Fresh off a voter-approved City Charter amendment that removed constraints on the city manager’s salary, the San Antonio City Council is planning to revisit City Manager Erik Walsh’s pay next week, according to a meeting agenda.
Walsh, 55, has held the role since 2019. He currently makes $374,400 per year — the highest amount possible under an old city policy that capped the city manager’s salary at 10 times the amount of the lowest-paid, full-time city employee.
The city proposes increasing that to $461,000.
In the Nov. 5 election, more than 54% of voters decided that salary-setting power should be placed back in the council’s hands.
City Council plans to revisit Walsh’s salary at its regular meeting on Dec. 19.
Walsh, who worked his way up through various roles in San Antonio city government, came in at a much lower salary than his predecessor, Sheryl Sculley, whose base pay was $475,000 when she left the role.
Sculley became a political target of the San Antonio firefighters’ union as she worked to reduce the ballooning costs of health care coverage for firefighters and paramedics in its labor contract. Their disagreements led the union to gather signatures for a 2018 charter amendment that not only capped her position’s salary, but limited the city manager’s tenure to eight years.
Sculley resigned shortly after voters approved the measure, so the changes never applied to her.
Instead, they paved the way for several city leaders to compete for her job — but at one of the lowest city manager salaries among Texas’ major metro areas.
Austin’s city manager gets $470,000, Fort Worth’s gets $435,000.
Walsh’s new salary, if approved by council, would make his the second-highest city manager salary in Texas.
But taking into account other cash benefits, including a $500 per month car allowance and health savings account, Walsh would take home $476,300 — roughly $5,000 more than his Austin counterpart, according to the city’s salary analysis.
If voters hadn’t approved undoing the 2018 charter changes this year through Proposition C, Walsh would have had to vacate the role by February 2027.
The council will also consider changing his contract to an “indefinite term.”
Business groups spent money backing the change, arguing that it was a needed for San Antonio to remain competitive when staffing an important role.
The fire union and some members of the public argued against the idea, saying the city already had the tools it needed to give Walsh a raise: By raising the salaries of the lowest-paid employees.
Potential bonus
Because of the constraints on the city manager position, Walsh’s contract did not mention performance bonuses.
Performance-based bonuses for the city manager were introduced in Sculley’s 2016 contract, but former Councilman Greg Brockhouse (D6) — who had worked for the fire union — called the performance review and bonus system into question. Sculley ultimately declined to accept the last bonus she was eligible for, worth up to $100,000, for her work in 2018.
Before 2018, the city manager’s performance reviews were conducted in person by council during a closed executive session.
That year, Mayor Ron Nirenberg established a survey and scoring rubric to review the performance of the city manager, city clerk, and city auditor — all employees appointed by council. But a report commissioned by the city and released in 2019 showed Sculley’s salary was within range of comparable agencies and recommended another set of performance metrics for council to use when reviewing city managers.
Nirenberg said in a statement Friday that the council discussed Walsh’s performance and compensation comparisons earlier this week.
“I believe this adjustment to Erik’s salary will better reflect the experience and skill set that Erik brings to effectively managing the seventh-largest city in the country,” he said.
It’s unclear what the formal process will be used to grade Walsh’s performance or award bonuses in the future.
Walsh’s current contract states that he’ll be reviewed every year, but his performance hasn’t been a major public discussion for the council in the years that salary increases were off the table.
