Politics & Government

How Does a City Decide How Much a City Manager is Worth?

As Benicia moves closer to hiring a new city manager, decisions will have to be made concerning how much to offer the top candidate.

How much should Benicia pay its next city manager? What are other cities paying their top people?  Should the City Council look at other cities with oil refineries to see how much their city managers make?  Should the comparison be based on population?

Maybe other considerations, such as overall experience, should count?  How much weight should recommendations from council members from other cities carry as opposed to recommendations from other employees?

These are a few of the questions City Council members will be asking themselves over the next week as they move forward in the process of hiring a city manager.

Find out what's happening in Beniciawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The League of California Cities recently released a city manager salary survey that shows there is no consistency around the state when it comes to city manager compensation.  For instance, the city administrator in Oakland, population 410,000, took home slightly more than $230,000 last year.  That figure includes car allowance and two weeks leave cash-out. 

By comparison, Benicia, population 28,000, paid its city manager, Jim Erickson, $227,000.  Erickson's compensation included deferred compensation of  $19,000 and vacation leave buy- back of $6,000.  A PDF of the survey is attached.  

Find out what's happening in Beniciawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

When negotiating with employee-bargaining units, Benicia compares salaries from a pool of 12 other cities.  That pool includes:

City                          Population                City Manager Pay

Brentwood             53,000                         $237,000

Davis                       65,000                         $187,062

El Cerrito                23,266                         $181,900

Fairfield                 106,622                         $229,625

Folsom                     71,051                           $237,000

Napa                         76,160                          $237,703

Pleasant Hill           33,576                           $249,114

Pinole                        19,039                           $181,464

Richmond                105,630                        $258,000

San Pablo                 31,065                          $171,613

Vacaville                    96,450                         $213,165

Vallejo                       116,000                        $163,280  (seven months worked)

 

A few things stand out in the pool cities.  Richmond is the only city in the comparison pool with an oil refinery.  Most of the cities in the pool have a higher population than Benicia.  Of the 12 cities in the pool, eight pay their city manager more than Benicia pays Erickson and four pay less.

The Benicia City Council continued interviewing city manager candidates on Monday at the Commanding Officer's Quarters.  Today, the candidates will meet the council again and interview with two other committees: a public "citizens" committee and a peer committee.

You have an opportunity to look at the data and decide how much the next Benicia city manager should earn.  We want to hear from you. 

 


 

 


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