Politics & Government

With Four $100,000 City Employees, Rancho Santa Margarita Is 'Lean and Mean'

Per capita, the city has fewer employees making six-figure incomes than any other city in Orange County.

Mayor Tony Beall and his colleagues on the Rancho Santa Margarita City Council often refer to the city’s staff as a “lean and mean” operation, and a grand jury report appears to support that notion.

According to figures released by the Orange County Grand Jury on the compensation of city employees, RSM has fewer high-priced employees—making a base salary of $100,000 or more—per capita than any of the county’s 33 other cities.

With four of its 19 employees making at least $100,000, Rancho has 0.80 six-figure employees per 10,000 residents—the only city in the county with an average of less than 1.0. The data was from the 2009 calendar year.

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“I see this study just further validating what we have been saying for a long time, that RSM is a very efficient local government, a model by which other municipalities might want to run their own affairs,” Beall said. “We are very proud of the acknowledgment.”

The City Council itself isn't quite as "lean and mean" as the rest of its employees. In terms of overall compensation, council members ranked in the middle of the pack countywide (No. 16) with a package worth $16,623 per year--and 24th on base salary ($5,562 annually), the grand jury said.

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For three years, RSM's City Council has not granted any pay increases to municipal employees.

“I believe the city staff provides the absolute highest level of service to our residents, but that’s their job,” Beall said. “The fact they didn’t get an increase isn’t because of a lesser performance. To the contrary, we praise them for doing a great job. In our case, the majority of City Council concluded that it would not be appropriate for us to be passing out raises with taxpayer money when thousands of taxpayers have lost their jobs or had their own compensation slashed, sometimes by 20, 30, 40 or 50 percent or more.”

Coming in at No. 2 was Laguna Woods, which has 1.08 six-figure employees per 10,000 residents: two for its population of 18,477.

Next lowest were Aliso Viejo (1.31), Lake Forest (1.53) and Placentia (1.54). Villa Park (1.59) had only one employee making $100,000, but had a population of only 6,276.

(The grand jury did not take into consideration fire, police, Great Park or utility positions.)

The towns with the highest per capita rates of six-figure city employees were Laguna Beach (8.73), Newport Beach (6.96), Irvine (4.98), Anaheim (4.96) and San Juan Capistrano (4.88).

The grand jury recommended Laguna Beach and Newport Beach review their large percentage of high-salaried employees. It also suggested Laguna Hills--which had the highest-paid municipal employee in the county, City Manager Bruce Channing--conduct a compensation review of its top officials.

Still, the grand jury determined there were “no individual instances of abusive compensation in Orange County cities” but that full transparency was virtually nonexistent throughout the county.

Rancho Santa Margarita’s four job classifications with salary ranges topping $100,000 were: city manager, which is filled by Steve Hayman, director of administrative services (Paul Boyer), director of public works (Derek Wieske), and director of development services (Kathleen Haton).

According to the 2010 budget, Hayman’s base salary was $214,433, plus a benefits package that brought total compensation to $230,285. His collective pay was below the county average for that post (which was $207,808 base and $73,891 benefits).

Wieske had a base salary of $144,996 and a total package of $166,790; however, his was the fifth-lowest salary package among the 29 cities that pay a base salary of at least $100,000 for that post. Coincidentally, he has taken another job and his last day on the books is today.

According to the grand jury, which looked at 11 employment positions for each city, Rancho Santa Margarita had two positions that ranked among the four lowest-paid countywide, and another—city clerk—in the bottom 27 percent.

Four other positions were in the bottom 45 percent countywide.

“The statistics bear out that Rancho is austere in our pay practices, and that may be where the new normal is,” Hayman said. “Is anyone starving? No. I think people are fairly paid, in a vacuum. I look forward to us all knowing what the new normal is after the recession and we can more accurately define what are the appropriate pay levels for positions in local government.”

The grand jury gave RSM below average marks for transparency on its website. RSM was graded D for content and clarity of its salary information, but received an A in accessibility. Eleven cities received an A in accessibility. Nineteen received a D or F for content, and 17 received a D or F for clarity.

“As we examined that, we believe we were ranked that way because we have our salary resolution on one page, and you have to look at a different page to see the benefits,” Hayman said. “We’re happy to fix that.”


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