Supervisors Support Pay Hikes
By PAUL J. YOUNG
City News Service
RIVERSIDE – The Board of Supervisors Tuesday tentatively approved double-digit pay hikes for themselves and five other Riverside County elected officials based on comparative surveys, but several members of the public complained the raises were self-serving and without merit.
“I don’t believe this board deserves any type of increase,” Rancho Mirage resident Brad Anderson said ahead of the 4-1 vote on the two ordinances establishing revised pay scales. “This is about pandering to the … (county) employees, rather than the people who live in this county.”
Only Supervisor Kevin Jeffries, the most senior member of the board, opposed the hikes, which he has consistently refused for himself since first elected in 2012, making him the lowest paid of the entire board.
“This puts us in a bad position with the public,” Jeffries said. “I truly believe this is a terrible mistake, and it’s not going to sit well with taxpayers out there who probably make, at best, 60% of what we are proposing for ourselves. This is not the path we should take. You shouldn’t take a vow of poverty to serve as an elected official, but it is a choice to be in the political arena.”
The First District supervisor is due to retire at the end of the year.
Under the tentatively approved salary regime, District Attorney Mike Hestrin’s salary will go from $273,463 to $351,481, a 28% hike; Sheriff Chad Bianco’s salary will go from $273,463 to $347,771, a 27% jump; and Assessor- Clerk-Recorder Peter Aldana’s annual pay will go from $195,191 to $247,859, a 27% raise. The latter adjustment will also be granted, at the same exact amount, to Auditor-Controller Ben Benoit and Treasurer-Tax Collector Matthew
Jennings.
Market analyses provided by the Executive Office indicated that, among boards of supervisors, Riverside County’s is in line with pay rates in neighboring Orange and San Bernardino counties, but lower than San Diego County’s and Los Angeles County’s. The average came to $208,669.
“Our elected officials haven’t had raises in 10 years,” Supervisor Karen Spiegel said. “Compromising has been a very difficult thing. I support the (pay raises) for those elected officials to do the jobs they’re elected to do.”
If approved at the board’s June 4 meeting, the supervisors’ salary hikes would take effect in 60 days, and the other officials’ hikes would take effect in 30 days, putting the increases collectively within the 2024-25 fiscal year, at total cost of $812,501.
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