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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.
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County of Ventura Watch: Here Come The Tax Increases Part Two
The Ventura County Star has Supervisors may give big raises
Some county employees are in line for double-digit increases after salary surveyDistrict Attorney Greg Totten and Treasurer-Tax Collector Larry Matheney could win double-digit raises under a recommendation going to the Ventura County Board of Supervisors today.
Totten earns almost $25,000 less than the average for his counterparts in other populous California counties, a survey conducted in November indicates. Matheney’s salary is about $15,000 behind in the survey.
n an effort to boost them and several appointed managers to the average, personnel officials are recommending a package of raises.
Totten’s annual salary could rise by 14.4 percent, increasing from $166,641 to more than $190,000. Matheney’s could grow from $131,259 to close to $148,000, a gain of 12.4 percent.
Isn’t Ventura County always complaining about budgetary constraints?
Here come the Taxes……….
District Attorney Greg Totten
Treasurer-Tax Collector Larry Matheney -
Ventura County Watershed Protection District: Backdoor Tax Bill goes to California Senate
The Ventura County Watershed Protection District AKA Ventura County Board of Supervisors are attempting to raise taxes again.
A bill that would allow the Ventura County Board of Supervisors to ask county property owners to approve an annual fee to help reduce pollution from storm water advanced to the state Senate floor this week, but not before receiving a testy challenge from Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Thousand Oaks.
The measure would give supervisors, who govern the Ventura County Watershed Protection District, the ability to ask property owners to vote for a fee that would likely amount to about $25 per year for each parcel of developed property. Agricultural and undeveloped land would be exempt, because pollution is generated when rainwater runs off asphalt and concrete before ultimately flowing into storm drains.
The Lefties in the California Legislature will pass this.
Hopefully, Tom McClintock, will have the Governor’s ear and solicit a veto.
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Ventura County Voting By Mail?
The Ventura County Star editorializes today on the bill (AB 867) that is working its way through the legislature that would enable Ventura County to be a mail only ballot county. The legislation as now written would take effect with the 2006 June primary election cycle and be in force until 2011.
Flap previously covered this story here.
A copy of the May 4, 2005 amended legislation is here.
Backed by the Democrat party, Warren Slocum, San Mateo County Assessor (County Clerk) Recorder & Chief Elections Official, California Association of Clerks and Election Officials and California Common Cause this bill is similar to previously proposed legislation that was vetoed by then Governor Gray Davis:
The Secretary of State opposed similar legislation, SB 1135 (Murray, 1999) due to fears of poorly maintained voter lists. The Secretary proposed a requiring participating jurisdictions to conduct list maintenance activities to ensure list accuracy. Governor Davis vetoed the bill because, “[m]any counties do not aggressively purge their voter file or duplicate names.†While AB 867 does not address the issue of voter list maintenance, the Secretary of State has not taken an oppose position.
The Star’s editorial, as the legislation, is flawed.
The main arguments in favor of wholly vote by mail ballots are:
1. Reduced costs in conducting elections
2. Increase voter participation
Any cost savings is speculative at best. Granted the Oregon cost analysis looks promising. But, Oregon is not California and any cost savings may be speculative. Also, the major population counties of Los Angeles and Orange have already heavily invested in new voter technologies. Ventura County has not but would have to upgrade soon due to its outdated punch card voting system.
Increased voter participation in California could be the result of mailing duplicate ballots to voters who have moved or died. California voting lists are a mess and this legislation provides no provision for a clean-up of these lists prior to implementation.
Flap can forsee voting parties (spelled MAIL DROPS) sponsored by the SEIU (Service Employees International Union), the CTA (California Teachers Association), and AFSCME (American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees) with the mailing of thousands of duplicate ballots all marked for their Democrat party stalwarts. The visions of the 1960 Presidential election where the unions stole the Illinois election fraudulantly for John Kennedy dance wildly in my head.
The potential for fraud for mail only balloting is just too great.
Notwithstanding, residents must show up for jury duty. It is not asking too much to show up to vote.
The Governor should veto this bill should it reach his desk.
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Ventura County: Voting By Mail?
Ventura County is one of seven counties in California that have been selected to conduct elections solely by mail.
The Ventura County Star has the story here:
Ventura County would be one of seven counties in the state to conduct elections entirely by mail, under a bill that advanced this week in the Legislature.
The measure, which still faces several political hurdles, would eliminate traditional Election Day polling places and require all voters to either mail their ballots to county elections officials or deliver them to one of several designated drop-off locations….
And how do you spell FRAUD?
NO WAY!