Placer County supes want voters to approve raise
By Richard Chang, Sacramento Bee
Supervisors in fiscally conservative Placer County took the unusual step last week of asking voters to more than double their salaries and provide access to county health and retirement benefits.
The five-member Board of Supervisors voted unanimously for the November ballot proposal, pointing to data showing that their compensation falls well below their regional peers after a 1992 voter initiative capped their compensation.
Currently, supervisors receive $30,000 annually and no benefits. If voters pass the proposed county charter amendment, salaries would rise to an estimated $71,755 in January 2015, based on the average supervisor wages in neighboring counties.
The latest push to raise supervisor salaries comes after the county Charter review committee recommended in January that supervisors receive a pay hike. Two previous bids failed, first in 1998 to pay $35,000 annually and again in 2008 to pay $48,000. Nearly 75 percent of voters rejected the latter proposal, according to the Placer County Elections Office.