Sacramento’s city manager got a huge raise for the second time in two years. But why?

Sacramento City Manager Howard Chan certainly knows how to count to five.

Five, of course, is the number of votes needed for a simple majority on Sacramento’s City Council. And it’s all Chan needed to get to $400,000, his eye-popping new salary.

As it turns out, Chan got well over five votes for that generous figure Tuesday, when eight of the nine City Council members, including Mayor Darrell Steinberg, agreed to give him his second significant raise in as many years. Councilwoman Katie Valenzuela cast the only vote against it.

There was little discussion of the matter during the meeting beyond praise for Chan. And there were precious few examples of the objective criteria citizens should expect their elected officials to apply to financial decisions in the name of citizens and voters. But Councilman Jeff Harris did uselessly assert that Chan is “worth every penny.”

Chan’s latest pay increase came just a year and a half after he received a 21% raise. The council approved that unanimously in May 2021, raising Chan’s base salary from about $308,000 to over $372,000. The mayor’s base salary is much smaller, at $158,652, while the other eight council members make less than that.

Chan’s base salary is now the second-highest paid to a city manager in California, according to the state Controller’s Office.

Just weeks ago, meanwhile, the council approved a much smaller contractual raise for the city’s police officers and firefighters, 3.5%.

Chan’s raise is particularly hypocritical in light of the city manager’s own warning that Sacramento must budget for a potential recession.

Also disturbing was the forced show of support for the move prompted by Councilwoman Angelique Ashby, who asked all the department heads present in the council chambers to stand up if they supported a raise for Chan. Under the watchful eye of their boss, of course, they stood up. It was political theater at its most obvious, stage-managed by Ashby.

Interestingly, Chan recently endorsed Ashby’s bid for state Senate. Despite acknowledging that he tries to stay out of politics because of “the nature of (his) job,” he took to his Facebook page to endorse Ashby in Tuesday’s election, adding that he wouldn’t be city manager without her “support and encouragement.”

Sacramento is a political town, but this is cronyism at its worst. Chan works for the council, and he clearly knows how to work that arrangement to his advantage.

Sacramento gives the city manager more direct authority over the government than the mayor. When Steinberg and his predecessor Kevin Johnson tried to change the city charter to endow the mayor with more authority over the manager and the rest of the government, city voters declined.

It is particularly telling that Steinberg did not speak during the council discussion of Chan’s raise. The mayor has been reminded many times that he has only marginally more authority than other council members and that the manager runs the city.

It’s unfortunate that a city as large as Sacramento still gives so much authority to an unelected bureaucrat — a bureaucrat who just got a huge raise on the night he cautioned elected officials about the need for austerity.