El Dorado County supervisors take first step toward pay raise. Here’s how much
The El Dorado County Board of Supervisors this week voted to take the first steps toward giving themselves a raise.
The 7% pay hike would bring the supervisors’ annual salary to $85,380 from $82,896. The board voted 4-1 to amend county code — the first step toward giving themselves the raise. Supervisor Brian Veerkamp, who represents Placerville and Diamond Springs, voted against it, though he did not share his reasons during the public meeting.
Joe Carruesco, the county’s director of human resources, said the board’s salary was 40% lower than the median salary of supervisors in five comparable counties — Sacramento, Placer, Amador, Yolo and Napa. Comparing the counties by hourly equivalent, among those five counties, Sacramento earn the most at around $88 an hour while El Dorado would earn about $41 an hour with the raise, nearly $5 more than Amador and $8 less than Yolo.
Supervisor Lori Parlin, who represents the northern tier of the county including Georgetown, said a 7% raise was fair for the board because Operating Engineers Local 3 recently received 7% raises in their recent round of contract negotiations.
“The board should follow along the same compensation philosophy that the rest of the employees do,” Parlin said during the meeting. “I see this as the end of that last round of negotiations.”
Supervisor Greg Ferrero, from El Dorado Hills, said the raise should help attract more quality candidates for the board in the future.
“This is a super uncomfortable position to be in to vote yourself a raise,” Ferrero said during the meeting. “We’re going to have critics, and they’re going to criticize ... but we need to be able to attract qualified supervisors who want to do this. I think the raise is justified.”
In addition, roughly 150 county employees who are not represented by a union also received 4% raises during a 4-1 vote at Tuesday’s meeting; Veerkamp was again the lone “no” vote.
Those raises will go into effect in 60 days. If approved at subsequent meetings, supervisors’ raises could go into effect in late April or early May.
