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Revisions to the Personnel System
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TO: Honorable Mayor and City Councilmembers
FROM: Colleen Tribby, City Manager
Prepared By: Sarah Monnastes, Human Resources Director/Risk Manager
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
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The City Council will consider an additional 1.5% cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for regular staff, retroactive to July 1, 2026, following direction provided by the Council in closed session on September 15, 2026. The Council will also consider updating the City Manager's salary to reflect the 1.7% cost-of-living adjustment provided under her employment agreement for Fiscal Year 2026-27, now that her Fiscal Year 2025-26 performance-based salary adjustment has been finalized.
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STAFF RECOMMENDATION:
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Adopt the following: 1) Resolution Amending a Salary Plan for Full-Time Personnel and 2) Resolution Amending a Salary Plan for Management Positions Exempt from Competitive Service.
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FINANCIAL IMPACT:
The additional 1.5% cost-of-living adjustment, retroactive to July 1, 2026, is estimated to cost approximately $276,172 annually. The City Manager’s 1.7% cost-of-living adjustment, also retroactive to July 1, 2026, is estimated to cost approximately $7,092 annually. Sufficient funds are available within the Fiscal Year 2026-27 Budget to cover these costs.
DESCRIPTION:
This Staff Report addresses updates to the City’s Salary Plans, which are part of the City’s Personnel System. The following sections describe the proposed changes and identify the documents being amended.
Background
During its meeting on August 18, 2026, the City Council requested a report on the City's cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) methodology. On September 1, 2026, staff presented a report to the City Council on the methodology the City uses to set annual COLAs. That methodology ties the annual adjustment to the change in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) from February of the prior year to February of the current year. For Fiscal Year 2026-27, that calculation produced a 1.7% adjustment. However, staff noted that this figure was notably lower than the CPI-W readings for the months immediately before and after February: 3.1% in December 2025, 3.3% in April 2026, and 3.4% in June 2026, suggesting that the February reading was an outlier rather than a reflection of a genuine, sustained change in the underlying cost of living.
Following further discussion in closed session on September 15, 2026, the City Council directed staff to bring forward an additional 1.5% COLA, retroactive to July 1, 2026, to address this discrepancy for all regular staff. This direction did not extend to the City Manager’s classification.
City Manager Salary Update
Under her employment agreement, the City Manager's annual COLA is tied directly to the February CPI reading, the same figure used to calculate the COLA for regular staff, rather than to the COLA amount actually provided to regular staff. Implementation of her Fiscal Year 2026-27 COLA was deferred pending completion of her Fiscal Year 2025-26 performance evaluation and the associated performance-based salary adjustment. That process has since been completed, and staff recommend applying the City Manager's 1.7% COLA at this time, retroactive to July 1, 2026, and updating the Salary Plan for Management Positions Exempt from Competitive Service accordingly.
Salary Plan
Attachments 1 and 2 amend the Salary Plan for Full-Time Personnel and the Salary Plan for Management Positions Exempt from Competitive Service, respectively, to reflect these changes, retroactive to July 1, 2026.
STRATEGIC PLAN INITIATIVE:
None.
NOTICING REQUIREMENTS/PUBLIC OUTREACH:
The City Council Agenda was posted.
ATTACHMENTS:
1) Resolution Amending the Salary Plan for Full-Time Personnel
2) Resolution Amending the Salary Plan for Management Positions Exempt from Competitive Service
3) City Manager Contract and First Amendment