Press Release
Contact: Barbara Kogerman, Candidate for Laguna Hills City Council, kogerman4council@cox.net.
Attorney General to probe Laguna Hills City Manager compensation
League of Cities data doesn’t tell whole story
Laguna Hills, CA – Sept. 16 – Among the local government officials whose compensation Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown plans to review is Laguna Hills City Manager Bruce Channing, according to a KTLA5News and Los Angeles Times report released this morning.
As reported by the League of California Cities, Channing’s compensation of $321,550 is the seventh-highest in the state. League of Cities figures mirror what was provided by the cities themselves and do not include the cost of many benefits.
So what is the real story?
The City of Laguna Hills reports a higher figure in its on-line “Public Officials’ Compensation Report” dated Aug. 10. That report lists Channing’s total compensation as $364,714. Even higher is the figure of $460,809, the highest in the county, demonstrated in the “Orange County City Managers Compensation Report” by City Council candidate Barbara Kogerman. That amount includes $60,00 attributable to Channing’s purchase last July of a $60,000 SUV “for his own personal use,” according to the sales contract.
Her report considers all costs paid by Orange County’s cities on behalf of their city managers in 2009.
“Taxpayers want to know what their city councils spend on city management,” Kogerman says. “They aren’t interested in whether benefits are taxable. They just want to know what it costs them.
“Laguna Hills voters need to hold their City Council members accountable for letting compensation get so out of hand,” Kogerman adds. “And they need to ask Council Member Craig Scott, who as the city’s negotiator is supposed to represent the taxpayer, why he thinks Channing should be the seventh-highest compensated city manager in the state.”
Kogerman unleashed a firestorm in Orange County when she released her report in May, generating extensive coverage by the Orange County Register and other media.
In July, the Los Angeles Times launched a series of exposes about the City of Bell’s $1.5 million compensation for its city manager, among other financial abuses. Kogerman’s work is widely considered to be the precursor to the LA Times reports. Kogerman and her grad-student interns have since become regulars on FOXNEWS and the Fox Business Network as spokespersons for transparency and accountability in local government.
Since Kogerman’s report, a number of cities throughout the state have published city manager compensation figures, and the state is taking corrective action, including new legislation, a database to be maintained by the State Controller, and Attorney General investigations.
“As yet, however, there are no uniform standards of reporting,” according to Kogerman. “We really don’t know what they’re counting as compensation for the city manager.”
Despite the incomplete reporting standard currently practiced by the League of Cities, Channing remains the seventh-highest compensated city manager in the entire state. Laguna Hills has a population of fewer than 34,000, a staff of 26 full-time employees, and an annual operating budget of about $16 million, of which almost $1 million goes to city manager, assistant city manager, and deputy city manager compensation.
About Barbara Kogerman for Laguna Hills City Council 2010
Barbara is running for Laguna Hills City Council to bring much-needed fresh leadership, rational fiscal planning, effective economic development programs, enhanced public involement, and new practices to the stagnant City Council. She also wrote Measure T, the Laguna Hills City Council Term Limits Initiative, because 20 years is too long! Visit her web page, kogerman4council.com, or contact her at kogerman4council@cox.net.
With all of the myriad of laws and regulations “protecting us” it is unbelievable to me that we do not have a requirement that EVERY public employee’s TOTAL compensation is kept in a uniform way in a uniform publically available place. It is very simple.
Instead, to really find a public employee’s real total comp package, you often have to sift through seven or eight different departments to compile the data and then hope that you have asked all of the right questions. The reasons behind this are simple, public employee unions and highly compensated city staffs do not want you to know what they really make.
It used to be that you took public employment with an understanding that while the compensation would not match the private sector, you had a manageable schedule and job security. Today public employees make more than their private sector counterparts, have cushy schedules and are almost impossible to fire. What a deal!!
*Go Krogerman…Go! We knew Bill and he was not only a Marine, but persistent. Our
bet is that – apples don’t fall far from the tree!
Ridiculous payouts to ridiculous people!
Where is the State Legislature on this issue? Maybe they can use some Eminent Domain
to take back the money for the people of the various cities in California!
Someone should also ask the Attorney General what ever happened to his well publicized investigation of the ACORN stooges in San Diego who were last seen destroying their office files.
This is cheap political theater on Brown’s part, the second act to his “investigation” in Bell. It’s cheap press and unbecoming of the State’s most senior law enforcement office.
This creep needs to be sent into his already architected cushy retirement — which itself needs to be investigated as some good investigative reporting has turned up some real funny numbers as far as the money’s he’s pulling out of it.