County Sees Exodus if Salary Lid Measure Is Approved

A proposed state constitutional amendment to limit the salaries of public employees would mean pay cuts for at least 113 Orange County civil servants and cause “serious disruption” in services, a county report says.

The proposal by anti-tax crusader Paul Gann could spark an exodus of doctors working for the county public health and mental health departments, plus key officials at other county agencies, the report said.

Paul Gann, the retired businessman who co-authored Proposition 13, the 1978 tax-cutting initiative, filed the pay-cutting initiative this week for the November ballot. The measure would limit the governor’s salary to $80,000 per year and freeze the top pay for most state, city and county employees at 80% of that figure--$64,000.

Ted Costa, a Gann assistant, said in Sacramento Thursday that 946,000 signatures were filed with the secretary of state’s office by the April 14 deadline for filing, and only 630,136 valid signatures were needed.

Written Into Constitution

If the measure is certified for the November ballot and the proposal is approved, the salary limits would be written into the state Constitution. As a result, state or local legislators would require a two-thirds vote of the people to increase the limits.

Costa contended that the amendment is needed “to curb the runaway expenses that we’ve been having the last couple of years.” In the last two decades, lawmakers “have gone absolutely berserk in giving themselves raises (and) pension increases tied to pay,” he contended.

However, the report by Richard Keefe, an analyst in the Orange County administrative office, said that the amendment “is poorly written, subject to interpretation, and would result in serious disruption to state and local government and the public services they provide.”

Keefe explained that a $64,000 salary limit would force 113 workers in county government to take pay cuts.

Among the county’s top-paid officials, the administrative officer earns $90,000 a year, the district attorney receives $88,046, the sheriff-coroner and the public defender $79,019 each, the treasurer-tax collector $72,779, and at least eight other employees earn $70,000 or more. The county supervisors earn $55,000 a year.

Employees Group Opposed

The general manager of the Orange County Employees Assn., John H. Sawyer, said he doubted that any of the association’s 7,000 members would be affected but said his group is “certainly opposed to that initiative.”

The $64,000 limit “would severely handicap public agencies in hiring competent executives,” Sawyer said. “It would be total nonsense to have something like that go into effect.”

More important, Keefe said that under the proposed cap, “all of the county’s top management, legal, and medical personnel would be affected. If these individuals should choose as a consequence to leave county employment, there would be severe consequences.”

For example, Keefe said that the public health and mental health departments “would be virtually undone” if the county’s doctors left.

But Costa said: “If we drive (public employees) out of government, where are they going to go? They keep talking about these high salaries in private industry. I haven’t been able to find them.”