Search on to fill city of Tacoma’s top job. Here’s are details, how you can help
The city of Tacoma has started the search for a permanent city manager — one of Tacoma’s highest-paid and most influential employees.
According to documents posted on the city’s website, the new city manager could start by April or May 2026, with plans to have newly elected City Council members join the process when the city starts candidate screenings and initial interviews. After longtime city manager Elizabeth Pauli announced her retirement earlier this year, city officials said they’d wait until after the Nov. 4 election, which could see up to five new faces on Tacoma’s nine-member council, to identify Pauli’s permanent replacement.
Mayor Victoria Woodards, whose final term as mayor will conclude at the end of this year, said the city will need to develop a new biennial budget in 2026, and she wanted to start the search for a permanent city manager so that person would be in place for the budgeting process. The search for a city manager could take anywhere from eight to 12 months, Woodards said.
“It would be great for the City Council not to spend their first entire year focused on doing all the recruitment stuff for a city manager,” she told The News Tribune on Oct. 21. “That’s why I thought it was important to get the process up and running.”
Pauli, who served as Tacoma’s city manager for eight years, left the position and headed to retirement in July. The council selected Hyun Kim, who has previously served as Tacoma’s deputy city manager for internal services, to serve as interim city manager in the meantime.
The city’s Operational Strategy and Administrative Committee is spearheading the recruitment process. City spokesperson Maria Lee said that the costs associated with the search process were built into Tacoma’s 2025-2026 biennial budget last December, an estimated $70,000 to $75,000.
Lee said that amount includes $10,000 to $15,000 for candidate expenses, including travel for in-person interviews, $10,000 for in-person interviews, including the cost of venues for community meetings, and $50,000 for an executive search firm to manage the process.
The city contracted with Prothman, an executive-recruiting firm based in Issaquah, to manage the search process. The city has a $19,500 contract with Prothman for city manager recruiting services with a one-year guarantee, according to the contract. It also requires the city to cover costs like online advertising and background checks, Lee said.
“These are estimated costs; actual costs will depend on the number of (long-distance) candidates who are interviewed; the final design of community engagement events; and other incidental costs,” Lee wrote to The News Tribune.
The contract for city manager recruiting services includes a $18,500 fee to recruit a public works director.
Woodards said the search for the city manager would include a “huge” community-engagement process. The city opened a survey that closes on Nov. 14 to solicit feedback from Tacoma residents about the skills, leadership qualities and experience they’d like to see in the next city manager.
“There will be a robust community-engagement portion of this and [the] community will get to weigh in on both the qualifications initially, and then the community will also get to meet the finalists and weigh in on the finalists as well,” she said.
Tacoma’s city manager plays a significant role in Tacoma’s council-manager form of government, in which elected council members appoint a city manager to serve as a city’s chief executive officer and head of the city’s administrative branch.
According to the city’s website, Tacoma’s new city manager would receive an annual salary in the range of $309,566 to $376,500, depending on qualifications. Interim city manager Hyun Kim earns $309,566, according to his employment agreement, and Pauli was earning the same amount when she retired. The new city manager would also receive benefits, including medical, dental and vision coverage and 13 paid holidays, according to the city.
