Sacramento Co. supervisors vote to give themselves a significant raise

The Sacramento County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to give themselves a 36% raise. Only Sue

Frost voted against the move, which was one of more than 50 items on the consent calendar and thus did not involve any public discussion.

In the next fiscal year, the county said in documents attached to the meeting agenda that it will spend $173,296 more on supervisors’ salaries. Each supervisor will make $173,00 a year — a 36% increase from their previous $127,000 salaries. The raise will be retroactive to February.

When an item is on the board’s consent calendar, it does not automatically get discussed at the meeting; supervisors vote on consent items in a block, usually approving multiple decisions at once.

While no supervisor spoke about their salaries at the Tuesday meeting, Frost singled out the matter for comment on April 18. It was on the consent calendar at that meeting as well.

Frost said she had “gone back and forth” on whether to support the item. Being a supervisor, she said, is “a big job,” and members had not reviewed their salary index in many years.

Still, she said, she couldn’t approve her own raise given the state of average people in the county.

“There’s a part of me that wants to support this item, but I’m just not gonna be able to, because I think given the fact that many of my constituents are suffering from increased inflation and increased prices, it’s difficult to give myself a raise at the same time others are suffering. So I’m gonna go on record as a ‘no’ vote.”

According to the U.S. Census, 13% of people in the county live below the poverty threshold, which, at the time of its survey, meant that a family of three would be living on $21,559 a year.