Compton Council Votes Itself New Duties, Pay Hike

In the name of government restructuring, Compton City Council members gave themselves a pay boost this week, less than a month after voters overwhelmingly denied them a proposed salary increase.

The action, taken Tuesday night, added four committees to city government. Serving on those committees could raise Mayor Omar Bradley’s annual pay by more than $13,000 and provide each of the four council members an extra $4,380 a year. All five now receive $24,000 for their weekly duties on the council and as members of the city’s Urban Community Development Commission and Public Finance Authority.

In April, Compton residents voted 4 to 1 against a Bradley-backed ballot measure that would have given the mayor and council full-time status, raising the mayor’s pay to $80,000 a year and council members’ salaries to $60,000.

Introducing his latest proposal Tuesday, Bradley said: “This is not a pay raise, even though some people are calling it that. It’s different because if I don’t attend the meetings (of the new committees), I don’t get paid.”

Council members will receive a stipend of $370 for each committee meeting they attend. Currently, they are paid whether or not they attend weekly meetings.

The four new committees--Budget and Finance, Environmental Affairs, Public Safety and Economic Development--will consist of three members: a council member, the mayor and City Manager Howard Caldwell.

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Caldwell or a staff designee will not be paid for attending. But each council member will be paid for attending up to two committee meetings a month. Because Bradley sits on each committee, he will be paid for up to four meetings each month.

“I feel very strongly these committees will work,” Councilwoman Marcine Shaw said. “It’s time Compton started restructuring itself. And let me tell you, if I was looking for money, I’d still be on my $90,000-a-year job as a county supervisor’s deputy.”

In neighboring cities of Compton’s size, only Downey has a similar committee structure. Council members there are not paid for their extra work, however. In Long Beach, which is more than four times the size of Compton, council members serve on seven standing committees without extra pay. The Compton City Council is the highest-paid governing body in southeast Los Angeles County.

Tuesday marked the fourth time in two years that Bradley had suggested a plan to increase council members’ income. The three other attempts--including two proposals to make the mayor and council positions full time--all failed.

Bradley’s new proposal to restructure government originally would have allowed council members to call four committee meetings a month, and permitted Bradley to attend and be paid for each one--an extra $66,000 per year for the mayor. But after a brief debate, council members decided to limit their meetings and place a cap on their committee incomes.

“I guarantee you, as a part-time mayor, I will not have the time to go to all the meetings,” said Bradley, a teacher at Lynwood High School.

While providing themselves with a new source of income this week, council members acknowledged that they had been overpaid for years as members of the Public Finance Authority. Noting that in the past nine years just 16 items of business had come before the authority, the council members reduced their monthly income for sitting on that board from $400 to $25.

The council has not yet decided who will sit on which committee, or how that decision will be made.