Supervisors Raise Their Pay Amid Layoffs : Government: 4% hike brings salary to $85,336. Other county employees also will receive increases. At the same time, the budget calls for the first job eliminations in more than a decade.

County supervisors, who two months ago adopted a budget that included the first local government layoffs in more than a decade, voted Tuesday to hike their own salaries by $3,282 a year.

When the pay raise goes into effect in two months, the five board members will begin receiving $85,336 a year. Other top county officials will receive similar pay hikes, which parallel the raises given to rank-and-file county workers.

Conspicuously absent from the list of officials slated to receive raises, however, was Mary Jean Hackwood, the county retirement administrator. She came under fire earlier this year after the auditor-controller rejected some of the travel expenses that she and several retirement board members submitted for a European trip.

For board members and other senior officials who received pay hikes, the raises come to a 4% increase, which recent surveys indicate is less than most private industry leaders expect to see in the way of pay hikes this year.

“I think that the actual board members themselves are probably the most underpaid county employees,” said Robert J. McLeod, president of the Assn. of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs. “I think they were really stingy with themselves. They deserve more than that.”

Still, the decision by board members to accept raises while some of their workers were facing layoffs irritated at least a few observers.

“The past two years they’ve given themselves raises, and yet they cry budget woes all the time,” said Tim Miller, president of the Service Employees International Union, which represents about 600 county maintenance workers. “It’s just an ongoing issue.”

Regardless of the increases, the supervisors still earn considerably less than many of the people they have the power to hire and fire. Of the 28 senior officials whose salaries the board approved Tuesday, 17 make more than the supervisors.

County Administrative Officer Ernie Schneider, for instance, makes $134,160 a year. He is the county’s top administrative official--as well as its highest paid--and he is responsible for managing a work force of roughly 16,000 employees.

Schneider, like the other top county officials, received a 4% increase. Hackwood was not included in that group, however, and will continue drawing her $80,163-a-year salary, at least for now.

Members of the retirement board said that Hackwood has not been passed over for a salary increase. The retirement board, which did not ask the supervisors to raise Hackwood’s salary as part of Tuesday’s action, could come back and make that request later.

“I don’t think that any members of the retirement board would say that she was passed over,” said Sara Ruckle, a member of that board. “It’s under review. It just wasn’t going forward today.”

Patrick Brunner, who chairs the retirement board, agreed. “There has been some preliminary discussion, but the verdict isn’t in yet,” he said. “But you look at her work here over the past several years, you take that as a package, and I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see her receive some reward for her work.”

If she did not, it would make Hackwood the county’s only executive management employee passed over for a raise this year.

Although he declined to comment on individual pay raises, Board of Supervisors Chairman Gaddi H. Vasquez noted that no county official was given a merit raise and stressed that all the pay hikes for senior staffers were consistent with those given to other county workers.

Pay Raises for County Officials

The county’s top appointed and elected officials all received 4% raises under a slate of increases approved by the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. The following is a partial sampling of the new salaries:

Rank, Position & Pay

1. County Administrative Officer Ernie Schneider: $134,160

2. Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi: $120,161

3. General Services Agency Director R.A. (Burt) Scott: $112,507

4. Health Care Agency Director Tom Uram: $112,507

5. Sheriff-Coroner Brad Gates: $110,136

15. John Wayne Airport Manager Jan Mittermeier: $94,640

17. Integrated Waste Management Director Frank R. Bowerman: $93,808

18. County supervisors: $85,336

19. Community Services Agency Director William A. Baker: $4,780

Source: county personnel office.