Title
Recommendation to Approve the First Amendment to the Employment Agreement for the City Manager, Effective July 13, 2025.
Body
To: Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The City Council has completed its annual evaluation of City Manager Jennifer Ott. As part of that evaluation, in recognition of her performance, responsibilities and her comparable salaries to other nearby city managers, and to address concerns about compaction between her salary and the salary of the staff she supervises, City Council has indicated its intent to authorize an increase in the City Manager's annual salary from $323,568 to $359,969 (an 11.25% increase), effective July 13, 2025. The recommendation is for City Council to approve this increase by an amendment to Ms. Ott's Employment Agreement (Exhibit 2).
BACKGROUND
Ms. Ott has been the City Manager since 2023 and her salary has not been adjusted, other than by the same cost of living increases received by City of Alameda (City) department heads. Consistent with longstanding practice, the City maintains an individual employment agreement with its City Manager, which establishes the terms and conditions of employment for the City Manager. Ms. Ott's current Employment Agreement is set forth in Exhibit 1. The Agreement may be amended as part of the annual evaluation process. With the assistance of a facilitator (Rick Haydon with the Municipal Resource Group), who coordinated the City Council's collective evaluation of all City Council appointees, the City Council completed the City Manager's annual evaluation during its March 4, 2025 City Council meeting. As part of that evaluation process, Mr. Haydon had conducted a compensation (salary and benefits) survey, using nearby city managers' salaries and benefits for comparison purposes.
In March 2025, Mayor Ezzy Ashcraft appointed Councilmembers Boller and Daysog to an Ad Hoc Subcommittee (Subcommittee) to meet with Mr. Haydon to review and assess ...
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