Wages And Salaries

A proposal to cut the Riverside City Council's salary by more than a third failed Tuesday evening. The move, initiated by Councilman Dom Betro, would have rescinded a 37% salary increase approved in November 2002. Council members make $3,128 a month, with an additional $100 a month for the mayor pro tem. Betro's motion failed to get a second.

When Gustavo Dudamel took over the Los Angeles Philharmonic's podium two years ago, he brought youthful dynamism and passion, a joyfully infectious presence and a coiffure that's one of classical music's most expressive heads of hair since Leonard Bernstein. And how much do those qualities cost his employer? The orchestra's recently filed federal nonprofit tax return for 2009-10 affords a first glimpse, if a partial one, of the compensation arrangement, showing salary and benefits of $394,580 during the 2009 calendar year.

The Home Depot Inc. is paying new Chief Executive Frank Blake a fraction of what it paid his predecessor, Bob Nardelli, and has taken the unusual step of promising Blake no severance package if he leaves. But experts in executive compensation don't expect Wednesday's decision by the giant home improvement store chain to set a trend in corporate America, despite the ire that hefty compensation packages have drawn among investors.

A labor market flooded with unemployed workers continued to keep a lid on wages and benefits in the last three months, even as consumers ramped up spending. Wages and salaries grew just 0.3% in the third quarter this year from the previous quarter, according to a government employment cost index. Benefits increased 0.1%, the slowest growth rate since 1999, according to employment cost data released Friday by the U.S. Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics. "This report matches well with the picture of a U.S. economy slowly treading forward and employment making sloth-like progress," Gregory Daco, principal U.S. economist for IHS Global Insight, wrote in a note.

Philippe de Montebello, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, earned $4.7 million last year, beating out presidents of universities and leading hospitals as the one with the highest reported compensation among executives at U.S. nonprofit institutions. In addition to his $4.56 million salary, De Montebello received $187,685 in benefits, housing and expense-account allowances in the fiscal year ending June 30, according to a Chronicle of Philanthropy survey released Monday.

Former Wet Seal Inc. Chief Executive Kathy Bronstein's salary rose 21% to more than $1 million in fiscal 2002 but her bonus shrank 85% before she was relieved of her duties in February, according to documents filed by the company Monday. The salary boost was in keeping with Bronstein's employment agreement, according to the company's proxy filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. She was awarded a bonus of $228,000, compared with $1.75 million the previous year.

Americans' personal incomes surged in February, led by gains in wages and salaries, a reminder that Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan's concern about wage-driven inflation may prove to be on target. Personal incomes surged 0.9%, the largest gain in eight months and more than double January's 0.4% advance, the Commerce Department said. Spending growth--0.3%--was relatively modest but came after a large 1% increase in January, the best in 11 months.

Consumer confidence in April soared to the highest level in nearly six years, as Americans expressed a more upbeat attitude about jobs and the labor market, the Conference Board said Tuesday. Meanwhile, the Labor Department reported that wages and salaries over the last year increased at the fastest pace in four years, although overall worker compensation rose more slowly because benefits did not rise as fast as wages.

A labor market flooded with unemployed workers continued to keep a lid on wages and benefits in the last three months, even as consumers ramped up spending. Wages and salaries grew just 0.3% in the third quarter this year from the previous quarter, according to a government employment cost index. Benefits increased 0.1%, the slowest growth rate since 1999, according to employment cost data released Friday by the U.S. Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics. "This report matches well with the picture of a U.S. economy slowly treading forward and employment making sloth-like progress," Gregory Daco, principal U.S. economist for IHS Global Insight, wrote in a note.

When Alicia Cadena strolls onto the stage of a club near LAX, wearing her thigh-high vinyl go-go boots and neon-green hot pants, she expects to make bank. Any self-respecting exotic dancer would after a five-minute shimmy, swivel and strip routine that leaves no questions about her ample anatomy.

As a high school kid in Illinois, John Chiang ran for student council on a populist platform: ridding the lunchroom jukebox of disco music. "That was the major wedge issue," recalled a friend who was his campaign partner. Disco was fading. Punk and new wave were coming in. They won. Chiang, now the Golden State's controller, became vice president of the student body -- a notable achievement for one of the school's few Asian kids and the target of name-calling and racial slurs.

Bell, one of the poorest cities in Los Angeles County, pays its top officials some of the highest salaries in the nation, including nearly $800,000 annually for its city manager, according to documents reviewed by The Times. In addition to the $787,637 salary of Chief Administrative Officer Robert Rizzo, Bell pays Police Chief Randy Adams $457,000 a year, about 50% more than Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck or Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca and more than double New York City's police commissioner.

After its president was ousted in a scandal, California's government-run insurance company hired Janet Frank to clean up the mess, offering her a salary and benefits far beyond the reach of most state workers. As the new president of California's largest provider of workers' compensation coverage, the insurance industry veteran received a $450,000 annual salary plus a signing bonus of nearly $140,000 to help her move from Colorado, employment records obtained by The Times show. For her first 2 1/2 months on the job, starting in 2007, she was paid a $40,000 performance bonus by the insurer, a hybrid public-private company known as State Fund, which serves as a safety net for businesses.

In one of her last acts as speaker of the state Assembly, Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) quietly doled out 10% pay raises and promotions to 20 of her staff members. The raises, which Bass approved last week on her final day as speaker, come as California continues to grapple with an estimated $20-billion deficit. More than 200,000 rank-and-file state workers have been forced to take three unpaid furlough days each month, the equivalent of a 14% pay cut, to help balance the state's books.

Freed from government compensation restraints after repaying bank bailout funds, Wells Fargo & Co. more than doubled the pay of its top executives, with a $21.3-million package going to Chairman and Chief Executive John G. Stumpf. The bank disclosed the compensation for 2009 in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Wednesday. Stumpf's pay shot up 142% from $8.8 million in 2008. Repaying $25 billion to the U.S. Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program on Dec. 23 relieved Wells Fargo of restrictions on institutions receiving government funds.

The Dodgers could seek to keep their player payroll below last year's level through 2018 while the average ticket price and club revenue could nearly double, according to confidential financial documents included in a court filing last week. The documents, submitted by former Dodgers chief executive Jamie McCourt in divorce proceedings against owner Frank McCourt, offer a rare glimpse into the finances of a major league club. The documents -- prepared by the McCourt management team in May to solicit Chinese investors for a partnership that could have included the Dodgers, a soccer club in Beijing and another in the English Premier League -- show that the Dodgers spent $128 million in player compensation for their 40-man roster in 2007, then spent $123 million in 2008.

Edward Dawson started his business from scratch in 1978. He and his wife, Marcia, built it into a $63-million-a-year enterprise with offices throughout California. The couple, who earned more than $7 million in salary and deferred compensation in the last five years, now own a villa overlooking the beach in Palos Verdes and other real estate worth millions of dollars. Theirs is a classic tale of entrepreneurial success -- except their wealth comes from running a nonprofit that is sustained by taxpayer dollars.

When Gustavo Dudamel took over the Los Angeles Philharmonic's podium two years ago, he brought youthful dynamism and passion, a joyfully infectious presence and a coiffure that's one of classical music's most expressive heads of hair since Leonard Bernstein. And how much do those qualities cost his employer? The orchestra's recently filed federal nonprofit tax return for 2009-10 affords a first glimpse, if a partial one, of the compensation arrangement, showing salary and benefits of $394,580 during the 2009 calendar year.

The Los Angeles school district paid $200 million more in salaries than it budgeted last year even as it laid off 2,000 teachers and hundreds of other employees, according to an internal audit. Auditors so far have unearthed no wrongdoing, but officials are puzzled, concerned and perhaps even a little embarrassed. "We've been in the process of cleaning it up," said L.A. schools Supt. Ramon C. Cortines, who said his staff is verifying the size of the discrepancy and will, over time, determine how much relates to incomplete accounting and how much to something more serious.

Two former Los Angeles teachers face a court order to return salary overpayments of more than $148,000, part of an increasingly aggressive push by the Los Angeles Unified School District to retrieve $9.4 million from employees who were inadvertently caught up in its malfunctioning payroll system. The judgments were approved this month in Los Angeles Superior Court against Adalberto Castro, who allegedly received an unanticipated windfall of $96,482, and Christina Garcia, who allegedly was overpaid $52,345.