Supervisors Are Expected to Vote Pay Raises for Themselves

Orange County supervisors have tentatively decided to increase their salaries by just over 5%, giving them $61,880 a year for a job that paid $45,612 2 1/2 years ago.

The supervisors are also considering raising the salaries of their top department heads by 4% in most cases and 5.06% on average, the same boost that board members will get.

Major exceptions are County Recorder Lee Branch, who will get no increase at all--leaving him at $60,902.40 a year--and General Services Agency Director Bert Scott, who will get a 9.3% increase, giving him $90,022.40 a year if the initial recommendations are adopted.

The increases will take effect immediately if the supervisors approve them today, which is considered likely because board members have been meeting in closed sessions for weeks to discuss the raises.

The pay raises for the supervisors and agency and department heads will cost the county $92,272 a year. Six months ago, top county officials were contending that, because of budget problems, they could not afford raises for any county employees. However, the supervisors eventually wound up giving raises to county workers that are in line with what the supervisors themselves will get.

“I’m going to vote for it, and I’m not apologizing to anybody for my own vote in this matter, for county employees as well as Tom Riley,” said Supervisor Thomas F. Riley, who is the senior board member, having been appointed in 1974.

Riley said the supervisors decide what to give department heads based on “their managerial skills, the results they have gotten, how well they have managed their own departments and their contribution to the overall ability of the county to perform its job well.”

Los Angeles County supervisors receive the same salaries as Superior Court judges in California, which was $81,505 last year and was increased to $84,764 Jan. 1. San Diego County supervisors got a 4% increase Jan. 1, putting their salaries at $61,927, according to the county’s personnel director, Russ Patton.

Of Branch’s failure to get a raise, Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez said: “I think the board is concerned and is expressing its concern with his overall performance. . . .”

The last time the supervisors and agency and department heads got raises, in July, 1986, Branch got only a 2.5% increase, far below what other elected heads got. Branch was unavailable for comment Monday.

Under the proposed pay rates, County Administrative Officer Larry Parrish will remain the top-paid employee in the county, getting $104,000 a year, a 5% increase from his current $99,008.

Tied for second place are County Counsel Adrian Kuyper and Dist. Atty. Cecil Hicks, both of whom now make $94,203 a year and both of whom will get 4% boosts to $97,968.

Sheriff Brad Gates, like 11 other department heads, will get a 4% increase, to $91,540.80. He is the third highest paid executive.

Ernie Schneider, who was appointed director of the Environmental Management Agency just over a year ago when Murray Storm resigned, is slated for a 7.9% increase, putting him at $86,340. Storm, who held the post for years, was getting $90,251 when he stepped down.

Boosts of 7% are scheduled for Agricultural Commissioner James D. Harnett, who will be getting $54,184; Community Services Agency Director William Baker, who would get $70,449, and Social Services Agency Director Larry Leaman, who would earn $78,894.

The average raise for agency and department heads receiving increases--which means everybody but Branch--is 5.06%, Patton said, and that is the figure the supervisors used in determining how much their own pay should go up.

In May, 1985, the Orange County Grand Jury said that the supervisors were underpaid and that their salaries should increase in stages to reach $75,000 yearly by 1991. At the time, the supervisors earned $45,612.

The supervisors rejected the $75,000 figure but did increase their salaries as of Jan. 1, 1986, to $55,000 a year. In July, 1986, they increased their pay to the present $58,906.

The proposed increases come only a few months after the conclusion of some of the toughest labor negotiations in years between the county and its unions. As they have in the past, the supervisors held off increasing their own salaries and those of top managers until they had reached agreements with the unions.

Fred Lowe, director of the Service Employees International Union in the county, said that while his and other unions did not get increases of more than 4% in the fiscal year that ends July 1, it is difficult to compare raises without knowing if the supervisors and top managers will get raises again next year.

“My feeling is that management deserves nothing more than what the employees get,” said Lowe, whose union represents about 550 mechanics, heavy-machinery operators and landfill workers.

He said that if management did get more than it gave unions, “it’s going to make it that much more difficult at bargaining time” when the current contracts expire.

Times staff writer Dave Lesher contributed to this story.

SUPERVISOR SALARIES

Effective Annual Date Salary Proposed $61,880 July 4, 1986 $58,906 Jan. 1, 1986 $55,000 July 5, 1985 $49,254 July 6, 1984 $45,612 Aug. 19, 1983 $42,432

Source: Orange County Personnel Dept.