Proposed Pay Raise Questioned : Oxnard: The City Council appears headed toward rejection of steep salary increases for the city clerk and city treasurer.

Oxnard City Manager Vernon G. Hazen has proposed a steep pay increase for the city clerk and city treasurer, but a divided City Council appears ready to vote it down.

Hazen is proposing a monthly salary of $5,141--or about $61,500 a year--for City Clerk Mabi Plisky and City Treasurer Dale Belcher, both elected officials. The council is scheduled to vote on the proposal Tuesday.

Councilwoman Dorothy Maron said Belcher and Plisky are now earning about $46,000 a year, and a city report prepared by Personnel Director Dene Jones said the salary increases would cost the city $18,817 through June 30, 1992.

Jones stated in the report that the salary adjustments would place the treasurer and clerk on par with other top managers in the city.

As of Friday, however, Hazen’s proposal lacked the necessary council votes for approval. At least two of the council’s five members--Manuel Lopez and Maron--believe the city can ill-afford such raises.

“Eighteen thousand dollars--that’s not a squeeze. It’s much too high,” Maron said.

“We shouldn’t be giving out big pay raises at a time we are cutting city services,” Lopez said.

A third council member, Michael Plisky, is ineligible to vote because he is Mabi Plisky’s husband.

Maron said she is preparing a counterproposal that would substantially reduce the pay increase. Mayor Nao Takasugi said he would wait until Maron unveils her proposal before making up his mind. Mayor Pro Tem Gerry Furr could not be reached for comment, but Lopez and Maron said Furr favors the city manager’s proposed pay increase.

Earlier this month, the council rejected a proposal to promote two top managers on the Parks and Recreation Department against Hazen’s recommendation because they considered it inconsistent with the city’s fiscal policies.

In recent years, the Oxnard council has slashed millions of dollars from its budget, trimmed its payroll and eliminated programs to avoid a financial crisis.

Lopez and Maron said they oppose Hazen’s new proposal for the same fiscal reasons they voted against the Parks and Recreation Department proposal.

Moreover, they said, the city clerk and city treasurer should be subject to different standards than city bureaucrats because they are elected officials.

Any significant salary increase for them should be put to a vote on the upcoming municipal election, Lopez and Maron said.

“They are elected officials, the voters should decide” Lopez said. “Do you think the voters would approve a big raise? I doubt it.”

Maron said that if Belcher and Mabi Plisky are reelected, it means they are doing a good job and deserve the raise. “I think they should stand before the electorate and let the voters evaluate them,” she said.

The issue of raising the city clerk and city treasurer’s salaries has divided the City Council for years. While other department heads in the city are routinely evaluated by their boss, the city manager, the city clerk and treasurer have no boss because they are elected officials.

The fact that the city clerk is married to a councilman complicates matters further.

“The city manager is caught in the middle,” Lopez said, “because Mabi is married to his boss.”

In January, 1988, Michael Plisky and former Councilwoman Ann Johs voted against giving then-City Manager David Mora a $2,064 bonus on grounds he had not completed evaluations of department heads, a step that has to be taken before staff members can receive merit raises.

But the only department heads who had not been evaluated were Mabi Plisky and then-treasurer Furr.

At the time, Mabi Plisky said she was not interested in the money, but a validation of her performance. “I think most professionals need to know if they’re doing a good job,” she said.

Five months later, the City Council decided that “the salary level for the position of City Clerk and City Treasurer will be reviewed by the city council prior to the election of those positions,” according to a confidential memorandum written by Mora following a closed session.

Lopez said Mora’s refusal to evaluate Plisky played a part in his December, 1989, firing. He said Hazen proposed the salary increases well before the next election to please Michael Plisky and his allies on the council.

“Vern knows what happened to David Mora and he doesn’t want to get caught in the same position,” Lopez said.

Maron said she would agree to a scaled-down pay increase for Belcher and Plisky before the November election because the city last year eliminated routine pay raises to compensate for inflation.

She said that before announcing her proposal, she wants to discuss numbers with Lopez.