Measuring the council pay increase carefully

The Costa Mesa City Council essentially made an old and simple

argument last week: You get what you pay for.

In deciding to raise salaries for city employees (and, in 2006,

themselves), council members stressed that the city needs to offer

similar salaries as neighboring cities -- Newport Beach, Irvine and

Huntington Beach, in particular -- in order to get and keep talented

firefighters, police officers, planners and other workers.

That’s a difficult argument to counter. Who wouldn’t like to make

more money? And who thinks an associate-planner position that offers

about $67,000 a year (the new top pay for the position in Costa Mesa)

would not get better, and more, candidates than one that pays about

$50,000 (the new bottom pay for that job)?

The trouble, of course, is that the money the council agreed to

hand out -- the first increase is retroactive to Sept. 1, except for

firefighters who will receive theirs retroactively to July 1, and

will cost about $3.3 million -- is the taxpayers’. And the city, like

others across the state, is not in the fattest, easiest financial

times. To pay for the raise, in fact, the city had to move about $1.9

million from the general fund. That is a number that raises concerns.

Or so you would think. Residents, even the usual council

watchdogs, have been surprisingly silent following the decision. That

silence speaks volumes. Perhaps even the most ardent City Hall

critics recognize that after three years, city workers do deserve a

raise.

Yes, it has been three years since city employees received a boost

in pay. And that delay -- though probably painful for them -- is a

strong reason not to worry about rampant city spending. Costa Mesa

has been careful with its money, especially during the past few

years, when the economy has been especially slack. If City Manager

Allan Roeder and his top lieutenants believe this spending is

absolutely necessary, they have earned residents’ trust that it is

so.

They will have to maintain that trust now by keeping the city’s

budget balanced and strong as the raises continue during the next

three years.