Gilroy
– The desire to help is the most-cited motivation for public
service among local elected officials. But the pay and benefits
don’t hurt either.
Life is best at the Santa Clara Valley Water District, where
board members in 2003 received an average of $33,352 in stipend and
medical benefits and spent thousands of dollars each month on
board-related training and travel. They even got paid for gas
mileage to and from meetings.
Gilroy – The desire to help is the most-cited motivation for public service among local elected officials. But the pay and benefits don’t hurt either.
Life is best at the Santa Clara Valley Water District, where board members in 2003 received an average of $33,352 in stipend and medical benefits and spent thousands of dollars each month on board-related training and travel. They even got paid for gas mileage to and from meetings.
Travel reimbursements are reserved for longer trips at Gilroy City Council, Gavilan College and Gilroy Unified School District (GUSD), where elected officials live more austerely.
On an annual basis, Mayor Al Pinheiro brings in $12,360, Councilmen earn $8,240, and a maximum of $2,880 goes to Gavilan and GUSD board members. For health coverage, all three bodies top out at $11,157 annually.
In the course of one meeting, water-district directors earn nearly the same amount that GUSD officials make in a month.
The water board is composed of seven members, each of whom get paid for up to 10 meetings per month at a rate of $204 per meeting. Directors do not get paid extra if they exceed that threshold.
In 2003, the water district spent a combined $233,464.74 on the stipends and health benefits of its seven members, according to district expense reports.
The next biggest outlays were for conferences and travel expenses incurred by members.
Water-board directors vastly outstripped everyone else in mileage, airfare, conference costs, and other expenses associated with their office. In 2003, the water district board collectively racked up $90,000 in such costs. The City Council was next in line, with $52,125 spent on travel and training in fiscal 2003-04.
“The district has a policy that encourages board members to be out in the community and to be active, to educate themselves,” said Gregory Zlotnick, a three-term director who serves as the legislative pointman for the water district. Zlotnick accounted for half of the $90,000 the district spent on board-related expenses in 2003.
His trips included multiple visits to Sacramento and Washington for conferences and lobbying efforts. While Zlotnick predicted the costs involved in his board-related work would eventually raise some eyebrows, he underscored the benefits of his involvement.
“Obviously, by sitting at that table, I bring the interests of not only the SCVWD to bear, but also of our whole area,” he said. “That’s why quite a bit of travel goes on.”
Zlotnick, who accounted for $74,139 in compensation and reimbursements, serves on five water-related boards around the country. On most trips to D.C. Zlotnick does double duty, participating in conferences and pressing the interests of the water district and the region as a whole on Capitol Hill. Zlotnick and his district colleagues have secured half a billion dollars in state and federal funds for local water projects, according to district spokesman Mike DiMarco.
Sig Sanchez, an appointed member at large who has served on the water board for 24 years, said the board’s pay “is more than adequate. When I first went on the board it was $100 per meeting and six meetings maximum per month. In my [time], it’s doubled. These types of activities you don’t do because of the money involved. It’s public service.”
Of the four elected bodies reviewed, only the water board will receive a raise in the coming year. The board this year voted to increase its pay for 2005 by $10 per meeting – an extra annual earning potential of $1,200 for each director.
City Council members voted to forego their 3-percent raise as Gilroy continues grappling with state tithing of tax revenues.
Councilmen currently receive $687 per month and Mayor Al Pinheiro receives $1,030.
“This council believes in leading by example,” Councilmen Craig Gartman said. “We started that a little while ago when we said we’d forego our raise because we knew the city was in a financial situation. … If we’re going to do that with other departments, we have to do that ourselves. [City Administrator] Jay Baksa did not take a raise at our request and not a single councilman asked for the raise. That speaks volumes alone about my fellow council members.”
In fiscal 2003-04, the city spent about $52,000 on training and travel for council members. Membership dues to the League of California Cities, among the largest expenses in that category, cost the city $12,000 each year, according to Karen Pogue, who assists with city finances.
Gilroy also invests $100 monthly on behalf of each council member in the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS), with $52 of that amount coming from the city. It takes five years for a council member to become vested in the program, but few stay long enough to receive the benefits, according to LeeAnn McPhilips, the city’s human resources director. She said council members typically withdraw their personal contributions or roll over the funds to another account at the end of their service.
Most councilmen receive some level of health coverage, topping out at $11,157 annually.
Gartman viewed his stipend as a helpful way to defray the costs that accompany public service, such as cell phone bills, gas, and frequent meetings with constituents over lunch or coffee.
“The stipend is a nice little carrot,” agreed Councilman Russ Valiquette, whose wife and three children are covered under the city’s health plan. “But I’m not there for the monthly paycheck or the benefits. I really enjoy doing this.”
The lowest pay and benefits go to board members serving Gavilan College and the GUSD, who earn a maximum of $240 per month. That pay can be docked for unexcused absences from scheduled meetings, with the penalty based on the number of meetings in the month. Gavilan has one mandatory monthly meeting, and GUSD has two. Both boards have extra meetings each month for subcommittees or study sessions. Yearly health coverage is capped at $10,000 for Gavilan trustees and $8,770 for GUSD board members. Neither board receives retirement benefits.
GUSD member Tom Bundros receives health coverage for his wife and children from the school district, but says the stipend “is not important.”
“I obviously did not run for the money,” he said.
GUSD board president Jaime Rosso, who no longer receives benefits from the school district, agreed that local travel, phone calls, and meetings eat up the greater portion of the $240 and make it “a wash.”
But Laura Perry, the president of the Gavilan Board of Trustees, sees some value in the benefits package.
“What you don’t want is people with just higher incomes on the city councils or boards,” she said. “The stipend is put in there so all kinds of people can participate.”
Nearly all 28 officials hold other jobs as their primary source of income, fitting their public service into day, nights, and weekends. The greatest challenge of public service, most say, is not finding extra money – but time.
“There are only so many hours in the day and you need to devote that to study sessions and meetings with the public, council meetings, community events,” said City Councilman Roland Velasco, who works as a policy aide for County Supervisor Don Gage. “And then there’s an opportunity cost to that. Every minute you’re spending [on public service] is a minute away from your family, vacation time, and your work.”
A monthly meeting schedule is a poor measure of the actual work local officials put in to their public service. A three-hour City Council meeting could mean a two-hour sitdown with a citizen the next day. A Gavilan College trustee will likely spend hours reading the night before a meeting. And odds are that at any given time, at least one water district board member is out of town at an environmental conference.
While elected officials earn modest stipends and benefits, many officials talk of a different, less visible form of compensation that outstrips all the others.
Councilman Craig Gartman said it took him a year to realize that a little effort in attending local events went a long way.
“Sometimes just showing up at functions means the world to these groups, because that shows that they’re important,” he said. “People would look at that and say ‘Dang, we’re important enough for a city councilman to come out here.’ ”
