Bigger Paydays Proposed for O.C. Officials

Orange County’s top government officials--including the district attorney, sheriff and treasurer--would get double-digit pay increases under a proposal to be considered Tuesday by the Board of Supervisors.

Officials maintain that the increases, which cover 4,200 employees and are as much as 19%, are needed to make the county more attractive for high-level managers and other workers, said Jan Walden, assistant chief executive officer for human resources. The cost is $4.5 million and is included in the county’s proposed 2000-01 budget.

Sheriff Mike Carona, Public Defender Carl Holmes, Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas and County Counsel Laurence M. Watson would get the largest boosts--$19,656 annually--bringing their salaries to $156,166 a year.

Assessor Webster Guillory and Auditor-Controller David Sundstrom would each take home an additional $16,349 a year under the plan, for annual salaries of $129,958.

The county’s 101 executive managers would be eligible for raises that would bring their maximum compensation to as much as $191,401, from $160,000.

Supervisors are eligible for a modest $5,600 pay hike under the plan, bringing them to $97,822 a year. Most of the new salaries would take effect June 30.

Walden said the county lags behind other large counties in compensating its managers and specialized employees, including investigators, social workers, supervising public health nurses and forensic assistants.

The county ranks between sixth and 11th in government salaries among California counties, she said, though it is the state’s third-largest county. For the most part, Los Angeles and San Francisco counties pay the most, according to figures released Friday.

“We want to stay competitive so we can attract and retain qualified people,” Walden said. “And there is a level of fairness for a demanding job where we require a lot in terms of leadership.”

She added that the county’s turnover rate is 6%, indicating that most employees are staying in their jobs.

Two of Orange County’s five supervisors said late Friday they’ll vote in favor of the salary hikes Tuesday. Board Chairman Chuck Smith and Supervisor Cynthia P. Coad said county personnel officials did their homework in justifying the larger amounts.

“They did an outstanding job of trying to equalize the pay structure with other counties, which is badly needed since” the county’s 1994 bankruptcy, Smith said. “To retain qualified employees, you have to pay the market rate. We’ve been well under that.”

But some critics expressed concern about the proposed raises, saying top county leaders haven’t proved that they’ve earned the extra compensation by making government more efficient.

Bruce Whitaker, a Fullerton anti-tax activist who sat on the county’s salary and compensation board after the bankruptcy, said the plan may “seem outrageous at first blush” given the reluctance of supervisors to pay for other county programs such as televising weekly board meetings.

“What happened to paying for performance?” he asked. “So what if the county is eighth or ninth out of 50 counties? When you work in government, you don’t get top pay, but you have great benefits and job security.”

Chapman University law professor Hugh Hewitt said the real focus should be more on the size of government than executive salary levels.

“You need to pay [good salaries] or you’ll get incompetence that will squander the public purse,” said Hewitt, former deputy director of the U.S. office of personnel management. “These salaries seem very reasonable and not out of line at all for managing a complex organization.”

Others agreed.

Treasurer-Tax Collector John M.W. Moorlach--who would get a raise of $16,266, bringing his total to $129,147--called the proposed salaries “good crisis prevention.”

“A lot of us have worked very hard this past five years,” said Moorlach, who joined the county in 1995, just weeks after the county lost more than $1.6 billion in bad investments and declared bankruptcy.

“If we’d been in the private sector, with the turnaround we’ve had, we would have seen strong bonuses for the hard work,” he said. “You don’t want to say to your team, ‘You did a great job. So what.’ ”