Panel Seeks Survey of Pay, Perks Elsewhere : Government: The advisory committee meets for the first time. It will study whether compensation packages for county officials need revision.

Meeting for the first time Monday, members of a citizens advisory committee that was set up to study the pay of top Ventura County officials directed county staff to prepare a salary survey of other local governments.

The nine panel members agreed that they needed a clear picture of the salaries and benefits offered by other California counties before reaching a decision on how Ventura County should structure its compensation package.

The committee was formed by the Board of Supervisors last month in response to criticism of perks and other benefits given to the supervisors and key administrators. The county’s 11 elected officials and the chief administrative officer received more than $270,000 in vacation, longevity and education benefits on top of their salaries in 1991.

The panel, headed by retired Municipal Judge John J. Hunter, includes two bank presidents, the head of the county taxpayers’ association, county business leaders and a lawyer.

County Personnel Director Ron Komers, who organized the early-morning meeting, said he hoped to have the information from other counties available by the time the panel meets next Tuesday.

“I don’t see any other way to tell what the supervisors’ salary should be without looking at other counties,” said panel member Tom Bryson, a general manager for Southern California Edison. “Disregarding the fact that they are different, we also have to look at some private industry. We need to have a feel for complex organizations.”

Komers said he will also ask panel members next week to identify five positions in private industry that they would like to study and compare to the county leaders.

For most of the two-hour meeting Monday, Komers lectured the panel about the functions of county government, depicting it as a large, complex organization.

He gave the committee members a 39-page report that detailed the county employee turnover rate and other personnel facts. With more than 6,000 workers, the county is the largest employer in the county, Komers told the panel.

He also told the panelists that the county has had difficulty recruiting and retaining top managers--resulting in the need to offer compensation packages that are similar to those in private industry.

“This compensation philosophy is very similar to what a private employer would have,” Komers said. “I think it says some important things, especially about what our board (of supervisors) thinks about our managers.

“The county believes that its relationship with its managers is the key to its effectiveness,” he said. “I believe and I hope you believe that as far as county government is concerned, we do a darn good job.”

He said the county set up its system of pay and perks to “reward and motivate peak performance.”

“The whole idea behind paying some of these salaries is to encourage people to achieve and be successful,” Komers told the group. “We need to talk about whether this is the kind of philosophy that this committee endorses.”

But one panel member said he was uneasy with the county’s practice of awarding large financial benefits to top officials.

“We need to fully understand why they were issued,” said member Bradley Wetherell, president of Ventura County National Bank. “If they were issued to avoid a pay raise, then I have a problem with that.”

Meanwhile, several committee members expressed confusion over the scope of their assignment.

“I would like to see a cleaner focus in terms of what it is the supervisors are really looking for,” said Stacy Roscoe, president of the Ventura County Economic Development Assn. “I really want to know what we are working on before we start trading ideas.”

Panelist Roger Myers, president of the Ventura County Bar Assn., questioned whether the group should accept the supervisors’ request to study the pay and perks of all the elected officials and top county administrators.

“It seems to me that is a pretty broad charge, which we may or may not be able to fulfill,” Myers said. “Our charge should be to take the Board of Supervisors out of the loop on setting their own salaries.”

But Wetherell disagreed.

“I think (studying only the supervisors’ pay) would have been great if all of the controversy would have not taken place,” Wetherell said. “The total county is aware of all the salaries and perks. Since the department heads are receiving the perks, we need to look at that.”

Wetherell said he hopes that within the next two meetings, the committee members will have a better idea of what they want to accomplish. He said the information from the other counties will give them a good start.

“It will take a couple of meetings to get a full understanding of what they want us to achieve,” Wetherell said. “Once we have that, we will respond.”

The group has until Dec. 15 to make its recommendations to the Board of Supervisors on whether they should revise the county’s compensation package.