On Monday, the Vancouver City Council will vote on whether to raise the city manager’s salary about $17,500, or 7.9 percent, bringing his annual income to $239,052.
City council members said Holmes’ salary increase is justified by his performance and an attempt to bring his salary closer to similar executive positions in Clark County and also other city managers.
Holmes oversees 1,106 employees and manages a budget of $1.1 billion for the 2017-18 biennium.
This year marks Holmes’ 10th year working for the city of Vancouver. He formerly worked as the city’s economic development director, and in 2010 became city manager.
Holmes said his job is becoming more complex with the growth of Vancouver’s population, a greater density and a more diverse population.
“There are always competing demands and interest between all intentions and ideas, and trying to balance that is a challenge,” he said.
Holmes gained a 17 percent raise in 2014 and a 5.5 percent raise last year.
Holmes oversees most day-to-day city operations and is the only employee that the city council and mayor hires and determines salary. Vancouver’s government is known as a council-manager type, which gives greater responsibility to the city manager. Other cities in Washington with similar formats include Tacoma and Yakima; Tacoma’s city manager receives a salary of $252,544 and Yakima’s receives $170,000. Both of those city managers have in recent years earned similar raises to Holmes’.
The Vancouver City Council switched a couple of years ago from using a numerical 1-10 rating for assessing city managers to hiring a facilitator to prepare a report of the manager’s accomplishments. Holmes said the final version will be finished soon.
In comparison to other public employees in Vancouver earning a high salary, Julianna Marler, CEO of Port of Vancouver earns $202,801 a year. And Clark Public Utilities CEO Wayne Nelson earns $280,000 a year.
City councilors Jack Burkman, Ty Stober and Bill Turlay praised Holmes’ performance and accessibility.
Burkman said Holmes’ role is similar to a CEO’s in a private company or corporation. In comparison, the CEO of Vancouver-based Nautilus, Bruce Cazenave, makes about $447,000 a year without stock awards or bonuses, which bumped his compensation up to nearly $1.1 million last year.
Stober agreed that Holmes deserves the raise.
“When we look at how (Holmes’) compensation stacks up against similar positions in other cities and in Clark County, he’s in the bottom third,” Stober said.
“I thought it was a fair package.” Turlay said. “We want to keep him. There’s a demand for high-class executives like himself.”
At the same time, Turlay added, “we have a good working relationship with him, so I’m not worried about him bolting for money.”
Holmes is a graduate of the University of Oregon and has worked in various positions around the county, including city manager of Battle Ground, planning director for Washougal, planner for Clark County and chief operations officer of Vancouver-based consultants MacKay & Sposito.
After working and living in the area for more than 20 years, Holmes said he is happy.
“I think this is a fantastic city,” he said. “I want to do everything I can to make it better every day.”
