Outrageous. Unbelievable. Cries of rage and astonishment were heard throughout California and on network news when the Los Angeles Times revealed the salary of Bell city manager Robert Rizzo a few weeks ago.

This weekend the Times continued its focus on the Bell scandal with a new report that Rizzo’s compensation package topped $1.5 million when all benefits were calculated.

This news is so beyond the pale. From screaming indignation, the reaction changes to stunned silence. I am struck speechless.

In a previous post reporting on the City of Bell situation, I warned that we were on the way to a million-dollar-a-year public employee. Little did I realize that he was already among us.

The Times disclosed that on top of his nearly $800,000 a year salary, Rizzo enjoyed retirement, medical benefits, insurance, vacation, sick leave, and expense reimbursements that approximately doubled his compensation package.

The vacation and sick leave package covered 28 weeks of the year. The Times story said the sick leave-vacation package totaled 143 workdays and calculated the compensation for this time at $386,786. If Rizzo took all that time away from the job, then he was earning essentially nearly $800,000 for less than six months on the job. Speechless.

Bell not only paid into his pension plan, but also paid for an additional pension program for Rizzo. They paid not only his health insurance, but covered all medical expenses not covered by insurance.

Other local governments are scrambling to show that their employees’ pay is not out of line. The Times story quoted Dave Mora, the West Coast regional director of the International City/County Management Association, saying that Rizzo’s compensation in no way represents the norm.

Still, it is good that we are going to get a look at the compensation packages of city and county officials. All over the state, salary and compensation packages are being posted on-line for top government employees.

The question is are we getting the whole picture? Salary reporting is easy, but other compensation is sometimes harder to search out.

Are these public executives treated like the taxpayers who pay the bills? Do they enjoy better and fuller medical coverage? More certain and richer pension packages?

I think we know the answer to those questions and it should open up a round of discussion about how the servants of the people are compensated by the people.

Bell’s situation may be an aberration, but in dealing with local government’s fiscal flaws we have to deal with not only the extreme examples, but also all out-of-line compensation that strains local budgets.