“City Council members in Bell unanimously agreed Monday to give up their controversial $96,000-a-year salaries and instead draw $673 a month — a 90% decrease,” according to the L.A. Times.
Well, that is not very accurate. It isn’t that they had near six-figure salaries. What this figure reflects is their total pay when you factor in the extra money they were making on various civic boards and commissions. Generally local elected officials also get a car allowance, that sometimes can be significant.
This happens in every city in California. The real issue in Bell was not the money the Council Members were making but rather the ridiculous salaries they were paying their top city officials. I will add however that there are documented instances where these Bell Council Members were getting paid incredibly high salaries for showing up and spending five minutes on board meetings.
Some of our readers on our blogs have tried to compare what is happening in the City of Bell with what is happening here in Santa Ana. Our situation here is different in many ways. Our city officials don’t make the sort of salaries that the administrators in Bell did. And our structural budget deficit is primarily due to the recession, a lack of state and federal funding revenues, and our public employee pensions (paid to cops and firemen who now get to retire at 50).
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I hope this will be just the start of looking into things in Santa Ana. Are you telling me former Councilmember Pat McGuigen gets health insurance for her whole life? (not too cool given her chain smoking) Don’t forget S.A. Councilmembers get two hundred dollars per meeting in some case ..up to 10 per month for some of the other boards they “serve” on. Check out the pay for Sanitation Board, Water Board, Toll Road Board, State Trash Board, Vector Control Board, and the list goes on. These Councilmembers are making over $2,000. per month plus full medical and retirement in Santa Ana. Might not be city of Bell but it isn not chicken feed! Then you have all the S.A> boards like Planning, Parks and Rec, ETAC..etc…How can we afford all this?
Shocked,
And our taxpayers also pay a fortune to run the Neighborhood Associations and Com Link. If anything we need to start by cutting their funding now!
Art, Can you give us a post updating the problems with the Liberaloc? Would you like your supporters to attend the court hearings? Are you taking contribuations for help with legal costs? You have a lot of people out here reading your blog who support you. Never forget that.