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 |
OK, let’s start at the top of the list. Where’s SLO Chief Rick Scott? Then two deputy chiefs under him earning a half million each? Good grief. And they can”t even stop the Poly kids from trashing the neighborhoods. You know, the ones the Grand Jury asked the mayor to respond to, who then passed the unpublished information to Poly, against the law. Who’s in charge here? What a fiasco.