City Council - workshop

Good afternoon. Welcome to Albany City Council Work Session, Monday, July 6th, 2026, at 4 p.m. I call the meeting to order, and please roll call, please.

Councillor Newton. Howdy. Councillor Thompson. Councillor Van Drommelen.

Here.

Councillor McLeod. Present. Councillor Smith. Here. Councillor McGee. Present. Mayor Johnson.

Here. Next on tonight's agenda is public comment. Public comment is the time for all residents to speak and for councillors to listen. The council won't discuss topics or respond to questions or make decisions during public comment, but will take comments and requests under advisement. All persons in attendance at the public meeting should avoid conduct which is unreasonably loud, disruptive or profane, rude and slanderous, and other threatening remarks will not be permitted. Whistling, yelling, foot stomping, clapping, and displaying of signs or speaking out of order will not be permitted. Speakers are limited to three minutes and must follow the council's rules and observe the same standards of decorum. If unable to do so, they will be asked to step down and take a seat with the audience for the remainder of the meeting or be removed from the meeting. When you get to the microphone, please give your name and state whether or not you live in the City of Albany, Oregon.

Is anyone signed up?

We have one person signed up to talk, Mark Stewart.

I was waiting for the little clock thing to show up. My name is Mark Stewart. I live here in Albany. I just wanted to come out real quick today since public comment was happening right at the start here. I want it to be a matter of public record. Just have it be said that during the 4th of July weekend in our nation's capital, we had an entire company of white supremacists marching through our capital on our nation's 250th birthday. And that should really deeply bother everybody, regardless of race or creed. You know, I think all of us inherently are bothered when we see a child harming an animal because instinctually we look at that and we realize if that kids capable of doing that to an animal, you know what might they be capable of doing to another human human being later on as they grow up and. The distance between that and a white supremacist really isn't that far apart. And I realize that for all of the benefits that I might enjoy from my own skin color, white supremacists genuinely scare the hell out of me. Because if they're capable of doing what they do to any other race, they're sure as heck capable of doing that to me too. And They didn't used to be so comfortable. So as we go throughout our day today in the months and years ahead, I suppose we might want to have that in mind a little bit because there's echoes of that even in our own government right now, especially through our immigration enforcement. There's 1,000 people missing down from the Florida facility right now, just gone. We don't know where they're at. There's people being drug out of their houses, drug out of their cars, shot over something like immigration. And if they're willing to go that far for them, what are they willing to do to us, the rest of us? That should bother everybody. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. The city council will now meet an executive session to review and evaluate the employment related performance of the chief executive officer of any public body or public officer, employee and staff members who do not does not request an open hearing in accordance with ORS 192.660, subparagraph 2, subparagraph I. Representatives of news media and designated staff and other persons shall be allowed to attend the executive session. All other participants must exit. Online audience members, we moved into a waiting room. When the council returns to open session, staff will readmit those remaining in the waiting room to rejoin the meeting. In-person audience members must leave the council chambers and wait in the hallway. When the council members return, when the council returns to open session and start open session, the doors will be open. You can rejoin the meeting. Representatives of the news media are specifically directed not to report on any of the deliberation during the executive session except TO STATE THE GENERAL SUBJECT OF THE SESSION AS PREVIOUSLY ANNOUNCED. NO DECISION WILL BE MADE IN EXECUTIVE SESSION PER ORS199-040-0020. COMPENSATION INCLUDING SALARIES, BENEFITS WILL BE DISCUSSED IN THE PUBLIC WORK SESSION. WE WILL NOW BE TAKING A FIVE MINUTE BREAK SO WE CAN SET THE ROOM AND RETURN TO EXECUTIVE SESSION IN THE CONVENIENT TIME. So we'll take a five minute break, and we're gonna move to executive session. Reconvene discussion and possible action, including compensation, including salaries and benefits per OAR199-040-0020. Director Roten.

City Council Chambers, Good evening mayor and Council, we actually have Jan Perkins our consultant online joining us this evening this initial presentation will be jams i'm just going to facilitate the slides for her so i'll let her introduce herself.

Okay, thank you so much, Holly. Can you hear me, Mayor? Okay, just doing a sound check. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mayor and members of the City Council. Happy to be here this evening with you. Holly, if you could go ahead and advance the slides to probably the second one, that would be great. So we were engaged to conduct a compensation study as part of our overall engagement. And I'm going to be presenting just an overview of that. We have already submitted our report, which council members have in front of you. So I'm just going to highlight for you the comparator cities and the factors that we considered, the results of the compensation comparison, the key takeaways from our analysis, and then a recommendation that we have for your consideration. Next slide. So as to the purpose, we were engaged to just ascertain where the Albany city manager's compensation compares with the market. This is particularly important, not only for ensuring that the salary is in a proper place for retention, but also in thinking about future recruitment as that may occur at some point for the city of Albany. So we looked at several comparator cities. For a city the size of Albany, it is a bit challenging because we do need five comparator cities to conduct a compensation study. And there happened to be five comparator cities within the population range of 50,000 to 100,000 within Oregon. As you well know, Oregon has many cities that are under that and a number of cities that are over 100,000. The cities that are less than 50,000, there's actually only one that is within the range of about 40,000, and there are many that are that are under that, those cities are really not good comparators for a city as complicated as Albany. And then on the other hand, cities that are over 100,000, particularly the much larger ones, are also not good comparators. They're much more complicated in the service scope. So we looked at population, but we also did look at the range of services that are provided and the level of complexity that is offered in those cities. We looked at the budget and the workforce size. We compared the budget numbers and the total of full-time equivalent figures, as well as the number of bargaining units. And all of that is provided in our report. All of those factors are important when considering which cities are relevant for comparables. Next slide, please. We found that, and you may know this already, that three of the five cities, the five cities that we looked at are Beaverton, Corvallis, Medford, Springfield, and Tigard. Three of those have vacant city manager positions. Two of those are actively recruiting, and that's particularly relevant because the salaries that they are recruiting for in those two, Medford and Tigard, are higher than the contract that was for the prior city manager. In the case of Tigard, they have a range that begins at the salary level of the prior city manager, but goes quite a bit higher than that. In the case of Medford, the salary range begins significantly higher than the last city manager was paid. So that's relevant because that's an indicator of the market and what's going on. in recruiting for city managers. And I can tell you that recruitment for city managers, not only in Oregon, but in Washington, in the Western United States is challenging. And so their cities are competing for that. And therefore, setting the salary at the right level is relevant. So for Beaverton, an important note there is that they have not yet started their recruitment. So the salary level that we are using is what is being paid to the interim city manager. In the case of Beaverton, we were only able to get the salary and not the deferred compensation level for that city at the time that we did the report. We were able to get the deferred compensation for the other cities, but that's just an important point. The other point with regards to deferred compensation is that with the cities that are recruiting, a new contract may be different. than what they have in the past. Next slide, please. So the key takeaways is that Albany is about 15% off of the median of those five cities. We looked at COLA, and that was interesting. It was quite varied. In many cases, it's tied to the COLA provided to other city staff. With regards to deferred compensation, Albany at this point does provide the highest level at 10%. Medford provides the lowest at 3%. But with those cities recruiting, that may change in the future. We looked at PERS pickup because that's certainly a relevant compensation point. And all of the cities do provide that PERS pickup, but Tigard is not a PERS city. So that is not relevant there. We also looked at severance because that is an important point in any city manager's contract. And Albany is within the range. Albany provides six months to start up to 12 months. And that is certainly within a range. One of the cities, Tigard offers, at least in the past contract, starting at four months. And then one of the cities goes up to 24 months. So that's actually all over the range. all over the map, but Albany is certainly within range in what you have in your provisions now. And an important note is with regards to establishing a salary range, both Tigard and Medford are actively recruiting, as I noted, and they both have established a salary range. That is reflecting in current trends that do establish a salary range for city managers. with increases that are applied at the discretion of the city council so it's not automatic for for the city manager um just a couple of comments just in closing is that i guess next slide please holly sorry Our recommendation is that the city establish a salary range for the city manager position consistent with the recruitment trends with the midpoint at the median. And then the city council determines where the city manager would actually be placed. So just a couple of comments is that right now the city manager's salary is pretty far out of market. That can have consequences for the organization, not only for the current city manager, but also internal compaction problems. And so it is relatively important for the city manager position, the chief executive, to be within a reasonable range of the market. It can also create problems in the future when the city has a need to recruit for a city manager, where you'll see with the two cities that are actively recruiting, they've had to increase their salary range fairly significantly. And so just staying within a market at a reasonable level is really the best way to not only retain, but also recognize good performance and ultimately recruit when the vacancies occur. So that concludes my overview and I'd be happy to answer questions.

So, I have a question. Do you think that I'll go to you next? Do you think that the others 2 will be. Because I know I see these 3 are empty and I've talked to those mayors. Do you think that those numbers will go up because of the scarcity of city managers?

Well, I only know what they are recruiting their range and I. I don't know if they're going to go up or not, but they certainly are recruiting within a range that's relatively wide. And in the case of Medford, the bottom of the range is about 15% more than what, or $15,000 more than what they were paying the prior city manager.

Thank you. Councilor Newton.

Do all the comparison cities also have deputy city managers?

I don't know. I don't know that.

I'll just comment on what you said about the establishing the the range or the setting a salary now that that may have consequences in the future. One of the consequences that Albany is dealing with is city managers in the past who refused to take pay raises considering the economic climate at the time. One city manager froze his salary for I believe it was five years.

Oh, boy.

It may have only been three, but it was a long time. And then our adjustments have traditionally been the same as the COLA for the non-bargaining staff. Am I remembering that correctly? um so something to consider that that's why our range is low now is because of prior managers who were modest in their desires and cognizant of financial limitations at the time counselors anybody else

i have additional presentation that follows on to jan's so i'll get that queued up here jan before i move on did you have any last minute comments no thank you okay thank you jen welcome Okay. So, in addition, good evening, Mayor and Council. I recognize I failed to introduce myself for the record. You all know me, but we're an open session, and I'm used to talking with you generally in executive sessions. So, I'm Holly Roten. I'm your Human Resources Director. Tonight, Jan shared their third-party findings on the city manager's compensation and the study that they conducted. And we also, internally within HR, conducted our own internal analysis and we're seeking council's direction on several key items including um whether to establish a range salary placement within that range if adopted for the current city manager potential contract updates needed including severance provisions cola language and some other minor updates so we'll walk through those items with you So as Raftelis noted, their findings and the city staff does concur that the salary is 15% below the median of comparator cities. Several of those cities are actively recruiting as Jan noted, which is raising market expectations. And as they noted in their report, Albany operates a full service city in a competitive labor market, making alignment with those comparators essential. Raftalis recommended a midpoint of two hundred and fifty thousand, which is consistent with staff's independent findings. We support establishing a full salary range for a few reasons. This will align with the city's standard structure for other executives, and it does prepare us for future modernization projects related to our non-bargaining and executive salary schedules, including things like looking at the need to roll in our longevity pays. to better position us for future recruitments and retention efforts. And we've spoken with this Council extensively over recent years about the compression issues that exist within our organizational structure and establishing a range will enable the city to address some of those concerns. I will just call out because I'd be the person to ask this, why the midpoint at 250, 190 versus just a straight 250. This, when we look at the proposed structure that we're looking at in out years and where we intend to move to, this is the E-140 is the closest placement, excuse me, on that new salary schedule. And it ties out nicely to be able to maintain a consistent percentage spread. from lower level classifications. So if the council adopts a salary range as recommended, the question becomes a market true up for our current city manager. Both Raftalis and staff recommend placing Peter at the midpoint, which corresponds to step six on the recommended salary schedule. With nine years of experience here at Albany and prior deputy city manager experience before coming to Albany, midpoint placement is aligned with common practice for seasoned executives. Without further action, the current COLA of 2.4%, which is what the council approved for non-bargaining and executive staff, Peter would be placed at step two, which is well below the market for his experience level. Recognizing that closing a 15% gap immediately may not be feasible, we've outlined a recommended approach for Council's consideration that balances market competitiveness with budget constraints. Staff would recommend that the council consider moving Peter to step five as of July 1st of this year, and then prescribing in his contract a move to step seven in July of next year. Staff would also note that this approach is consistent with how we've handled other groups that were found to be considerably behind market, including most recently with our fire union positions, which were double digits behind market. And the approach was to implement that catch up over a two year phase in. And I would note too, that the budget office has confirmed that this is something feasible within the current biennial budget.

But conscious man's question, what's the current salary?

And salary with applying the 2%, 2.4% COLA comes in right around 218 and some change. Thank you. I can pull up the exact figure if you'd like it, but it's about 218.

That includes the deferred comp, right?

That's base wages. So there's a 10% deferred comp value. And I believe Jan had it in her presentation, the 237 with deferred comp.

That was step five, step six. What was 237?

That would come in at step two of the range. And given Peter's level of experience, as your HR director, I'd be remiss if I didn't call out that that's inconsistent with, you know, where we would recommend you place someone at that level of experience.

Do the councillors have anything?

And I'll definitely pause at the end to answer any questions that linger.

Yeah, someone.

Separate from addressing the City Manager's progression through the recommended range, it's important to clarify cost of living adjustments versus the salary range progression. Councillor Smith, you noted that historically the Council would seek to tie that out to whatever was approved for non-bargaining and executives. The current contract language, however, doesn't necessarily provide for that and i'll get into that so recognizing that colas are designed to offset inflation and upright broadly to all non bargaining staff, they do not generally they're not intended to reflect performance or tenure. range progression, on the other hand, reflects experience market competitiveness and performance and those two elements should generally remain distinct. City Council Chambers, The current city managers contract does not clearly differentiate between cost of living adjustments and other salary adjustments. City Council Chambers, However, the municipal court judges contract, which was negotiated much more recently does provide that differentiation and calls out specifically that cost of living adjustments. City Council Chambers, As approved by the Council through the budget process and afforded to non bargaining staff will be automatically applied to the judge. Staff would recommend adding similar language to the city manager's contract for consistency and clarity. This reinforces that COLAs are separate from performance and experience-based movement through the range. And it also helps the city avoid long-term compression issues that can be caused by applying a different COLA value to the city manager than to other staff who he supervises. I also wanted to discuss severance options with the Council. I believe it was last year. This Council had asked City staff specifically to look at severance and other contract provisions and provide a report out. Raftalis did that research and found that the twelve month severance currently provided for in the city manager's contract is at market. There are a few process recommendations we'd make, however. So while that twelve months is at market, the current structure of paying it out over a twelve month period through the regular payroll process is generally an outdated process. It creates an administrative burden for city staff, and it unintentionally discourages the employee from seeking alternate employment. It also prolongs the employment relationship for both parties and doesn't provide for a clean separation at the time. Comparator cities typically provide severance as a lump sum and sometimes will include short-term COBRA coverage. Staff would recommend that this council consider retaining the 12-month duration and discuss whether it would be appropriate to consider some sort of COBRA premium, for example, 60 to 90 days at the current contribution rate.

Can you go back? The slide jumped.

Oh, did it?

Councillor Newton.

I thought, so I feel like I'm trying to find this where I read it, but I thought it was like six months or three months standard for lumps and then an additional year, additional month for every additional year of service up to 12 months. I'm trying to find that where I read that. I feel like that's what our current, are you saying a lump sum payout of 12 months as a standard parameter?

That would be consistent with what our market comparators are doing. They're handling it all as lump sum. The current contract doesn't provide for any of those months to be lump sum. Peter's exceeded the, under the current provisions, at the time that the council added that provision, it was six months, and they said, well, for each year of of service, it would go up to 12. So he's nine years of service. So he's at 12.

Yeah, so if we were going to standardize those this, like, I want to separate like, Peter from this, the creating this range for this role, right, of course, so that it would just I think, maybe having that language be more explicit would be like the three months plus for every additional year, instead of just it was confusing to me for 12 month duration, seeing that I was thinking that it would be for every city manager we had in perpetuity. Oh, so that's why just we'll make sure clarifying communication.

Yes, so establishing the range that's a great point of clarification. So you want to maintain that this is the class, the range for the classification, regardless of who's in it. And then what are the contract terms that this Council wants to consider approving for Peter specifically as your current city manager? recognizing that he does have the nine years of service, his severance would be at the 12 months already. So there's a decision point to be made on the part of the council of whether you want to move toward a lump sum payment, which would be consistent with what we're seeing in the market. And the current contract provides that it will be paid out through the regular payroll process in semi monthly installments. So that could potentially be city staff paying him semi monthly for a year. as it's currently structured.

I'm curious how that would, and I understand that the separation isn't as clean. But I also want to be cognizant of how you can be taxed. So let's just say something happens, and we're going to give someone a lump sum for 12 months. They're going to be taxed at a different rate than if they were paid out for every single month. And I just think if someone were then looking for a job for two years, Would that be? I just don't want to do something that sounds like it's better and in effect might hurt someone down the road.

Sure. And maybe this is a space where You want to have counsel discussion toward the end there's the tax implication potentially on the front end and that i'm not a payroll person, but from what I understand. It may have to be held at a higher rate when that individual went to file their taxes, of course, it would be at the lower rate if it's if it's wages. I think the concern being it prolongs the. employment relationship, recognizing that severance is when termination is not for cause. So this is in situations when you're your city manager, the council makes a decision that it's no longer functional relationship, but the city manager hasn't done anything for to be terminated for cause that it can offer that individual also a clean break to be able to receive a lump sum payment and sort of move on with their life and not have to maintain that relationship with their former employer. There's a few different ways to view it. I wouldn't say that staff has a strong recommendation for you. It was just a point for your discussion and consideration and to flag it as an area where we're misaligned with the market.

Okay, thank you.

City Council Chambers, Okay, when a make sure i'm on the right screen here okay so performance evaluation cycle, we thought it was important and timely to go ahead and flag this for the Council as well. City Council Chambers, reptiles facilitated this year's evaluation with the Council and based on national best practices for city managers staff would recommend discussion and consideration that that peters contract institutionalize third party reviews. The city manager also agrees with this approach. A biennial third party evaluation provides neutrality, accountability, and improved goal setting. It removes Peter's direct reports from the process, which can be important in bolstering that sense of neutrality. Biennial evaluations would also be aligned with both the budget and strategic planning processes, which are obviously heavily linked to the city manager's performance. And staff would recommend including this requirement in the contract while allowing for language that offers flexibility to the council should they want more frequent evaluations.

How often do regular employees get annual reviews typically annually?

I only smirked because you said annual reviews typically annually more often as necessary, recognizing that the city manager with having seven bosses isn't a little bit. different or unique position. I would also recommend that within the contract language should the Council want to move in this direction, that we include provisions requiring the City Manager to keep the Council routinely apprised both formally and informally. I believe he does that from what I heard from all of you. He does that quite well. but obligating him to do so contractually. And if I could speak for Peter, I think he would want also some assurances that the council through its contractual relationship with him agrees to provide that input and guidance and feedback and policy clarity throughout your regular interactions with him. So it would not be intended to minimize or reduce those interactions in any stretch. It would be to formalize this more robust, to steal a phrase, this more robust process every two years. So that would be the recommendation, but certainly it is ultimately up to this council how often you want to do facilitated reviews. Let's see some cleanup items I wanted to flag for the Council. We identified several areas where Peter's contract needs to be updated to reflect prior Council actions that were adopted by motion. So, for example, Peter's vehicle stipend that was in his original contract was rolled into base wages in 2023. The Council has made several changes to his deferred comp. With motions in 2223 and 24 that need to be captured to reflect his current rate of 10% administrative and professional leave is called out in his contract, however, at a city wide level. We did roll professional leave into vacation a couple of years ago for administrative efficiency, it was effectively just another bank of vacation and this makes it one bank that everyone tracks. and some other formatting updates that would be needed in order to align his contract with other executive agreements question is the professional leave logged in some way differently from vacation no there is an interesting provision in peter's contract that obligates him to take a certain amount of vacation every year to the absolute best of my knowledge that has never been required or enforced by this Council. So this would be just yet one more bank of leave that he would have to track that has all of the same usage rules and requirements, which is why we went ahead and rolled it in for staff. It simplified things. That would be an example of modernizing his agreement. i would recommend that this council hold peter to the same max accrual cap as other executives and that would inherently require him to use leave rather than calling out you you shall use at least 80 hours of leave a year it would be baked into the cake at that point but you cap it and you stop accruing use it or lose it yep okay i never had that problem so So tonight we're seeking direction on several items, as you see here. the consideration of whether to adopt the new salary range as proposed, discussion around Peter's placement within that range, and the progression timeline on which you would want council or what the council would want Peter to move through that. Any changes you'd like to consider to the severance structure, including whether to offer COBRA coverage, direction on updated cost of living adjustment language and the staff's recommendation to tie that out to other executive staff. The performance evaluation cycle, and then just approval of the contract cleanup and finalization that's needed for the mayor's signature. With that, I'm happy to answer any questions you have, and I would...

Thanks for this.

Yes, there's a summary in front of you that hits on these high points. This was a lot of asks. We don't generally come to the council with six different requests like this, so that will hopefully help us stay on track and make sure we don't forget any of the items.

Please leave this slide up.

Yes, I will.

Thank you. Yes.

So personally, well, do you want me to clarify?

Yeah, please.

I'm not a fan of doing every two years for a performance evaluation cycle, and I am not a fan of marrying us to having a consultant handle the evaluation process. I'm just going to throw that out there. Personally, I'm cool with the staff recommendation for salary placement and progression, doing step five, then step seven. Other things, cleanup seems good. City Council Chambers, But that's it's my my own in the lump something I just i'm not sure I wonder if that could be like something that could be. City Council Chambers, i'm just worried about the tax implications there for for how that might impact someone that might be, you know if they let's just say you know in a Salem city manager like lost their job like. City Council Chambers, Overnight essentially and I don't know what their payout was but I don't know if they don't know how yeah I know there's a few openings right now for city manager jobs but. yeah i i wouldn't want to shoot someone in the foot like with if they're going to get taxed tax and higher rate if they got a larger lump sum so the great thing is is that we can ask him what he wants but if we're going to enshrine it in contract language well i wanted to clarify so the the contract is with him the whatever city manager in question we're not like so

could you perhaps clarify yeah, we were setting like standards and parameters based on no we're setting contract language like where so the like these things that we're talking about in the contract are there are there policies that require like within charter code city policy any of the other than the salary schedule that we might adopt

No, the Council has ultimate discretion. The one place I would flag would be rolling the professional leave into vacation as a matter of cleanup. That's already been done. I would ask that the council retain that just because it's administratively efficient. But no, the council has ultimate discretion and how to structure the city managers compensation and the provisions of his contract. And I would clarify that this is these are specific provisions for your current city manager, I would fully expect that this council would want to revisit all of these provisions with a new city manager in the future.

depend on who we're hiring how much experience they have particularly when it comes to like placement along a salary schedule um like any any of these other than where they align with other city executive staff and then we would we would want to align with policy and practice right that's absolutely even something like severance you saw tigard's baseline of severance is four months well that may be renegotiated when they're able to secure a new city manager if for example they find somebody who has extensive experience in their

saying, well, I'm rolling the dice on you, city of Tigard. You need to roll the dice on me and bump that up. So I would fully expect the council to re-look at that in the future.

I will just say it was so interesting to see that their city manager does not collect PERS.

They're not a PERS participating employer, so none of their employees. Wake of all. Well, they don't pay the 6% pickup. And so that's a common thing with Tiger, we have to account for that.

I didn't realize that was the first I heard of it.

Yeah.

All right.

I wanted to offer a suggestion, Councillor Newton. Perhaps if the council doesn't inherently object to the 12 months, we could defer to permitting Peter to consult with a tax attorney and elect whichever provision he felt was more favorable.

Yeah. I like that. So we could give the employee the option of how they take the severance, should that ever come into play?

Certainly.

Because again, we're playing with a hypothetical here in a not-for-cause scenario.

If he retires, he doesn't get the severance stuff? No.

This would be if the council elected in a not-for-cause situation to separate the employment agreement.

No, I don't foresee that happening.

Okay, so counselor Newton to answer your earlier question I did a real quick series of duck duck goes over here. And it appears from quick web searches the Tigard and corvallis for comparator cities don't have an assistant or deputy city manager, at least not that's obvious from their web page. And that Medford Springfield and beaverton do, or at least normally do as part of their structure, notwithstanding anyone serving in an interim city manager role. Thank you for that and for my own part. i'm i'm largely in alignment with with Councillor Newton on what she said about the recommendations. There was enough disagreement around what the evaluation process should look like. I'll go on the record and say, like, actually, I really appreciated the consultant driven process for the evaluation. I was a little skeptical, especially given what seemed a little bit of a last minute change in terms of what I knew the process to be. I understand that there was more to it than that. But I think that this was largely a productive discussion, and I think that there is something to be said for having a neutral party facilitate however. In our discussion on whether or not to move forward with it when I brought it up from a process standpoint. I don't think that everybody on the Council was aligned with that. And so I wouldn't want to, like, I'm a little skeptical of locking us in within the contract and saying we must do a consultant-driven process. I, for my part, would probably say, yeah, let's do that again. I liked it. But also being mindful of the fact that all of us won't be on Council forever. So, but I think that a lot of the recommendations make sense and honestly I for me though the actually aligning with how other cities do it and not prolonging the employment relationship in the case of a no cause termination and doing a lump sum payout like I'm actually 100% in support of that.

What is our contract with rough tell us this one time initial.

Yes, just this year.

So just this year so we have Council wants to go back next year, or do the

new process we could do that certainly yes the council direct staff to leverage a third-party consultant next year absent even if it's not in the city managers it wouldn't lock us out yeah sure right

Thank you. And to clarify, for future years with a consultant, would using a consultant require a vote of the council to do that? I guess that's a question for anyone present who may know.

In terms of process, I think that would be appropriate if this council's expressed that they want to have City Council Chambers, That discussion and consideration as to whether to use a third party, I mean I would defer to Peter I think overall. City Council Chambers, Part of the recommendation to have that process and ingrained in his contract was for predictability and so, as there is change over in the Council, that would be something that he would be able to leverage and lean on as okay. City Council Chambers, I know, every year i'm going to have a third party facilitator do this more nuanced and neutral evaluation, but with the Council. Does that answer your question? I think I didn't answer it in a straightforward enough way. If this council has expressed that they want to be the decision makers on whether to engage a third party, I think it would be staff's obligation to bring that forward. And I believe Kayla already committed to that in a prior council meeting that we would do that as a matter of course.

Yes. Councilor Smith.

Regarding the third-party evaluation, I really liked the way that went this year. It was neutral. It was thorough. I think if I'm reading from the reports from the evaluations from the direct reports and department heads, I felt like they were more comfortable with it and probably more forthcoming in their responses. I would propose a split the baby model here and suggest that we do every other year, take it upon ourselves to do it on our own one year and consider doing it with a third party every other year. City Council Chambers, That would take into account changes on the makeup of the Council people thinking differently about different things. City Council Chambers, So that's something that I would recommend i'm also going to go down the bullet list here, I approve of the recommended salary range it's always been just sort of back of the napkin calculations and. These are all examples of, here it comes, the recitation again of Albany growing up. We're doing things like, in some ways, like a business does. So accept the salary range. I would agree with the staff recommendation for starting at step five this year and adjusting upward to step seven next year. with the 2% COLA for this year. Recommended severance 12 months, as it is already, and a 60-day COBRA. I would recommend doing the COLA alignment language to match with the non-bargaining group. The performance evaluation cycle should be annual as I mentioned with the every other thing, and authorized the HR manager and city attorney to finalize contract updates retroactive to July 1.

Also, another discussion? Thompson?

Yeah. Yes, there were some good discussion led by the third party. reviewer, though I truly believe we could get we with internally could get something close to that if we made an effort and so i'm just against. i'm just against paying for a consultant for this kind of thing. and also. I'm fine with it. And I'm thinking ahead. I'm thinking ahead, not saying that time is short for Peter, but it won't be long where we're talking about a new city manager. And I want to be, you know, understanding of that situation. So yes, let's go for this range. But I want to start at a lower step. Just looking at it, you know, step five is like 12 or 13% jump. If I'm right, 11%, 12%, something like that. And that's how it'll be. That's how it'll be described in the paper. I understand we're behind. I get that. I hope we put that too. But I would just like to start at a smaller step, like maybe three or four. isn't too far off but even that even four is ten percent and that's how it will be described we are giving the city manager at a time when people um and people begin getting raises to catch up with with inflation but a ten percent raise um that's what what will be described and and i know we're behind but but i just think we need to catch up over a period of time and frankly the catch-up i think will happen When the time comes to come out, look for a new city manager, we will probably start the minimum salary much higher. Just as a point that we'll just have to, to find someone. I think that's where the catch up will happen. But anyway, yes, I do like the lump sum. It prevents you from, it's that separation. It prevents people saying, well, Well, something happened, you fired the city manager and now you're still paying, you're paying X because someone will step into that role. You're paying two people over a period of year and the lump sum takes away that, that optic. We say goodbye to that person cleanly.

Mayor.

Yes, those are my, the rest I can agree with. Yeah, I'm done, I'm done, I'm done. I'm finished. No, you're good. I'm a patient person most of the time. That's fine. I think I agreed to everything else.

Okay. So in the interest of actually making some decisions here, especially since I'm hearing broad agreement on really most of what's on page one, I move to adopt the staff recommendations in one, two, and three. Okay. Looking at this one here. The handout.

Two has direction needed.

Yeah, I'm getting there. Well, yeah, it's determined the city manager's placement within the adopted range, and then the staff recommendation is place the city manager at step five as of 7-1 of this year and step seven as of 7-1 next year. Part of my motion is to adopt the staff recommendation in 2B because it's a pretty straightforward recommendation. recommendation. And I've heard several councillors say, yeah, that that sounds good to me. So I, I mean, really, it's it's adopting one be to be and three be in their entirety. End of motion.

Second.

I have a motion and a second all those in favor.

Discussion. I was gonna stop to discussion.

So I believe what Councilor Thompson was saying does have merit, especially when I understand paying for like being in the correct range, but also the optics, I think what is the average salary in Albany? Is it like $65,000 a year? And this is almost $200,000 over that. So I do want to acknowledge the optics of giving 15% pay raise to someone that's making $200,000 more than the average person here in Albany. It does make me a little uncomfortable. I do understand that this is within the range of salaries for this executive role. It would be nice to maybe have a proposed different step increase if it's like every quarter goes up, like we go from three, four, five, six, seven, if we had more of like a slower, a more graduated increase. Because it because it is you know quite a large jump it's not just like a standard two and a half percent cola it's two and a half percent cola plus a jump up to you know 15% even over that, so I. I just may I offer you an alternative consistent with that. Absolutely.

So when we looked at it initially, we were trying to balance making sure that we were being competitive and fair to Peter and recognition of his experience. with the budget realities that exist. If the council were to place him at step four, for example, that puts him at 95% of median. Technically under city policy, 5% below is considered at market. i i think you could still be fair to peter and placing him at step four and then prescribe a step increase every six months which we have done if you look at our current police contract there are two percent cost of living adjustments every six months instead of doing it in one fell swoop so if you were to place him at step four as of july step five as of January and step six as of July and then prescribed would that be I'm getting out into 2028 at that point January of 2028 a move to step seven that would be an alternate approach and it would be consistent with how we've handled other similar situations that does feel a lot more feel more yeah yeah more I feel absolutely a lot more comfortable with that more graduated approach because you know I

I thought you have something.

No, I just wanted to make sure that we were having discussion so that I could listen to it. Thank you.

I have another comment.

Yeah, and to put things in perspective for me regarding the average salary in Albany, I think the comparators, if we're going to take it down to that level, would be how many other CEOs in Albany are responsible for supervising 480 employees who fight fires, solve crimes, haul people away in ambulances for medical care, provide drinking water, make so certain that the toilets flush, keep the streets up as well as we have been doing, and run libraries and manage parks and recreation activities. Do land use planning issue building permits. Those are a lot of business enterprises with a lot of employees to supervise a lot of balls in the air, a lot of juggling to do a tremendous amount of personal interaction with or bargaining units and people of all ages, abilities, skills, educational levels. How much do those people make?

And I don't want to discount the work that he does. And he isn't the one personally fighting fires or solving the crimes. He does a lot of work, like with, and also when you mentioned libraries, I immediately thought too, but we do not contribute $1 of our own city money towards new materials for our libraries. But we're going to give a 15% jump in one fell swoop. I think that taking a more measured on-ramp just feels more true to the public service. This is paid for with tax dollars. It isn't the same as a CEO from HP or VanVleet. It's totally a different ballgame. It's still it's still considerable money. And it's so well above the average wage.

And he's not in the average.

No, the average wage for people in Albany and for Oregon, and being within 95 starting at that lower level being within 95 is still at market rate. And we could still it would be rectified over a six month period. I do like the alternative suggestion that the director like outlined.

No discussion. Councillor McLeod. Oh, oh, sorry. Nothing. Oh, I know. Looking at him. Councillor Drummond.

Councillor Newton, I would encourage you to offer an amendment to the motion because you could amend just the salary recommendation. We could vote on that and then. Okay.

I would love to make a friendly an amendment that the we have a more graduated salary.

Make a motion to amend.

Yes, and I'm telling you what the motion is. To place the city manager at step four as of 7-1-2026, at step five on January 1st, 2027, at step six, July 1st, 2027, and then at step eight, January 1st, 2028. Step seven. Yes. Thank you. As outlined by HR Director Rocha.

I'll second that amendment.

I have a motion and a second. Any further discussion?

I would like the motion restated, please. Recorder, can you please restate?

Hold on a second. You had a motion on two things. No, I seconded the motion to amend. No, but your initial motion was on all three.

So right now we need to restate the motion to amend.

So I'm amending his motion, then we'll vote on his motion as amended. Okay.

So I'd like to hear it from the recorder, please.

City Council Chambers, So the original motion from brand German was to adopt the staff recommendation of one be to be and three be and Newton, which was seconded by Smith Newton made a motion to amend to be to do step four on 7126 step five on 1127. Step six on 7-1-26, and then step seven on 1-1-28.

No, no, 27, 7-1-27.

Then the amendment was seconded by Thompson. No, by Van Dromelen. Van Dromelen.

I think, OK. To clarify, McKenna, step six, what I noted, was 7-1-27.

Correct, yeah. That's where you got wonky there. So there's a lot of moving parts in that motion. Okay.

Thank you.

Does everybody have the motion? Yeah.

Call the question.

Call the question. So all those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed say no. Thank you. So now back to your.

Now we're back to discussion on the main motion as amended.

The main motion as amended. So item.

So in its entirety, 1B. 1B. 2, as stated in the amendment, and then 3B, as written.

So any discussion? Council?

Councilor McGee had her hand up earlier, and I don't know. Okay.

Thank you for that.

Do I have a motion? I heard no discussion. Motion to a second?

It's already been seconded. It belongs to the body. All right.

Belongs to the body. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Those opposed, say no. Thank you. Now, item five and six. We have not touched, or four, five, and six.

Yeah, we haven't touched four, five, or six. also in the island with up to a hand up quite if the all all all yield to you if you want to discuss I was just going to try and get us unstuck so I wanted with.

I'm before we could table this for the contract and or we could put in the language where the. City managers able to determine after speaking with the tax attorney if it's better for him to take the lump sum or. The set or the. What have you or we could just decided to the lumps of it sounds like there's quite a bit of.

So director what would your thoughts be on that.

Do we want to ask your current city manager if he has a preference preference now that you're ever going to need to use this is not a hypothetical.

I hope never to have severance pay.

Yeah.

I don't have a, I mean, you have pointed out, others have pointed out that when you have it through the course of the year, it kind of disincentivizes looking for another job. But I really don't have a preference, a mild preference for lump sum.

All right, cool. Thank you. I would caution against verbiage that requires the city manager consult a tax attorney, but rather include language that gives him the option to consult he or she to consult and a tax attorney. Because then It would allow the city manager to make that decision without an attorney if they so choose.

Certainly. I would go a step further and suggest that we not include contract language that references consulting a tax returnee, but just to say at the city manager's election.

There you go. Exactly.

And then it's on them to do their due diligence. Thank you. Yeah.

There you go. Okay. So who would like to do something for?

I move to adopt the recommendation in 4B where we convert the severance payment to a lump sum. I would also in my motion include language to provide 60 days of COBRA premium coverage at the city's standard contribution rate since we're also being asked to weigh in on that. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion?

No, just a positive discussion. I agree. You know, we're contemplating a situation where a future council has decided to separate from a city manager. We should look at it as what's our way to go as an employer, and we want to provide a lump sum, which is kind of what the market is at now. and their tax, I don't really care. I put myself in the future council, if I'm firing someone, I don't really care about their tax implications. I hate to say it, but it's true. I think it's a good, and it's a nice clean break. It separates the employment status. So I agree.

Any other discussion? Motion. Do I have a second? It was already seconded. Motion and second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed say no. Thank you, council. Next, performance evaluation recommendation.

I have some.

I like Councillor Smith's alternative of doing every other year. I found the consultants to be productive, but I also think I don't want to be pigeon-held to using consultants, especially dealing with budget constraints or things of that nature, but also being able to do every other year. I really like that as a good alternative.

Council, anything else?

I just don't want to marry us to, in contract language, to enshrine us to use a consultant. And I just don't think that's wise. I think that also performance review should be annual. It should be an annual performance review and the council can determine if they would like to utilize a consultant or not.

Council vote.

Yes.

I would agree with that. I like that language too. What do the rest of y'all think? Go ahead, Council Member Drummond.

All right. I move to set the city manager's evaluation frequency in his contract as annual and leave it at that. And then the council can make a determination.

I'll second that. I have a motion and a second. Any other discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed say no. Thank you, Council. Next is contract cleanup needed. Council Member Gimlin.

I move to adopt the staff recommendations to authorize HR and the city attorney to prepare a revised agreement with the cleanup as specified by Director Roten. And motion.

Second. Motion to second. Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed say no. Thank you. Next is business from the council. Councillor McLeod.

Nothing for me tonight.

Councillor Van Drommelen.

I will save my business for Wednesday.

Councillor Smith. What he said. Councillor Newton.

I will talk to you guys on Wednesday.

Councillor Thompson. Nothing tonight. Councillor McGee. Thank you very much. City Manager report.

I will not talk to you on Wednesday because Kayla and I will be attending the OCCMA summer conference in Ashland. And in this seat, Matthew Rutgers will be sitting on Wednesday evening. And thank you for this evening.

With that, I'll adjourn the meeting.