Santa Ana to pay new city manager more than $500,000 annually

http://www.latimes.com ^ | August 7, 2013 | Paloma Esquivel

[lowbridge]

Santa Ana has hired away Phoenix's city manager and has agreed to an annual salary and benefits package of more than half a million dollars, instantly making him one of the highest paid city employees in California.

David Cavazos, a longtime Phoenix employee who rose through the ranks from intern to city manager during his 26-year tenure, would have a total compensation package of $558,625 in his first year in Santa Ana.

Only the city manager in tiny Indian Wells is listed as having a higher salary and benefits package at $677,172, according to the state controller's office, which most recently released data for 2011. That paycheck included a severance payout to the city manager, who was stepping down .

In Santa Ana, Cavazos will earn a base salary of $315,000, the same basic salary he made as the chief executive in Phoenix, which has a population of 1.47 million. Santa Ana has a population of about 330,000.

With benefits, the city expects to pay Cavazos $558,625 in the first year of his contract, with the figure dropping to $515,000 in his second and third year, according to a report prepared for the City Council.

[BipolarBob]

I’d hate to be a minimum wage earner paying for that. It’d sorta p*** me off.

[boop]

Amazing. Being paid as much as a major league baseball player.

What do I need to study to become a city manager?

Obviously difficult, because the President makes MUCH less than that.

I guess running a city is much more difficult than running a country.

Although Obama would have no idea about that.

[Gay State Conservative]

The President of the United States makes less.Although Santa Ana's armed forces play a greater role in ensuring world peace so maybe it's appropriate.

[TheDon]

Ridiculous. The American version of the French Revolution is coming....

[CivilWarBrewing]

Just think of it as ‘redistribution of wealth to Mexico’. What a joke. This country’s last leg is buckling. Get ready for trouble.

[NautiNurse]

Santa Ana population is 330,000. Census figures indicate 31% of the population under the age of 18. 7% 65+ years of age.

[Regulator]

Just think of it as ‘redistribution of wealth to Mexico’

Most people here don't realize that Santa Ana is illegal alien central and that Cavazos is an ethnic hire choice.

[CivilWarBrewing]

I believe that Santa Ana, CA has one of the highest illegal alien populations in the country, estimated at over 75% last time I checked. Think of all the votes the Dem party gets from that town. LOL

[KC Burke]

This doesn’t tell half the story.

He had just renegotiated a new salary with a big boost with his last city and once that was in place, announced he was retiring from the city that he had been with for so long and taking another full time job.

He had participated in setting up a big city pension program that was based on — you guessed it — the employee’s final rate of pay. Therefore he added 50% to the pension he was getting all the time planning to leave and take the increased pension and a windfall double dip with his new city wanting a rock star administrator.

Its a scam and we are footing the bill.

[Regulator]

PS, for those who think there's something "natural" about Phoenix, Arizona being managed by this guy because he's ethnically Mexican, here's a picture of the founder of Phoenix:

Jack Swilling was a Confederate and a Union Army soldier, a wild character with a shrewd business sense who saw the Salt River valley for what it could be, and that was in the 1870's.

All there was in the valley for the previous 370 years of Spanish territorial claim was...a few Pima tribal settelments.

The Spaniards, and later Mexicans, never did anything with that part of Arizona.

An enterprising Southerner did.

So Sr. Cavazos can go collect his Mordida in Santa Ana, and maybe have lots of little parades with him at the head, but his ethnicity had very little to do with making the Arizona desert the oasis it is now.

[Regulator]

Its a scam

Honed to perfection in Los Estados de Mexico.

And now brought to the U.S. Big Time.

Recall the city of Bell, CA and what happened there just a few years ago.

[KC Burke]

The guy came to phoenix from Pennsylvania so I doubt his last name was little more than convenient.

Its more that a 25 year employee knew he had spent 4 years in the top job and Phoenix had a surplus. He went for a 78k raise and then used that to boost his set up average cost for his pension.

[RetiredTexasVet]

It’s Californicate and they can afford it. If burger flippers should be paid $15 per hour a city manage should get at least a cool half mil.