100% County General Fund. The fiscal year 2019-20 recommended increase to base salary would result in a total increased payroll cost of approximately $75,020 of which $16,476 is the County contribution to retirement cost.
At the December 18, 2018 meeting of the Board of Supervisors, the County Administrator was directed to appoint a 5-member Ad Hoc Committee on Board of Supervisors Compensation composed of impartial citizens representing business, labor, and the general public.
The Board requested that the following organizations nominate members to the Ad Hoc Committee:
- the East Bay Leadership Council (EBLC) selected two individuals, Terri Montgomery and Angie Coffee;
- the Central Labor Council of Contra Costa County, AFL-CIO selected Larry Hendel; and
- the Building Trades Council selected Tom Hansen.
As directed by the Board of Supervisors, the County Administrator conducted an application process to appoint a member at large from applications received via a public solicitation process. Five members of the public submitted applications, from which the County Administrator selected Clifford Bowen, a former member of the Contra Costa County Civil Grand Jury, to be the at large member.
The charge of the Committee was to:
(a) review the compensation of the Board of Supervisors;
(b) recommend any adjustment to the compensation;
(c) recommend a methodology and process by which any future increases would occur; and
(d) prepare recommendations in time for consideration by the Board of Supervisors at its April 9, 2019 meeting.
The Committee met on February 5, 12, 20, 28 and on March 11 and 19.
The Committee discussed the following factors that would be important in setting compensation for the Board of Supervisors:
- While salary is not the guiding factor for Supervisorial candidates, it should be fair and equitable, not be so low as to be a barrier to public service and should be high enough to attract good candidates.
- The Board's salary should be based on the duties and responsibilities of the position rather than on the performance of the official (the performance to be decided by the electorate).
- A process should be designed to de-politicize the practice of setting a salary for Board members.
- Any major adjustment to salary should be phased in over time.
The Committee's analysis took into consideration that of the 9 Bay Area Counties used as comparable, 7 tie their salaries to a percentage of the Superior Court Judges salaries. The Committee also noted, of the 9 Bay Area Counties, some provide more generous benefits and some provide less generous benefits than Contra Costa County. Because of this, the Committee worked to quantify and compare total annual compensation as opposed to limiting its review to only base salary data. The Committee met 6 times and reviewed a number of materials relating to compensation.
The Committee also had available for their review over 500 pages of documentation, including agendas, Record of Action notes, and background materials from the previous Ad Hoc Committee on Board of Supervisors Compensation from 2015. All of this material is available publicly at:
http://64.166.146.245/agenda_publish.cfm?get_month=3&get_year=2019&mt=BOSCOMP&countDownload=&downloadFile=&id=
The Committee considered 11 different compensation factors for review, including County Population and Annual Budgets for each of the 9 Counties. These compensation factors were separated into three categories, (1) which benefits were directly related to monetary comparisons, (2) which benefits would be viewed as standard items to each comparison County, and (3) which benefits would be viewed as “special” to individual Counties.
Based on the Committee’s review they determined that items such as pension contributions, pension benefits, and health care contributions were standard items to each comparison County. Even with narrowing of these categories, the Committee found it difficult to make accurate determinations of compensation comparisons for the 9 Bay Area Counties. Transparent CA’s website provides excellent materials, but tends to lag behind actual numbers. Staff was able to update some of the information through individual contacts in each of the Counties, but even then, it was unclear as to whether or not some of the data was accurate, or double counted, by virtue of how it was reported by each of the Counties. Auto Allowance and Deferred Compensation items were often included in whole or in part with the Other Pay numbers reported by Transparent CA.
Recognizing the many policy decisions that the Board of Supervisors makes, the Committee recognized that the position of County Supervisor is a complex and challenging full time job. For compensation purposes, a Board member is a County employee, (i.e. granted a salary with benefits). This places the Board member into a potential conflict of interest in setting their own salary since the Board would be giving themselves salary and benefits for which they have also bargained with other employee labor groups.
This has led 7 of the 9 Bay Area Counties to tie their salary increases to that of the Superior Court Judges. Annual increases in judicial salaries are linked to those received by executive branch employees as negotiated through statewide collective bargaining agreements. After bargaining agreements are reached, CalHR calculates the proposed increased amount and submits a formal Exempt Pay Letter to the State Controller. The methodology CalHR uses to calculate judicial salary increases pursuant to § 68203 is based on salary costs related to all state employees within the executive branch. This methodology calculates an average general salary increase relative to the state’s entire executive branch workforce, which includes 21 bargaining units as well as the remaining excluded employees. The methodology takes into account the size of the bargaining unit and the total costs of general salary increases across the entire executive branch. Over the past 10 years the annual increases in judicial salaries has been approximately the same as that given to Contra Costa County employees.
A comparison of Salary only showed the 9 Bay Area Counties used for comparison purposes to average $134,372 and for Salary and other pay items to average $150,569. Using the same data, Contra Costa County Salary only was currently at $116,841, and for Salary and other comparable pay items was $129,861. Contra Costa County was therefore between $17,531 and $20,708 lower than the 9 Bay Area Counties used for comparison purposes. The Committee recognized that because of the significant difference it would be appropriate to phase any increase in over multiple years.
Based on this the Committee, at its March 19th meeting, finalized the attached report recommending:
1) The salary of Board of Supervisors members should be adjusted to average of the 9 Bay Area Counties and tied to the Superior Court Judges to be consistent with the 9 Bay Area Counties methodology for any future adjustments.
2) Adjust the Board of Supervisors’ base salary, starting with July 1, 2019, to tie future salary adjustments to 60% of the Superior Court Judges’ salaries.
3) Adjust the Board of Supervisors’ base salary, starting with January 1, 2020, to tie future salary adjustments to 63% of the Superior Court Judges’ salaries.
4) Adjust the Board of Supervisors’ base salary, starting with January 1, 2021 and future years, to tie future salary adjustments to 65% of the Superior Court Judges’ salaries.
It is recommended that the Board of Supervisors accept the Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on Board of Supervisors Compensation and direct the County Administrator and County Counsel to prepare an Ordinance that reflects the recommendations of the Committee.
Should the Board of Supervisors elect not to approve the Ad Hoc Committee's recommendations, the status quo would be maintained.
Public speakers: Sean Stalbaum, Stacie Hinton, Nadine Peyrucain. Written comments by Doug Jones (attached)