Hundreds of city, county workers earned more than $500,000 last year in California

More than 100 city and county workers earned total compensation exceeding a half-million dollars in Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange counties last year, according to new data from the California State Controller’s Office.

The top earner in Southern California was Los Angeles County’s Correctional Health Services pharmacy chief II Marciela Guillermo, with total compensation of $908,575.

Redlands’ City Manager N. Enrique Martinez — who was fired in the wake of sexual harassment claims from the city’s former human resources director, which he denied — finished near the top of the state’s list with total compensation of $845,325.

Statewide, 220 city and county workers earned more than a half-million, and nearly half of them — 106 — were from Southern California’s four-county area.

Los Angeles County dominated with 78 half-million-dollar workers; Los Angeles city had 13; San Bernardino County had three; Riverside County had two; and Orange County had one.

The cities of Gardena, Hawthorne, Hermosa Beach, Lancaster, Moreno Valley, Redlands, Riverside, Santa Ana and Torrance each contributed one.

Why transparency?

Total compensation is what it costs public agencies to employ each worker. It includes the worker’s total wages, as well as what governments pay for their health and retirement benefits.

After the Bell scandal in 2010 — when city administrators were paying themselves millions and lying about it — then-state Controller John Chiang started publishing compensation for workers on publicpay.ca.gov.

“My public pay database is a transparency tool to help Californians do their own analyses of government spending,” Controller Betty Yee said in a statement. “The website provides a better understanding of how taxpayer dollars are spent, which can help keep citizens informed and leaders accountable.”

For 2018, 15 cities in California did not meet their deadlines for reporting data; some cities did not respond at all to the controller.

Taking their lumps

How do public workers get such big payouts? Meaty severance payouts for getting terminated, and decades-worth of hoarded vacation time, often are at work.

Consider the case of Riverside County’s erstwhile director of public social services, Susan Von Zabern.

Von Zabern left her job in 2018 amid botched investigations that led to horrific outcomes for children, according to lawsuits. County social workers mishandled cases involving a 13-year-old who was raped repeatedly and eventually impregnated by her mother’s live-in boyfriend, as well a case where a toddler was found hugging the mummified corpse of her sibling, suits charged.

Von Zabern stepped down in the fall, so her regular pay was less than usual, at $195,269. But, upon her exit, she also got a lump sum payment nearly twice as large — $382,211. Throw in other pay and benefits and Von Zabern’s total compensation was $610,891 for 2018.

Public workers often rack up vacation time over long careers, rather than indulging in R&R. Von Zabern’s lump sum included $253,500 for unused leave and holiday time — which translates into some 52 weeks of vacation that the county had to pay her for when she left.

In addition, Von Zabern’s lump included severance pay of $128,710, said Brooke Federico, a spokeswoman for Riverside County.

Then there’s Robert Harton, who retired as Riverside County’s managing deputy district attorney in December after 28 years with the office. His regular pay was $214,649 — but his lump sum payout was $312,469.

His lumps included unused leave worth $206,212, and unused sick time worth $73,197. With pension and benefits thrown in, Harton’s total compensation was $560,435.

Statewide, 53 county workers and 18 city workers received lump sum payouts exceeding $200,000 last year, the data shows. Most of the county workers were from the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department (37); while city workers were scattered throughout the state.

Many cities and counties have adopted use-it-or-lose-it caps on leave to avoid such big payouts. But that doesn’t erase what workers banked up before the policies went into effect, meaning big payouts will continue for years to come.

Overtime pay

Overtime is also famous for ballooning worker pay, with firefighters and public safety officers leading the pack.

A Los Angeles city fire captain earned $133,060 in regular pay, and more than twice that — $298,652 — in overtime. In Ontario, a city fire engineer earned $166,107 in regular pay, and $265,431 in overtime.

All told, 1,743 city workers and 1,103 county workers earned overtime of more than $100,000.

While many departments are trying to cut back on overtime, agencies say it costs less to use the workers they have than to hire additional staff.

There are about 563,000 full-time city and county workers, as measured by employees with pension plans. Those earning more than $500,000 in total comp are a fraction of 1 percent of the total.