Sacramento city manager’s pay was again highest in the state last year, new data shows
Sacramento City Manager Howard Chan for the second consecutive year earned more in total wages than any other active city manager in California, new state data show.
Chan earned $593,240 in total wages last year, up 8% from 2022, according to the annual data, which the state controller released Tuesday.
The news comes about two weeks after the council met in closed session to discuss Chan’s performance. After learning from a Sacramento Bee reporter that according to David Loy of the First Amendment Coalition, councils are not allowed to discuss employee raises in closed session, Councilwoman Katie Valenzuela asked the city attorney to investigate whether the council broke the law in that closed meeting.
Chan did not respond to messages seeking comment.
City spokesman Tim Swanson said noted that the City Council approves the Chan’s compensation.
Chan’s pay has been under scrutiny in recent years. During a December late-night meeting without proper public notice, the council voted to give Chan a raise to bring his $400,000 base salary to $420,000, including 240 hours of leave time that could be cashed out at his discretion. Valenzuela, along with Mayor Darrell Steinberg and Mai Vang, abstained.
In early January, after The Bee reported the raise had violated the Brown Act, the council effectively rescinded it, pulling it for consideration at a future meeting, which has not yet happened. It also changed the rules to prohibit Chan from placing a raise for himself on future agendas.
The controller’s office breaks down pay into a few categories. “Regular pay” is pay for normal hours worked. “Total wages” includes overtime, bonuses, vacation cashouts — anything that goes in box 5 of each employee’s W-2 tax forms. The office defines “lump sum” pay as “one-time cash-outs (including, but not limited to, paid excess vacation and sick leave, and legal settlements).”
The office reported that Chan earned $368,894 in regular pay, $200,326 in “lump sum” pay and $24,020 in “other” wages in 2023.
Only one former city manager earned more in total wages than Chan in 2023 — the former city manager of Commerce, who resigned in November amid a federal corruption probe and received a huge lump sum payout.
Chan made about $170,000 more in total wages than the city manager of San Jose — a city with roughly 440,000 more people than Sacramento. Like Sacramento, San Jose also has a system of government where the council and the manager wield executive power.
Chan earned nearly $160,000 more in total wages last year than the Sacramento County executive, a position which oversees many more employees with a higher budget. Chan made about $230,000 more than the next-highest-paid city of Sacramento employee, a deputy police chief.
Often, large lump sum payments like the one received by the deputy police chief are given when an employee retires and cashes out unused vacation time. However, the controller did not name the deputy chief so it is not clear if that is what occurred.
Chan’s pay has grown steadily and sharply since 2018, his first full year in office. Back then, he made about $305,000 in total wages.
