Menlo Park: City manager up for pay raise Menlo Park: City manager up for pay raise (February 25, 2004)

** Menlo council agrees to forgive about $7,000 of interest on one of David Boesch's city home loans.

By Rebecca Wallace

Almanac Staff Writer

As Menlo Park wades through its fourth straight year of budget cuts, City Manager David Boesch is up for a 5 percent raise.

The City Council is scheduled to vote on the raise -- which would be retroactive to July 30, 2003, Mr. Boesch's anniversary date -- at its February 24 meeting. The item is on the consent calendar, which means it will be automatically approved unless a council member expressly requests discussion.

The raise would increase Mr. Boesch's salary from $151,668 to $159,251 annually. He also has a $400 monthly car allowance from the city, along with health benefits and life insurance.

Mayor Lee Duboc said the increase was fair, pointing out that Mr. Boesch last got a raise two years ago, 5 percent retroactive to July 30, 2001.

"He's doing a great job and we wanted to keep him," she said. The council members evaluated the city manager's performance at two closed sessions in January and February.

Ms. Duboc also said she was recommending the raise because Mr. Boesch's salary is below average when compared to other city managers in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties.

In January, Menlo Park's personnel division surveyed 14 other cities, including "comparable" ones such as Belmont, Cupertino, Los Altos, San Bruno, and San Carlos; and neighbors Redwood City and Palo Alto. That list has been used for comparisons for about 15 years, with the "comparable" cities originally chosen because their populations were similar to Menlo Park's, Personnel Director Glen Kramer said.

Mr. Boesch's salary currently ranks 13th out of the 15 and would have to be boosted by 16.4 percent to come up to average, according to a staff report by the personnel division. Because of Menlo Park's budget crunch, though, Ms. Duboc is only recommending the 5 percent.

Interest forgiven

The report also states that when Mr. Boesch was last reviewed in 2002, he received a $5,000 performance bonus.

This year, the report lists no such bonus. But council members did decide in a February 3 closed session to forgive about $7,000 of interest on one of Mr. Boesch's home loans from the city.

Mr. Boesch and his family lived in a home on Santa Cruz Avenue before moving into a larger one on Cotton Street, and he has had four city loans: his original loan for $870,000, a "bridge loan" for $140,000, and two loans totaling $1.16 million for the Cotton home.

Because of the recession, Mr. Boesch had trouble selling the Santa Cruz Avenue home, which was put on the market at $1.1 million. Recently, he sold it, but for less than anticipated, so the Boesches stood to lose about $7,000, City Attorney Bill McClure said.

Instead, the council agreed to waive that amount of deferred interest Mr. Boesch would have paid to the city on the $870,000 loan, Mr. McClure said. Other than that amount, the loan and its interest have been repaid, he said.

The "bridge loan" has been transferred to the Cotton Street house, Mr. McClure added.

Regarding the waived $7,000, Ms. Duboc said: "We look at it as a bonus. Nothing spectacular, but something fair."

Councilman Paul Collacchi, however, said he was "miffed" that the $7,000 -- and the entire topic of the home loans -- had not been mentioned in the staff report made available to the public.

"There has never been a full audit and financial disclosure of these hidden benefits," he said.

Ms. Duboc said the waived $7,000 was not mentioned because the home sale was so recent. A report with "full information on (Mr. Boesch's) loan situation, as full as legally possible," will be presented at a council meeting in the next few weeks, she said.

Mr. Collacchi did say that he supports the 5 percent raise, adding, "The city manager can and has made many sound decisions that have contributed to Menlo Park's continuing fiscal strength during the downturn."

The dismal city and state budget situation hovers gloomily above every major policy discussion the council has nowadays. City officials warn of more slashes in services, and the city recently sent out a survey to find out which services residents could stomach cutting.

Still, though, many other city employees have gotten raises in recent years. Public safety workers, including police officers, got raises of 3 percent both in 2002 and in 2003, and non-public safety employees received salary increases of 4.5 percent in 2002 and 5 percent last year, according to the staff report.

No department heads have gotten a raise since 2002, Mr. Kramer said.

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