The rewards of public service

Service is its own reward, a but an $800,000 salary isn’t bad either, especially if you’re the city manager for Bell, California. The LA Times reports:

A local official in California earning close to $800,000 a year as the manager of a city with nearly a quarter of its population in poverty has quit following a public uproar, the mayor said on Friday…

[Robert] Rizzo’s $787,637 salary was nearly twice that of U.S. President Barack Obama, a considerable expense for a city of 37,000 people operating its own food bank for impoverished residents.

Both the attorney general’s office and Calpers, the California public pension system, are investigating the situation.

Calpers has an interest in the compensation Bell provided because of the pension payments it must make.

Rizzo could amass pension payments of more than $30 million in retirement if he lives until age 83, according to an analysis by the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility, a group calling for an overhaul of the state’s public pension system.