UPDATE: Downey Bumped Up: Supes Approve Sheriff-Coroner Pay Hike Unanimously

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Tucked away in the consent calendar for tomorrow’s Board of Supervisors meeting is an agenda item proposing a nearly $15,000 raise for Sheriff-Coroner (formerly just “Sheriff”) Mike Downey.

If approved, as consent calendar items nearly always are, the raise would bring Mike Downey’s base salary up to $163,968, making him the highest-paid elected official in the county. In addition, the sheriff’s generous benefits package, which amounted to over a third of his base salary in 2013, would rise accordingly.

The proposed pay hike comes after the consolidation, earlier this year, of the Sheriff’s Office and the then-independent Coroner’s Office. In his staff report to the board, County Administrative Officer Phillip Smith-Hanes writes that Downey requested the raise pursuant to a county policy document, the “Compensation Plan for Elected and Appointed Department Heads.” When a county department takes on additional duties, this document reads, the elected or appointed head of that department is entitled to a taste of the action.

Smith-Hanes said that he and the county’s human resources director looked over Downey’s request and decided that it should be granted:

This request was evaluated by the County Administrative Officer and the Human Resources Director and additional compensation of 10 percent is recommended for the combination of these two offices. To effectuate this, a resolution amending the compensation plan is necessary. Such a resolution is attached for the Board’s consideration.

Not counting the increase to his benefits package, Downey’s raise will up nearly 15 percent of the monthly $8,715 that the county paid to Coroner Dave Parris, whose position was eliminated after he retired and his former office absorbed into the Sheriff’s Office. Another 56 percent of Parris’ former salary was reallocated to pay for a sheriff’s deputy to fill his shoes. In addition to these expenditures, the Sheriff’s Office requested and received a one-time expenditure of $26,730 from the Board of Supervisors for training its staff to run a coroner’s office.

When consolidation was first being looked at, the county staff report said that “[r]eplacing the elected Coroner-Public Administrator with an experienced Sheriffs Lieutenant would save a minimum of $26,664 annually. “

But between replacing the coroner, paying for staff training and giving the sheriff the bump that the county says he’s due, it looks as though the savings – this year, anyway – will be just much closer to zero.

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