Goldstone's regular pay last year was $272,642, plus $55,829 pension, and $111,059 in annual retirement payout.

Last week's San Diego city council vote to hand out $15,000 hiring bonuses to cops poached from other government agencies is just the latest public money-throwing action of a costly panic over diminishing police ranks.

Notes a July 17 dispatch by TV station KNSD, "More officers have left SDPD this past year than in any year in the last decade. In fiscal year 2022, which ended June 30, 241 officers left the force. Another 12 officers have left since July 1.

"About 31% of those departures were retirements: 76 officers retired last year. But 66 of the officers who left didn’t retire; they just went to work at other law enforcement agencies."

Now comes California state Controller Betty Yee with her annual public agency salary survey, including self-reported 2021 data gleaned from "cities and counties on the Government Compensation in California website," according to Yee’s June 28 news release.

"The newly published data include 460 cities and 51 counties," the release notes.

No names are named, but the figures alone are impressive.

A police sergeant made the top of San Diego’s list by pulling down a whopping $359,138, including regular pay of $119,798 and overtime of $219,805, along with something called Lump-Sum pay of $5,107 and Other Pay of $14,428.

A Police Officer II came in second at $345,336.

An Assistant Police Chief was third with $336,250, including a Lump-Sum of $93,42 and Other Pay of $35,127.

By comparison, San Diego's Chief Operating Officer got $272,642, all of it in Regular Pay, but there is more to the story.

The COO job's current occupant is identified on the city's website as Jay Goldstone, who has been in and out of the position since 2015, when he was tapped by Republican then mayor and ex-police chief Jerry Sanders for the role.

In addition to his regular pay last year of $272,642, according to the website Transparent California, Goldstone received a $55,829 pension from San Diego's retirement system for his prior Sanders service, and $111,059 in annual retirement payout as result of his tenure as the city of Pasadena's finance director, bringing his total government compensation in 2021 to $439,530.

When newly elected Democrat Todd Gloria, a Sanders protégée, picked up Goldstone to run the city on a temporary basis in late 2020, the longtime government executive wouldn’t tell the Bond Buyer whether he was interested in getting the gig permanently.

"Right now, my priority is to help the mayor get through the budget cycle; and then we will have some discussions because they had talked about doing a specific search."

In November 2020, before he was sworn in as mayor, the Union-Tribune reported that Gloria promised a national search for a new COO, but nothing came of it and Goldstone is now listed on the city's online organization chart as Chief Operating Officer, minus the acting designation.

The city advertised the permanent position early this year, saying that pay would be between $300,000 and $400,000. The last date to apply was February 25.

Goldstone has been a key advocate of a court settlement in the controversy over downtown's Ash Street building scandal.

"Chief Operating Officer Jay Goldstone said in a statement that paying Cisterra in cash and then borrowing money to pay for the previously approved capital projects makes the most sense for the city,” the U-T reported July 24.

“The mayor’s proposal represents the lowest cost of funding for the finance of the settlement agreement,” the paper quoted Goldstone as saying.