February 1, 2023 – By Sierra Citizens for Sensible Government - Five days before Christmas, the Madera County Board of Supervisors voted to grant themselves a pay raise totaling in the neighborhood of $30,000 which is being challenged by a non-partisan, grass-roots group of county residents currently collecting signatures on a petition to stop this action. The salary increase ordinance is set to take effect on February 18, 2023, and the residents are aiming to collect at least 4000 signatures.
Groups appealing the ordinance include the Madera Oversight Coalition, Sierra Citizens for Sensible Government, the Trash Advisory Group, the Mountain Area Conservative Forum, the Republican Party of Madera County, the Central California Conservatives and others.
If the ordinance is not defeated, supervisors with more than six years of elected service will receive an annual base pay of $127,000. The prior yearly salary for these supervisors with six years or more of service was $97,367.
For the supervisors with less than six years of service, their original base salary was $92,730. After the raise, however, this number climbs to $115,587.
“It must be noted, however, that the supervisors made all future raises automatic without a public hearing, public scrutiny or accountability,” said Dan Metz a county resident representing Sierra Citizens for Sensible Government, one of the groups opposing this pay raise.
According to Metz, the supervisors’ pay is tied, by ordinance, to what a superior court judge is paid. Every time a judge’s pay is increased, supervisors also get the same percentage increase.
In previous years, the highest base pay rate for Madera County supervisors with more than six years of elected service was 43.26 percent of a judge’s pay. On December 20, 2022, however, the supervisors arbitrarily raised that to 55 percent.
“At 43.26 percent, without the change to 55 percent, supervisors already received a nominal increase – the same 1.8 percent as a judge’s 2023 pay raise,” Metz explained.
For perspective, Metz added that the new base pay is more than five times the county’s median income of $24,759 a year per person and almost four times California’s inflation rate of 7.9 percent.
To combat this income disparity, Metz said there is now a grass-roots blitz to collect enough signatures to meet the required number mentioned above before the resolution becomes effective in a mid-February. The petition asks that the Madera County Board of Supervisors reconsider their December resolution and repeal it, or submit the repeal to the voters through the referendum process.
“A successful repeal of the ordinance would mean the supervisors would retain their regular annual increase and still receive a base annual pay of $95,243 for the first 5 years of service and $100,005 per year beginning with their 6th year of service. This base annual pay is still well above the average for 10 similar-sized California counties,” Metz continued.
Currently, the grass-roots group is working with multiple organizations to set up locations throughout the county to collect signatures. These groups have also established instructions and forms for self-completing petitions on Facebook and other social media sites. For more information, to volunteer, download petitions or for locations to pick up and drop off petitions, people can email repealtheraise@gmail.com. They can also visit Sierra Citizens for Sensible Government Group on Facebook for updates on petition locations and signing events.
Source: Sierra Citizens for Sensible Government
DATA SOURCE - Compared to Madera County, this graph shows what 10 other comparable counties in California pay their supervisors annually. The data source for this graph was gathered from the U.S. Census for 2021.
