Highly Paid Baca Looks at Raise Reluctantly

We all should have his problem: At a salary of $207,000 a year, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca was already America’s most highly paid elected official.

Now he’s set to get a raise--sort of.

At least he’s going to get a lot more money--unless he can find a way to get out of it.

Confused?

Well, so is nearly everyone else in a county bureaucracy trying to find a way to accommodate the sheriff’s desire not to begin collecting the estimated $142,000 a year he is entitled to as a retired Sheriff’s Department chief.

Baca, who left that post last year as part of his campaign for sheriff, said this week that he’s trying to reverse his resignation. But unless the county intervenes on his behalf, Baca is poised to receive his salary as sheriff and his pension as retired chief--bringing his annual income to nearly $390,000, including benefits.

“I’m trying to get the county to continue as if I didn’t even leave,” Baca said. “They’re trying to say I’m a new hire. I’m saying to them, ‘Are you nuts?’ With my retirement and my salary, I’m going to be making more money than anyone has ever heard of.”

In fact, it’s more than the president and vice president of the United States earn combined.

“I can’t plead my case any more than I have,” Baca said. “I told them they are going to end up with me being cast as a double-dipper. It’s not my desire.”

But there’s another catch: Baca’s pension could be boosted by $50,000 a year--or more--if he retires as sheriff instead of as chief. In the end, he stands to gain even more by waiting.

Officials in the county counsel’s office are looking into the matter. They declined to comment on the issue.

Baca said last June that he was stepping down from his chief’s post. At his request, his retirement hearing was set for July 19, 1998.

On July 1, however, Baca contacted the retirement office again and asked to defer his hearing until July 24. Then on July 21, he contacted retirement officials once more, informing them that he did not want to retire after all. As a result, officials said, Baca’s retirement was placed in a “deferred” status.

After Baca took office in December, he said he asked to be reinstated to the department instead of being brought in as a new hire.

“I’m saying to them, ‘How can I be a new hire?’ ” Baca said. “I did resign, but there’s a law in our retirement code that says if you resign and don’t take your retirement and go back to work within a year, it’s as if you never left.”

There was one problem: There was no one above Baca to reinstate him.

Baca said he is considering asking members of the Board of Supervisors to step in to solve the problem.

“All this is legal nonsense,” Baca said. “I’m hopeful they will do the right thing.

“Quite frankly, I have to do what’s right too,” he said. “I’m trying to get them to reinstate me so I don’t have to deal with this issue. If they don’t come to a conclusion about this, then they give me no choice but to take the retirement.”