Rural Officials’ Bid for 24% Pay Hike Denounced

They may be perched in sublime isolation on the edge of California’s outback, but residents in this little no-stoplight town on the road to Yosemite know very well what’s going on in their world.

They know very well, for example, that the Mariposa County Board of Supervisors is proposing to give itself a big pay raise despite fiscal troubles near and far. After initially proposing a 40% pay hike, the board recently ratcheted down the raise to 24%, spread over two years.

But locals were hardly mollified, particularly given the timing. The wage increase comes at a time of war in Iraq, budget crisis in California government and Mariposa County’s own $1-million deficit.

Though folks didn’t storm the supervisors’ chambers, they’re grousing in shops and along the Gold Rush-era main drag of Mariposa, the county seat. Some wrote letters to the local newspaper or called the board to complain. A few whispered about recalls or a referendum.

“You’re left standing and saying to yourself, ‘What in the world could they be thinking?’ ” said Guy Spurlin, who owns a skateboard shop along the town’s main street. “Who in the world gets a 24% raise these days? They act like they’re the board of directors at Enron before the bust.”

Among the bluntest critics is a man who sits right next door to the supervisors. Ken Hawkins, Mariposa’s elected county auditor, said in a letter to the local weekly that “other than Dec. 7, 1941 and 9/11,” he could think of no time in recent history when such a request “would be more untimely.”

Much of the civic concern stems from what’s going on right in Mariposa’s own frontyard.

With tax receipts sagging and state support flagging, the county of 17,000 is hemorrhaging money like every other governmental entity in California. Mariposa’s public employees -- a huge part of the local work force -- will at best see positions frozen. At worst, jobs could be eliminated.

The news is even worse at the school district. More than two dozen teachers got pink slips. There’s also talk of putting the brakes on school bus service and shifting to a four-day week, two changes that would shake Mariposa to its roots.

Some folks concede that the supervisors work hard, putting in long hours and juggling multiple tasks. The county has not a single incorporated city, so the buck stops at the board for just about every duty -- from major land-use planning to complaints about potholes.

‘Equity Adjustment’

Supervisor Garry Parker, one of four board members who support the raise, billed it as an “equity adjustment.” As of now, he said, supervisors are paid $34,000 annually to perform what amounts to a full-time job.

Over the last couple of years, he said, the board shepherded the opening of a new library. Meanwhile, an outdoor amphitheater is under construction and a skateboard park and recreational ball field project aren’t far behind.

Supervisors are paid far less than the county’s top administrative staff, let alone Superior Court judges, Mariposa’s top-paid public employees at more than $136,000 a year.

Parker acknowledged that Mariposa County residents made it abundantly clear that the proposed 40% hike was too much, too fast. But he feels confident that a 24% raise spread over two years “will prove palatable to our constituents.”

Supervisor Lee Stetson, elected in November, conceded that the raise is ill-timed in many ways. But he sees a potential boon for Mariposa government. With better pay, Stetson said, more people are likely to run for the board and a higher caliber of elected leader could result.

Timing Called Terrible

The board’s lone holdout, Supervisor Janet Bibby, can’t hide her embarrassment.

She said the timing is terrible, the hike too big, the political implications potentially disastrous. She foresees a precipitous drop in staff morale and wonders how her colleagues will be able to keep a straight face while asking for budget cuts.

Folks in her own district called to complain that the supervisors’ current pay seemed a very livable wage for this rural county, where the average worker makes $10,000 less. Since July 1990, the annual salary of a supervisor has increased from $20,000 to the current $34,000. In 2001, the board hiked its pay 11%.

Bibby still hopes to defeat the salary proposal. If not, she said, “this is going to leave a bad taste in lots of mouths.”

It already has.

A few years back, the supervisors briefly pushed a skyrocketing salary hike of nearly 50%, but the idea was shot down. This time, said Bart Brown, a retired neurosurgeon, it skulked onto the agenda embedded in a boilerplate item: seemingly perfunctory cost-of-living adjustments for county employees.

“Some of us,” Brown said, “felt it was a stealth kind of thing.”

As for the argument that the hike corrects a historic salary inequity, Brown said he is waiting for the proof. A study two years ago by the California Institute for County Government of a dozen rural counties found the average supervisor’s salary was about $29,000. Under the current proposal, the Mariposa board would make $42,229 by fiscal year 2004-05.

“If they go through with this, we won’t forget,” said Esther Bergmark, a clothing saleswoman. “We’ll just wait until the next time they run.”