CLEARLAKE – The Clearlake City Council on Thursday amended its management/confidential employees classification plan, addressing points some council members felt were controversial, including vehicle allowances.
City Administrator Dale Neiman brought the amendments to the council based on several of his concerns.
Among them was a five-salary-step system for department heads and the city administrator. Neiman said both he and new Police Chief Allan McClain were hired at set salaries, and he suggested that other department heads be hired with set salaries as well.
Neiman said McClain's contract calls for him to receive his first increase on July 1, 2008. Neiman, who was hired in March, said he thought it appropriate that he shouldn't receive a salary increase until that same date, rather than this July 1.
A second concern of Neiman's was that the city's management/confidential employees classification and benefit plan isn't clear which provisions apply to confidential employees, of which there were two – City Clerk Melissa Swanson and Sherri Vannest, secretary to the chief of police.
Neiman suggested covering Vannest under a new classification and benefit plan for confidential employees, and moving Swanson to the management plan. Because of her responsibilities, Neiman said he considers Swanson's job to be equivalent to a department head. She is also handling the city's risk management functions.
The third concern Neiman raised was with the city's annual salary adjustment procedures. The current plan gives automatic salary adjustments each year on July 1, based on what's higher – a consumer performance index or a cost of living increase provided by the collective bargaining units for the city's employees.
Rather, Neiman suggested salary adjustments should be based on four factors: cost of living adjustment based on a consumer price index; an equity adjustment, based on the labor market for cities similar to Clearlake; the employee's value to the city; and the city's financial condition.
Neiman's fourth concern related to the city administrator's ability to grant between a 0- and 5-percent salary adjustment to employees who have reached the top salary step.
He said it was his opinion that this city provision didn't comply with state law. The City Council, he explained, cannot delegate its authority in approving issues such as employee salary increases. Neiman asked that the provision be deleted from the city plan.
Neiman told the council that they soon need to consider salary adjustments for the two police lieutenants, the city clerk, financial director and police chief secretary.
Mayor Judy Thein brought up her concern about the city's use of a car allowance for some management team members, rather than mileage reimbursement.
Thein said citizens have expressed to her their opposition to the car allowance, which she said she also is against.
The vehicle allowances amount to $9,600 in costs to the city, said Thein, with staffers receiving several hundred dollars a month to cover their car usage.
She said the policy goes back to City Administrator David Lane. “He wanted to give his management employees increases, which he did,” she said.
But Thein said Lane wanted to give more increases to his management staff, and when he couldn't, he instead created the car allowance as an extra perk.
Thein said she believed the allowance should be removed and replaced with mileage reimbursement at the Internal Revenue Service rate. The IRS reports that its 2007 rate is 48.5 cents per mile driven for business purposes.
Council member Joyce Overton said she understood a vehicle allowance was a standard practice in many local governments.
Neiman said that local governments differ in that respect. Where he used to work in Fortuna, only the city manager received a car allowance, while in the police department the chief and sergeants were assigned cars. Other employees were reimbursed at the IRS rate.
The benefit of a car allowance, said Neiman, is that it doesn't count as a salary increase that the city would have to match in additional costs to retirement plans or taxes, which Financial Director Michael Vivrette confirmed.
Vivrette urged the council to consider another issue. “These kinds of benefits help attract people to the management positions,” he explained.
Thein asked Supervisor Jeff Smith, sitting in the audience, how the county deals with mileage versus allowances. Smith said no county employee receives a vehicle allowance. The Public Works director and certain sheriff's staffers are assigned vehicles, and all others receive 32 cents per mile in reimbursement, Smith reported.
“In my view, it's a perk,” said Councilman Chuck Leonard, and Overton agreed.
Thein said although she was against the allowance, she wanted this council to make its own decision on the issue, once and for all. “We need to just put this to rest,” she said.
“I think we all felt at the time that it was an abuse of power,” Councilman Curt Giambruno said of the original establishment of the vehicle allowance.
He added that many people felt the city government, by doing so, was thumbing its nose at its constituents. But, if it's a legitimate perk for staff, Giambruno said he was OK with it.
Leonard moved to accept the revised classification and benefit plan, which lets the vehicle allowance stand. The council approved the plan 5-0.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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