Vallejo City Council expected to approve raises for city staff Tuesday

VALLEJO – Some city staff might find more money in their paychecks soon if the Vallejo City Council approves a pay increase for city employees totaling $7 million that will be paid over the next few years.

The council will be asked to ratify tentative agreements with several city labor organizations, including the Confidential, Administrative, Managerial, and Professional Association (CAMP) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 1245 (IBEW) on Tuesday.

The council is also expected to increase the salary for unrepresented executive management employees, which includes high-profile positions like the police and fire chiefs, assistant city manager, city clerk, and finance director, among others.

If approved, employees in each group will receive a 2% salary increase and then increases of 2% and 3% will follow starting on July 1, 2022 and July 1, 2023, respectively.

The city’s highest paid employee, Police Chief Shawny Williams, who currently earns $261,000 in annual base salary, will begin to receive $266,837 with the immediate 2% increase.

The pay for neither the city council, the mayor, city manager nor city attorney will increase.

“Salaries and benefits for the Unrepresented Executive Management Employees have not been changed in over two years. Additionally, we have now reached agreements with CAMP and IBEW, resulting in salary increases,” the city’s human resources director, Mark Love, explained in a report to the council.

“The recommended changes are needed in order to maintain internal equity in salaries and to avoid compaction issues, as well as to maintain competitive salary levels for recruitment and retention reasons,” Love wrote.

Increases to the unrepresented group will cost Vallejo a little less than $1.3 million over the next three years, with the largest increase of $680,000 coming during the 2023-24 fiscal year budget.

Love also wrote that a separate memorandum of understanding between the city of Vallejo and CAMP and IBEW expired in June 2020 with both unions agreeing to one-year rollovers due to the COVID-19 pandemic and “uncertain fiscal impacts.”

Costs associated with the IBEW increase include about $4 million with an increase of $1.2 million for fiscal year 2022-23 and $2.2 million the following year. The fully loaded costs for CAMP includes an increase of $576,000 and $1 million scheduled for FY 2022-23 and 2023-24, respectively.

Love said the city anticipated salary increases for the current fiscal year, which began on July 1, and funding was appropriated “to absorb these potential costs”

Union members and those of the unrepresented groups will receive a one-time $1,000 cash payment. To receive the lump sum, each had to be a permanent employee in the classification or assigned to the respective union as of June 30, 2021, and still be there at the time of the disbursement, which is the first full pay period following council approval.

The Vallejo City Council meeting is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. Tuesday and will be held inside the Vallejo City Hall Council Chambers, 555 Santa Clara St.