The intent of Measure E is to limit the total compensation of the City Manager and all of his/her direct reports using a 2.5 factor of the Murrieta median income.
As defined in Measure E, compensation includes wages and benefits, with benefits being retirement, health coverage, personal allowances (cell phone and vehicle), professional organization memberships (referred to as “clubs” in the initiative) and any other form of current or deferred income, (incentives, bonuses, retirement).
Total compensation consists of 2 separate components, wages and benefits. Wages are set based on position value and employee expertise. Benefits are set based, in part, on actual costs (health, personal allowances), with retirement benefits set based on industry standard (private side), or by contract (public employee unions).
Measure E lumps these 2 components together, which is the crux to the problem.
The Murrieta CM wage is consistent with market value (see below) and should not be monkeyed with, somewhat like throwing the baby out with the bath water.
The real problem is on the benefits side, more particularly retirement schedules. For Riverside and San Bernardino Counties, the average public employer paid retirement benefit is +/- 14.5% of the employee wage.
Every government entity in the State has lost control of the employee retirement benefits, or better said…lost control of it years ago. Unless the voters of the entire State rectify the problem, every government entity will in time go broke.
The message here is that it can’t be said loud enough, the problem can’t be fixed in Murrieta and it can’t be fixed with Measure E.
In the spreadsheet below, many facts are revealed.
• As already known, retirement benefits are way out of line.
• Murrieta’s CM wage is perfectly aligned with the area median value and supports the fact the wage is consistent with the market rate. Any wage below the median will only result in the current CM abandoning the position and lower qualified applicants for the next City Manager.
• If the initiative passes in Murrieta and is pushed into other cities, the result will be near catastrophic for some of those cities.
Does Measure E fix the problem?
vote NO on Measure E
then vote NO on Measures C and D
then vote NO on Measures C and D
(rt. click on image to open in a new window)
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