Sunday • December 15, 2002

For a few, it's not about the paycheck

By Jason Massad/Reporter Staff

For some public servants in Solano County, it's not the pay that inspires devotion. It's all about public service.

In a few cases, The Reporter's 25th Survey of Top Public Servants' Pay found some public servants who decline salary and benefits associated with their posts.

"The compensation we get is enjoying our land," said Tim Egan, board president of the Suisun Resource Conservation District.

The conservation district, which helps manage the Suisun Marsh, has served as a voice for local landowners since the marsh became a state preservation area in 1976. Its main mission, and the reason its board members work for free, is protecting one of the state's largest remaining wetlands from development, Egan said.

"This job is getting tougher and tougher because everyone wants to encroach out here," he said.

In the Montezuma and Cordelia fire protection districts, tight budgets and a devotion to service are behind the decision by members of the governing boards to forgo compensation.

Both districts have seen revenues dwindle as real-world costs for equipment, maintenance, and personnel have continued to get more expensive.

Both districts have also taken steps to reduce the amount of money paid to personnel.

In the Montezuma district, which covers the rangeland around Rio Vista, funds were saved in the mid-'90s by eliminating a chief's position which carried with it a $53,000 a year salary, plus benefits.

"It was getting to be a bigger part of the budget than we could afford," said Stan Simi, a volunteer with the district.

The district's Rio Vista station is now manned around the clock by just two experienced firefighters who receive a $1,300 monthly stipend.

In the Cordelia district, a recent tax increase has preserved the largely-volunteer operation of the fire department.

That hasn't, however, translated into an increase in the $700 monthly stipend for Fire Chief Lewis Brochard.

More than 20 volunteers also volunteer to fight fires and provide paramedic service around Cordelia Junction.

"It's not about the money. It's community service and working with the fire service," said Cordelia Assistant Chief Hank Seguin.

Special districts aren't the only agencies in which public servants have waived their pay to save money.

Three school trustees have helped ease budget woes in the Vacaville Unified School District by deciding to forgo medical benefits.

Trustees Kathleen Collier, Mary Kay Sogge, and Sarah Chapman collectively saved the district at least $5,400 and up to $24,000 by declining the district's health plan in fiscal year 2001-02.

Sogge, elected to the board in the last year, said her own health plan was much less expensive than the plan that the district was offering.

"The costs were just astronomical, I can't believe they were going to do it," she said. "The cost to me and the cost to the district was just too much."

The board members who oversee the Silveyville Cemetery District in Dixon as well as the Vacaville-Elmira Cemetery District have a long tradition of declining a small stipend for monthly meetings.

That probably won't change anytime soon.

"We all care about the community and want to be active in Dixon," said Jacqueline Anderson, a Silveyville district board member.

John Vasquez, a long-time Vacaville-Elmira board member, said that when a new member is elected to the district, the board renews its position on whether to receive a stipend for its service.

The board has been around for some 75 years, and so far, no checks are in the mail.

"It's one of those things where we all take it or no one takes it," Vasquez said. "It's part of public service."

Jason Massad can be reached at county@thereporter.com.