Posted on 09/01/2007 7:25:07 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday handed out hefty pay raises to 11 of his closest advisers, including a $32,000 boost to Chief of Staff Susan Kennedy.
Kennedy remains the highest paid member of the governor's inner circle, although some of his cabinet secretaries make more. With the latest raise, Kennedy's taxpayer-funded salary will be $175,000 a year.
The other 10, including Deputy Chief of Staff Adam Mendelsohn and Daniel Zingale, chief of staff to first lady Maria Shriver, will see their salaries increase 11 percent to $147,900.
The pay raises come a week after Schwarzenegger signed a $145.5 billion state budget for the current fiscal year temporarily balancing it by cutting $703 million from mental health programs for the homeless, state parks and medical services for the poor.
California also faces a projected $5 billion deficit for next fiscal year and falling tax revenue, caused in part by the depressed housing market.
Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear said the higher compensation is critical if the governor's office is to attract and retain the best and brightest.
McLear stressed that the raises are not an effort to compete with private-sector wages but rather a way to give important state workers comparable pay to what some cities and counties in the state can offer.
"It's tough to compare California to other states; it's expensive," McLear said. "These raises are going to valuable employees to the governor who work all hours of the day, nights and weekends, and do a great service to the state of California."
The pay boosts, however, give Schwarzenegger one of the highest-paid political entourages in the country. Kennedy's 23 percent raise gives her a salary higher than President Bush's chief of staff or any other White House adviser.
In addition to Mendelsohn and Zingale, others receiving the raises are Schwarzenegger's deputy chiefs of staff, Will Fox, Ross LaJeunesse, Chris Kahn, Dan Dunmoyer and Cynthia Bryant, Legal Affairs Secretary Andrea Hoch, Appointments Secretary John Cruz and Judicial Appointments Secretary Sharon Majors-Lewis.
The governor's office announced the raises late Friday afternoon, just before the start of the holiday weekend.
The boost for Mendelsohn, who also is the governor's communications director, is typical of those closest to Schwarzenegger.
Mendelsohn's salary of $133,728 already was 22 percent higher than that of his predecessor in the administration of former Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat. That highlights a trend in the governor's office.
In the nearly four years since he was elected in the recall, Schwarzenegger has boosted the average pay of governor's office employees 58 percent.
He also has more than quadrupled the size of his highly paid inner circle of advisers and senior assistants. Thirty six senior Schwarzenegger staffers now make more than $100,000 annually. That's up from eight under Davis.
The governor's office says part of that increase is because Schwarzenegger has been more open than his predecessors about how his office spends money. In 2004, Schwarzenegger dramatically expanded the governor's office budget to add 100 workers he said had been doing gubernatorial work but were counted under the budgets of other state agencies.
Being truthful about the number of people working for the governor has accounted for a lot of his office's increased costs, his staff says.
Nonetheless, it has contributed to a sizable jump in the governor's office budget under Schwarzenegger.
Under the spending plan Schwarzenegger signed last week, his office will spend nearly $19.7 million during the 2007-08 fiscal year. Most of that $16.3 million will go for salaries and benefits.
For comparison, Davis spent $3.5 million on governor's office salaries and benefits the last year he was in office in 2003.
McLear said the governor's office will cover the latest round of raises by leaving some existing vacancies in the governor's office open and cutting supplies and other office expenses.
The governor's office did receive a $1 million increase under the new budget, but McLear said that money was going for an overhaul of the information technology system and would not be used for the raises.
Many of Schwarzenegger's top aides also supplemented their state salaries by working on his re-election last year and receiving bonuses from his campaign.
Mendelsohn received more than $87,000 in campaign money. Kennedy collected an additional $200,000, most of which came while she worked simultaneously on the campaign and as Schwarzenegger's chief of staff.
Schwarzenegger was allowed to grant the latest pay increases because of a bill the Legislature approved last year that gave substantial raises to 50 agency secretaries and department heads. That included a $225,000 salary for James Tilton, the head of California's troubled prison system.
Under the law, Schwarzenegger is allowed to pay his own staff the same as department heads, and one aide as much as the highest paid cabinet secretary. That means Kennedy's raise may not be her last.
The governor's salary is set at $206,500 a year, but Schwarzenegger declines it.
Red Arnold, the Austrian Socialist, what a joke. On us.
Regards
Red Arnold, the Austrian Socialist, what a joke. On us.
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Is he really any different than Gray Davis??? Not much.
Other than the drivers licenses for illegals Arnolds worse.
Regards
Schwartzekennedy
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Kennedy a relative of Ahhhhnolds?
“Fiscal Conservatism” on full display.
CA: Bosses could get big raises - Governor says law's only beneficiary may be the prisons chief
Sac Bee ^ | 9/14/06 | John Hill
Posted on 09/14/2006 10:19:48 AM PDT by NormsRevengeGov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill Wednesday that includes a provision added in the waning days of the legislative session allowing his administration to nearly double the pay of 50 top state bosses.
Under Assembly Bill 2936, the workers -- mostly heads of agencies and departments -- could get as much as 125 percent of the governor's salary, although the governor says he intends to extend the raise to only one or two officials.
He lied.
What a shock, huh?
I thought they just got raises..
They are getting a pretty penny, that’s for sure.
Most of the past articles are keyworded under “pay hike.”
At some point, we need to ask is the investment of tax dollars worth the output.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Not this particular one. He is married to Teddy's niece, Maria Shriver. The Kennedy who is his Chief of Staff is formerly one of the top Democrat-ick party operatives in CA. There was quite a kerfluffle when Arnold hired an "enemy" into his inner circle, but the (now zotted) Arnold apologists on FR seemed to think it was just hunky dory.
Yeah, I remember when he hired her, but I couldn't remember if she was related or not. Still, she is a dem and now the highest paid person in his inner circle. Good old Ahhhhnold, what a disaster he is.
Susan Kennedy's partisan affiliation is the least of California's woes. There isn't a single aspect of this gal's public or private life that isn't an anathema to political conservatives, traditional Republicans or Christian dogma (Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant).
I’m so glad Californians voted for a fiscal conservative for governor. /sarcasm
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