Oakland mayor’s handling of salary bump garners goodwill from political doubters

OAKLAND — As anticipated, Mayor Sheng Thao will be getting a raise — but one that’s much smaller than what city officials had initially planned.

Late Tuesday night, the City Council voted 6-2 to increase Thao’s salary by about $13,000 — the lowest possible bump that would be required under a longstanding city law — bringing the mayor’s pay to roughly $216,000 annually.

The amount matched what the mayor earlier that day had urged the council to approve, amid mounting public backlash toward what was originally on the table: a roughly $75,000 raise, the highest-possible salary hike that she could have received.

Thao has faced several crises during her first six months in office, including her firing in February of the police chief and an impending breakup with the Oakland A’s.

But her request for a lower raise — and promise to refund anything in excess — won some goodwill from her early political adversaries, including the local chapter of the NAACP, which had backed her opponent in last November’s election.

The council on Tuesday also took steps toward changing the language of the charter so that the independent Public Ethics Commission, and not the council, would approve future salary raises for the mayor.

The commission already does so for the city attorney and city auditor, which on Tuesday were approved for their own salary increases. Whether the commission will absorb the mayor’s salary decisions as well is an issue that may be come before voters in November of 2024.

“The reason that those other salaries are out of the hands of the council and in the hands of the Public Ethics Commission are to avoid the very thing we’re experiencing now,” said Councilmember Carroll Fife, referring to public scrutiny toward the mayor’s proposed structure that grew over the past week.

A longstanding rule in the Oakland City Charter requires the mayor to receive between 70% and 90% of the salaries earned by the city managers in the “three immediate higher and the three immediate lower cities” by population in California.

Before Tuesday’s vote, Thao was making about $21,000 less than that of a subordinate staffer, a “special assistant to the mayor,” prompting city officials to propose that Thao receive the full 90% pay rung.

Thao’s request to receive the 70% pay rung would still keep her among the highest-paid mayors in California — last year, it would have made her the fourth-highest, behind the mayors of San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego, per state data.

Before Tuesday’s council meeting, Thao herself said in a statement she would support a ballot measure shifting decisions on the mayor’s salary to the Public Ethics Commission.

“It is my belief that we do not have to continue to do things the way they’ve always been done, and under my administration we’re not going to,” she added. “Oaklanders deserve better.”

The local NAACP chapter lauded Thao for her stance on Tuesday, having previously scheduled a public demonstration to protest the anticipated $75,000 raise.

The chapter has clashed at times with Thao’s progressive politics, advocating intensely for the reinstatement of fired Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong and backing a more moderate mayoral candidate, Loren Taylor, in last year’s election.

“This is the first time I can recall that the NAACP has gone this long without meeting with a mayor,” the chapter’s president, Cynthia Adams, said in an interview. “But I’m glad she did what she did, and that she put the community first.”