More enter top county pay bracket

Tony Biasotti

Nov. 8, 2009 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- Twenty-four employees of the county of Ventura made more than $200,000 last year, up from seven who earned that much two years earlier, according to a review of public records by The Star.

The total taxable income paid to the county's 20 highest-paid employees -- $4.46 million -- was 8.2 percent more than the amount that went to the top 20 in 2006, after adjusting for the fact that the 2008 calendar year had one extra biweekly pay period. In that same two-year period, the county's wages per employee grew by 8.8 percent.

The statistics cover everything the Internal Revenue Service considers to be taxable income. Top executives at the county also make thousands of dollars more in nontaxable benefits (see related article).

The county's $200,000-plus club was split between top executives and elected officials, such as the county executive officer and the sheriff, and public safety workers who supplemented their base pay with tens of thousands of dollars in overtime wages.

Undersheriff Craig Husband, who was second in command in the Sheriff's Department until he retired earlier this year, topped the list at $257,734 in taxable income. Health Care Agency Director Michael Powers, Sheriff Bob Brooks, Fire Battalion Chief David Gurrola and CEO Marty Robinson rounded out the top five.

"We try to take a balanced approach," Robinson said of the county's philosophy on compensation. "We don't want to be at the top of the market, but we want to be competitive. We want to be near the middle."

Salaries at all levels are calculated to fall between 95 percent and 105 percent of the standard wage at government agencies throughout the region, she said.

This is the first time that the county has turned over the names of all of its top salary and overtime earners. The identities of fire and law enforcement employees were once shielded from the public, but a series of court decisions over the past few years reversed that policy.

The Sheriff's Department had five employees who made more than $100,000 in overtime, and the Fire Department had one person at that level. Sheriff's Deputy John Sanders topped the list at $124,569 in overtime pay. Gurrola, the county's fourth-highest-paid employee, made $88,980 in overtime.

Extra hours

Both the county sheriff and the fire chief say they've had to pay overtime to make up for hiring freezes and staffing cuts. It's cheaper, they said, to pay an existing employee time-and-a-half wages to work overtime than to hire another person to take the extra hours.

For example, it costs about $100,000 and takes more than a year to hire and train a new sheriff's deputy, Brooks said. Then once the deputy is on the job, the county must pay pension, healthcare and other benefits that make the total compensation higher than an existing deputy's overtime wages.

"Salary and benefits is slightly more than we're paying for overtime, but it's not a lot more," Brooks said.

In the Fire Department, an additional employee costs about $11,000 per year more than distributing those same hours to existing employees as overtime, Fire Chief Bob Roper said.

Don Facciano, president of the Ventura County Taxpayers Association, said he accepts that argument but worries that firefighters and sheriff's deputies might burn out if they work hundreds of hours a month of overtime.

"How efficient are you if you work that many hours?" he said. "We know there's going to be some overtime, especially in public safety, but the question is, is this too much?"

The total amount of overtime wages paid by the Sheriff's Department was up just 5.3 percent between 2006 and 2008, and the amount paid by the Fire Department grew by 3.2 percent, according to figures provided by both departments. In each case, officials said, the amount of overtime varies greatly according to how many major wildfires there are to fight, or how many major crimes there are to investigate.

"They've been very conscientious with overtime, but there are things they have no control over," Robinson said.

Some OT guaranteed

The fire and sheriff's departments both guarantee their rank-and-file employees at least some overtime. The standard schedule for a sheriff's deputy is three 12-hours shifts in a week, followed by four shifts the next week. That means deputies get an automatic four hours of overtime every two weeks.

The standard firefighter's schedule calls for four 24-hour shifts in a two-week period, which means 16 hours of overtime. Firefighters are guaranteed 162 hours per year of overtime pay.

Both agencies also place limits on how many hours an employee can work, and managers in both agencies are under orders to send people home if their performance is suffering.

Sheriff's deputies are generally capped at 16 hours per shift and aren't allowed to work back-to-back 12-hour shifts, Brooks said. Firefighters are usually sent home after four 24-hour shifts, Roper said.

But the limits are often thrown out the window when there's a major wildfire or a crime that requires days of continuous investigation.

Firefighters can get especially long shifts when they travel to fight fires in other parts of the state; it's typical to get just 48 hours off on a two-week trip, Roper said. The Ventura County Fire Department is reimbursed by the state for both the wages paid to the firefighters who leave and the overtime that must be paid to the people who take their shifts at home.

The biggest overtime earners are people who volunteer to take every shift they can. Both the sheriff's and fire departments give most of their overtime to the people who want it. If they still need more people, managers will assign overtime, but that's an unpopular move.

"When we have one employee who's making a lot more, it's because nobody else wants to work those shifts or because he's out on a fire assignment," Roper said.

The people who gobble up every shift they can are generally young and childless, Brooks said, and looking to make money while they don't have many other claims on their time.

"You always have a few people who are willing to sacrifice all their free time," he said.

Bonuses add up

Almost everyone on the county's top earners list makes more than the official maximum set out in the county's wage schedule. For example, the salary range for the director of the county Health Care Agency is $175,000 to $225,000 per year, but in 2008 agency Director Michael Powers made $248,410.

There are a few ways that an employee can make more than the maximum listed salary. First, the base wage does not include bonuses for holding advanced degrees or other "educational incentives," which can add as much as 5 percent to an employee's salary.

County employees also can take home extra cash by "selling back" their unused vacation hours. People classified at the executive level can get as much as 200 hours of pay per year in exchange for unused vacation, if they use at least 80 of their hours first.

Employees also can donate their unused vacation hours to be used by other employees who need extra time off -- for example, to deal with a family medical emergency. Those donated hours are treated the same for payroll purposes as the hours that an employee trades for cash.

Salaries and benefits for executives are governed by a county resolution that covers all management and other nonunion employees. Like union salaries, they grew at about the rate of inflation over the past few years and will likely not grow at all in the current economic climate.

The county is in the middle of contract negotiations with the Service Employees International Union, the union that represents most rank-and-file workers. SEIU leaders report that the county is asking them to keep wages flat and give up some benefits, which would amount to a cut in take-home pay.

Angela Portillo, a child support services caseworker and a member of the SEIU executive board, said she hopes management will take the same cuts it's asking workers to make.

"County workers like myself are worried about paying bills, and we have families to take care of," Portillo said. "I think the county needs to look at shared sacrifice by all county employees to offset its financial problems."

Managers, Robinson said, will not ask employees to give up any benefits that they themselves won't surrender in their next employment agreement.

Newstex ID: KRTB-0210-39541220