The Davis City Council is set to approve the contract of Dirk Brazil in a consent item after they voted 4-0-1 in closed session to appoint Mr. Brazil as the new city manager. If approved, he would take over on November 3 following six months with Interim City Manager Gene Rogers at the helm.
The contract calls for Mr. Brazil to receive $217,200 in base salary, an increase from the previous base salary of $188,000. The agreement shall be in effect through November 2, 2017, and will automatically renew and extend three years “beginning on November 3, 2017, unless written notice not to renew and extend is given by City to Employee no later than six (6) months prior to the renewal date.”
The contract calls for: “In the event the City implements cost-saving measures, such as work furloughs, salary reductions, changes to health or welfare benefits and allowances or any other changes to the monetary terms of the executive management unit as provided in the applicable MOU, Employee will receive the same downward adjustment or adhere to the change in terms as that applicable to the executive management unit.”
There is also a provision that, “other than for gross mismanagement or an act of moral turpitude,” there can be no action by the council to terminate the employee within 90 days prior to or immediately following a city council election.
The base salary marks an increase, both for the city manager position as well as for Dirk Brazil himself. Mr. Brazil as Deputy Council Administrator received $164,782 in total wages, plus another nearly $25,000 in retirement and health care.
The city manager compensation was increased in mid-July following a special meeting. The council voted to “establish a salary range of the City Manager position up to a range of $217,200 to $241,300, with appointment to be made within the range based upon the qualifications and employment history of the individual appointed to the position,” and “establish a limit of up to 10% for additional monetary benefits (in addition to health/dental and PERS retirement benefits), to be negotiable.”
The city and consultants did a rate comparison that showed Davis’ city manager compensation of $188,000 was at the bottom of the market.
As the staff report noted, “Working with the guidance of the Recruiter, staff conducted a labor market analysis of certain cities within an approximate 60 mile radius of Davis to determine the city’s competitiveness in the marketplace. Based on the survey information it is evident that the city’s medical/dental and retirement benefits are comparable to other cities in the region. The area where Davis is clearly not competitive is salary and additional cash-related benefits (i.e. deferred compensation, PERS pickup and auto allowance).”
The consultant suggested that the city should aim for between the 50th and 75th percentile in terms of compensation, which would bump up the pay range from the current level to from $217,000 to $247,000.
As staff wrote, “Given the desire of the Council to attract and select a highly qualified City Manager, the recruiter recommends using the 75th percentile of the market to establish the high end of the range, which would be $241,300. The additional benefits provided are widely varied.”
“Any city manager worth their salt is really 24/7 City Manager,” Councilmember Lucas Frerichs said. “In Davis that is absolutely not the exception, it’s the absolute rule. Whoever has been and whoever will be the city manager is going to be someone who is facing such a wide range of really important tasks working on not only budgets and such but revenue issues and also economic development, innovation parks and stuff like that.”
Councilmember Swanson talked in terms of being a regional leader. “The 24/7 is certainly an expectation on the city manager,” she stated. She added that “this is the right thing to do to ensure that we really get the best candidate pool including those that we have already seen and making sure that we give the community the very best that we can.”
Mayor Dan Wolk then added, however, “I think what Robb [Davis] is bringing up is an important point.” He noted that “[this is] during a time of budget crunch and we are getting concessions from our existing employees,” and he believed that was an important point.
Nevertheless, in the end, he agreed with the consultant. “I will support this,” he stated. “Having a really good city manager can make a huge difference. It is clear from the data that we are significantly below… other cities.”
“To get good people, salary is a critical part of that,” he continued. “Even though we’re in a period of tighter budget, even though we’re in a period where we’re making concessions… I think that it’s important that we have a good city manager at the helm.”
He said he hoped that the city employees would understand that a greater salary would give the city someone who can be a good city manager and be very good on employee morale issues.
In 2011, the City of Davis hired Steve Pinkerton. Mr. Pinkerton had just taken a $65,000 cut – a nearly 30 percent compensation decrease from his 2008 salary at Manteca. “It wouldn’t be right for us (management) not to take the same hits that other city employees have been asked to take,” Mr. Pinkerton said at the time.
Mr. Pinkerton arrived in Davis taking only a very modest pay increase over his predecessor. He often stated that, had he taken any more, it would have nearly impossible to get the employee groups to take concessions. As it was, two of the bargaining units would go to impasse.
The $217,200 figure moves Davis from the bottom in the 15-city comparison of city manager compensation to the middle of the pack, still below median and average.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Boss Weist is definitely calling the shots. He obviously played a role in convincing the Council to hire the County’s political operative, now he convinced the Council to pay him $30K more than the last guy — and 30% more than the guy was making at the County.
How on earth will this guy be able to look the Labor unions in the eye and tell them that the City can’t afford to increase compensation for them? I guess, just like in 2004, we can just raise the sales tax to pay for their raises.
Okay, Rifkin, Frankly, and Mr. Fleeman, how do like your guy now? He just opened up the cookie jar, and I don’t think there is going to be any money left over after the unions get their hands on it.
Oh, and I like that they made it a consent item. Guess a massive raise which is going to cause unrest amongst the labor groups is a non-controversial issue.
Typical Davis, we can spend all night talking about a free tank — but there is no need to discuss a return to the bad old days of runaway employee compensation.
While I’m sure this is well-intended, it does make for a direct conflict of interest for the City Manager proposing and implementing cost reductions.
It prevents the city manager from independently attempting to renegotiate his contract. At this point it would be hard for the city manager to push for employee compensation increases to get a raise.
But I think you can see how the problem works in the other direction.
This kind of clause was included in the past few years in contracts for all of the top administrative staff in DJUSD. At the time I think it was understood that if certificated and classified staff were asked to take reductions, then it was incumbent on the leadership to set an example.
I would be fine paying the CM $300k if 50% of it were in the form of a goal-measured performance bonus.
We missed a giant opportunity to demonstrate progressivism here. Instead, and again, the best we can seem to do is follow the herd.
What would be the “goals”? Extracting as many “take-backs” as possible from all employees to boost his compensation? General positive trend to realize expenditure savings while increasing revenues (the latter being somewhat out of the CM’s control)? I do not mean this antagonistically, because performance based compensation for all employees is of interest. There is too little difference in the current compensation plan to reward high-achievers or those just putting in their time. Help us with a concept of ‘pay-for performance’.
Except, in this case, his comparison group IS Executive Management, NOT ‘rank & file’. If the Council directed THAT group to ‘take a haircut’, he would have credibility in that he also was taking a ‘haircut’. Can’t find MOU’s for Executive Mgt on the City website — just “general mgt”. Also, benefit package/salaries for CC members are not on the site. [Meant as a reply to wdf’s 10:45 post]
The City Manager makes less than the City so-called In . . . . . oh! I better not say it, don’t want to be accused of written abuse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . again.
‘IN-” terestingly cryptic… “interim”, “innovation”, “information”, all fit.
OK, you must NOT mean Chief Innovation Officer, as his salary is 163k.
I’m sure a salary like this is needed for top quality candidates. With that said, it’s a good $145,000 more than what I make in my 24/7 job supporting a family of 4. I’m behind Dirk 100%, so this is not a dig at him or his salary. It just kind of boggles my mind, that’s all.
One way to look at it is that each resident of Davis pays less than $0.50 per year for the “raise”. Or, about $34 per year to have the position. [salary]
Thanks hpierce. That’s a great way to put it in perspective.
“To get good people, salary is a critical part of that,” he continued. “Even though we’re in a period of tighter budget, even though we’re in a period where we’re making concessions… I think that it’s important that we have a good city manager at the helm.”
I disagree. Some of the most qualified, intelligent, energetic, hard-working, honest folks I’ve had the pleasure of working with are folks who receive low salaries at non profit organizations.