| By Olin
Ericksen
Staff Writer
October 24 -- The City’s high-ranking staff could
lose job safeguards after the November 7 elections, but municipal
workers will still earn a bundle.
The City council is expected to approve two budget resolutions
Tuesday, one setting new salary and hourly rates, with the highest
at $10,000 per month for stewarding City housing.
Custodial Assistants earn the lowest for permanent employees
at $13.90 per hour.
In the Planning Department alone, nearly $70,000 will likely
be approved for salary increases, shifting the money from other
parts of the budget, as that department continues to struggle
with staffing shortages.
Salary for the prized Urban Planner position – vacant for
several months since planner Stephanie Riech left for Long Beach
in 2005 – has grown to $8,106 a month.
A Senior Planner will earn $7,720 per month, while an Assistant
Planner and Associate Planner will ring in at $6,103 and $6,713
per month respectively.
The City’s Housing Manager, currently Bob Moncrief, will
be receiving the highest suggested salary, bumped to $9,803 each
month.
Other top earners will be the Assistant City Clerk – at
$7,602 a month -- and the Solid Waste Materials Recovery Superintendent
– at $7,613 per month, according to City staff.
Both positions, and the Housing Manager, are three of five spots
that the City manager is asking voters to reclassify through a
proposition, known as Prop U.
So far, there have been no arguments made against the measure,
which would strip civil service protections from those top spots
and effectively give more hiring and firing power to the City
Manager. (see
story)
The council is expected to reclassify those positions in a second
resolution Tuesday.
Senior Administrative analysts in both maintenance and redevelopment
– whose salaries will be pegged near $7,000 -- also would
be affected, as would some Administrative Staff Assistants who
will pull in more than $4,600 each month if the council approves
the resolution.
New hourly rates were also set for many city workers.
An “as needed” Urban Designer will make the most
for their time, more than $35 an hour.
At just a hair less, a “police surveillance pilot”
will clock in at more than $34 per sixty minutes of work.
Other police officers also got a raise. An as-needed police dive
instructor will make $24.34 an hour, and a Police Services Assistant
will earn $16.26 an hour.
A video on-line editor (II) will be making nearly $30 per hour.
Others who handle video equipment – including a camera operator
– will receive between $14.56 and $23.92 per hour.
An “as-needed jailer” will receive $19.71 cents per
hour, while Pool Lifeguards will earn $18.20 per hour.
Groundskeepers’ assistants and a civic auditorium operations
assistant will be paid toward the bottom of the hourly work scale,
at $13.90 per hour.
As needed motor couch operators will earn the least of all at
$12.82.
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