Pay raise for top county executive brings annual salary to $315,000

STOCKTON — San Joaquin County’s top administrator received a 12 percent pay raise Tuesday that will increase her annual base salary to $315,000.

Monica Nino, who became county administrator in 2013 after serving in the same capacity in Stanislaus County, will be eligible for two more pay raises over the course of the new fiveyear agreement if she meets certain standards.

Those additional 3 percent raises could boost her base pay to $334,183 by the year 2021.

County supervisors, who approved the new contract Tuesday, unanimously praised Nino’s performance. As administrator, she oversees a $1.6 billion budget and more than 7,000 county employees.

“Certainly I think all of the board members are concerned about taxpayer dollars, but I would say it’s important that the person who runs the ship on a day-to-day basis is capable of doing their job. And she’s more than capable,” Supervisor Chuck Winn said.

Nino earned a base salary of $244,000 when she first started with the county four years ago. In 2016 she earned about $266,000 in base pay and $327,000 in total wages, according to public employee salary information posted by the state Controller’s Office.

Though she occupies the county’s top post, Nino is not its highest-paid employee. Some physicians at San Joaquin General Hospital earn a base salary of more than $300,000 or $400,000 per year.

To qualify for the additional 3 percent raises, Nino has to meet certain goals including keeping a balanced budget and working on the county’s unfunded pension liability, while also agreeing with labor groups on new contracts and achieving greater transparency and accuracy of hospital finances, among other goals.

While praising her performance, Supervisor Tom Patti expressed concern about the potential subsequent pay raises. “That 3 percent is a precedent that doesn’t seem to have been done in our past history,” he said.

But Supervisor Kathy Miller said that because the additional pay increases are tied to Nino’s goals, she was “fine with it.”

“There’s a lot of chief executives, they’re not comfortable accepting any performance measures,” Miller told Nino during Tuesday’s meeting. “They think they’re sort of past that. I appreciate the fact that you are not.”

Supervisors approved the pay raise by a 5-0 vote.