Santa Ana voters will be asked in November about making several changes to the city’s charter, including one that would boost councilmembers’ annual pay by more than $65,000.
Elected members of the City Council, including the mayor, receive $12,000 per year. If the ballot measure is approved by voters, the pay would instead be set to 33% of the salary of an OC Superior Court Judge, which currently would equate to $78,696 per year for the councilmembers of Orange County’s second largest city.
The council voted 4-3 Tuesday night, with Mayor Valerie Amezcua and councilmembers Benjamin Vazquez and David Penaloza opposed, to put the ballot question to voters.
Councilmember Thai Viet Phan said this is about getting “the next generation of leaders” to serve the city.
“I think it’s really important for the future of Santa Ana to be able to recruit and get working-class people, middle-class people to be interested in serving on the City Council of Santa Ana,” Phan said during Tuesday’s meeting. “Not everybody has a flexible job. Not everybody has their own business. Not everybody is retired. A lot of people have to choose whether to serve their city or not because they can’t afford to do it.”
In the vast majority of cities, council positions are not full-time jobs. Phan said in a Wednesday phone interview the proposed pay change wouldn’t necessarily change that. Whether or not one works full-time on city business or part-time while working another job would be up to each council member to decide, she said.
“I think most of us work closer to full-time than part-time as a councilmember,” Phan said. “It’s essentially trying to bring the compensation up to a place where it actually reflects the kind of work that we do. We’ve done a lot more programing, I think, outreach and things like that for our community.”
Councilmember Phil Bacerra said a higher pay would help get leadership in the city of more than 310,000 residents moved toward a living wage.
“One other statistic I’d like to throw out is that in California, fast food workers make two-and-a-half times more than we do today. They flip burgers, we deal with billion dollar budgets,” Bacerra said. “There’s a stark contrast there and a difference in pay.”
The proposed pay increase was linked to the salaries of OC Superior Court judges, Phan said, because those are set by the state. This way, it won’t become a political battle every election cycle, she added.
In Anaheim, Orange County’s largest city with 346,000 residents, councilmembers receive $18,000 per year, plus another $10,000 in benefits. In Orange County’s third largest city, Irvine, elected leaders make $10,560 per year with a majority of the councilmembers also receiving $8,580 for an auto allowance and more than $1,600 in pension benefits.
At the county level, members of the OC Board of Supervisors make about $184,000 annually.
On top of health and life insurance benefits, members of the Santa Ana City Council currently receive $1,000 a month for attending City Council meetings, a stipend of $50 per Housing Authority meeting, not to exceed four meetings a month, and a $500 monthly auto allowance.
City Council members also have the option of enrolling in the city’s CalPERS retirement plan or deferred compensation instead social security.
Louis DeSipio, professor of political science and Chicano/Latino studies at UC Irvine, said council members have many responsibilities, and limiting the pay range can also limit who can afford to serve in such positions at the local level and beyond. In the case of Santa Ana, for example, the City Council has been racially and ethnically diverse, but has lacked in professional or economic background diversity, he said.
“City councils nationwide, not just in California, serve as sort of the foundation for then moving on to other levels of elected office,” DeSipio said. “By creating a new sort of pathway or a new step on the ladder, if you will, that opens up the possibility that you’re going to see some greater professional experience diversity on the county council or in a state legislative position down the road.”
If approved by voters, the council would be paid at a higher rate than the average Santa Ana resident, but DeSipio said the role comes with many responsibilities.
“City councils are now responsible for a whole range of services, and in communities, you need people who can dedicate a good share of their workweek, if not their entire workweek, to those activities and to make sure that the city does its job well and that it doesn’t just rely on a hired city manager who may have no connections to the community and staff, people who may not even live in the community to make those decisions,” DeSipio said. “It’s the representatives of the voters that should be making key policy decisions in a community.”
Should Santa Ana councilmembers make $78,000 a year, more than the average Santa Ana resident? Should Santa Ana city leaders make more than any other city councilmember in Orange County? Daniel Schnur, who teaches politics and communications courses at UC Berkely and USC, said those are the challenges that those opposed to the pay increase can make to voters.
The strongest case that supporters of the ballot measure will be able to make, he said, is that it will open the door for a more diverse cohort of candidates to participate in the world of local government as an elected representative.
“There’s no question that a lot of good, capable people simply can’t afford to devote this amount of time in exchange for such a small level of compensation,” Schnur said. “You don’t want to see a council made up only of wealthy individuals who don’t need to worry about compensation. But selling a salary that is higher than the median income in the city is not going to be an easy task.”
Part of the reasoning behind the proposed ballot question, Phan said, is to get the salary to reflect a living wage for people putting in the time and effort to be on a council. On top of that, the bump could attract folks who might be interested in running for office but who might not be able to afford to.
“By bumping up the salary, we make it possible for people who have normal jobs and say, ‘I can do council. I can run for office and serve my community instead of this other thing,’ and not put a huge financial burden on their family because otherwise they just won’t do it,” Phan said.
The 2024-25 budget includes $84,000 for current council salaries. If the charter amendment is approved by voters, staff reported to the councilmembers that there is a sufficient source of revenues to fund the increased City Council compensation, which is expected to be about $233,436 for January through June 2025.
