Area’s special districts offer generous pay and benefits, Modesto Bee analysis shows

Special districts in this region, many providing water services, pay generous salaries and benefits compared to other government jobs throughout California, a Modesto Bee analysis finds.

The Modesto and Turlock irrigation districts, which also sell retail electricity, provide especially attractive health and retirement benefits amounting to more than a third of total compensation, according to 2013 data recently made available by the California State Controller’s Office.

While city and county workers throughout the state averaged $61,546 and $59,322 in annual wages, respectively, average pay at MID and TID came to $83,440 and $73,605.

Their general managers – Roger VanHoy at MID and TID’s Casey Hashimoto – are among the best-paid government executives in the area, earning $345,467 and $294,177, respectively, in combined salary and benefits. By comparison, the cities of Modesto and Turlock in 2013 paid their city managers – respectively, Greg Nyhoff, who has since moved on, and Roy Wasden – $243,091 and $281,175 in pay and benefits.

Special districts provide focused services such as water, sewer, pest control and fire safety, and are separate from city, county, state and school governments.

As prolonged drought focuses attention on water policy, nine of the top 10 highest-paying special districts in Merced County are water-related, as are five of the top 10 in Stanislaus and four in San Joaquin County.

Topping Stanislaus’ list is the Stanislaus Consolidated Fire Protection District, with an average yearly wage of $90,854. Its benefits package, however, brings total average compensation to $128,397, compared to MID’s $138,143. Average total compensation at Modesto City Hall was $67,339.

Benefits include various retirement plans plus health, dental and vision coverage.

MID customers – mostly those buying electricity – paid $61 million in salaries and benefits to 443 workers in 2013, slightly more than TID paid its 532 employees. Benefits comprised nearly 40 percent of total compensation for MID workers, compared to 35 percent for TID, making both far more generous than other special districts.

Stanislaus special district wages drop dramatically after the top three – Consolidated Fire, MID and TID. The Oakdale Irrigation District’s $59,796 average wage is accompanied by a benefits package of less than $17,000, compared to MID’s $54,703 average package.

OID’s general manager, Steve Knell, managed 82 employees in 2013 while pulling down $213,981 in salary, compared to $205,090 for Hashimoto, who oversees more than six times as many workers. The Merced Irrigation District, with 200 employees, paid general manager John Sweigard $184,068.

MID’s VanHoy fared better than his regional counterparts with $218,764 in pay, but his benefits package – worth an extra $126,703 – more than doubled the average for other irrigation districts’ executives in this region.

But MID customers paid nearly as much in 2013 to an ex-employee who worked zero days.

Former general manager Allen Short, whose board investigated him for undisclosed reasons before he left at the close of 2012, had sick and vacation pay that resulted in a 2013 salary of $218,983, plus $108,130 in benefits, for total compensation of $327,113.

MID that year put $87,098 into VanHoy’s defined benefit pension. Such retirement plans, which guarantee dollar amounts to retirees, represent one of the most significant differences between the public and private sectors, whose defined contribution plans are subject to the whims of the stock market and other investments. MID also provided VanHoy with more than $28,500 in health benefits, dwarfing those offered to executives with other districts but identical to those of other top-tier MID managers.

In 2013, governments throughout the United States provided retirement plans to nearly 74 percent of workers, compared to less than 41 percent in the private sector, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute.

MID additionally offers a defined contribution plan in place of Social Security. Employees contribute 5 percent of their pay, the district matches that amount and the pot earns investment interest like private retirement funds.

Meanwhile, MID’s various labor unions recently inked a new contract providing combined raises of 8 percent in three steps over three years. After the first increase in December, VanHoy’s salary now is $239,213.

His benefits package, comprising 37 percent of VanHoy’s total compensation, compares to the statewide average of 24 percent for special districts. For cities and counties throughout California, it’s 23 percent and 28 percent, respectively.

The best-paid local water executive in 2013, next to VanHoy, was South San Joaquin Irrigation District’s Jeff Shields, 67, who made $214,582 managing 99 workers. He will retire in October, he recently announced, adding that his contract will expire June 1 and board members agreed to extend its terms until he goes.

SSJID provided the highest average salary – $76,760 – of any special district in San Joaquin County. Merced County’s best-paying was Merced Irrigation District, at $55,666.

People elected to run the Modesto, Turlock, Merced and South San Joaquin districts receive far more value in benefits than pay, and again, MID is most generous, offering the same plans enjoyed by all employees. MID board members make $1,000 a month, or $12,000 a year, while MID contributed more than $21,500 to each, on average, in health and retirement benefits in 2013.

OID board members, on the other hand, oversee a much smaller agency while averaging nearly $15,000 in pay, but each received only $6,100 in benefits.

Small water districts on Stanislaus’ West Side, with no more than 25 workers each, treat their general managers similarly. But only Patterson Irrigation District board members receive pay and benefits, costing its customers more than $45,000 a year.

The highest-paid average salary for special districts in California is $140,500 at a San Ramon fire agency. Of local agencies, Stanislaus Consolidated Fire is 31st on the list, followed by MID (58th in California), SSJID (94th) and TID (112th).

The state controller has compiled data on public pay for five years, since Bell city leaders’ exorbitant salaries erupted in scandal.

Various studies, including a 2014 report by the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, have recognized California as offering generous public pay compared to most other states.

A previous Bee analysis of 2013 irrigation district salaries determined that 156 MID employees – nearly 37 percent of its workforce – made more than $100,000. Also that year, 22 MID and 28 TID employees were paid more than $150,000.

Five of the area’s 25 highest-paid government workers in 2013 on all levels, including cities and counties, worked for an irrigation district, the Bee analysis found.

Compared to MID’s $83,440 average wage in 2013, and TID’s $73,605, people working for the cities of Modesto and Turlock respectively were paid, on average, $50,036 and $40,655. The average Stanislaus County worker got $48,480.

The 2013 average education wage from kindergarten through high school in California was $35,281.

This story was originally published May 11, 2015 at 3:52 PM with the headline "Area’s special districts offer generous pay and benefits, Modesto Bee analysis shows."