County Leaders Vow to Sacrifice Some Pay, Perks

After considerable hand-wringing over how to share the burden of Orange County’s financial crisis, Supervisors Gaddi H. Vasquez and Roger R. Stanton pledged Wednesday to voluntarily slash their $82,000-a-year salaries by 5%.

But even if all five supervisors did the same thing, it would only make a $20,500 dent in the county’s $2-billion shortfall, and critics described the pair’s action as too little, too late from too few.

Though yet to announce how much of a pay cut she will take, if any, incoming Supervisor Marian Bergeson said Wednesday she will give up the free car normally afforded to each supervisor. But she was not sure sure how she would get around her sprawling district.

Activist Bill Ward was. “Take a bus,” he said. “She can have a free yearlong bus pass.”

In mostly symbolic gestures, Orange County’s political leaders have begun to ponder their penance for their roles in the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history. Already, the critics have queued up.

They want supervisors and certain county officials to do without their $465-a-month or $715-a-month car allowances. (How much they get depends on how long they have been in office.) They want them to do without their free gas and their cellular telephones and with less of their salaries. They also want to send a message.

“We want to remind them of who’s boss,” said Ward, a Costa Mesa electronics consultant. “This isn’t Monopoly money. This money they lost really does buy things, and taxpayers could have bought things with it if they didn’t have to pay taxes with it.

“If this were a corporation, we, as owners, would have kicked them out already,” Ward said.

Ward is on the steering committee of a citizens group known as the Committees of Correspondence. The group’s name comes from a Revolutionary War-era activist organization that included Paul Revere.

Ward and other critics--some of whom are talking of a recall vote if county officials do not act quickly to share in the cost of the county’s fiscal fiasco--are demanding that the county supervisors meet at night so they can be more closely monitored by taxpayers.

“Why are we paying these people so much money if they’re not watching anything?” wondered Carole M. Walters, president of Orange Taxpayer, a local watchdog group. “I’m mad. I’m ready to clean house.”

Since Dec. 13--a week after one of the nation’s wealthiest counties suffered the embarrassment of declaring bankruptcy because of its high-risk investment practices--Walters has received 111 angry telephone calls at her home, she said.

Eighty-five percent of the callers want a recall election, Walters said. All of them, she said, want the supervisors, as well as Chief Administrative Officer Ernie Schneider, who makes $141,000 a year, and Auditor-Controller Steve Lewis, who makes $104,600 a year, to share in the county’s pain.

Within days of Orange County’s announcement that its $7.4-billion investment pool had taken a colossal 27% hit because of Treasurer Robert L. Citron’s investment in exotic securities, county officials moved to declare layoffs and said budget cuts were inevitable.

They have been less swift to address their own situations.

Only Wednesday, the day after bitter residents attended the supervisors meeting and told them and senior staff they were as much to blame as anyone, did some board members begin to announce what cuts they might make.

If they keep to their initial announcements, they may not come close to mollifying the most vocal residents.

At a minimum, Ward, Walters and others say, the supervisors, Schneider and Lewis should take 27% salary cuts. That would amount to $177,100 a year--again, hardly enough to make up for the $2-billion loss, but “it may help them to know in their own minds that they’re not above the citizenry,” Ward said.

“Twenty-seven percent--that’s the loss on the bond. I’d say, ‘Well, that’s your loss, too.’ Just as if it was their money. That way they’d remember it.”

As of Wednesday, however, none of the officials in question were lining up to take such a hit.

Supervisor Stanton, the first to take definitive action, said he was prepared to absorb a salary reduction, but 5%, not 27%.

Stanton vowed to cut his office expenses 25%, including the laying off of two of his seven-member staff. And he promised to do it in 30 days.

Earlier Wednesday, Vasquez said he was considering a 10% pay cut. But later, after further consideration, Vasquez said he would he would accept a 5% pay cut and cut his office expenses by 25%.

Vasquez said he does not accept a car allowance, but is provided a county car. His gas and car insurance are picked up by the county, too. But he said he would consider jettisoning those perks.

Supervisor William G. Steiner announced that he will reduce his office expenses by an additional 17%; he cut them 13% when he took office two years ago.

“Obviously, more needs to be done,” said Steiner, who declined to specify any salary cut he might be willing to take, but noted he took a $40,000-a-year pay cut when he joined the board and resigned as director of the Orangewood home for abused children.

State Sen. Bergeson (R-Newport Beach), scheduled to take a seat on the Board of Supervisors in January, said she will take a salary cut, slash her office’s budget and shun the free car.

Outgoing Supervisor Thomas F. Riley, who has been in office for 20 years and has $100,000 in deferred compensation frozen because of the bankruptcy, objected to calls that his annual pension be cut.

“It’s sad that the public feels we gained or participated in this problem,” Riley said. “Why shouldn’t I get my pension? I think I’ve earned it.”

Times staff writer Jodi Wilgoren contributed to this report.

* BANKRUPTCY COVERAGE: Related Orange County stories inside. A37