Officials Try to Cap Anger Over Perks : County: Public scrutiny of the previously undisclosed financial benefits packages has supervisors and other elected leaders scrambling to avoid political damage.

By TINA DAUNT

Oct. 4, 1992 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Amid strong public criticism over disclosures of a large financial benefits package quietly given to top county leaders, members of the Board of Supervisors and other elected officials last week began a damage assessment aimed at minimizing future political fallout.

County officials and members of a government watchdog group predicted that the supervisors will be forced to eventually restructure the salary and compensation packages for themselves as well as all county managers--or pay the price at election time.

“They are doing whatever they can to defuse the heat and minimize the political fallout,” said Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury, the first county official to publicly disclose his benefits. “They are doing damage control. The place is in virtual upheaval.”

In the first few days after details of the county benefits package were disclosed by The Times last week, Supervisors John K. Flynn and Vicky Howard proposed rival plans for reforming the compensation system for the county’s leaders.

Those reform proposals--a plan by Flynn to tie supervisors’ pay to that of municipal judges and a call by Howard to set up an independent pay-review panel--will be discussed by the full board Tuesday.

But limiting the political damage over the disclosures that many top county officials have been receiving tens of thousands of dollars annually in special vacation and longevity bonuses will not be easy, some officials predicted.

After details of the county’s compensation packages for 11 elected officials and the chief administrative officer were published Tuesday, the Ventura County Taxpayers Assn. reported that it was inundated with phone calls from angry citizens. There was talk of starting a recall.

“I’ve personally received 30 calls,” said H. Jere Robings, executive director of the taxpayers association. “There is just no trust left in our elected officials. It is going to be hard for them to convince the public that they are individuals of high integrity.”

Some of the supervisors were told by the county’s top management to remain calm, the criticism would blow over, sources said. Still, four of the five board members agreed to appear on Ventura radio station KVEN in an effort to defend the county and themselves.

While Supervisor Maggie Kildee maintained that the compensation was needed to keep the managers from leaving the county, Supervisors Flynn, Howard and Maria VanderKolk said they believed that the county made a mistake by compensating its leaders with the large financial perks.

Supervisor Susan K. Lacey, who declined to be interviewed about her views on the radio, also did not return calls by The Times for comment.

The majority of the supervisors also publicly criticized top county staff officials for refusing to make public the details of the pay packages, quietly set up in 1989, despite requests from the media and the taxpayers association during the last three years.

The county, citing privacy rights for the county leaders, had continued to resist disclosing the figures, but relented after The Times argued that the compensation should be open for public scrutiny and non-disclosure was a violation of the California Public Records Act.

“I think the board lost credibility over the ways that the benefits were handled,” VanderKolk said. “I think it was a fiasco and we have to move on from there to try to smooth that fiasco out.”

While some officials speculated last week about possible political fallout, they noted that the three current supervisors who voted for the 1989 benefits package will not face reelection until 1996 because they were all reelected in June.

VanderKolk and Howard face reelection in 1994. But neither of them were involved in approving the benefits package and both were moving last week to distance themselves from the controversial board action.

“Vicky and I were not the ones who were involved in it in the first place, but we are trying to rectify the situation now,” VanderKolk said. “I think as elected officials we want to do the best we can.”

Howard added: “I can understand it’s hard to increase salaries, so they increased benefits. But these did not seem right.”

Speaking for the taxpayers association, Robings conceded that the uproar over the benefits package could fade as the supervisors consider alternatives to the current payment practices, but vowed that his group would continue to press hard for reform.

“In a year’s time this could all be a mute point,” Robings said. “But certainly there are a number of us that will keep this in the public’s eye.”

Association president Lindsay Nielson added: “They have some very serious things to deal with. . . . In the scheme of things this is politically embarrassing.”

According to county figures, the biggest added benefit for the supervisors and the other officials is an annual lump-sum payment called “in lieu of vacation pay,” which provided elected officials and Chief Administrative Officer Richard Wittenberg with seven extra weeks pay per year.

Most of the supervisors received between $11,855 and $13,137 each in lieu of vacation pay in each of the past two years on top of their base salaries. Howard and VanderKolk did not receive the vacation bonus in 1991, but Howard qualified for a payment of $10,701.28 this year, reporting last week that she donated much of it to charity. VanderKolk received a $11,628.39 payment.

Veteran supervisors Flynn, Kildee and Lacey received “longevity incentive” benefits ranging between $3,700 to $4,389 last year because of their tenure in office, while Howard and VanderKolk did not yet qualify for the bonus.

Other benefits crafted as part of the lucrative pay package pushed the officials’ total income significantly over their base pay in nearly all the cases.

“The managers, the elected officials and the supervisors have done an outstanding job,” Kildee said last week. “You don’t have supervisors who are never here. You have supervisors who care. . . . We deserve some compensation and recognition.”

Wittenberg and the other elected officials, all with significantly higher base salaries, fared even better under the benefits package. Wittenberg, paid a base salary of $123,630, had a pay and added compensation package of $183,782.84 when all the extras ERKSwere included, county officials said.

But on Sept. 15, the board approved one reform in its compensation system by cutting $130,000 in vacation benefits. That action came after the initial Times disclosure in August that the officials were receiving large benefits on top of their annual salaries. The supervisors also quietly eliminated a perk that gave six months severance pay to veteran elected officials when they left.

Although Sheriff John Gillespie and Auditor-Controller Norman Hawkes said the cut in severance pay had nothing to do with decisions to take early retirement on Dec. 31, Gillespie would have lost roughly $78,000 if he had opted to stay after the benefit change goes into effect on Jan. 3. Hawkes would have lost about $69,000.

After receiving several phone calls from angry constituents early last week, Flynn, who proposed the Sept. 15 cuts, said he decided to call for more changes in the compensation package.

“I voted for every one of those (benefits) and I’ve gotten paid for every one of those things,” Flynn said. “But I guess I never really paid that much attention to it. Those numbers were shocking to me. We need to take steps to rectify the problem.”

Flynn is asking the board members to eliminate most of their financial perks while increasing their base pay by $17,778, to a total of $68,010 annually. He said the supervisors’ annual compensation package, including medical and retirement benefits, would remain about the same.

He is also asking that the supervisors be stripped of their ability to give themselves pay increases. Instead, he said, any future pay increases would be linked to raises for Municipal Court judges, whose salaries are determined by the state. The supervisors’ salaries would be 75% of that of the judges, who earn $90,680 annually.

“We’ve had a mishmash of benefits and perks and all that,” he said. “The approach I’m recommending is more straightforward. This is the best effort I can think of.”

Flynn said he is not yet asking for changes in the compensation packages of the chief administrative officer and the county’s six other elected officials--a decision that has sparked more complaints among members of the taxpayers group.

“I need to deal with it one step at a time,” he said.

Rejecting Flynn’s proposal on grounds that it might be “a number picked out of thin air,” Howard came up with a rival plan on Friday. She called for an independent panel to look at comparable salaries for county and private industry jobs, then set up a new pay formula for top county officials.

Like Flynn, Howard said she wants to strip the elected board members of the power to set their own salaries. But she said she wants the independent panel to determine the appropriate formula.

Howard said she is hopeful that once the supervisors address and fix the problem, the controversy will end.

“I want them to know that we are doing the job we are paid for and I want to make sure we are not getting paid too much,” Howard said.

County Pay Package

Supervisor John K. Flynn

Base pay: $50,232

Total compensation: $91,490.17

Supervisor Susan K. Lacey

Base pay: $50,232

Total compensation: $85,769.05

Supervisor Maggie Kildee

Base pay: $50,232

Total compensation: $97,859.83