County of Ventura Watch: Supervisors Cap Increases for Managers at 9 Percent

Ventura County District Attorney Greg Totten who stands for relection in June 2006 and who received a $15,000 per year raise yesterday.

The Ventura County Star has County officials’ pay hikes get pared

The Ventura County Board of Supervisors balked Tuesday at giving double-digit raises to several managers, lowering the maximum anyone could receive in a single year to 9 percent.

County Executive Officer Johnny Johnston had recommended the raises after a salary survey showed seven managers were paid at least 10 percent less than the average for their counterparts in other California counties.

If the board had approved the recommendation, District Attorney Greg Totten could have accepted a 14.4 percent raise and Treasurer-Tax Collector Larry Matheney 12.4 percent.

Totten is paid $166,641 but would have earned about $24,000 more had the raise been approved. Instead, he will get a raise of about $15,000, effective in mid-December.

Totten, who is seeking a second term in June, declined to comment afterward.

Matheney’s salary of $131,259 will go up by about $12,000 under the cap, about $4,000 less than the original raise.

Your county bureaucracy at work…….

The cost of the raises is estimated at $2.8 million this year and $5.7 million next year.

Although supervisors capped the increases for any one person, they allowed Johnston to increase the top of the pay range by the full amount for recruiting of management talent.

These monies might actually buy some county services and please don’t remind Flap of the comparative salaries program that California local governments use to shame elected officials into unwarranted and unjustified pay/ benefit increases.