Raises to keep Tacoma police, fire chiefs' pay above subordinantes'

Pay raises are in the works for Tacoma’s police and fire chiefs.

Fire Chief Ronald Stephens will make $181,534 and Police Chief Don Ramsdell will make $180,551 if the City Council approves new salary ranges. A council committee endorsed the 5 percent increases Wednesday evening with no dissenting votes.

The two chiefs, who both declined to comment, are getting their first raises since 2009.

The chiefs should be paid more so they don’t fall behind their unionized subordinates, the city’s human resources department says. Three deputy fire chiefs and three assistant police chiefs will make more than their bosses starting Dec. 1 if the changes aren’t made by then.

“In general, when you look at an organizational structure, the top management makes more than their assistants,” Human Resources Director Joy Misako St. Germain said.

St. Germain said even with the increase, the chiefs still fall short of the city’s goal of paying employees who reach the top of their pay scales at least 70 percent of what people make for similar work in other places.

That’s the case even though the city increased pay for them and other officials to the 70th percentile in 2009 after a study of the market that finished up a year earlier.

Councilman Joe Lonergan asked staff at Wednesday’s meeting for more information on market rates, skeptical that other cities had given those kinds of raises over the past three years.

“It just seems hard to believe, given all that government is going through right now that between 2009 (and now), that salary has increased more than 5 percent,” Lonergan said.

The committee, made up of Lonergan, Mayor Marilyn Strickland and councilmen Marty Campbell and Ryan Mello, forwarded the proposed raises as part of an update of employee classifications and pay. Assistant Retirement Director Tim Allen also would be renamed chief investment officer and would make up to $126,172, which is 13 percent more than his salary last year.

In raising unionized employees’ pay over the last two years, as other parts of the city budget took cuts, city officials said they were obligated to do it because they gave market-correcting raises to nonunion employees.

This time, it’s the opposite: the raises for the chiefs are being sought to keep pace with union contracts.

On Dec. 1, pay will increase by 3 percent to $173,950 for the unionized deputy and assistant chiefs. With that raise, pay for the group will have increased more than 10 percent over three years.

Among the rank-and-file, pay for Tacoma Firefighters Local 31 has increased about 11 percent over three years while Tacoma Police Union Local 6 members aren’t getting a raise for the second year in a row after a 6.2 percent raise in 2009.

Jordan Schrader: 360-786-1826

jordan.schrader@thenewstribune.com

blog.thenewstribune.com/politics

Twitter: @Jordan_Schrader