MONTEREY, Calif.- Central Coast News is making a commitment to you to go to as many cities as possible to find out how much their leaders are making.
We started making requests for city salaries last week. Tuesday, we found out what top city officials make in Monterey and how much it's costing you.
Today 30,000 people call Monterey home year round, but that number doubles during peak seasons. So, when the city considers its population to comparable cities for salaries, it thinks 60,000.
"Salaries have changed little over the years, no cost of living increases, in general salaries have been flat for the last 3 or 4 years," said assistant city manager Fred Cohn.
We'll use Monterey Police Chief Tim Shelby as an example of the three part system the city uses to get their numbers. Shelby makes $170, 472 before benefits; after, it's $215,236.
"The police chief is like other positions we look at the market, we compare it to what other people are making below him, and what other department heads are making because he is one," said Cohn.
In Monterey they are known as the Freds, Fred Cohn makes $220,577 benefits included. According to the pay schedule he falls below his boss, city manager Fred Mueuer who makes $245, 992 after benefits to run a 100 million dollar budget for Monterey.
"City manager salary is a topic being talked about up and down California, if you look at that salary and compare to CEO's in a 100 million dollar private corporation, I think it'll be higher."
So we checked. CHOMP CEP Steven Packer makes $550,000. In 2008, Monterey Bay Aquarium executive director Julie Packard made $222,975.
Cohn says unlike Bell, he doesn't think the attorney general will be knocking down Monterey's door anytime soon.
"We're pretty open about our salaries, we've put salary schedules online since we started online," said Cohn.
