Managers Given Raises Despite Budget Shortfall

The Board of Supervisors has approved pay increases for hundreds of top managers the county hopes to retain during difficult economic times.

Yet the increases occurred as county jobs and services are being cut to reconcile huge budget deficits.

The board recently decided against funding an anti-gang unit and eliminated 70 vacant positions to save nearly $4 million in salaries.

The pay increases prompted critics to question whether the board is managing public funds wisely.

Freezes on wages or cuts in travel and memberships make better fiscal sense at the moment, said Jere Robings, founder of the Ventura County Alliance of Taxpayers.

“At a time when the county is slowly going broke, they give out lucrative pay raises. It sure sends a mixed signal,” Robings said.

Counties are reckoning with dramatic belt-tightening as a state budget deficit, projected to reach $30 billion, trickles down to the local level. Earlier this month, the board approved a 3% across-the-board cost-of-living increase for 732 managers employed by the county. The raises are effective next March and will cost $414,075 through July and $1.66 million in the next fiscal year. The board also approved so-called market-based average raises for many management positions.

That is a separate pay hike employees are eligible to receive to ensure salaries are comparable to those in the private sector.

Those raises would average 2% this fiscal year and 7.2% next year, although how much if any an employee receives is based on merit.

In a Dec. 10 letter to the board, county Human Resources Director Barbara A. Journet said “providing any type of salary adjustment during these times of financial uncertainty is extremely sensitive, however, the county must constantly balance the financial difficulties of paying for services and operational difficulties of delivering the services. Paying a fair and competitive wage helps assure that we have a competent team to deliver those services even in the most difficult of times.”

Journet said the raises are in line with increases recently granted to federal workers. She said contracts recently negotiated with four unions representing other Ventura County workers included pay raises similar to those the managers will receive.

For example, in labor agreements reached earlier this year with thousands of county workers, including janitors, clerical workers, engineers, deputies and probation officers, the board granted cost-of-living raises ranging between 2.5% and 6.5% annually over the next three years. Market-based adjustments for those employees ranged from 2% to 5%.

Robings said service to the public should be the top priority and pay raises subordinate. “They take the view that their needs come first, and if there’s anything left, they’ll provide the service.”