$100K a Year Flows

One in three employees at the Santa Clara Valley Water District
earn six-figure salaries, and three out of four earn wages that
best the county median income, according to salary data for 2006
released by the agency.
 
San Jose – One in three employees at the Santa Clara Valley Water District earn six-figure salaries, and three out of four earn wages that best the county median income, according to salary data for 2006 released by the agency. 

At a time when Santa Clara County is bracing for major job cuts, the region’s water utility is adding high-paying jobs and awarding top dollar for employees. Median income at the water utility, which employed 824 people in 2006, stood at $92,297. That figure is $31,000 more than the median income for Santa Clara County government employees.

Officials at the water utility said the $77.6 million spent on salaries and benefits in 2006 is needed to attract and retain talent, especially biologists, engineers and others with advanced degrees who command top dollar in the job market. But critics see the pay figures, deemed public information recently by the state Supreme Court, as evidence of an agency top-heavy with staff and bloated salaries.

“If we were in another geographic location, it would be easier,” said Rosemary Kamei, representative for South County on the agency’s board of directors. “Obviously when you do a salary survey and you look at the Bay Area versus Central Valley, it’s going to be different. The cost of living here is much more. I think we’re trying to be competitive, and I think we’re looking much more closely at whether or not we need to have as many (top) unclassified employees.”

Kamei and other directors of the agency, which has a $364 million budget and provides flood protection and water service to 1.7 million county residents, recently took back control over the hiring of top-paid administrators at the agency. The move was among several the board took to limit the powers of Chief Executive Officer Stan Williams following his controversial July appointment of Gregory Zlotnick, a longtime board member, to a $184,000-a-year job as special counsel.

The salary puts Zlotnick at the upper end of income-earners at the district, which had 311 employees earning more than $100,000 in 2006. Of those 140 are engineers, 20 are scientists and three are attorneys, according to the water district.  

While less than half of water district employees earned six-figure salaries in 2006, three in four workers earned more than the county median income of $73,900.

Meanwhile, the agency paid a dozen top administrators and legal counsel more than $200,000 each, led by Williams. The CEO, who brought in $240,868 last year, did not respond to calls seeking comment.

The salary data released by the water district represents gross figures, which includes overtime, medical benefits and other forms of compensation.

In comparison, a private sector chief operating officer in San Jose earns $526,612 per year, according to online job board Monster’s Salary Center. The COO of the water district earns $200,814.

Terry Mahurin, a member of the San Martin Neighborhood Alliance and a longtime critic of water district spending, said the figures come as no surprise to him. Mahurin said he has watched the agency’s staff nearly triple in the last 25 years, with salaries and benefits rising most sharply in the last six of seven years.

“The entire organization has shown no self-restraint,” said Mahurin, who has called for term limits for members on the agency’s governing board, which he claims as grown too cozy with top management at the agency.

Ram Singh, a water expert who narrowly lost a 2006 bid to unseat Kamei from the water board, said the agency needs to more closely align pay with the private sector.

“The hard-working employees should be properly paid and compensated,” he said. “But I don’t want fat in the number of employees, and I don’t want salaries so high that private companies can’t afford to hire employees.”