That was one costly payday.
Several city council members in a small coastal California community quietly received accidental 500% pay hikes — and the pricey mistake reportedly went unnoticed publicly for about a year.
In Seaside, a Monterey County city along the Central Coast, council members’ monthly compensation surged from $400 to $2,400 in June 2025 after what officials now describe as a mishandling of a state law tied to inflation-based pay adjustments.
The five-member Seaside City Council kept receiving the higher checks until a sharp-eyed resident raised concerns, according to KSBW.
“A member of the public wrote an email to our staff and said, ‘Hey, you should look at this, this wage issue,’” Councilmember Alex Miller told the station.
Miller said council members are “extremely furious” as the city weighs a plan that could require each of them to return roughly $26,000 in overpaid compensation.
Council members, who say they were unaware anything was wrong, have placed blame on the Seaside city attorney, with Miller telling the Monterey Herald that the attorney had “assured us it was legal.”
“This is a case of the city attorney not researching the law,” Miller said.
The mistake allgedly occurred when the city attorney misunderstood compound interest in a clause within state law meant to allow city council compensation to keep pace with inflation.
The law allows for compensation to increase by “an amount equal to 5 percent for each calendar year from the operative date of the last” pay bump, according to the state.
The city council’s most recent raise came in 1986, meaning members were set to get a large raise anyway. But instead of adding 5% for each year, the salary number was recalculated for the 5% bump with each year for compounding gains — leading to increase 310% higher than intended.
“I am really trying to understand the amount that we got to because it wasn’t supposed to be $2,400, it was supposed to be $1,100,” Councilmember Alexis Garcia-Arrazoa told KSBW.
He has pledged to repay the amount owed to set a good example.
“We have to pay back, which I have all intentions to do,” Garcia-Arrazoa said. “I think it’s the right thing to do, the moral thing to do and to be the example to the community that, you know, even though these things happen, there is accountability and transparency.”
The councilmember also suggested that the body was misled in the pay raise process.
“What I want to highlight is that we were guided through a process that led us to believe the amount (of the raise) was appropriate,” Garcia-Arrazoa said.
“I don’t want this to take away from the progress we have been making.”
