SIMI VALLEY : Parks Employees to Get 5% Pay Raise

After two years without a raise, employees of the financially beleaguered Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District will get a 5% pay increase, park officials said.

The district’s board of directors voted 4 to 0 in favor of the increase at its meeting last week, with member Bonnie Carpenter absent. The raise is retroactive to July 1.

“I wish it could be much, much more,” board member Jim Meredith said.

The special district, which maintains parks in Simi Valley and Oak Park, has an operating budget of $8.5 million and 62 employees.

In the last two years, state budget cuts forced the district to lay off 17 employees. Meredith said an increased workload as a result of the layoffs has been hard on employees.

“These people are doing a yeoman’s job,” he said. “They just can’t keep going on like this.”

The raise will add about $110,000 to the district’s operating budget, said spokesman Rick Johnson.

There are seven management positions in the district, with salaries ranging from about $50,000 to $90,000, Johnson said. The rest of the employees make $24,000 to $40,200.

Before the budget crunch hit and the state began taking property tax dollars away from many special districts, employees usually received a cost-of-living increase once a year, he added.

“But the 5% was welcome,” Johnson said. “I didn’t turn it down.”