Johnson urges rejection of city employee pay raise

By Ben van der Meer, PolitickerCA.com

With the Sacramento City Council set to vote tonight on whether to give a 4 percent raise to three of its executive employees, mayoral candidate Kevin Johnson said doing so now would be the wrong move, as the city's budget hurting is in other areas.

"The Mayor has ordered fire stations closed, state workers are being faced with the threat of being paid the minimum wage, and unemployment is reaching record highs," Johnson said in a statement.

The positions that would be affected by the move are the city manager, city attorney and city clerk. Mayor Heather Fargo, Johnson's Nov. 4 opponent, said last week that those employees are due for a regular raise after two employee groups, rank-and-file workers represented by unions and similar workers who are not, received raises of similar size earlier this year.

She pointed out then that even with the pay increases, those three employees would still receive less than colleagues in the same position in neighboring cities such as Roseville and Elk Grove.

Johnson said worker pay raises should come after bigger priorities, such as keeping Sacramento firehouses open.