With a 9-1 vote by San Antonio City Council, Erik Walsh’s salary is now the second-highest for a city manager in Texas.
Walsh’s new salary, not including cash benefits and allowances, is $461,000, a 23% or $86,600 increase from his previous salary of $374,400, but still lower than his predecessor’s outgoing $475,000 base pay.
Mayor Ron Nirenberg said Walsh’s raise brings his salary in line with the market rate to manage a city of San Antonio’s size.
“What we looked at in setting Eric’s salary is to be competitive among his peers and reflective of the fact that I think he’s one of the best city managers of the country,” Nirenberg said after the vote.
Councilwoman Melissa Cabello Havrda (D6) cast the lone vote against the raise. Councilman John Courage (D9) was absent.
San Antonio has a council-manager form of government, meaning the city manager runs the organization’s day-to-day, overseeing the city’s nearly $4 billion annual budget, more than 40 departments and about 14,000 employees.
A voter-approved City Charter amendment removed constraints on the city manager’s salary in November, and City Council acted fast to make use of its power to adjust it.
That amendment also let council decide how long the city manager can serve in that capacity, as it did prior to 2018. On Thursday, council updated Walsh’s contract to include an “indefinite term” at the will of council.
Walsh, 55, has held the role since 2019. His previous salary, one of the lower city manager salaries among Texas’ major metro areas, was 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.
Cabello Havrda, who recently launched her campaign for mayor, said her “no” vote on the raise should not be seen as a criticism of Walsh’s performance.
“So many people in San Antonio are struggling,” she said, so she finds it hard to justify giving the city manager an $86,600 raise.
She was also opposed to pay increases for council members and the mayor that voters ultimately approved in November through a separate charter amendment.
Former City Manager Sheryl 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 the position’s salary, but limited the city manager’s tenure to eight years.
Sculley announced her retirement shortly after voters approved the measure. The changes never applied to her.
Austin’s city manager gets $470,000, still the highest in the state. Fort Worth’s gets $435,000.
But taking into account other cash benefits, including a $500-per-month car allowance and health savings account, Walsh would take home around $476,300 — roughly $5,000 more than his Austin counterpart, according to the city’s salary analysis.
Business groups spent money backing the change, arguing that it was 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.
Several council members, including Nirenberg, said Thursday they expect Walsh to continue to work on increasing pay for those employees.
They also expressed an interest in hiring a third party to develop more metrics to review the city manager’s performance.
Nirenberg said he’s opposed to introducing performance bonuses structured like those Sculley had received and once declined.
“But it’s really up to future city councils how they want to structure city managers contract,” said Nirenberg, who is serving his final term on council. “I will tell you, I think it’s extremely important that we are paying our employees, particularly our CEO, competitively in [their] salary.”
