(FREMONT, CA.) – Expanding upon a discussion held during a previous meeting, the Fremont Charter Advisory Committee continues to discuss the salaries of Fremont’s city council members during their meeting on April 20.
City Manager Christina Briggs opens the discussion by reiterating the agreement the committee previously made.
“The committee did establish that the mayor and city council would maintain their part-time status. [...] Separately, the committee did agree to match the city’s health benefit allowance (HBA) for elected officials to the city’s full-time employees.”
Photo Credit: https://fremontca.viebit.com/watch?hash=trd7QaLuQMQVLbMY Christina Briggs
In accordance with this agreement, Briggs presents information detailing what the city council’s salaries would look like.
Photo Credit: https://fremontca.viebit.com/watch?hash=trd7QaLuQMQVLbMY
Granting the city council and mayor the HBA of a full-time employee would increase their health benefits by $2,445 per month, totaling $2,900 in health benefit money.
Briggs also reports that increasing the council’s salaries would increase the city’s annual cost from $281,113 to $486,472.
But before committee members can express their opinions regarding these numbers, City Attorney Rafael Alvarado points out a legal problem with this current plan.
He explains that while becoming a charter city would allow Fremont to adjust the salaries of the city council, it would not allow Fremont to provide a full-time HBA to part-time employees.
In order to circumvent this obstacle, the committee discusses simply adding an additional $2,445 to the city council’s monthly salary.
The large increase in these salaries is rather concerning to Committee member Rick Jones.
“If that were to be something that the council [accepted, ...] their salaries would increase [by] 95%. I just don’t think the optics are good for that. [... It would] put them considerably higher than market median.”
Photo Credit: https://fremontca.viebit.com/watch?hash=trd7QaLuQMQVLbMY / Rick Jones
Committee members Ben Yee and Dharminder Dewan counter this concern with the fact that council members may not use the entirety of their salary.
But this argument is not enough to budge Jones’ point of view.
“Regardless of whether they take it or not, it’s still listed as part of their total compensation.”
This, he argues, paints a bad picture of the city’s intentions behind becoming a charter city.
Not only are citizens already concerned about the city’s intentions, but planning to implement a 95% raise that would only be possible by becoming a charter city would raise much more suspicion among residents.
Committee member Sue Kwong also brings up the fact that some cities have a much shorter gap between their mayor and city council, while others have no gap at all.
She would prefer if the gap between Fremont’s city council and mayor were shorter, rather than the $24,000 difference it currently exhibits, but does not specify whether she means the city council’s pay should increase or the mayor’s decrease.
Despite the conflicting opinions expressed during the discussion, there is ultimately no motion made or passed to officially recommend any changes to the salaries of the city council.
There is also no further discussion addressing Jones’ or Kwong’s concerns.
The committee instead quickly moves on to talk about increasing the city council’s hiring authority, which is covered in a separate article.
If you have any questions, please email me at madison.v@lead4earth.org or comment below.
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