Pay Hike for Tollway Executives Rejected

SANTA ANA — A proposal to increase salary ranges for top executives of the Transportation Corridor Agencies was turned down for the second time in a month by the TCA’s Budget and Finance Committee on Thursday.

“You don’t increase salary ranges when you’re performing at 51% below projections,” said committee member Christina Shea, referring to the San Joaquin Hills toll road. “I cannot support these upper-end salary ranges.”

Committee member Pat Bates agreed. “I believe the salary schedules [for the upper levels] got out of whack way back when. We have to deal with the public perception that we have too many managers making too much money.”

The committee did approve recommended salary-range increases for its lower-level employees, whose potential incomes now range from $19,681 to $63,493 a year. Under the recommendation, the salaries of those employees would range from $22,300 to $80,000.

“I think the staff deserves this,” committee chairman Joel Lautenschleger said.

The recommendations are scheduled to be discussed by the TCA’s full board of directors next week.

The proposal to raise upper-level salaries first ran into trouble last month when the budget committee kicked the idea back to the agency’s Joint Administration Committee after complaining that the ranges were too high. Those ranges were significantly pared but not enough for the budget-crunchers.

“I’m a little disappointed with their decision,” said Mike Ward, chairman of the committee that had made the original recommendations. “If the lower grades are all right, what’s the matter with the upper grades?”

The recommendations tabled by the budget committee Tuesday would institute annual salaries among upper-level employees ranging from $63,900 for the lowest-paid environmental analyst to $160,000 for the chief financial officer or chief engineer. The current range for upper-level employees--which includes managers, directors and the controller--is $43,563 to $116,208.

The agency’s highest paid employee, Chief Executive Officer William Woollett, is compensated under a separate contract and receives about $142,000 a year.