[Sarcasm warning] Really really REALLY well-paid administrators resign, residents threaten recall vote in poor CA town where city manager made almost $800,000/year

You read that right - a city manager of a city of 40,000 residents, with a per capita income below the national average, was making just under $800,000.

But wait! There's more!

At first glance, when you read this article about the salaries, the resignations and the recall threat against three city council members in a suburb of Los Angeles, you will blink, at least a few times. Here's a Bloomberg article with additional information.

This story doesn't justify less but still out of whack salaries, anywhere. But wow, huh? $800,000!?! And $100,000 for being on city council?

Gob-smacking.

1 comment:

Paul said...

A big part of this story is that these clowns get to retire to huge pensions, paid for by all the contributors to the retirement system - the taxpayers and other public employees.

As long as pension payouts are calculated from a basis such as "final average salary," there will always be a powerful incentive to drive up end-of-career salaries, even when it comes at the cost of the jobs of new employees - who are always the ones who get laid off when a budget needs to be balanced.

This is one of the things killing STRS of Ohio for example. There is no way the lifetime contributions of the teachers and school districts is enough to fund the payout of another 25-30 years of pension at 80% or more of the final salary. Consequently STRS is continuing to make risky investment choices, and seek increased contributions from working teachers and taxpayers.

Forgive me for once again introducing public school economics into your dialog about municipal governance. But as I say to my colleages around here, the school district and the city serve the same constituents, and a tax is a tax regardless of which entity levies it.

Every government who actually has to balance its budget is faced with receiving very close scrutiny before the taxpayers are going to hand over any more money.

So, how are you going to spend your huge pension after your service on City Council is done?