Published: June 14, 2011 10:32 a.m.
By ADAM PROBOLSKY
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
There are few California institutions that I respect less than the Orange County Grand Jury.
The Grand Jury has two functions: to indict criminals at the behest of the District Attorney, and to investigate local government.
It is the latter exercise that they perform in spectacularly poor fashion. In my opinion, the members of the Grand Jury simply are not representative of Orange County's demographic strata. They tend to be older and out of touch with modern technologies and societal change; often misinterpreting their byproducts as ghosts in the machine.
But every dog has its day, and last week they released a report that provides interesting reading.
The "Compensation Study of Orange County Cities" 45-page report released on June 9 divulges some useful data, including how Irvine compares to our neighbors in terms of how we pay the people who run our city.
It turns out that Irvine's mayor and City Council are making the most out of all 34 cities in Orange County. Salary and benefits total just over $48,000 per year – not bad for a part-time job.
That said, don't rush to judgment. The job is rewarding, but our elected leaders (the mayor and City Council members) give up a tremendous amount of their time to keep Irvine on track. And, Irvine (unlike any other city in Orange County) has the Great Park to manage, a multi-billion dollar public-private development project in the works – this easily doubles the time spent on city business each week compared to elected leaders in other cities.
It is worth noting that some council members - like Jeff Lalloway - refuse many city benefits.
How well is our city staff paid? While Irvine is the third largest city in the county, our city manager's compensation doesn't even make it into the top five list.
Irvine's city manager makes far less than Laguna Hills' top administrator, who made over $378,000 last year. Laguna Hills ranks 28th in size among Orange County's 34 cities.
Irvine's city clerk makes over $210,000 in total compensation, the second most in the county trailing Costa Mesa. Our finance director makes nearly $270,000, second only to the person who holds the job in Laguna Hills. The Irvine public works director makes over a quarter million dollars – in a city where our infrastructure is so well maintained this seems sensible to me.
According to the Grand Jury report, Irvine has no employees compensated at a level they consider to be abusive.
The Grand Jury report also rated the city's web page. It got a "C" in clarity, a "C" in content and an "A" in accessibility. Peruse the report yourself if you are into that sort of thing at ocgrandjury.org.
Freelance columnist Adam Probolsky is a Turtle Rock resident and CEO of Probolsky Research LLC, which specializes in opinion research for government, corporate and political clients. He may be reached at adamprobolsky@gmail.com.
http://www.ocregister.com/news/city-304402-irvine-county.html
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