Revealing Pay, Perks of Top Administrators
Kudos to the Los Angeles Times for its lawsuit against the city of Torrance to force the city to reveal the salaries of the top administrators.
“Freedom of Information” is the key. The city keeps claiming it must offer these extravagant perks so it can compete. Compete with who? This is a small community of less than 150,000 residents, with only 1,500 municipal employees (not including police and fire personnel) and still has 66 department heads of sub-managers.
This is a small city, already trying to overcome previous errors in judgment by the city treasurer, purchasing (an earth-moving machine that cannot get out of the vehicle yard), and a City Council that has routinely tried to boost pensions for retirees.
Excessive administrative leave is the latest outrage to come to light, and this one uncovered by an outside source. As one councilman stated, “But we were never told.” My reply, “You never asked!”
The present city manager is reluctant about revealing the salaries of top city personnel, including his own. Can it be that these 66 top employees are not only paid competitively, but overpaid? Let’s get it all out and compare Torrance salaries with that paid to managers in cities of comparable size, including the city manager.
Torrance taxpayers need to know the truth.
EMANUEL MORRIS
Torrance
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