Barrett Newkirk

TDS

Five of Riverside County’s elected leaders could soon see their salaries jump by as much as $50,000.

The proposed pay hikes, which the county supervisors will debate Tuesday, would mean the pay for county sheriff and district attorney would go from $223,166 to $273,000 starting Sept. 18.

The county assessor, auditor and treasurer would all see their pay increase by $34,273, bringing their annual salaries from just shy of $166,000 to $200,000.

Another raise of about 2 percent would take effect July 9, 2015.

If approved, it would be the first time since 2008 that the five county leaders — all department heads whose positions were on the June ballot — received a pay bump.

A related proposal would give supervisors a small pay hike every time the state gives one to the Riverside County Superior Court judges.

Auditor-Controller Paul Angulo defended the proposal, saying the raise will help bring his salary and those of other officials in line with leaders in other counties and non-elected county department heads.

“There’s so many reasons it’s deserved, it’s not even funny,” said Angulo, stressing a controller working for a similar sized private operation could easily make twice what he earns.

“We’re not asking to go to the top. The amount that’s been stated is very average.”

San Bernardino County, which has similar population to Riverside County, has a single elected position serving as auditor and treasurer.

The job paid $255,143 last year, according to data collected by the website Transparent California. The San Bernardino County sheriff earned $225,499, while the the county’s district attorney earned $206,231 and the assessor earned $203,428.

The Riverside County Human Resources Department recommended the raises in order to match pay increases for other county workers.

County payroll data for 2013 showed six sheriff’s department employees earned a base salary that was higher than Sheriff Stan Sniff’s pay.

In 2012, county supervisors rejected a proposal for pay hikes that were smaller than the ones now suggested.

At the time, Supervisor John Benoit said staff layoffs and budgets cuts made it the wrong time to approve raises.

But on Thursday, Benoit said the timing is now better.

“You can hold off and hold off, but at some point you have to recognize the moral and other implications of when the boss is getting paid less than other people in the agency,” he told The Desert Sun.

Supervisors are set to consider the latest request at a meeting in Riverside on Tuesday. A second vote would be required for the raises to become final.

In a separate measure, supervisors will look at updating the ordinance that establishes their own paychecks.

Supervisors’ salaries are set at 80 percent of those for Superior Court judges, which the state controls.

The existing county ordinance hasn’t allowed for increases in supervisor pay since December 2010. Since then, Superior Court judges have seen two pay raises of less than 2 percent.

The recommended change removes that sunset clause, so supervisors would see a pay increase every time the state gives one to the bench.

The raise proposals come come a month into the county’s fiscal year, and just two months after an election in which three supervisors and all five non-supervisor elected positions were on the ballot.

District Attorney Paul Zellerbach will leave office at the end of the year after losing the June 3 election to Mike Hestrin, a senior deputy district attorney. Assistant Assessor Peter Aldana won an unchallenged bid to become county assessor after Assessor Larry Ward did not seek re-election.

Angulo and county Treasurer Don Kent won unchallenged re-elections bid. And Sniff defeated challenger Chad Biano for another four-year term.

The county put the impact of the raises on the overall budget at $205,076.

Reach Barrett Newkirk at (760)778-4767, barrett.newkirk@desertsun.com or on Twitter @barrettnewkirk.