Public salaries




Equitable pay? We read al- most daily about this nation’s virtual revolution over salaries and wealth of the 1 percent and how national blue-collar salaries have been virtually flat for eight years.

So what about salaries of local government employees? The City Manager of Westlake Village, population 8,300, will be paid $234,930 in 2016, approaching double his 2002 salary of $140,000.

Here are some other current salaries:

Calabasas: 28,000 residents, $233,500 plus $6,000 auto allowance.

Agoura Hills: 22,000 residents, $211,000 plus a perks package worth $80,000.

Gov. Jerry Brown: 38.8 million residents, $183,000.

President Obama: population 321 million, $400,000.

Vice president Biden: $230,700.

U.S. Senator with an ongoing 7- year salary freeze: $174,000.

Member of the House: $193,400.

Supreme Court justice: $246,800.

Westlake Village offers its employees the most generous CalPERS pension plan available. Ray Taylor, City Manager, will retire at $176,000 annually, 75 percent of his last year’s salary if he retires at age 60 this year, and has 25 years of cumulative service in any local government office.

If he lives to 82, current life expectancy, that’s over $3.8 million exclusive of guaranteed annual cost of living adjustments.

If he retires at age 60 or older with 35 years of service, his first year’s pension will be $247,800. Yes readers, that’s 105 percent of the last year’s salary. That’s a total of $5.45 million to age 82.

Some letters to the editor, as with the above, require no comment and no brain-racking analysis.

I came to Westlake Village in 1968.

I should have gone to work for the city the day after it was incorporated.

Joseph M. Bowman
Westlake Village



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