My "Orange County City Managers Compensation Report" was the precusor to the City of Bell investigation and has led to state-wide reform.
After discovering that the Laguna Hills City Council awarded the City Manager over $460,000 in total compensation in 2009, I launched a study of all city managers in the county to obtain comparison data. The report led to revelations of how difficult it is to
uncover information about benefits awarded to city managers and showed that the Laguna Hills City Manager was indeed overcompensated. In a city of less than 34,000 and only 26 employees, he makes $122,000 more than the next-highest compensated in the county, who oversees a city of over 200,000 and over 700 employees. It also illustrated the difficulty of ferreting out "under-the-radar" benefits costs and led to the investigation of the City of Bell and legislative reform defining "compensation" and correcting abuses in negotiating salaries and benefits. I have been on national TV ten times and on KFI Radio and in countless local and state-wide media as a champion for accountability in government. In Laguna Hills I will apply these lessons to re-align the city's spending priorities, bring management pay and perks under control, increase revenues by promoting business, restore public safety staffing and promote services for Seniors, Youth and animal owners.
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