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Who are the highest paid city employees in SLO County?

July 14, 2026

By Karen Velie

While all San Luis Obispo County residents are being asked to vote in November for a half-sent sales tax increase for transportation improvements, large raises for some administrative and public safety employees are taking a bigger bite out of city budgets.

While the bulk of city employees receive pay increases of approximately 3% per year, over the past five years increases have been much higher for some administrators such as a 38% increase in salary and benefits for the city manager of Grover Beach and a similar increase in pay for the Morro Bay chief of police position.

While San Luis Obispo continues to have the highest paid city employees in the county, because of large pension debt payments, their numbers were abnormally high in 2024.

CalCoastNews evaluated earnings information from Transparent California, a public pay and pension database, to determine the four top-paid employees in each of the seven cities in SLO County. The totals include salary, benefits and pro-rated pension funds.

Compensation information is from 2024,  the last time the seven cities filed with Transparent California.

Four highest paid employees from each of the seven cities in SLO County

 

City                      Pay/Benefits    Title                        Name

San Luis Obispo $531,280 Deputy Police Chief Frederick Mickel
San Luis Obispo $509,415 Deputy Police Chief Brian Amoroso
San Luis Obispo $506,556 Fire Battalion Chief John MacDonald
San Luis Obispo $478,867 Fire Battalion Chief Ray Hais-Doyle
Arroyo Grande $380,250 Police Chief Michael Martinez
Pismo Beach $376,643 Police Chief Jeffrey Smith
Grover Beach $376,421 City Manager Matthew Bronson
Pismo Beach $370,928 City Manager Jorge Garcia
Atascadero $363,143 Fire Chief Casey Bryson
Arroyo Grande $360,940 Assistant City Manager William Robeson
Paso Robles $351,982 City Manager Ty Lewis
Morro Bay $351,209 Deputy Fire Chief Matthew Vierra
Atascadero $342,578 Police Chief Daniel Suttles
Paso Robles $341,940 Operations Battalion Chief Brian Lewis
Morro Bay $336,998 Police Chief Amy Watkins
Paso Robles $329,134 Police Chief Damian Nord
Morro Bay $327,979 City Manager Yvonne Kimball
Pismo Beach $325,743 Police Commander Christopher Trimble
Paso Robles $321,972 Fire Captain Joel Platter
Pismo Beach $317,211 Police Commander Daniel Herlihy
Morro Bay $314,763 Fire Chief Daniel McCrain
Atascadero $310,711 Fire Battalion Chief Matthew Miranda
Arroyo Grande $309,449 City Manager Matt Downing
Arroyo Grande $301,824 Police Commander Zak Ayala
Atascadero $300,255 City Manager James Lewis
Grover Beach $298,703 Police Chief James Munroe III
Grover Beach $271,845 Police Commander Bryan Millard
Grover Beach $267,694 Assistant City Manager Kristin Eriksson – Embree

 


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33 Comments

I know I’m yelling into the void, but my question to all the people who say this is a scam, or robbery of the taxpayer is this – what should the salaries be?


What should a police chief, fire chief, and city manager make? Should they work for free? Minimum wage? The same salary as entry or mid level employees?


I feel like the answer is a competitive market rate. Call me wrong, but I suspect it takes a lot of skills and experience to be able to run a police department or city government with hundreds of employees. A private sector senior manager or CEO of a company with a ten million dollar budget is going to be making lot more than the salaries above. If you want competent and experienced managers in government, not just the private sector, you’re not going to hire them by offering senior leadership positions for 50k. An underpaid bureaucracy is one that can only hire rejects and encourages employees to make money on the side through explicit corruption.


All I’m asking is that we have a serious discussion rather than just yelling about big numbers. If we seek to understand why they are what they are, I think we’re less likely to be outraged.


-11

Perhaps if merit were the basis for pay, your argument would fly. Unfortunately, in too many cases, they are overpaid to underperform.


19

That’s a fair perspective. I’ll admit that I am not qualified to evaluate how effective a police department is and employees performance in the field of public safety.


Crime rates on the central coast are pretty low, they’re not zero, but even a billion dollar budget with the Avengers running the department wouldn’t get crime to literally zero.


I know cities hold annual police/crime reviews at city council meetings, if I cared more I would try and attend those and ask questions to better understand what the departments do.


What I’m saying is that I’m unsure if they are actually over paid because I don’t know if they are underperforming. If you or I were police chief crime would almost certainly be worse.


2

Lot of people in this comment sections are obliquely saying we should defund the police – pretty ironic.


-14

… and some defending the top 1% – pretty ironic as well


13

Not bad haha! Fortunately though I’m not one of those progressives that is extremely upset by people who make a lot of money. Leading an organization, public or private is difficult work that requires rare skills, they deserve much higher compensation than what I make. I think we can agree they also should pay higher taxes, but nothing outrageous.


0

Huh? How do you get there?


3

1. You think the compensation of the chief of police, deputy chief, etc. is too high.

2. You would prefer them to be paid less money

3. Lower police salaries means less money going to police departments.

4. You’re in lockstep with the Defund the Police movement on every single one of these points.


0

Everyone of these people should be embarrassed but they are not, they are laughing all the way to the bank and thinking how easy it was to screw the taxpayers.


46

90 % men in the top salaries.


-16

There should be a public record that shows the pay adjustment for family support. It is a tax write off and affects the real pay our top dogs actually receive.


6

I agree it should be 100%.


0

That’s why California sucks for taxpayers. Now, think about the corrupting influence of the CTA, the SEIU, and the nurses’ unions, and THEN you begin to understand the scope. Remember this: members of the SEIU count votes at election time. As a taxpayer, you should be outraged that any citizen votes to continue this madness.


39

So, Grover Beach, population 12-13,000, with tax revenues of $21,000,000, paid its city manager & assistant city manager more than $644,000, not to mention the other 73 employees, 25 of whom have city credit cards. There can’t be much left over to provide for the people of the city who paid those taxes! Hey City Council — are you asleep at the wheel?


73

Strange that Morro Bay’s Fire Chief is paid 10% less than its Deputy Fire Chief.


Shocked Amy Watkins is still police chief after my judgment was entered against her and the City:


https://lawnews.tv/judgment-entered-against-city-and-2-police-chiefs-in-duringer-v-morro-bay-2a-victory/


29

Absolutely fucking ridiculous.


40

Such a scam. Theft from the citizens.


42

The salaries are just part of the problem, most of these public sector employees are eligible for early retirement witch means decades of unfunded pension liability.

It’s not just a scam it’s theft by proclamation, and they have anointed themselves sovereign by the tyranny of judicial doctrine.


19

And then when they retire, they collect retirement and take government jobs and double dip!


10
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