Last Tuesday night, it was incredibly ironic and hypocritical to listen to our city manager talk about budget cuts. Have voters and our city council forgot that Deanna Santana has the highest base salary and the second highest total compensation package for a city manager/city administrator in California – a whopping 709,446.
Instead of cutting our essential fire and police services for our residents, how about starting with cutting her own salary. Furthermore, as the Weekly previously reported five of Santa Clara’s 10 most-highly paid (base salary) City employees — after Santana — are her former colleagues! Let’s start with budget cuts with these overpaid city employees, not services residents depend on. This council seems to have it backwards, awarding high salaries to our administrators that are supposed to be working for us while eliminating budget everywhere else.
Residents should ask themselves these questions – why is our city manager paid an obscene amount of money while you suffer economically? Furthermore, why is your council member supporting salaries like hers while cutting your essential services? Think about it.