Trustees set to nearly double their monthly stipend

I was perusing the agenda for Friday's meeting of the SOCCCD board of trustees, and I noticed agenda item 6.6.

Essentially, the board will consider increasing trustee pay from $4,800 (per year) to $9,000. (That is the proposed change. It is presented as an increase in monthly pay from $400 to $750, but do the math.)

You can see for yourself: p. 223 of the agenda (a mammoth pdf file).

Predictably enough, trustees have made a point of noisily empathizing with the plight of the poor student and taxpayer during these difficult financial times. For instance, both student government entities were recently told to go back to the drawing board after they presented their budgets—trustees complained that at times like these student government should be giving back more to students, keeping less, etc. They did a lot of "tsk, tsk, tsking."


So what’s with this nearly doubling of their own pay? At the very least, it's bad timing.

THEY'RE PAID FOR NON-ATTENDANCE:

If you pay attention to board agendas, then you will know that the SOCCCD board routinely votes to grant pay to trustees who miss meetings, as per board policy 164 (they've got to take a special vote for this). Nobody's ever made a stink about that. Not sure why. (See item 5.10 of Friday's agenda.)

JOHN WILLIAMS COST THE DISTRICT $38,000

While we’re on the subject of money and trustees, I should mention agenda item 7.4 of Friday's meeting. It is a report, requested by trustee Nancy Padberg, on trustee expenses.

Trustee John Williams, of course, isn't only a trustee: by day, he is our county’s Public Administrator, and, for a while, Padberg was one of his underlings. You'll recall that he fired her two or three years ago.

Especially since her firing, Padberg has attempted to lay bare Williams' bold junketeering ways—and his habit of getting the district to pay for trips to Orlando, where his brother lives, I’m told. (Conveniently, Orlando is the site of some trustee "conferences," although, as Nancy has noted, similar conferences occur close to home. Williams doesn’t seem interested in those.)

If you go to page 303 of the agenda (See that enormous pdf file), you'll find a breakdown of trustee expenses over the last year. Five of the trustees hover around $23,000, although Milchiker is at $27,000.

John Williams is the real standout: $38,000.

The district spends $7k a year just for lodging for the fellow.

If you look at p. 304 of the agenda, you'll find that two of the conferences that Williams has attended (within the last year) have been in Florida. One was in Palm Springs.

His lodging bill there was about $1500. Seems kinda high to me.

You gotta love these fiscal conservatives.

SEE ALSO:

• Padberg: closing in on “junket” abuse? (Feb. 7, 2006)
• WHAT'S WITH TRUSTEE PADBERG? (Nov. 6, 2005)