|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
The San Ramon City Council approved two measures at their most recent meeting that will increase spending in the current fiscal year by more than $250,000 with the goal of addressing salary compression issues that emerged following an agreement with the local police union and bolstering the function of the city manager’s office.
The council voted unanimously Nov. 26 to approve salary increases for some city staff including SRPD Chief Denton Carlson and City Manager Steven Spedowfski, as well as to add an assistant city manager position that is set to be filled as soon as possible.
The pay increases amount to a total of $114,716, with the addition of the assistant city manager position set to cost approximately $303,677 annually, or approximately half of that in adjusted mid-year spending depending on when the position is filled.
The salary adjustments come following a memorandum of understanding with the San Ramon Police Officers Association that included an increase to the top tier of the salary scale for police sergeants.
“That new MOU of course included changes to various salary for represented members, including police sergeants,” human resources manager Megan O’Donoghue said in a presentation at last week’s meeting. “One of the changes in pay resulted in fully loaded sergeants at the top step of their salary range – those are sergeants that we’re looking at the combination of their base pay and any specialty pay available to them – that total amount created compaction with the pay for police lieutenants.”
This issue was addressed by a previous amendment that increased the salary for police lieutenants, which was set at 5% above the top step for “fully loaded” police sergeant effective July 15, with all lieutenants in the department being moved to the top step of the pay scale – $265,297 annually.
“With that change, the new top step for police lieutenants moved above the top of the salary range for both police captain and police chief,” O’Donoghue said. “So the proposed amendment number two would establish the top of the salary range for captain at 7.5% above the top step for lieutenant and the top step of the salary range for police chief at 10% above the top of the salary range for captain.”
Those changes bring the total police captain salary to $285,194 annually, and the total police chief salary to $313,713 annually, effective retroactively to July 15 following the council’s approval that evening.
With the police chief position also being considered a department director role, the proposed salary increase aimed at addressing wage compaction in the police department would, on its own, lead to further wage compaction in the city manager’s office, with the recommended pay increase for the heads of the department eliminating the existing salary differential between department directors and the city manager required under Spedowfski’s current contract.
“The current contract with the city manager calls for a 5.5% differential between city manager and highest paid department director, so with the change in salary for police chief, the salary for the city manager would also need to be updated, and that update would result in an increase of approximately 11% in actual salary for the city manager,” O’Donoghue said.
The salary increase brings Spedowfski’s annual salary to $330,968 – effective July 15.
The measure also included salary increases for some unrepresented employees that had been previously deferred, for the city engineer, assistant city attorney, and deputy city manager positions.
“The $114,716 – of all those cascading effects when we did the represented POA contract and all those other positions were affected by that because of compaction and one thing or another – that’s not as much as I thought it would be in total, quite frankly,” said District 2 councilmember and Mayor-Elect Mark Armstrong.
District 1 Councilmember Scott Perkins motioned to approve the resolution after minimal discussion on the topic aside from Armstrong’s comment, with District 3 Councilmember Sridhar Verose seconding the motion.
The addition of an assistant city manager position and the approval of funding for it was part of a measure that also included the reclassification of some senior management positions from “competitive service” to “at-will,” with the move only being effective for new hires in those positions, not those currently in them.
“Consequently with that change, we would need to have separate employment provisions for those employees, which is why we have drafted the unrepresented executive employees’ salary and benefits agreement, which would include a provision for up to six months of severance benefits for employees who fall into that agreement,” O’Donoghue said.
The need for an assistant city manager was identified during an organizational assessment of the office, which determined an “immediate need” for that postion in order to increase oversight of the city’s finances and alleviate Spedowfski’s current span of control, which encompasses 12 positions.
The top-step of the salary range recommended by staff for the assistant position – $303,677 – is 10% above the top step for department directors.
Perkins noted that with the proposed salary being annual, the council was effectively approving half of that in the current fiscal year’s budget, later moving to approve the resolution, which was seconded again by Verose.
Thank goodness we passed the sales tax measure so everyone from the beat cop up to the city manager can get a pay increase. I’m glad they didn’t publicize what the money was actually intended for prior to election day or they might not have been able to give themselves these extremely generous raises.
Agree!