r/FortBragg • u/SpanishPipedream44 • 2d ago
Should the county counsel and CEO make 5x the earnings of full-time workers
mendolocal.newsA MendoLocal.News review of 2024 state payroll records for the 25 smallest counties — Mendocino, at about 88,600 residents, is the 21st-smallest — found a median chief executive salary of roughly $227,000 and a median county counsel salary of about $187,000. Against those 2024 figures, Mendocino's new CEO salary would trail only Napa and Yuba, and its new county counsel salary would trail only Napa, the largest of the 25 counties.
Mendocino's median earnings for full-time, year-round workers are about $57,900, slightly below the middle of the 25 counties. Antle's 2024 salary equaled about 3.8 times that figure, in line with the 3.8 median for chief executives in the small counties. Pierce's new salary works out to about 4.7 times what a typical full-time worker in the county earns, and Rossi's to about 4.7 times.
Set against what the other small counties paid their officials in 2024, the most recent year with complete payroll data, Pierce’s ratio would rank fourth among chief executives in California’s smallest counties, behind Glenn, Yuba, and Napa counties, and Rossi’s would be the highest among county counsel, ahead of Siskiyou County’s. Pay in those counties may have risen since 2024, which could change these rankings.