Local official in California paid nearly $800,000

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - While Bell, California, may be one of the poorest cities in Los Angeles County, it has lavished extraordinary salaries on top officials, and the county district attorney is curious as to why.

The Los Angeles Times on Tuesday reported that Robert Rizzo, the chief administrative officer of Bell, is paid $787,637 a year -- an eye-popping figure in its own right and astounding for a city so poor it operates its own food bank with nearly a quarter of its roughly 37,000 inhabitants living below the poverty line.

U.S. President Barack Obama, by contrast, earns $400,000 a year -- only slightly more than the $376,288 a year Bell's assistant city manager pulls in.

Bell's police chief is paid $457,000 a year, or about 50 percent more than what neighboring Los Angeles pays its police chief to oversee law enforcement in the country's second-largest city.

Additionally, some of Bell's city council members earn nearly $100,000 a year.

Their pay is so far out of line that the Los Angeles County district attorney's office is looking into it.

Local government professionals say they are shocked, especially with so many local governments in California struggling with their budgets since revenue is so weak.

"It's far in excess of any norms ... That's not debatable," Dave Mora, west coast regional director for the International City/County Management Association and a former city manager for 18 years in Salinas, California, said on Tuesday.

"I spent 35 years as a local government manager and professionally, ethically we had a responsibility to work with local officials to identify fair, reasonable levels of compensation. What you see in Bell are levels of compensation that folks in my business would not recommend," Mora said.

Bell's situation is particularly stunning given the hard financial times California's local governments are facing and routinely addressing by cutting jobs and services, Mora said.

Neighboring Maywood has gone so far as to fire nearly all its employees and outsource public services, including some to Bell.

"It's embarrassing," Mora added. "It's not even close to what folks in my profession think they should make."

Bell's citizens agree. Hundreds of local residents attended a city council meeting on Monday night demanding answers and threatening campaigns to recall council members.

"I never could have imagined it," said Bob Stern, president of the Los Angeles-based Center for Governmental Studies, referring to compensation paid to Bell's top officials, especially the nearly $800,000 for the city's administrative officer.

"It's almost unfathomable for that much money being given to a public official -- anywhere," Stern said. "Obviously, a lot of chutzpah. If anyone in L.A. city (government) proposed this, they would be laughed out of the room."

Bell's spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.