Sacramento County retirement executive raises not needed

By now, most everybody’s heard about the hefty pay raises the board of the Sacramento County Employees’ Retirement System has approved for six of the county’s top executives. We’re talking 13 to 22 percent increases for people already making six-figure salaries: the retirement administrator, two investment officers, an operations officer, a benefits officer and the general counsel.

It doesn’t seem to matter that our county supervisors will likely vote not to approve the raises. SCERS seems determined to give them anyway. The organization may even sue the county so as to go forward with the plan.

This has got to be a joke. Somebody please remind SCERS that we’re staring down a $90 million deficit in Sacramento County, that we’re in the fourth consecutive year of layoffs, budget cuts and service reductions, that we’re still, generally speaking, in a recession.

Clearly, now is no time for pay hikes at the top. The fact that we’re even debating it illustrates a glaring need to continue the conversation that was begun last fall (thank you, Occupy movement) around basic income inequality.

In the case of the executive raises, Sacramento County Supervisor Phil Serna said it best: At a time of unprecedented budget austerity, pushing executive pay hikes “speak volumes about a lack of common sense.”

SCERS board members? It’s time to find some.