IRVINE : City Workers’ Pay Levels to Be Studied

A blue-ribbon committee will try to answer a question raised by some residents and City Council members during last month’s budget hearings: Are city employees overpaid?

The City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to create the committee and to hire a consultant to study employee salaries and benefits and recommend whether the city’s organizational structure can be streamlined.

During a June 18 hearing on the 1991-93 budget, a member of the Greater Irvine Republican Assembly, a local political action group, said city employees often are paid much more than those who work similar jobs in private business. Councilman William A. (Art) Bloomer said salaries seemed to be excessive but added that Irvine has “wonderful city employees.”

Other council members agreed that employee pay and benefits should be studied to determine if they are excessive compared to similar public and private sector jobs.

Irvine has a policy of paying city employees well in order to attract and keep high-caliber workers, City Manager Paul O. Brady Jr. said. Before setting pay increases, the city looks at pay levels in similarly sized cities and tries to set pay levels in the top 25%, he said.

After last month’s discussions, several personnel officers and hiring experts from local businesses and cities volunteered to help study the problem, Brady said. The study committee will consist of top personnel managers from Fluor Daniel Inc., Allergan, the cities of Fullerton and Anaheim, and prominent private hiring consultants.

Brady said the city hopes to have the study completed before it begins negotiating new labor contracts with its unions in November. A similar committee formed in 1978, which recommended the city’s current pay practices, spent six months conducting its study.