Some mayor and city councilmembers get health benefits worth 10 times more than their annual wages. Others get exactly nothing.Can any amount of money make those meetings about potholes, permits, policy and public pay worth it? Can dollars and cents salve wounds inflicted by steady streams of verbal invective during public comment sessions?
Glendale paid nearly $43,000 for one councilmember’s health benefits, as did Lancaster. And these jobs often come with “The Honorable” inserted before your name. Who can put a price tag on that?Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass delivers the State of the City address to city council members and invited guests at Los Angeles City Hall on Monday, April 15, 2024.
Perennial strange appearance near the top: Chula Vista’s full-time mayor, with total comp of $184,920. This city of 276,000 citizens has a charter that ties pay raises for elected officials to — wait for it — Superior Court judges. The city of Orange, for the past decade, eschewed all comp for the city council — a move taken after the Bell scandal in 2010 . But that has fallen out of favor. In 2021to allow for an optional $600 monthly stipend per councilmember, as well as reimbursement for incidentals. There was talk of restarting health benefits for councilmembers, but that was rejected. As of today, all five councilmembers are taking pay, a city spokeswoman said.
A city councilmember in Riverside came in at No. 2, with total comp of $72,103, followed by a Palm Springs city councilmember at $66,019; another Riverside city councilmember at $63,764; and La Quinta’s mayor at $60,559.Health benefits were quite the perk at some Inland Empire cities as well. San Jacinto’s mayor pro tem had health benefits costing $35,506, while wages were only $4,500. Coachella’s mayor had health benefits of $26,937, while wages were just $12,377.