Torrance Poised to Give City Attorney Significant Raise
The agenda for the upcoming Council meeting includes a vote to provide City Attorney John Fellows with a considerable boost to his salary further enhancing what is already one of the most generous compensation packages in the state. Under the proposal, Fellows will receive an immediate 4% increase in base pay with another 4% increase to follow 01 Jan 2016. The two raises will increase the City Attorney’s base salary from $259,210 a year to $280,368 a year.
Data gathered by the website Transparent California reveals that in 2013 Fellows received $45,053 in direct pay beyond the base salary as well as benefits valued at $68,191 for a total yearly compensation package valued at $372,454. The proposed $21K salary increase will also provide Fellows with a significant retirement benefit as it could add to his pension anywhere from 12 to 15K per year depending on when he retires.
As standard business practice, the City conducts routine salary surveys to ensure pay and benefits are consistent with comparable cities. Despite having not had an adjustment to his base salary since November 2008, Fellows salary remains one of the highest in California and appears considerably higher than other City Attorney’s from comparable sized California cities. Indeed, Transparent California shows that only the City Attorney from Santa Monica had a higher salary than Fellows in 2013. Additional data obtained from Transparent California shows the following for City Attorney base pay for cities near to Torrance in population size:
- Huntington Beach City Attorney Base Salary: $214,864
- Escondido City Attorney Base Salary: $225,505
- Sunnyvale City Attorney Base Salary: $210,642
- Orange City Attorney Base Salary: $191,421
- Pasadena City Attorney Base Salary: $225,33
The proposed increase for Fellows comes on the heels of several legal settlements that have depleted Torrance’s legal defense fund. The Daily Breeze reported in fact that legal fees escalated so much recently that late last year [2014] more than $1.6 million from the city’s operating fund was transferred to a reserve fund to pay for the “influx of unanticipated settlement claims over the past two fiscal years.”
One of those cases settled in early 2014, in which the City paid nearly $2 Million to a Police Officer tasered by his supervisor, only recently came to light after an inquiry led by the Daily Breeze. Responding to why that settlement was not disclosed to the public earlier, Fellows was quoted as saying “It wasn’t done intentionally…we’re not trying to hide it. We’re just not trying to publicize it. It’s a fine line.”
Ironically, the proposed increase to Fellows salary comes on the same night that the Council will meet with legal counsel in a closed session due to yet another significant exposure to litigation.
I guess paying a high end salary is not paying off for Torrance. I wonder what would happen if we had a junior city attorney, can they really do more damage then $16million????
John Fellows has done an admirable job as our City Attorney for many years. Concerned Citizen is in favor of viewing an isolated incident rather than the entire whole. Torrance does very well in its lawsuits and the City Attorney and his staff are the ones to thanks. And he got two 4% raises after 8 years with out one? I never got less than 3% and often at least 5% raises every year in the corporate sector. But our public employees are expected to take less than they would get privately.
This is an 8% increase in pay in less than a year. What will his pension be when he retires? How long will it take with all these pensions to government employees before this whole corrupt pension system will collapse? If he were in private practice he probably wouldn’t net this kind of pay and he most certainly would not end up with a pension plan or 401k plan equivalent to his city pension which I speculate could be in the 225K to 350K per year range. BTW Torrance taxpayers when was the last time you got a raise of 8% and increase to your pension of 12K to 15K per year? That’s more than many Americans get from social security.
Yes private sector companies do not give benefits to their employees like they used to. Companies used to all have defined benefit plans until certain types in our government convinced us that getting good retirement packages is somehow taking handouts. And now we all have 401k’s that aren’t worth dick. Average retirement age is up from 65 to 76!!!! But people like you would love to see that go up and up. Why should people get to retire? Work until you die, right? Stop being a hater just because you lost it all under Bush in 2001 and then again in 208.