UKIAH, CA., 6/24/26 — Mendocino County is offering its workers a 1% raise. Two years ago, the county’s supervisors voted themselves a 16% raise. With the union’s contract set to run out June 30, that gap is what packed the board chambers Tuesday morning.
One after another, members of SEIU Local 1021 stepped to the microphone during public comment and told the supervisors the math doesn’t work — not for the workers, and not for the county’s own story about being broke.
The union and the county have been bargaining for weeks without a deal. The county says there’s no money for raises. In July 2024, over loud public opposition and a lone no vote from Supervisor Ted Williams, the board raised its own base pay from $95,302 to $110,715 — a package that climbs to $160,715 by 2026.
To justify that raise, the supervisors compared their salaries to three counties, including higher-paid Sonoma. To set the workers’ wages, the county measured them against eight counties, including cheaper Lake.
“The raise they gave themselves was 16%,” one worker said Tuesday during public comment. “They gave us 1%. That to me is insulting.”
The speakers went down the list of where they say the money already went — and most of the claims hold up.
The state auditor reported in December that Mendocino had failed to collect $30.6 million in property taxes, penalties and interest, owed on about 4,200 properties. The county hasn’t held a tax-defaulted property auction since 2019 — one of the longest dry spells of any county in California — and is only now aiming to restart auctions by this October.
“This is not a true budget shortfall, but it’s a management failure,” said Betsy Mercer, a program specialist in the public health department, “and the county workers strongly urge you to stop asking us to pay for your failures.”
The accounting problem is real too. Mendocino hasn’t filed its required annual financial report on time since 2018, and the state controller has warned the county that the delays could bring fines and drag down its bond rating. “A state fiscal officer in Sacramento had to publicly announce that Mendocino County cannot get its own books filed on time,” said Amber Allison, a county worker. “That is not a budget problem. That is a credibility problem, and it happened on this board’s watch.”
And then there’s the Cubbison bill. The county paid $1.5 million in February to settle the civil case brought by former Auditor-Controller Chamise Cubbison, whose criminal prosecution collapsed, and then spent several hundred thousand more defending itself from a civil suit, with much of that money going to an outside law firm.
“That money will not be going back into our county,” said Peter Klotter, who works for the information technology department on the help desk. “Our wages will.”
And in May, the board wrote off years of unpaid cannabis taxes that the county’s own finance office said could top $2 million.
The impact is real
The cost shows up at home. A county program specialist who works in social services and couldn’t attend had her statement read aloud by union vice president and chief steward Jeff Weston: she earns $68,931, can’t afford to rent or buy in Ukiah, and at age 44 is putting her belongings in storage and moving back into her childhood bedroom.
The union says 455 of its members can’t reliably afford both healthcare and medication — a number it drew from the West Health-Gallup affordability index, which this year found fewer than half of all Americans can comfortably cover their healthcare.
“You interviewed for our support from SEIU 1021,” Klotter reminded the board. “We scratched your backs during the election season. I believe it is time for you to scratch ours.”
What the workers kept circling back to was a choice they say the county keeps making. Leave jobs unfilled. Forgive cannabis taxes. To the union, those and others are decisions to spend the county’s money on something other than the people doing the work.
“This is your bed, and you’re making us lie in it,” one worker said. “Be done with divestment. It’s time for investment, and investment begins and ends with the people doing the work, and that’s us.”
The contract expires June 30. As of Tuesday afternoon, no deal was struck.
Funny how if I don’t get my finances in order every year, the Fed/State come after me. If the County decides to not do their due diligence, it’s apparently acceptable to wait almost TEN YEARS before you get a strongly worded letter. Seems illegal to me that a county could just refuse to do that, but I guess we have yet another example of “rules for thee, but not for me”. I think it’s time we let the workers decide how much admin get paid, be it the CEO of a private company or a member of the county admin. Time to EARN the wages in the eyes of the people doing your job for you while you sit around and micromanage us into one disaster after another.
every supervisor gave themselves a massive raise
except Ted Williams
he said no, not while the rest of us get left behind, it was entirely self serving of the
other 4 supervisors
if you live in the other 4 districts
your reps have a clear message:
you are a sucker you gave me a masive raise im living comfortably and youre gonna continue to get taxed
get fewer if no services at all
keep voting for the scum
Cline is the worst, miss piggy in a MAGA hat