Former Moreno Valley, CA City Manager Paid Twice As Much As The Governor

Moreno Valley, CA former city manager, Robert Gutierrez, was paid $459,468 for salary and severances in 2009. 

I recently read an article on Bloomberg news that stated the former city manager of Moreno Valley, CA was paid more than twice of what Govenor Jerry Brown is paid. This is eerily sounds like the infamous Robert Rizzo case in which Rizzo paid himself $1.7 million to run the Bell, CA, a city of 38,000 residents. 

Moreno Valley, CA is a city of 193,000 residents, 450 employees, about 60 miles outside of Los Angeles, CA. Compare this with the State of California that employess around 350,000 employees and has over 37 million residents. One would think that the leader of California would make alot more than the leader of Moreno Valley, a city that has less than 1% of of the states residents, right. 

But this is not the case. In 2009, Gutierrez was paid his base salary of $274,500 and a severance package of $183,366. What is worse is that Robert Gutierrez retired at the end of 2009 after pleading no contest to identity theft, computer fraud, and harassment charges. Since his retirement from the city of Moreno Valley, he has been paid $17,354 a month pension. 

Compare that to the governors salary which was $212,179 which Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declined to accept and was lowed to $173,987 in December of 2009. 

The full article can be read here California Small-Town Officials Collect Twice As Much as Brown's $174,000