How much are top SLO County government workers paid? See who makes the most
Have you ever wondered how much of your tax dollars go to San Luis Obispo County employee salaries?
In 2023, the most recent data available, the county employed 2,905 people in total — 2,307 of them full-time, year-round county employees — according to data from Transparent California.
According to the database, the median pay was $88,617 not including employee benefits, or $129,124 including them.
All in all, county employees were compensated nearly $350 million, which was a taxpayer cost of $1,234 per San Luis Obispo County resident.
The Tribune looked at the most recent data provided on the Transparent California database, as 2024 statistics have not yet been made public, to determine where your tax dollars go.
Which SLO County employee made the most in 2023?
According to Transparent California, the highest-earning county employee in 2023 excluding benefits was Rita Neal, the county legal counsel, who made $285,586.
After her, the top five earners in order were Behavioral Health staff psychiatrist Stephen Penepacker, who was paid $276,777; then-acting District Attorney Eric Dobroth, with $274,597; Sheriff’s Sgt. Clinton Bird, $268,893; and finally Sheriff Ian Parkinson, who was paid $267,591.
However, determining how much someone got paid tends to depend on what metrics you are looking at.
Though Parkinson earned the fifth-highest total pay without benefits, factoring in the price of employee benefits like health care and retirement put him in first for the highest-earning county employee at $452,394.
After Parkinson, the highest-earning county employees including benefits were Neal at $424,093, Dobroth at $411,235 — which was up by $87,571 from only $323,664 in 2022 due to a temporary pay raise — District Attorney Dan Dow at $403,591 and finally Penny Borenstein, the county’s public health administrator and health officer, at $397,059.
There are a couple of curiosities in those lists.
First off, Dobroth, who is regularly employed as the deputy district attorney, temporarily took the role of acting district attorney when Dow was deployed in the Middle East in 2023. Based on his increased duties, Dobroth was temporarily given a 15% salary bump from his regular deputy DA base salary, which was $215,233 in 2022 compared to Dow’s $266,435.
Neal, meanwhile, also has a lower base pay than Penepacker by $241, but she receives $9,050 in “other pay,” bringing her actual received salary above the staff psychiatrist’s.
Other pay consists of miscellaneous compensation such as vacation cash out, cell phone stipends and more, Deputy Director of the SLO County Human Resources Department Mark Zeltmann told The Tribune.
Finally, Bird — a sergeant in the Sheriff’s Office — earned a higher total salary without benefits than the Sheriff himself.
This is mainly attributable to overtime pay.
Overtime accounts for large bumps in Sheriff’s Office workers’ pay
Bird earned a base pay of only $131,584, but more than half of his salary — $137,309 — came from overtime and other pay combined.
Parkinson earned nearly double the base pay at $259,086, but as a manager, he is not eligible for overtime, he told The Tribune.
Parkinson said that on average, county law enforcement get the most opportunity to work overtime, because unlike other departments, it is often necessary.
“We’re a 24/7 operation,” Parkinson said. “We have somebody call in sick, we have to call somebody in to cover that shift. Otherwise we have nobody out in the field.”
Overtime needs are also exacerbated by a nationwide law enforcement shortage that followed in wake of the police brutality protests of 2020, Parkinson said.
Furthermore, cities can often offer higher salaries and signing bonuses than a county sheriff’s office, he said.
“They’re being enticed away like they’ve never been before, because of money,” he said.
While managerial positions like commanders, chief deputies and sheriff do not qualify for overtime, sergeants and deputies do, and some who prefer the extra work for a higher paycheck will take advantage of frequent opportunities to overwork — in some cases earning more than their superiors.
“You always have a handful of people that love working overtime, and you have a handful of people that hate working overtime,” Parkinson said. “The people that like working it, they constantly volunteer.”
This is reflected in the data. Four of the top five overtime earners in 2023 were deputies or sergeants.
In 2023, Deputy Sheriff Quincy Knowlton earned $124,641 from overtime, more than doubling his base pay of $111,405; Bird earned $120,210 compared to his base of $131,584; Sgt. John Penaflor earned $117,045, just shy of his base pay of $135,304; Craig Curry, a Sheriff’s senior correctional deputy, took home $100,654 in overtime, more than his base pay of $99,944; and Holly Pesenti-Prieto — a social worker and the only non-law enforcement employee in the top five — made $84,561 in overtime, just under her base pay of $96,915.
As the list goes on, most of the highest-earning overtime employees were law enforcement.
Parkinson said the highest earners — those in top five or so — are probably working overtime on a weekly basis, but emphasized that it’s “not at their whim.”
“They don’t get to choose to work overtime,” Parkinson said. Rather, they are filling the needs of the community at the approval of their commander.
On average, the positions that earned the highest overtime in 2023 were sheriff’s sergeants, at an average of $41,430 across 13 employees; the three sheriff’s sergeant-substitutes at an average of $38,839 in overtime; one limited term sheriff’s correctional sergeant at a near equal $38,561; two health information supervisors who averaged $38,024; and the singular limited term deputy sheriff at $32,722 in overtime.
Nine of the top 10 overtime positions were law enforcement — with the exception of the health information supervisor — and 15 of the top 17 were law enforcement.
The significance of overtime pay for law enforcement officials is vast. Without that extra pay, those employees’ salaries drop dramatically.
According to the May 2023 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ occupational employment and wage data, the 3,230 protective service occupations in San Luis Obispo, Paso Robles and Arroyo Grande made a mean annual wage of $81,690, ranging from a minimum of $36,450 for recreational protective service jobs like lifeguards and ski patrol to $148,040 for first-line supervisors of police and detectives.
This was slightly greater than what the neighboring protective service workers in Santa Barbara and Santa Maria made in 2023: $78,860.
According to the data, police and sheriff’s patrol officers made a mean annual wage of $105,560 in the three SLO County cities.
Why did the Sheriff-Coroner’s salary spike in 2022?
Looking at the Transparent California data going back several years, there was a sharp spike in Parkinson’s salary in 2022 .
In 2021, Parkinson made $228,797 without benefits. Then in 2022, his pay jumped to $283,322 without benefits.
An increase in salaries year-to-year is expected as pay checks increase to account for inflation — but what at first appears curious is that the raise didn’t seem to stick. In 2023, Parkinson’s total earned pay not including benefits dropped back down to $267,591.
Parkinson said the reduction wasn’t due to a pay cut. Rather, the county and Sheriff’s Office realized they were not accounting for the pay increase that Parkinson’s professional certificates earn him.
As an elected official, Parkinson is not represented by a union. As a result, his salary is established by the county by taking the median of sheriff’s salaries in comparable counties, attempting to act in place of a union, he said.
But Parkinson possesses a number of advanced law enforcement certificates that in a union, would earn him an additional sum on top of his determined salary.
Upon realizing the discrepancy, the county retroactively paid Parkinson in 2022 for all the years of pay increase it failed to pay him, giving him a temporarily higher salary that year.
Now, his salary accounts for his certificates while balancing comparable counties, he said.
This story was originally published January 6, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
