It’s hard to believe, but true: Bell, California paid its city manager eight-hundred thousand dollars ($800,000) per year in salary. When I first read about this, I thought it was a typo, or that they were paying Robert Rizzo in some other currency. It’s true, and astonishing. He’s now resigned, but every politician connected with approving Rizzo’s compensation should resign, too.
Bell, California is one of the poorest cities in California, yet politicians approved, and Rizzo took, this money from taxpayers while residents struggled and went hungry (some, literally, are destitute and in need of food assistance).
Residents staged a protest against that compensation, and Reason was there to record the outcry. Here’s a description accompanying the video:
Should a city manager from one of Los Angeles County’s poorest cities earn twice as much as President Obama?
Residents from the working-class town of Bell erupted in outrage after learning that their city pays its officials some of the highest local-government salaries in the nation, including City Manager Robert Rizzo who takes home nearly $800,000 per year.
Rizzo has resigned, as have some of Bell’s other top-earning government officials. But on Monday evening frustrated residents gathered at a city council meeting to demand more resignations and an end to what they regard as widespread corruption.
Reason.tv spoke with protesters furious with high taxes, cronyism, and inflated public-sector compensation.
Approximately 3 minutes. Produced by Ted Balaker and Tim Cavanaugh, who also hosts. Camera by Zach Weissmueller and Sam Corcos. Edited by Weissmueller.
During the deepest recession since the Great Depression, residents gather to voice opposition to a bureaucrat’s excessive compensation:
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1effEnDsrM
Fortunately, there’s nothing this extreme — I’m tempted to use a term of my town’s city manager, and say egregious — in my small city of Whitewater, Wisconsin. Bell, California, however, should not be the benchmark for suitable compensation.
Any town should consider a few, simple principles for compensation: (1) residents’ actual economic well-being should be taken into account, (2) leaders of a city or department should experience salary reductions before workers’ salaries or jobs are cut, (3) employees hired to support a leader should be considered as a benefit to the leader when establishing a leader’s compensation, (4) multiple sources of compensation should be totalled, and (5) time spent away from core duties should not be compensated if core duties are not performed adequately.
That’s not all, but it’s a good start.