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The Redwood City Council approved salary range increases for several high-ranking city officials, including the police chief, library director, and community development managers, during their meeting on Monday, Jan. 22.
These changes come as the city, facing a multi-year budget deficit and with staff wages accounting for 77% of the general budget, addresses departmental restructuring and staff wage adjustments.
Mayor Jeff Gee said he views it as an investment to hire and retain highly qualified employees.
“We are not approving compensations as much as we are approving the salary ranges, and so what I look at is that we are giving the city manager the tool kit for retention and recruitment,” Gee said.
The adjustments include a 4% raise in the salary range for Police Chief Kristina Bell, meaning the most a person could make as chief would change from $27,302 to $28,405 a month.
The city has also equalized the pay for the Library and Human Resources Directors and increased the compensation for Community Development Managers in an effort to manage internal pay scales more effectively, according to a city staff report.
Council member Chris Sturken appeared hesitant to approve the resolution, citing concerns that establishing a minimum pay differential could commit the city, which is already grappling with a structural deficit, to a pattern of significantly higher staff expenses.
The city has five bargaining agreements within its departments, one of which exists in the police department. The city tries to have a 10% minimum differential between the executive management and direct reporting employees.
Sturken said he supports giving Redwood City Police Chief Kristina Bell a pay raise to offset the fact that some of her direct reporting officers make more than her.
Currently, the city manager oversees the Parks and Recreation and Community Services director, but that soon may be the responsibility of the assistant city manager.
The city will adjust the assistant city manager’s monthly pay from $17,842.00 to $24,095.00 to a new monthly salary range of $18,526.20 to $25,010.70, according to the report.
The community development department manages three divisions: Planning and geographical information systems, building, engineering, and transportation. In April of last year, the city hired Matrix Consulting Group consultants to review and assess the department’s operations.
The consultants found that the city’s CDD had many responsibilities and required collaboration with multiple city departments. After reviewing the consultant’s recommendations, the city decided to restructure the department and reclassify some job descriptions while raising the pay level for certain positions to ensure the pay gap between executive management and their direct reporting employees is not inequitable, which is called salary compaction, according to the report.
The city will remove the engineers and transportation division and branch out into its own department once it hires an engineering and transportation director.
City Manager Melissa Stevenson Diaz said the city won’t fill the engineering and transportation director position for another three to four months.
Additionally, the city will change job descriptions in the city manager’s office, the finance department, and the parks and recreation department, all of which need to reflect the current duties of the position.
Gee said this helps the city manager have a competitive edge in hiring qualified employees.
“The ability to go out and recruit and, once we reel them in, retain them,” Gee said.
