(Sept. 17, 2002) -- In a Sept. 13 memo to the Mayor and City Councilmembers, City Hall CFO/Dir. of Financial Management Robert Torrez compares the management salaries adopted by the City Council (in Sept. 2001) for FY 02 (period ending Sept. 30 '02) with the current salary of each managerial incumbents. The memo details the dollar difference and percentage difference (usually, though not always, increases.)

The memo lists the data in two attachments (also posted below). Attachment A lists all City Manager department management positions; Attachment B lists all other department management positions (Attachment B).

The memo, requested by Vice Mayor Frank Colonna, is an unspoken response to a perspective and analysis piece in the August 27-Sept. 9 Long Beach Business Journal by publisher George Economides criticizing City Hall's ballooning "$100,000 club," the number of six figure City Hall management salaries.

"A year ago it stood at 112 employees, now there are 159," Mr. Economides' wrote and, as in past years, criticized raises awarded during the budget year...where they then appear as "current" salaries for the next budget year.

Mr. Economides' annual article got traction this year after city management proposed a FY 03 budget balanced using one-time revenue sources to cover a $46 million gap between continued Council spending (after Sept. 11) and City Hall revenue. Mr. Taboada and Mr. Torrez had repeatedly and publicly warned the City Council -- in writing -- of the red ink months ago (as reported by LBReport.com). Their warnings produced no visible Council response at the time.

After Mr. Economides' piece ran, Press-Telegram columnist Tom Hennessy cited it as one his reasons for urging Mr. Taboada to step down or be fired. The City Council dismissed Mr. Taboada in a closed door session on Sept. 4 (effective Oct. 4) but cited no specific reason publicly.

Mr. Torrez's memo says the "total of all City Manager department manager salary changes is $397,873, a 1.76% increase over the budgeted salaries of $22.5 million." His memo estimates this amounts to roughly 2.74% of the proposed General Fund FY 03 budget.

Although the proposed FY 03 General Fund budget is $368 million (and $22.5 million would be just over 6%), Mr. Torrez's memo qualifies his 2.74% figure by noting salary increases cross all funds and only roughly half of total salaries are budgeted in the General Fund because some costs are reallocated to other funds through a cost allocation process.

Concerning non-City Manager department manager salary changes (which include elected positions), the increase in the proposed FY 03 budget is $212,947 or a 3.25% increase over the FY 02 budget. Non-City Manager salaries totaled roughly $6.5 million in FY 02 (now ending) and $6.7 million for FY 03 (proposed).

And we add this caveat: Mr. Torrez's memo sometimes refers to management salaries as a percentage "of the total FY 03 City budget." This is accurate...but the percentage of management salaries would be larger if sorted to compare them to budgets for general fund services (like police, fire, libraries, public works) provided by most other cities which, unlike LB, don't have a port, an airport, and oil and tidelands revenue properties.

The "total city FY 03" proposed budget, which includes Harbor, Airport, Tidelands, Gas, Oil, Water and other funds plus the General Fund, totals roughly $1.7 billion.