The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a process that will allow them to approve their own raises.
In a 3-2 vote, the board agreed to move away from a formula tying supervisors’ salaries to Superior Court judges, opening the door to a compensation system based on local economic conditions and county employee pay.
Supervisors Manu Koenig and Kim De Serpa dissented.
The proposal, brought forward by Supervisor Justin Cummings, does not give supervisors a raise.
Instead, it directs the county Human Resources Department to return Aug. 25 with a salary recommendation based on factors including inflation, the Consumer Price Index, compensation at comparable public agencies and county employee compensation trends.
Since 2021, supervisors’ salaries have been set at 62% of a Superior Court judge’s salary. The percentage reflected the relationship between the two salaries at the time: supervisors earned $134,698 annually compared with $214,601 for judges.
The arrangement was intended to provide an outside benchmark for supervisors’ compensation rather than leaving board members to determine their own raises. But it was itself a return to an older county practice.
Supervisor pay had historically been linked to judicial salary increases until the board eliminated that connection in 1997 amid significant budget constraints. For more than two decades afterward, salary recommendations instead considered factors such as the CPI, compensation at other public agencies and agreements with county labor groups. The board restored the judicial connection in 2021.
Cummings said Tuesday that the current system does not adequately reflect economic conditions in Santa Cruz County.
“It just struck me that what we try to do as a board is when we’re considering salaries for our employees, we’re taking into account Consumer Price Index, cost of living, cost of housing, compaction, all these different factors that are relevant to where we are,” Cummings said.
Cummings said he began reconsidering the system after supervisors received a 2.6% increase last year while most county employees received increases of 4% or more. Judges received no increase this year, meaning supervisors would receive none under the existing formula.
“And I just didn’t think that was fair,” Cummings said.
Critics questioned the timing. Last week, supervisors approved placing a half-cent sales tax measure on the November ballot for purchases in unincorporated Santa Cruz County amid the county’s financial difficulties.
Aptos resident Becky Steinbruner said the change could send the wrong message.
“I think the optics are not good to do this right now,” she said.
Koenig said he supports higher compensation for supervisors but argued that the judges formula was specifically designed to depoliticize the process.
“We shouldn’t be creating a new process to give ourselves a raise,” Koenig said. “We could be looking at cuts and layoffs and furloughs in the future. This is just super bad timing.”
Any raise would require another amendment to county law, including two public agenda discussions, and would not take effect until 61 days after final approval.
