Milpitas is home to not only some of the most highly paid and compensated government employees in California, but also to the highest-paid city worker in 2015 out of 250,000 city government workers statewide, according to data released by a Nevada-based nonprofit.
Milpitas fire inspector Don Yamashita, who retired in 2015 after more than 20 years, was named as the highest paid city worker in the state, raking in around $541,600 last year, more than 60 percent of which ($327,834) was “other pay,” according to payroll information Transparent California obtained from the City of Milpitas.
Reggie Sutton, Milpitas fire union president, said Yamashita and Bill Yamada — a Milpitas firefighter who also retired in 2015 and was the second highest paid Milpitas employee in 2015 with a total compensation of $428,130, a little over half of which was “other pay” — had high compensation packages last year because they had cashed out their sick leave, vacation time and retirement plans after more than 20 years on the job.
In past years, according to city payroll information obtained by this newspaper, Milpitas Fire Department accumulated the most “other pay” through overtime and incentive pay — an average of $25,000 in 2008 for fire employees for example — compared to other city departments. Typically, Milpitas Police Department comes in second — about $10,000 less on average — for those pay add-ons.
This week, Milpitas City Manager Tom Williams said high compensation packages such as Yamashita’s was common for city employees, especially public safety employees, who had been with the city for about 20 years. Another recent example in 2012, was Battalion Chief Scott Brown, who retired after 30 years on the job and collected more than $461,000.
Furthermore, Williams admitted Milpitas’ police and fire employees were paid in the upper echelon of compensation packages compared to other cities and even other city departments here, but stressed that “you get what you pay for,” citing low crime rates and low turnover rates in employment here.
Additionally, according to the data released by Transparent California, a survey of 95 Bay Area cities, excluding the City and County of San Francisco, saw the average full-time, year-round government employee receive $157,498 in total compensation (salary, health benefits and retirement costs).
In Milpitas, the average compensation was $187, 597, the second highest in the state out of 391 cities surveyed. The City of Industry in Southern California, with 33 employees, came in first with $189,302.
After Milpitas, the next five cities with the highest compensation packages for full-time employees in the state were from the Bay Area: Redwood City, $186,118; Corte Madera, $183,750; Atherton, $181,170; San Jose, $180,723; and Santa Clara at $179,333, according to Transparent California.
Robert Fellner, research director with Transparent California, said total employee compensation for all 95 Bay Area cities surveyed increased 9.5 percent compared to 2014, with Milpitas seeing a 7-percent increase and Fremont seeing an 11-percent increase in compensation, compared to a statewide increase of 4 percent.
In response to this payroll disclosure, Milpitas Mayor Jose Esteves said it was important to keep salaries and compensation packages competitive due to the high cost of living in the Bay Area and also to retain the best employees.
“Salaries should be competitive and comparable, it could be high, but other cities are also high, it is the best option to keep our employees, we have to compete with neighboring areas, so I do my best to keep them not too high and not too low,” Esteves said.
Fellner, however, asserted the cost living in Milpitas or other parts of the state was not the main reason for such high compensation packages. Instead, he said the increase of pension and health care costs were longstanding issues — the former of which was typically approved by city councils in California 20 years ago.
“Taxpayers pay for it, they have a right to know the total cost,” Fellner said. “It’s flown under the radar for so long and pension costs keep going up and up and it costs the city money.”
He added even if there was a pay freeze for city employees compensation costs for those same city workers would continue to rise because of pension and health care costs.
“The public sector union is the culprit, they have tremendous power … they are able to get all these rich, backend benefits that are largely hidden and the costs are defrayed to the future, a lot of the costs today are because of what happened 20 years ago,” Fellner said.
He noted that it was important for cities to not only compare compensation ranges to other similar cities but also for non-public service positions to compare it to the market range in the corporate world for a similar position. For public safety positions, Fellner said compensation ranges should be compared to similar state and national law enforcement agencies and departments.
“They say ‘we want to attract and retain a high-quality work force,’ but at the expense of other people,” Fellner said. He further urged elected officials to be more “fiscally responsible with taxpayer funds.”
According to its website, Transparent California is a public service provided by the Las Vegas-based Nevada Policy Research Institute, a think tank. The group’s website also says it “is dedicated to providing accurate, comprehensive and easily searchable information on the compensation of public employees in California.”
To view the salary and compensation numbers attained by Transparent California visit transparentcalifornia.com.
Contact Aliyah Mohammed at amohammed@bayareanewsgroup.com or 408-262-2454 or follow her on twitter.com/Aliyah_JM. Visit us on our social media sites at facebook.com/MilpitasPost and twitter.com/MilpitasPost.