GILROY
– When a round of 3 percent raises kicks in July 1, 28 city
administrators will have the potential to make six-figure
salaries.
GILROY – When a round of 3 percent raises kicks in July 1, 28 city administrators will have the potential to make six-figure salaries.
When additional 2 percent raises take effect Jan. 1, 2005, there will be 29.
Not all of those employees necessarily will make $100,000 or more, but the maximum salaries for their positions allow it. The 12 best-paid city posts already had annual minimums of more than $100,000.
City Administrator Jay Baksa is the highest-ranking city official and makes the most money. Starting January, he will earn $175,920 a year, $24,800 more than the next-highest city salary.
The City Council is expected to approve the raises Monday – a formality, according to City Clerk Rhonda Pellin, since the council can’t change the contract it approved more than two years ago.
City administrators are not unionized, but they still do collective bargaining. They are about to begin the last year of a four-year contract that went into effect July 1, 2001, and that council approved on Jan. 7, 2002.
Mayor Al Pinheiro said the raises cover an increased cost of living and help prevent good employees from seeking work elsewhere.
“It’s like in any other business; you pay someone according to what they’re worth,” Pinheiro said Friday. “To be in line with attracting the type of individuals that can help steer the city into being the type of city we want to be … sometimes you need to go up a notch.”
Gilroy’s salaries are, in general, higher than those in slightly smaller nearby cities and lower than those in slightly larger ones. The police chief salary in this city of 46,200 residents, for example, will range from $110,772 to $141,216 starting in January. In Morgan Hill, with 35,500 people, the police chief makes between $107,940 and $138,300. Hollister, with 37,000 people, pays its chief between $94,957 and $115,419. The police chief in Milpitas, with 64,600 people, makes between $133,640 and $190,003.
