Sacramento council may rescind city manager’s raise, apologizes for breaking law
After the Sacramento City Council violated state law by granting a raise to City Manager Howard Chan, the council may rescind it — and also prohibit city managers from putting their own raises on future agendas.
The council approved the raise last month, but was set to redo the vote after receiving questions from The Sacramento Bee that revealed the city had violated The Brown Act by approving the raise in a late night so-called special meeting. Special meetings are less transparent because they require a shorter public notice period and no public comments.
On Tuesday, instead of reapproving the raise, which was on the agenda, Councilman Eric Guerra made a motion to delay the vote to a future meeting. That item passed, along with a plan for council to consider changing its rules to make it so the city manager and city attorney can no longer place raises for themselves on agendas.
“Whether it’s an actual or perceived conflict of interest is an important factor,” Guerra said. “I’ve heard from my constituents we need a change.”
Chan’s base salary was set to increase from $400,000 to $420,000, with 240 hours leave time. However unlike the December vote, Tuesday’s item would have no longer allowed Chan to cash out the leave time at his discretion. If he had cashed it all out, it would have added roughly $50,000 to his salary.
But removing that sweetener did not result in mayoral support.
“I draw the line at these additional (leave) hours in the public sector. I can’t do it. Even non-cashable hours,” Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg said. “I’m not comfortable formalizing this cash, this additional cash. It’s too much in light of his current compensation and in light of the situation the city finds itself in in terms of the deficit.”
Steinberg along with several other council members apologized for violating state law in the way it awarded the December raise in December. It did so by adjourning the regular meeting then calling the special meeting to order just minutes later, without public comments.
“To the community, you are right,” Councilwoman Karina Talamantes said. “We should not have heard this prior to the new year in the rush of the holidays in the late hour. I want to say you’re right. We need to do better.”
Roughly a dozen members of the public shared concerns with the raise for Chan Tuesday.
Chan was the highest paid city manger in the state last year, partly due to cashing out his vacation and leave time. If approved, Chan’s new raise would still be retroactive to February 2023.
Sean Loloee, who originally voted yes for the raise, resigned from the council Thursday amid federal charges regarding his grocery stores.
Friday Chan announced he is opening a large homeless shelter in Loloee’s former North Sacramento district on Roseville Road — the first shelter he’s opening since the council assigned him the task five months ago.
This story was originally published January 9, 2024 at 7:23 PM with the headline "Sacramento council may rescind city manager’s raise, apologizes for breaking law."
