CARLSBAD’S SINGLE BALLOT MEASURE WOULD CODIFY WAY FOR COUNCIL RAISES

Voter approval would confirm procedure approved in 2018

Carlsbad voters will have only one city measure on their ballot that, if approved, will confirm procedures adopted in 2018 for approving increases to the City Council’s base salary.

Measure G specifies that the council can increase its compensation once annually in January up to the amount established by the San Diego Regional Consumer Price Index, or the council can waive any adjustment for the upcoming year.

The measure also makes it a requirement that the council approve or waive any adjustment each January, which it has not required previously, and would prohibit the council from enacting retroactive adjustments for any previous year that were waived.

“Measure G is a model for good governance because it keeps focus on public service, rather than on compensation,” states the argument in favor of the measures, signed by former council members Ann

Kulchin, Julianne Nygaard, Mark Packard and Michael Schumacher, and council candidate Phil Urbina.

No argument against the measure was submitted.

The Carlsbad mayor and City Council jobs are considered part time. Their last pay increase was in 2015, which was their first since 2009, when they set the council members’ salaries at $24,626 a year and the mayor’s at $26,399.

They also get a car allowance of $450 monthly for the mayor, $350 monthly for council members, and an additional $75 for each Community Development Commission meeting they attend (up to $150 a month) and $100 for each Carlsbad Water District board meeting (maximum $300 per month).

Council members agreed unanimously in July to waive any pay increase this year and to place the measure on the ballot to tighten controls on any future increases. If approved by voters in November, any future changes would also have to go on the ballot.

The council approved an ordinance in 2018 that reduced the then-maximum increase of 5 percent annually to equal the local consumer price index, which is about 3 percent. They also included the specification that the proposed increase would be considered each January and either adopted or waived, and that future raises could not be retroactive, but the issue was not discussed again until July.

Councilman Keith Blackburn said in July it was difficult for the council to give itself a raise, but that he probably would have approved one this year were it not for the economic stress the city has felt from the COVID-19 crisis.

San Diego, population 1.5 million, and Chula Vista, population 272,000, are the only cities in the county where city council service is considered a full-time job. San Diego council members receive a salary of about $75,000, and they rejected a proposed pay increase in 2018. The Chula Vista council approved an increase last year that placed the annual base salary of council members at $54,300 and the mayor at $135,800.

Oceanside, which is the county’s third-largest city after Chula Vista, has close to 180,000 people and pays its council members an annual salary of $33,993 for working 20 hours a week.

Del Mar, the smallest incorporated city in the county with about 4,300 residents, pays council members $300 a month and the mayor $350 a month.