Council gets closer to hiring a manager, increases salary
By Kara Chalmers
The high cost of living in Saratoga and in neighboring cities has not stopped the Saratoga City Council from recruiting some top candidates to fill the vacant city manager post, according to city officials. But the council's decision to increase the position's salary to a cap of $120,000--which is $30,000 more than former city manager Larry Perlin's salary--had to come from somewhere.
Ironically, when each council member sat down with recruiters from Hughes, Perry & Associates, they all suggested the exact same increase, according to Mayor Stan Bogosian, who said the consensus was one of the more interesting occurrences he has witnessed in his years on the council.
Bogosian said the city could end up paying the new manager less than that amount, depending on negotiations.
Interim city manager Bill Norton said that the salary the city is offering is competitive enough to attract a top-rate manager.
"I think the cost of living is a challenge but not an insurmountable challenge," Norton said, "because there are places people can live outside of Saratoga."
In neighboring Cupertino, the former Los Gatos town manager David Knapp, was recently hired as the city manager for $160,000 per year. In Los Gatos, a town that has roughly the same population as Saratoga, Knapp was paid $123,000.
In Los Altos Hills, a city with a population of about 8,000, which is also in the process of searching for a manager, the former city manager was paid $105,000.
The council has narrowed its choices to three candidates whom members interviewed on July 12. The council then met to discuss the candidates on July 13, and will announce its final choice after a background check, according to Norton.
After asking Perlin to resign in January, council members said they did not want to recruit a new city manager from within but wanted to bring in someone from outside city hall, who would have new ideas. Council members said in the past that they want to hire someone with a lot of experience managing cities.
Saratoga is unique in that, unlike other comparable cities, there are five analysts on staff. Primarily, the analysts perform functions that department heads, police chiefs or other city staff members perform elsewhere.
In Saratoga, the city manager heads an entire department, made up of the city clerk, one office specialist, one senior analyst and three other administrative analysts. Today, there are five positions at Saratoga's City Hall with the title 'analyst,' which neither Cupertino, Los Gatos, nor Los Altos Hills has.
When asked if the salaries for the analyst positions in the city manager's office meant less money was available to offer a manager, Bogosian said no, and that he is confident that the salary the council agreed on would attract a good manager. He said that for him to talk about reorganization within the department would be premature and overstepping his boundaries as a council member.
Norton, who retired as the city manager of Alameda in 1996 after eight years and also served as the interim city manager in Calistoga and Los Altos Hills, said the set up in Saratoga may be different, but it isn't necessarily worse.
"Even if there were less positions in here, I'm not sure whether the council would end up paying the manager more," he said.
As the city manager of Alameda, Norton did not have analysts working for him. In that city, there was a police department, a parks and recreation department and an assistant city manager on staff.
"I think things work here," he said of Saratoga. He added that his own personal style of managing might be different, but that as interim city manager, his job was to adapt to the system in place and be flexible. It was not his job to make any changes, he said.
Since Norton is retired, he can only stay with Saratoga as the interim city manager for 960 hours--or two weeks short of six months, according to public employees' retirement law. Since he began in Saratoga on March 1, the city must hire a replacement by the middle of August.
Since Norton has been with Saratoga, he has worked on such projects as revitalizing Saratoga's business districts, on long-term master planning for the Civic Center complex, on reducing noise on Highway 85, on a new lease for Hakone Gardens, and on a joint powers authority for animal control services. He also helped to settle the city's lawsuit against AT&T, and worked on agreements with the Mountain Winery and the Chamber of Commerce.
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Saratoga, California Since 1955
