10 Officials Decide to Take Vacation Pay : Finances: Supervisors John K. Flynn and Vicky Howard will refuse the lump sums. The perk is to be eliminated in 1993.

By DARYL KELLEY

Dec. 29, 1992 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Ten of 12 top Ventura County officials eligible to receive seven weeks of special vacation pay accrued in 1992 have opted to take lump-sum payments of between $12,000 and $25,000 next week, the county auditor’s office said Monday.

Only supervisors John K. Flynn and Vicky Howard notified authorities by the Monday deadline that they will refuse the payments from the controversial perk that will be eliminated next year, Assistant Auditor-Controller Thomas O. Mahon said.

The Board of Supervisors voted last week to allow themselves and seven other officials to decline the Jan. 3 payments after disclosures that they were in line to receive $230,000 in special vacation and longevity pay for 1992.

The move gave the officials a chance to turn down the benefits that they accrued before the supervisors decided Dec. 15 to raise their base pay in exchange for eliminating such perks.

The board action nullified a ruling by the county counsel’s office that the officials must accept all perks offered by the county during 1992.

Some officials said they hoped that waiving the perks would help end public criticism that erupted in September, when it was revealed that the salaries of 11 elected officials and the county top administrator included a variety of perks worth $270,000 a year.

But Mahon said that only Flynn and Howard notified his office to waive the benefits by the 5 p.m. Monday deadline.

All of the officials--including the county sheriff, district attorney, assessor, clerk, auditor and tax collector--were informed of the deadline, he said. Supervisor Maria VanderKolk has been on a vacation retreat for nearly a week and may not have received the message from aides, he said.

Several officials said Monday that they accepted the special pay, including seven weeks’ automatic vacation pay which they receive regardless of actual vacation time taken, because they had earned it.

Richard Wittenberg, the county’s chief administrative officer, said he decided to accept $25,397 in vacation pay and $4,687 in longevity pay because it is part of his pay package and recent changes in reimbursement are not retroactive.

“That’s what was due and accrued,” he said. Wittenberg said he will lose about $27,500 from his $184,000 pay package in 1993 because of reforms over the last four months.

Supervisor Maggie Kildee said she will take the extra pay next week because “my 1992 salary was set, and that’s it. The changes are not retroactive.”

And Treasurer-Tax Collector Hal Pittman said: “When I took this job it was part of my compensation package. I’m accepting the check.”

But a Ventura County Taxpayers Assn. official blasted officials for not refusing the special benefits, especially in tight budget times.

“We keep hearing of layoffs of library people or at the district attorney’s office,” said Jere Robings, executive director of the taxpayers association. “So it seems inconceivable that they would take all this extra money.”

Robings said the public is already outraged over the costly perks that county officials have quietly received for years, add-ons that often increased their base salaries by 50% or more.

“This is just going to add more fuel to the fire,” he said. “We’ve had calls from the public for recall and term limits and just about everything short of lynching.”

Flynn and Howard said they refused extra money--about $11,000 for Howard and $14,000 for Flynn--because it was the right thing to do, not because they feared retribution from voters.

But Flynn, who tried to return several perks in October but was told that he had to take the money, added that “with all the controversy it was simply not an acceptable way to receive compensation.”

Howard, a first-term supervisor elected in 1990, said she refused to take the money because she had never expected it in the first place and was surprised when she received her 1991 vacation paycheck in January.

She said she gave about $6,000--nearly all of her vacation pay after taxes--back to the county or to charities in 1992. “I gave it back before any of this became controversial,” she said.

Howard said she does not think her colleagues who took the money will be harmed when they are up for election again.

“I think each of them has to deal with it in their own way,” she said. “We really do a lot outside of our 8-to-5 jobs. I feel that some of them feel this is compensation for that.”

Supervisors VanderKolk, Kildee and Susan K. Lacey will each receive between $12,000 and $15,000 extra if they accept not only the vacation pay due next week, but also longevity pay in February.

Additional vacation and longevity pay will continue to accrue for the supervisors until February, when the new pay ordinance takes effect.

The extra payments will be issued at a time when the supervisors’ base pay is being increased from $50,232 to $64,543 to make up for lost perks and to more accurately reflect their true compensation. The pay raise will begin Feb. 22.

As part of the same pay reform package, the supervisors approved this month increases of up to $24,000 for six other elected officials, an increase designed to offset lost perks.

The other six elected officials who have opted for the payments will each get between $19,000 and $26,000 in additional pay. Retiring Sheriff John Gillespie will get the most and tax collector Pittman the least.

Vacation Pay Compensation

1992 vacation and longevity pay to top Ventura County officials

Accept Seven Weeks Longevity or Vacation Pay Pay Reject CAO Richard Wittenberg $25,397 $4,687* Accept Supervisor John K. Flynn $11,909 $2,230* Reject Supervisor Susan K. Lacey $11,682 $2,019* Accept Supervisor Maria E. VanderKolk $12,110 $0 Accept Supervisor Maggie Kildee $12,858 $2,222* Accept Supervisor Vicky Howard $10,739 $0 Reject Sheriff John Gillespie $22,165 $4,120 Accept Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury $20,903 $4,049 Accept Treasurer Tax Collector Hal Pittman $16,898 $2,540 Accept Clerk-Recorder Richard D. Dean $16,844 $3,264 Accept Auditor Controller Norman R. Hawkes $19,126 $3,552 Accept Assessor R. J. (Jerry) Sanford $17,948 $3,477 Accept

* While 1992 vacation pay to supervisors and Wittenberg will be issued Jan. 3, longevity pay accrued in 1992 will not be paid to supervisors until February and to Wittenberg until July. No formal decision on accepting the longevity pay must be made until then.

Source: Ventura County Auditor-Controller Office