Torrance City Attorney John Fellows, already one of the highest paid in-house municipal attorneys in the state, has received a wage increase that will send his annual salary up to $280,000 by this time next year.

On the same night the City Council approved the increase, they formally received a report that city revenues would unexpectedly dip as much as $700,000 a month in the wake of the ExxonMobil Torrance Refinery explosion.

“We do expect a hit to the city’s revenue stream for the remaining four months of this fiscal year,” Finance Director Eric Tsao told the council Tuesday. “We believe that either revenues in other areas or expenditures savings will rebalance our budget by year end.”

None of the seven panelists asked a single question about either item or their financial ramifications.

Unlike Fellows, veteran City Manager LeRoy Jackson, 71, decided to forgo a pay hike.

Jackson, like the city attorney, has not received a raise since November 2008 in the wake of the financial crisis.

Still, with an annual wage and benefits package of $378,902 in 2013, according to figures on the Transparent California website, Jackson acknowledges he is compensated handsomely after a career with Torrance that will reach 50 years in 2016.

“I don’t think I turned one down, I didn’t request one,” he said Wednesday of not receiving a wage increase. “I think the compensation received at the present time is appropriate.

“Time and seniority puts me at that higher level,” he added. “In comparison with other agencies, it’s probably appropriate to where it is right now.”

Fellows, 66, disagreed.

His 2013 base wage of $259,210 made him the third highest paid in-house city attorney in the state, while his benefits package pushes his total compensation up to $372,454. Still, that made him only the seventh highest paid Torrance municipal employee, with then-Police Chief John Neu collecting $417,000 in wages and benefits.

On Tuesday, Fellows received 4 percent wage increases over the next two years.

“Every other employee in the city except the city manager and city attorney had received pay raises,” he said. “I just asked what about us?”

It’s a question Torrance taxpayers may be asking, too.

Figures on the Transparent California website show that, in 2013, the median full-time Torrance municipal employee received an annual salary of $76,438, a figure that rose to $99,831 when benefits are included. Median means half of those workers make more and half less.

In comparison, in 2013 the median earnings of full-time Torrance residents was $61,616.

And the disparity doesn’t end there, noted Robert Fellner, research director for the Transparent California website that’s hosted by the California Policy Center.

The average retirement benefit for Torrance employees was $93,348 in 2013, he said. The figure reflects the generally high salaries public sector employees receive and far exceeds the Social Security benefits those in the private sector can expect.

“It’s not sustainable for the public sector to outpace the private,” he said. “The private sector is where the wealth comes from.”

And the public sector is where it is increasingly going, said California Policy Center President Mark Butcher.

The organization recently released a report that noted the average full-time compensation for employees of 150 Southern California cities hit $119,462 in 2013, with thousands making more than $200,000 annually.

“The term civil servant is no longer appropriate,” Butcher said. “Meanwhile, comparable workers in the private sector have seen their compensation figures stagnate as an ever-greater amount of their take-home pay is diverted to fund these lavish government compensation packages.”

Torrance Mayor Pat Furey, a retired county employee who lashed out at what he called “public pension envy” during his mayoral campaign last year, did not return an email seeking comment.