By Karen Velie
While all San Luis Obispo County residents are being asked to vote in November for a half-sent sales tax increase for transportation improvements, large raises for some administrative and public safety employees are taking a bigger bite out of city budgets.
While the bulk of city employees receive pay increases of approximately 3% per year, over the past five years increases have been much higher for some administrators such as a 38% increase in salary and benefits for the city manager of Grover Beach and a similar increase in pay for the Morro Bay chief of police position.
While San Luis Obispo continues to have the highest paid city employees in the county, because of large pension debt payments, their numbers were abnormally high in 2024.
CalCoastNews evaluated earnings information from Transparent California, a public pay and pension database, to determine the four top-paid employees in each of the seven cities in SLO County. The totals include salary, benefits and pro-rated pension funds.
Compensation information is from 2024, the last time the seven cities filed with Transparent California.
Four highest paid employees from each of the seven cities in SLO County
City                   Pay/Benefits   Title                       Name
| San Luis Obispo | $531,280 | Deputy Police Chief | Frederick Mickel |
| San Luis Obispo | $509,415 | Deputy Police Chief | Brian Amoroso |
| San Luis Obispo | $506,556 | Fire Battalion Chief | John MacDonald |
| San Luis Obispo | $478,867 | Fire Battalion Chief | Ray Hais-Doyle |
| Arroyo Grande | $380,250 | Police Chief | Michael Martinez |
| Pismo Beach | $376,643 | Police Chief | Jeffrey Smith |
| Grover Beach | $376,421 | City Manager | Matthew Bronson |
| Pismo Beach | $370,928 | City Manager | Jorge Garcia |
| Atascadero | $363,143 | Fire Chief | Casey Bryson |
| Arroyo Grande | $360,940 | Assistant City Manager | William Robeson |
| Paso Robles | $351,982 | City Manager | Ty Lewis |
| Morro Bay | $351,209 | Deputy Fire Chief | Matthew Vierra |
| Atascadero | $342,578 | Police Chief | Daniel Suttles |
| Paso Robles | $341,940 | Operations Battalion Chief | Brian Lewis |
| Morro Bay | $336,998 | Police Chief | Amy Watkins |
| Paso Robles | $329,134 | Police Chief | Damian Nord |
| Morro Bay | $327,979 | City Manager | Yvonne Kimball |
| Pismo Beach | $325,743 | Police Commander | Christopher Trimble |
| Paso Robles | $321,972 | Fire Captain | Joel Platter |
| Pismo Beach | $317,211 | Police Commander | Daniel Herlihy |
| Morro Bay | $314,763 | Fire Chief | Daniel McCrain |
| Atascadero | $310,711 | Fire Battalion Chief | Matthew Miranda |
| Arroyo Grande | $309,449 | City Manager | Matt Downing |
| Arroyo Grande | $301,824 | Police Commander | Zak Ayala |
| Atascadero | $300,255 | City Manager | James Lewis |
| Grover Beach | $298,703 | Police Chief | James Munroe III |
| Grover Beach | $271,845 | Police Commander | Bryan Millard |
| Grover Beach | $267,694 | Assistant City Manager | Kristin Eriksson – Embree |
I know I’m yelling into the void, but my question to all the people who say this is a scam, or robbery of the taxpayer is this – what should the salaries be?
What should a police chief, fire chief, and city manager make? Should they work for free? Minimum wage? The same salary as entry or mid level employees?
I feel like the answer is a competitive market rate. Call me wrong, but I suspect it takes a lot of skills and experience to be able to run a police department or city government with hundreds of employees. A private sector senior manager or CEO of a company with a ten million dollar budget is going to be making lot more than the salaries above. If you want competent and experienced managers in government, not just the private sector, you’re not going to hire them by offering senior leadership positions for 50k. An underpaid bureaucracy is one that can only hire rejects and encourages employees to make money on the side through explicit corruption.
All I’m asking is that we have a serious discussion rather than just yelling about big numbers. If we seek to understand why they are what they are, I think we’re less likely to be outraged.
Perhaps if merit were the basis for pay, your argument would fly. Unfortunately, in too many cases, they are overpaid to underperform.
That’s a fair perspective. I’ll admit that I am not qualified to evaluate how effective a police department is and employees performance in the field of public safety.
Crime rates on the central coast are pretty low, they’re not zero, but even a billion dollar budget with the Avengers running the department wouldn’t get crime to literally zero.
I know cities hold annual police/crime reviews at city council meetings, if I cared more I would try and attend those and ask questions to better understand what the departments do.
What I’m saying is that I’m unsure if they are actually over paid because I don’t know if they are underperforming. If you or I were police chief crime would almost certainly be worse.
Lot of people in this comment sections are obliquely saying we should defund the police – pretty ironic.
… and some defending the top 1% – pretty ironic as well
Not bad haha! Fortunately though I’m not one of those progressives that is extremely upset by people who make a lot of money. Leading an organization, public or private is difficult work that requires rare skills, they deserve much higher compensation than what I make. I think we can agree they also should pay higher taxes, but nothing outrageous.
Huh? How do you get there?
1. You think the compensation of the chief of police, deputy chief, etc. is too high.
2. You would prefer them to be paid less money
3. Lower police salaries means less money going to police departments.
4. You’re in lockstep with the Defund the Police movement on every single one of these points.
Everyone of these people should be embarrassed but they are not, they are laughing all the way to the bank and thinking how easy it was to screw the taxpayers.
90 % men in the top salaries.
There should be a public record that shows the pay adjustment for family support. It is a tax write off and affects the real pay our top dogs actually receive.
I agree it should be 100%.
That’s why California sucks for taxpayers. Now, think about the corrupting influence of the CTA, the SEIU, and the nurses’ unions, and THEN you begin to understand the scope. Remember this: members of the SEIU count votes at election time. As a taxpayer, you should be outraged that any citizen votes to continue this madness.
So, Grover Beach, population 12-13,000, with tax revenues of $21,000,000, paid its city manager & assistant city manager more than $644,000, not to mention the other 73 employees, 25 of whom have city credit cards. There can’t be much left over to provide for the people of the city who paid those taxes! Hey City Council — are you asleep at the wheel?
Strange that Morro Bay’s Fire Chief is paid 10% less than its Deputy Fire Chief.
Shocked Amy Watkins is still police chief after my judgment was entered against her and the City:
https://lawnews.tv/judgment-entered-against-city-and-2-police-chiefs-in-duringer-v-morro-bay-2a-victory/
Absolutely fucking ridiculous.
Such a scam. Theft from the citizens.
The salaries are just part of the problem, most of these public sector employees are eligible for early retirement witch means decades of unfunded pension liability.
It’s not just a scam it’s theft by proclamation, and they have anointed themselves sovereign by the tyranny of judicial doctrine.
And then when they retire, they collect retirement and take government jobs and double dip!