City manger compensation in LA County 2009

Well this is a bit of an eye popping chart but again hats off to the LA Times for compiling this info so quickly in light of the Bell scandal. Shame on you Press Telegram for not even trying to act like a real news paper. I guess all they can handle are High School sports scores. And shame on you local radio stations for just adding "mindless blabber" to the airwaves and adding nothing like this to the substance of the debate.

One again our good friend [long time Lakewood City manager] Howard Chambers comes out near the top (18th out of 77 cities reporting so far, including Bell) of the stack and shockingly is paid more ($2,000 that the Long Beach city manager Pat West who has many many more employees to manage than Howard. Even more than comparatively wealthy Cerritos. So why the disparity in pay even at such shocking high levels? Again the pay does not seem to be based on anything concrete. Its up to the city council. Anytime you have high paying jobs where salary is based on a group of people deciding it you usually have a situation where there is a "you scratch my back Ill scratch yours". In Howard's case its likely due to the fact he is one of the longest reining city managers in history (but that problem is for another column) In the case of CEO compensation it comes down to a "gentleman's club" mentality of people who consider themselves privileged and entitled to such high pay. The CEO "cons" the board of directors at the company to give him a high compensation package as other CEO's like him get X dollars at other companies. So it s a "race to the top" sorta speak not based on any hard and fast figures. Its based on "well Bob over at  X city gets Y salary so I should get that too" Also what most people fail to realize is that most boards are comprised of either former or current CEO's or top executes of other companies. So when the board gives a CEO a high compensation package they knew when back at their company what comes around goes around. Its a wink and nod scenario. Nothing is written down its just understood.That is likely what was going on in Bell. The Bell city manager allowed (or enabled) the council to pull this caper off so all had to get a share of the pie (the inflated property tax scheme dollars). You approve my salary Ill approve yours. All nice and tidy. And the voters were never the wiser.

Of course this monkey business is fine in the private sector as we are not forced to pay those salaries. In government however not only are we forced to pay these salaries but we are forced to pay them until the death of the employee. Chamber will likely retire well before us poor schleps in the private sector (10 years or more) and be paid benefit likely close to 95% of his current salary. For life. This of course includes lavish Cadillac heath care for life. What do you think that will cost you. You get the picture. Chambers will be laughing all the way to the back while you private sector fools work to 67 to fund his retirement. (Oh don't forget CalPERS, the big pension plan which will be paying the Bell pensions, lost like 40% of its value last year and is looking to you the taxpayer to make up for Wall Street's plunder of its risk investments) You private sector people ask "well why don't taxpayers back fill what I lost in my 401k for the last 3 years?" Well my friend its because you are not part of the elite ruling class of local government employees. Sorry..... lol

Pay in government is never truly, objectively performance based so that is why government city employees are so lacking in enthusiasm and not motivated. Why work hard to serve the taxpayer if you can get the same pay regardless? One thing that LAAG fears is that this LA Times chart will do is force managers and others, like Pat West, to rush into the Mayors office and say "How the hell is Howard Chambers getting paid more than me for running such a puny city like Lakewood?"  Oh I am sure we will hear all the same lavish praise as was heaped on  the Bell City manager. "Oh he is such a great guy and a rocket scientist to boot...he saved us from a Tsunami...blah blah blah" Yea right. So if you pay them $50,000 year less the city will somehow suffer a worse fate? Give me a break. None of this can really be justified. But its like the CEO's in many respects. The company goes down the toilet and the CEO leaves with a "golden parachute" for all his great work. (in the public sector the golden parachute is the pensions as in Bell's case) Its not pay for performance. Its pay based on privilege. And with taxpayer dollars scarce now, its time for that to end. Just like Wall St. is getting sacked now by the Fed's. Time to end the local government shakedown. And if you think LAAG is crazy read this.

Oh one last funny observation. The LA Times article gives links to contact the city managers via email directly. Most complied. Howard of course does not want to list his email like other city mangers. Similar to the Lakewood city council who prefers to not place that info on the website as it fosters direct contact by voters (an issue LAAG raised long ago). Well here it is for those of you that want it:  HChamber@lakewoodcity.org  When you email him ask him what all his deputies and assistants make and let LAAG know what kind of a response you get. lol.

Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™ click here to receive LAAG posts by email

State Controller Takes Quick Action to Prevent Another City of Bell Debacle

We applaud State Controller John Chiang's move as reported in the LA Times below (as well as the Controllers own press release below) as it gets around legislative wrangling, delay and various city groups lobbyists that are tying to let this Bell furor calm down so they can water down the financial reporting rules and go back into hiding like before. We say it again and again and again. Secrecy breeds mistrust and ultimately corruption as was the case in Bell. Its not the impropriety but the "appearance of impropriety" that has most residents upset. Its taxpayers money plain and simple. Their needs to be transparency and accountability. Quite frankly we are afraid even Controller Chiang's rules will get watered down. They also will not likely cover the pension information these fat cats will be raking in from cities other than the one they retire from or all the "side perks" not really on the books like lifetime "Cadillac" health insurance, outrageous cars allowances, free cell phones and blackberries all used for personal business. But its a start.

Controller Requires Cities, Counties to Report Salaries of Government Officials
PR10:27
8/3/2010
Contact: Jacob Roper
916-445-2636

SACRAMENTO – State Controller John Chiang today announced new reporting requirements for all California cities and counties, directing them to clearly identify elected officials and public employees’ compensation. The information will be posted on the Controller’s website, starting in November.

“The absence of transparency is a breeding ground for waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars,” said Chiang. “A single website with accessible information will make sure that excessive pay is no longer able to escape public scrutiny and accountability.”

The new reporting requirements come after the City of Bell reportedly spent $1.6 million annually on just three city employees, and nearly $100,000 for each part-time City Councilmember. At the request of the City of Bell’s Interim City Administrative Officer, the Controller ordered an audit of Bell’s finances last week.

Under current law, local governments are required to transmit summary information about their revenues and expenditures to the State Controller’s office. Payroll information is included in the total amount listed for each category of program, such as public protection, health and welfare, and governing body. The data is compiled and used to produce annual reports for the Legislature. The Controller’s new rules require cities and counties to provide the salaries for each classification of elected official, such as mayor and supervisor, and public employee, such as city manager and county administrator.

City and counties generally are required to provide the information to the Controller by mid-October of each year. The Controller’s website will be updated annually to reflect the most recent data received. Local governments who fail to report timely could face a penalty of up to $5,000.

###

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/08/in-wake-of-bell-scandal-state-controller-to-require-that-cities-disclose-pay-in-state-financial-repo.html
In wake of Bell salary scandal, state controller to require that cities disclose pay in financial reports
August 3, 2010 | 12:58 pm

In the continuing fallout from the Bell salary scandal, State Controller John Chiang announced Tuesday that he would overhaul city financial reporting requirements to require that salary information for elected officials and other employees be clearly stated. The information would be posted on his office’s website beginning in November, he said.

The action comes as a Times analysis found that Bell’s reports to the state in recent years have shown that costs for its legislative activities, including City Council salaries, declined sharply since 2005, at a time when overall council compensation rose to nearly $100,000 for part-time work.

“The absence of transparency is a breeding ground for waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars,” said Chiang, who is running for re-election. “A single website with accessible information will make sure that excessive pay is no longer able to escape public scrutiny and accountability.”

The new requirements follow reports by The Times that Bell spent $1.6 million annually on just three city employees, including nearly $800,000 on the city manager. Council members drew pay for serving on multiple city panels, some of which met at the same time or for as little a minute.

Under current law, local governments must transmit summary information about their revenues and expenditures to the state, which goes into reports the controller prepares for the Legislature and posts on the internet. Payroll information is included in total amounts spent on various government functions, such as police, but not itemized separately.

The new rules, which Chiang said would be issued in the coming weeks, will require compensation figures for each category of local official, including council members and city managers.

“We have to make sure people aren’t moving categories or hiding what they are being paid,” Chiang said in an interview. “We want to put it in a format people understand.” Bell reported a total of just $34,483 in spending for its legislative activity in 2007-08, far below the total of council compensation alone.

The apparent disparity is "obviously a question that needs an answer," Chiang said.

-- Rich Connell


Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™ click here to receive LAAG posts by email

Property Tax Rate Comparisons in LA County Cities 2010

This was a very interesting chart from the LA Times this week. (you can sort using column headers at the top) What was most interesting was that the cities with wealthier residents (and likely bigger more expensive homes) had lower property tax rates than poorer cities. The reason the LA Times likely ran this story was there seemed to be a correlation between Bell's property tax rate and its exorbitant salaries of elected and appointed officials. Bell of course is ranked no. 2, second most costly rate in the city. (City of Industry may be the hot seat next as its ranked no. 1!!) But what LAAG found more interesting was that Lakewood was ranked 47th out of all 88 incorporated cities in Los Angeles county. By no means anywhere near the lowest. Very interesting to note that city of Bellflower is ranked 88th (the cheapest in the county) and city of Cerritos is 85th out of 88 incorporated cities in the county. City of Artesia is 84th. All three have much lower tax rates than Lakewood but yet very similar cities in terms of size and demographics. All also have LASD coverage and contracts. Why the difference? Very interesting indeed. Don't count on Lakewood city hall to illuminate any of this mystery for you in any detail if at all. While most cities are responding to the Bell debacle with publications of salary and other data on their website, Lakewood remains totally silent (as of this posting), hoping that all the questions and news focus on "questionable" city practices just dies away....before anyone starts digging around and asking hard questions.

Of course the Times story notes that this chart only includes figures off the county property tax bill which includes all those "nice" little add ons ("voted indebtedness" and "direct assessments") which are not based on lot size or Proposition 13 reductions. In Lakewood these can be over 500.00 per year per parcel/bill as they are not affected by Proposition 13 limits or lot size or property value. How nice!

It would be very interesting to see a comparison of all local utility costs such as water, trash, sewer, fire and police costs. Hopefully we will see something like this in the future from the Times, along with a comparison of all city salaries and personnel costs by city. For example it would be nice to see what the total payroll costs are in Bellflower as related to Lakewood, averaged out per resident.

Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™ click here to receive LAAG posts by email

The Real lessons from the City of Bell Debacle

We Don't disagree with the points raised by the LA Times editorial of 7/23 below however there is a broader message: Never trust local politicians (or any for that matter) and always keep your ear to the ground. As Ronald Regan famously said" "Trust but verify" (see more quotes like this on our LAAG quote page) We completely applaud the more recent (7/29) LA times post below and for years have tried to get Sacramento to force local governments to open up their records. The biggest problem with local [city/county] government is that there really are no watchdogs or effective media scrutiny like there is at the state and federal level. No one thinks any fraud or corruption can happen at sleepy little cities yet this is the easiest place to pull it off as no one is even looking. Hell they don't even know where to look or if they did that the city would post anything on line answering their inquiries. Public records requests are useless as the law has no teeth and too many exceptions. All you get is a bureaucratic run around and no one bothers. The scary part is that no one looked at was how it was precisely that the LA Times was able to break this story. It was insider info apparently from the police. Great. Took a city feud to get the info out. See if you can find any mention of the Bell issues on the Lakewood website. Nope not one. See any salaries posted of ANY current city official or elected official? Nope. (a search for "salaries" or "pensions" on the Lakewood website did not pull up one document) Good luck on that. Can Lakewood become the next Bell? Sure. Why not? All cities have the potential to become Bell. Its just takes voters asleep at the switch and the right combination of insiders to get the guts to try to pull it off. Bell had that deadly combination. This website was created out of a frustration with the lack of transparency and action by local government. Nothing has changed. It wont until voters demand it change.

We applaud this latest column from Terry Francke (Voice of OC's open government consultant and general counsel for Californians Aware) as it once again just echoes LAAG's foregoing comments and emphasizes the problems with the current system (and weaknesses in the Brown Act) that allows any city to become Bell with the right [wrong] people in charge.

This ethics outline might be a good thing for the city council to post up in council chambers just to make sure they don't "forget" what they are supposed to do. And LAAG reminds "public servants" all the time, its not that anything "unethical" is actually going on, its that secrecy gives rise to "an appearance of impropriety". Taxpayers have a right to be suspicious, especially now with bell and all the other public pension debacles (back room shady deals) coming to light.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/07/schwarzenegger-city-salaries-should-be-placed-online-to-avoid-another-bell-scandal.html
Schwarzenegger: City salaries should be placed online to avoid another Bell scandal
July 29, 2010 | 11:29 am

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Thursday that if local governments have “nothing to hide” then they should post the salaries of top officials online, citing the growing scandal in Bell as an example of the need for disclosure.

City managers from across California are gathering in Sacramento today to discuss damage control.

The Legislature is also considering several responses to the high salaries in Bell, up to nearly $800,000 for former City Manager Robert Rizzo.

“The people should start asking themselves what are their city officials, what are their county officials getting paid,” Schwarzenegger told a group of business leaders at round-table discussion in San Diego.

Schwarzenegger said outrage over the scandal in Bell has the public calling cities and counties demanding to know what officials are being paid.

But local governments, he said, should go one step further and “put your information on a website so people don’t even have to call.”

-- Shane Goldmacher in Sacramento

latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-bell-20100724,0,1549953.story
latimes.com
Editorial
The lessons of Bell
There's a lesson for all citizens in how the outrageous salaries for Bell city officials came about.

4:06 PM PDT, July 23, 2010
Advertisement

Bell City Manager Robert Rizzo has announced his resignation from his $787,637 a year job, as have police Chief Randy Adams ($457,000) and Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia ($376,288), and we wish all three a not-so-fond farewell. Even if they performed their work brilliantly, and even if they believed in their hearts that no one earning less could properly serve their problem-wracked city, their pay was shocking, and so utterly out of step with their counterparts in neighboring municipalities and their own struggling residents as to be inherently exploitive.

The public became aware of the disproportionate salaries earlier this month in reports by Times staff writers Jeff Gottlieb and Ruben Vives. Now Bell residents are angry and want to know why most members of their part-time City Council, which approved the contracts for the three, get an outrageous $100,000 a year when nearby council members get 10% of that, or even less. Prosecutors already are delving into that question, and they will determine whether there is sufficient evidence to pursue criminal charges.

It would be comforting to be able to conclude that the problems in Bell — or in nearby cities such as Maywood, South Gate, Lynwood, Vernon and Compton, which have all been plagued by exploitation, mismanagement and corruption — originated with a handful of municipal officials who forgot their moral and fiduciary duties to the people they were supposed to serve. Or, perhaps, that the people of those cities brought these problems on themselves by electing such leaders, or by staying away from the polls and allowing themselves to be suckered.

Although there's certainly some truth to both of those explanations, the full reality is far more complex and troubling. Bell and its neighboring communities were built on factory industries and on waves of immigrants from the American Midwest who built their cities' civic institutions. They stayed, and many of their children stayed, but their grandchildren left when the factories closed. Their places are being taken by new waves of immigrants, mostly from Mexico, who are still in the process of rebuilding community and civic institutions — but without the wealth that industry once pumped into middle-class pockets and city treasuries. Unlike the earlier waves of immigrants, many of the newest generation lack U.S. citizenship and can't vote. Those who came here illegally live and work in fear of the law and tend to keep their heads low rather than fight exploitation at the hands of those who win power.

But it's not even that simple. In 2005, soon after the governor signed a bill to cap salaries of city council members in general law cities such as Bell, public officials there called a special election to ask voters to make Bell a charter city. Only 336 voters said "yes," but it was enough. Ballot measures, drafted for purposes not immediately clear in their wording, are unfortunately not phenomena limited to small cities. That's a lesson, in this election year, for every California voter.


Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™ click here to receive LAAG posts by email

illegal fireworks seized from La Puente home

Its the season for fireworks. I guess the Chinese fireworks biz is booming in this economy. Whats funny is that these raids really are a big benefit to the legal fireworks companies. They should get their own private police force like Microsoft used to nab pirates. I am sure Lakewood will be so much quieter this year due to the "heroic efforts" of LASD. Right. This "war on illegal fireworks" has been about as successful as the "war on drugs" while letting "medical marijuana" go on sale with virtually no regulation or enforcement.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/06/500000-in-illegal-fireworks-seized-from-la-puente-home.html
$500,000 in illegal fireworks seized from La Puente home
June 22, 2010 | 8:12 am

L.A. County sheriff's deputies made an explosive discovery this week when they uncovered a La Puente home filled with nothing but half a million dollars' worth of illegal fireworks.

Deputies set up a surveillance operation on a house on a cul-de-sac in the 14800 block of Hartsville Street after receiving a tip that it was being used to sell and distribute fireworks, said Sgt. Russell Boucher of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Industry station.

They stopped a large van leaving the residence just after 9 p.m. Monday and found it loaded with about $10,000 worth of illegal fireworks.

When they went inside to search the home, they found every room stacked floor-to-ceiling with illegal fireworks.

"It sounded like the house was rented specifically for the purpose of housing fireworks," Boucher said. "There wasn't any furniture. Basically every room was filled with fireworks."

Arson and explosives investigators were dispatched to the scene, where they disposed of the fireworks and estimated their value at $500,000.

Three men were taken into custody.

Authorities said the entire house -- and at least several nearby -- could have blown up if any of the firecrackers had ignited.

-- Tony Barboza



Lakewood Accountability Action Group™ LAAG | www.LAAG.us | Lakewood, CA A California Non Profit Association | Demanding action and accountability from local government™ click here to receive LAAG posts by email