EDITORIAL:Three salaries under scrutiny

Wouldn’t it be great if your annual salary review went something like this:

You: Hey, boss, remember when you asked me to find out what other people in my job were making at similar companies?

Boss: Huh?

You: Anyway, here’s the list. Now, you could give me a 36% raise, a 25% raise or a 12% raise. Just to show you I’m not greedy, I’ll pick the 25% raise. Whattya’ say?

Sounds farfetched, doesn’t it? You can almost imagine hearing the boss laugh you out of his office, can’t you?

Well, in Huntington Beach that’s pretty much how it was done this month when it came time to figure salary increases for the city’s clerk, attorney and treasurer.

OK, so it wasn’t like Cubs pitcher Carlos Zambrano getting to ask an arbitrator for $15.5 million this season while the Tribune Co. counters with $11.025 million. Hey, it’s tough work, but somebody’s gotta’ do it.

Bad as it sounds to all you working stiffs making the $7.50 minimum wage, City Council members took a big step this year reforming the salary review. From now on, the reviews will be partly merit-based.

And in all fairness, city officials found themselves in a bit of a pickle. Unlike many other cities, the clerk, treasurer and attorney are hired by the voters, not the City Council. So how do you compensate them?

City Council members decided to consider their salaries as they would the nonelected department heads. And they had a consultant figure how those clerks, treasurers and attorneys in other cities are paid. That makes sense for the nonelected department heads when you compete with those cities for the same talent.

But since the voters insist on electing their clerk, treasurer and attorney, wouldn’t it also be nice if they could set their salaries?

Can you imagine City Atty. Jennifer McGrath asking voters for a salary bump to $202,363 when the state’s top attorney makes $175,525 annually and the governor $206,500?

We couldn’t either.