IRVINE : Panel Finds City’s Workers Overpaid

City employees are overpaid in comparison to similar city workers throughout the county and employees in the private sector, according to a special committee report to be presented Tuesday to the City Council.

One of the committee’s recommendations will be for the council to modify its 1985 policy to pay city workers more than 75% of all other public employees in the county. Paying in the top half is a more realistic goal to attract good employees, the panel decided.

The City Council created the committee in July, while council members were considering the city’s two-year budget for 1991-93. Some members of the public and council said the pay levels seemed high and wondered whether Irvine suffers from too many managers.

The report took no stand on whether the city has too many supervisors and managers but concluded that managers should be paid according to the complexity of their jobs, skill level and knowledge, rather than simply their title. The report also did not contain specific salaries for city positions.

Other recommendations included basing employee pay and benefits partly on supply and demand; placing a cap on the number of vacation hours that managers can accrue, and increasing the role of merit as a basis of raises, to reward the better employees.