Cerritos City Council, Executives, Favor One Employee Above the Rest

 

Cerritos, California - Cerritos City Manager Art Gallucci is struggling to explain why he authorized an almost $50,000 salary increase for the Assistant City Clerk.

This striking salary increase only came to light when an anonymous memo was sent to "All City Employees and City Councilmembers", under the subject line "Ensuring Transparency in Employee Promotions and Salary Survey." The memo is dated May 10, 2023 and is from "An Extremely Dissatisfied and Disheartened Employee." 

A Mysterious Memo

The memo alleges that City Clerk Vida Barone influenced two councilmembers (Mayor Bruce Barrows and Councilmember Chuong Vo) to instruct Gallucci to authorize the increase. The Eye On Pioneer could not verify if councilmembers would have any say in this. Salary and employment is heavily regulated, and only the City Manager can authorize such an increase.

What's upsetting Cerritos employees is that the City is currently in the middle of a salary survey. 

A salary survey is a common practice when the City's HR department and the employee union work together to bring employee salaries up to par with surrounding cities. By authorizing this increase ahead of the salary survey, the anonymous complaint is essentially saying that Gallucci and those involved threw a monkey wrench into the entire process. 

The memo asks, "Couldn't this decision have been postponed until the completion of the salary survey?"

The memo concludes that this situation is "undeniably unfair and raises valid concerns. Another concern that arises is whether the results of the salary survey will be made public or if management will selectively decide who receives increases. This situation is disheartening and significantly impacts morale. As employees, it is crucial that we strongly advocate for fairness, honesty, and transparency to address these concerns and uphold the principles of a just workplace."

Employees Feel City Manager Betrayed Their Trust

An anonymous employee familiar with the matter said, "The memo is very accurate," 

"The employee in question supposedly got another job offer, and this increase was basically to try to keep her."

The employee pointed out that the salary increase for Assistant City Clerk, a position that requires no bachelor degree and supervises no one, is now at the same pay range as the Budget Manager, Maintenance Superintendent, Parks Superintendent, and other managers. These positions either require a degree (i.e. a Bachelor in Finance) or supervise multiple people, like the Maintenance Superintendent.

This employee concurred, stating, "What this opened up is that now one person has had such a massive jump way out ahead of the salary survey. And what does this say about the value of the employees that have stayed and haven't sought other employment?"

How massive of a jump? Most City Clerks are paid somewhere in the range of $145,000 a year. The City Clerk is responsible for running elections, and the job usually requires a degree or certification, and oversees staff, like the Assistant City Clerk. On its highest step, this Assistant City Clerk will be paid more than the average City Clerk in the area. Granted, Cerritos pays its City Clerks higher than the average, at $178,000 a year.

The employee asked, "How can the City Manager just wave his magic wand and give this one employee a raise, when the entire City staff is against it, including non-union staff like managers, reportedly, and the HR Department advised against it?"

Speculation Ensues

There are several extenuating circumstances that make this sudden salary increase even stranger than it already is. It may even help explain the reason.

First, City Manager Art Gallucci is retiring soon. Check the "Job Opportunities" page of the City of Cerritos website, and visitors can see that Cerritos is hiring for a City Manager.

On May 11, there was a closed session at the City Council meeting that, it is believed, this salary increase was discussed. That is one day after the memo was dated. Was the memo what prompted one of the closed session meetings?

Finally, the reason for this pay increase may just be political shenanigans. The City Clerk controls elections. In addition to this massive increase, the clerk's office is asking for another full-time position. At the April 10, 2023 City council meeting, the City of Cerritos elected to move its elections to an off year from the regular election. At this meeting, the city clerk explained that it is less expensive to have a standalone election instead of conducting the city's elections with the county or state. However, this reasoning seemed questionable, as the clerk did not include all the expenses in her report, and there were other departments that had to assist with the election, with none of those expenses reflected. Now that the election is being moved, is this the reason why there is a need to hire another staff member? One can only conclude that more staff is required to run elections. Bruce Barrows and Chuong Vo were among the three who voted for the election date change. Mayor Pro Tem Naresh Solanki was the third.

One possible explanation, which is speculation: maybe in his final days as City Manager, Gallucci just doesn't care and authorized it anyways, delivering a solid favor to his friends on the City Council and the City Clerk.

The links below are to various documents, including the full anonymous memo.

Anonymous Memo

Assistant City Clerk Job Description - note the educational requirements and job duties

Job Classification Table - take note of where "Assistant City Clerk" falls. Then, look down the page for the checkmark. That is the salary range that the Assistant City Clerk is being bumped to.