Benefits paid to special district directors are set solely by the board of directors themselves. (We’ll point out here that many water districts fork over meeting pay for things many of us would have trouble classifying as “meetings” - see Should public pay when directors attend soirees? for more on that.)īut while pay per meeting is set by law, benefits - such as medical insurance and retirement - are not, the grand jury said. Thus annual director compensation for meetings alone has a wide range, from as little as $1,200 ( Sunset Beach Sanitary District) to $28,000 ( Irvine Ranch Water District). Some districts hold very few meetings per month, while others approach the maximum allowed, due to extensive subcommittee meetings or qualifying meetings with outside agencies. “In addition to meeting compensation, State statutes also limit the maximum number of compensable meetings to 10 monthly for water districts and 6 monthly for sanitation districts. This has resulted in a disparity in meeting compensation between districts ranging from $100 per meeting up to $237 per meeting. “Some districts have chosen to increase the per meeting director stipend regularly while others have not. “However, Section 20202 authorizes water district boards to increase the amount of compensation not to exceed 5% for each calendar year, although any such increase is at the board’s discretion. “In the early 1990’s the California Water Code Section 20201 put a ceiling of $100 on the maximum amount water board members can receive for attendance at any one meeting of the board or directors,” it said. Part of that is based on their size and on decisions made by their boards concerning their benefits, the grand jury found. WHY DOES DIRECTOR COMPENSATION VARY SO MUCH? Here’s the grand jury’s awesome chart on the water districts, laying this out for us visually (click on the charts to make them bigger):Īnd here it is laid out for us in more detail, albeit less color: The striking thing is how much of this compensation comes in the form of benefits - primarily health insurance payments, but sometimes retirement payments, too - especially at little Trabuco Canyon.Īt Trabuco, directors made just $7,850 a year in meeting pay - what is traditionally quoted as their “salary.”
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