really doubtful that any of these employees could make this kind of money in the private sector.


52

This is so disgusting won’t give the actual working people a 3% raise that doesn’t even offset the inflation but fine and dandy for you to get a 26% raise on top of all your other benefits This is the reason Government state and Federal are in debt Overpaid officials who spend the tax payer money with no restraints


49

Thank you CCN for posting the source. All quite interesting, I don’t see much fuss to be made. The County of SLO median salary is almost exactly the Census Bureau’s household median income. As I’ve said before, supervisors pay should be pegged to county median income (plus a bit extra for constituent outreach and to disincentivize bribes) and it’s currently not too far off. A third of total compensation being benifits (insurance, social security, medicare, workers comp, paid leave, etc. – big difference is the public sector leans into fixed pensions with near no contribution plans, private sector is the reverse) are mostly pretty standard between public and private sectors. The government does services, and as a result hires a lot of service positions which require education and training – good police officers, civil engineers, analysts, nurses, etc. don’t come cheap.


This post will certainly be downvoted because civil servants should be paid in bread and water according to the fiscally irresponsible who don’t think about what happens when you just fire 2/3rds of the government. Be specific, be realistic, think about the consequences.


-63

Being tied to median I come when your economy is diversified is ok. Since most of slo is made up of public sector employees or mom pop type shops, the median I come is slo is driven by public employee pay. This is the tail wagging the dog


7

This is so absolutely insane. $1/2 a Million dollars in charge of mental health but drive past people literally sleeping in the street some because of mental health issues. if i don’t do my job, I can get fired.


72

The county spends $105,000 a year per homeless person as well, $105,000X1500 estimated homeless headcount—–>$157,500,000


43

As it is said, ” you can count your money, you can count your friends but you never county your friend’s money”. Then there is government, they spend your money, they are not your friend, you sure as hell need to county their pay and why?, because they work for you. Last week we lost our CAO and this week the Board is entertaining a pay raise, was this planned? If the employee annual compensation budget is over $350 million, what are the unfunded costs for retired employees and what annual remains for our level of government service? The roads are crumbling and social degradation is being locally sponsored by providing services that are not being provided elsewhere.


49

California’s unfunded pension liabilities will burden state and local governmentsCalPERS now has approximately $611 billion in pension debt and is 72% funded.https://reason.org/commentary/californias-unfunded-pension-liabilities-will-burden-state-and-local-governments/


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