Dig a little deeper

Did anyone notice that the salary list compiled by City Treasurer Kevin Kennedy included compensation for elected officials as well?  No?   Yeah, me either.    I think once people got into normal salary range most people just stopped looking.

It wasn’t until a commenter on The Island mentioned the Council pay as listed in the new Bay Area News Group database.   Of course, there was also this story which mentioned that Medical/Dental/Vision benefits are a huge perk for part-time elected officials like ours.  Highlights:

Government compensation data acquired by the Bay Area News Group, which includes this newspaper, show that hundreds of part-time elected officials — and in many cases family members — received full-time health care benefits in 2010 courtesy of taxpayers, costing many cash-strapped agencies tens of thousands of dollars.

…

According to an annual survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, one in four private employers offers health benefits to part-time employees. But in local government, it’s a different story.

The article goes on to list photos of the top ten elected officials in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties who have received the highest amount of Medical/Dental/Vision coverage ranging from a high in Santa Clara $32K to the lowest of the top ten at $18K.   In San Mateo of the top ten, the highest was $24K and the bottom of the top ten list was $18K (well rounding it’s $19K).   So what does that mean in Alameda terms, well, here are the numbers for our City Council — minus Rob Bonta because these are 2010 numbers and he was elected in November of 2010 so Frank Mataresse’s compensation is listed (click to enlarge):

The number you are looking at to compare to the San Mateo and Santa Clara County comparables would be the column under MDV.  So it appears that Frank Matarrese’s compensation was right up there with the lowest of the top 10, of course how this compares to Alameda County numbers is unclear.   But everyone else is well below that top ten threshold.

Before anyone asks, the numbers for the School Board were not part of the database, but remember that a while ago the School Board voted to stop accepting the health benefit compensation and stipend —  I can’t recall if the School Board voted to begin receiving the compensation again, but I’m sure Mike McMahon will help fill in the details.   And before anyone asks, the Health Care district also hasn’t given up their numbers either, another article discussed how they asked for money to cover the staff time to run the information, but the Bay Area News Group doesn’t want to pay for the information.   But I did confirm that the Hospital Board members do not receive either a stipend or the health care compensation.   It is codified into their bylaws.

So, what was interesting was that when I searched for all the elected officials, it turns out that both our elected City Treasurer and City Auditor both receive more than just their monthly stipend according to the database:

Now, I do have a public record request out to the City Clerk’s office to confirm if this is what was simply offered to the Treasurer and Auditor or if this was actually an amount that was taken.  I have a few other outstanding questions too, so when I get the answers to that I’ll post an update.

So you maybe saying, Lauren, these amounts are a drop in the bucket compared to our other long term obligations and other financial problems and you are completely correct.   They are minimal in the grand scheme of things.   However, I think that if we — as a City — are going to ask our City leaders to ask City workers to renegotiate contracts and possibly cut contractual benefits in order to maintain fiscal solvency, then we need to ask our City leaders to revisit the types of compensation they receive as well.   I write this knowing full well that the job that the City Council, Treasurer, Auditor and all other elected officials is thankless and a great big pain in the ass.  But it’s symbolic much in the way that the School Board opted to give up their minimal health benefits and stipend in 2008 when they were asking the community to dig a little deeper in the form of a parcel tax, it’s time for our City government side to consider doing the same.