$140,637
That’s how much the King County council’s interim chief of staff, Shelley Sutton, is being paid. (Former chief of staff Scott White, who made $121,271, left earlier this year.) When I called to confirm that I had Sutton’s salary right, council spokesman Frank Abe initially said, “that’s alarming,” adding, “I hope that’s not true.” In a subsequent phone call, Abe said it was standard county policy to give a 5 percent raise to employees, like Sutton, who take on additional duties. Sutton’s $8,600 pay hike actually amounts to a 6.5% raise from the $132,000 she made as the council’s policy staff director.
Attempting to clarify his initial reaction, Abe told me that if he had “expressed any surprise, it’s because [Sutton’s salary] is more than the council members make”—$27,137 more. Last year, voters reduced the county council from 13 members to nine; but staffing levels, and salaries, have continued to climb.
Some years back, one of the dailies ran a study of the county payroll and found the highest paid employees were half a dozen high-seniority jail guards who collected tens of thousands of dollars in overtime benefits per year.