Exclusive: Sacramento vote to give city manager raise violated state law, will be redone
Sacramento city officials violated state law last week when they asked council to vote to give City Manager Howard Chan a raise and, following questions from The Sacramento Bee, have decided to redo the vote.
The council on Dec. 12 had already adjourned its four-hour regular meeting when it reconvened late in the evening. The late night meeting, called a “special meeting,” was legal in order to approve new contracts with two city unions. But the city violated state law when it then voted to award Chan and other city officials raises right afterward.
Special meetings in California require less public notice — 24 hours instead of 72 hours — or offering a public comment period. For that reason, the state’s Brown Act — the law that assures transparency in government meetings and records — prohibits raises for city managers (or any department heads) during special meetings.
“A legislative body shall not call a special meeting regarding the salaries, salary schedules, or compensation paid in the form of fringe benefits, of a local agency executive,” the act states.
Under the act, a “local agency executive” includes a city manager like Chan, said David Snyder, an attorney with the First Amendment Coalition.
“The reason for that requirement is compensation for public employees is something the public have an inherent and strong interest in understanding,” Snyder said. “The Brown Act guards against sneaking in raises for public employees with insufficient notice. If a public agency can use a regular meeting to discuss something, it should.”
The council could have placed the Chan raise on the regular agenda the same day, but it did not. That four hour meeting adjourned at 9:08 p.m., and the video live stream ended. Then 12 minutes later, at 9:20 p.m., the council started a new live stream and reconvened a new meeting called a special meeting, skipping the pledge and indigenous land acknowledgment. It first approved new contracts with the police officer union and Local 39, the city’s largest union.
Then Mayor Darrell Steinberg moved to the item about Chan, raising concerns about giving 10 weeks of leave time to Chan, which he can cash out at anytime. The council ultimately voted to give Chan a $20,000 raise in base pay, bringing his base salary to $420,000. Steinberg and council members Katie Valenzuela and Mai Vang abstained, while the rest of the members voted in favor.
The special meeting in total lasted 16 minutes before the members adjourned for their holiday break.
On Thursday The Bee sent an email to city spokesman Tim Swanson asking for comment on why the city apparently violated the Brown Act. On Monday afternoon, Swanson said the city will redo the vote.
“The city agrees that an item regarding the salaries of its charter officers should be voted on at a regular meeting of the council,” Swanson wrote in an email Monday. “The city will bring this item back at the next regular meeting of the City Council on Jan. 9.”
The decision likely came from City Attorney Susana Alcala Wood and possibly also Chan.
The raise for Chan, who already was the highest paid city manager in the state last year, was controversial and of a high public interest. The council was set to consider it over the summer, but it was pulled from the agenda after a critical Sacramento Bee editorial.
According to the city staff report, posted online hours before the meeting, his new raise was set to include pay retroactive to Feb. 11, 2023.
The council also last week awarded Alcala Wood a raise, bringing her new base salary to roughly $368,000 a year, retroactive to March 25. Her current base salary is $351,048. The city treasurer, city clerk, and director of public safety accountability, whose salaries are lower than Chan and Alcala Wood, also received raises.
Those raises will also be redone Jan. 9, Swanson said.
Chan and the other officials need to receive at least five “yes” votes in order for the raises to be approved. If the vote goes how it did last time, with six yes votes, he will receive the raise.
This story was originally published December 19, 2023 at 5:00 AM.
