SEAL BEACH : Council Pay-Raise Issue on June Ballot

Voters will decide June 5 whether City Council members will get their first pay raise in 25 years.

The council is asking voters to raise their monthly salaries from $125 to $300. Councilman Frank Laszlo asked the council last fall to put the item on the June ballot, saying that council members were spending too much of their money to do the work required of them.

“You don’t want to spend your own money running the city,” Laszlo said. “Expenses have gone up, and the salaries haven’t.” He estimated that it costs him about $300 a month to be a councilman.

A recent survey showed that council salaries in Seal Beach rank next to last in Orange County. Villa Park, with a population of 7,000, is last, Laszlo said.

Voters must decide the issue because the raise requires an amendment to the City Charter. The document, written in 1964, makes no provision for council pay raises. If passed, the initiative will amend the charter so that the council salaries conform with those set by the State of California Government Code. The code, which sets salary standards for cities without charters, states that cities with fewer than 35,000 residents should pay council members $300 a month.

“All the other cities are up to a $300 minimum, many are paying closer to ($700 or $800),” said Laszlo.

But not all council members believe that getting a pay raise is important or necessary. “It would be nice,” said Marilyn Bruce Hastings. “If we do, fine, if we don’t, fine. It’s not a big item to me.”