In a blow to Mayor Matt Mahan’s accountability agenda, the San Jose Metropolis Council Tuesday struck down his proposal to tie a portion of elected officers’ pay to efficiency.
Harkening again to an identical idea he conceived when he ran for mayor, Mahan had proposed withholding 5% of councilmembers’ salaries and paying it again on a pro-rated foundation, relying on how effectively they met particular objectives associated to the neighborhood’s prime priorities.
Whereas Mahan had argued that pay-for-performance might drive higher outcomes, a majority of the Metropolis Council — who rejected the proposal by a 7-4 vote — felt that making use of a non-public sector methodology might create perverse incentives, together with a give attention to short-term objectives over the town’s long-term well being, and discourage dissenting opinions.
“Within the non-public sector, success is measured by progress, effectivity and return on funding,” District 5 Councilmember Peter Ortiz mentioned. “You chase revenue, you reward conformity to organizational objectives, and dissent is usually considered as inefficiency. However within the public sector, our sector, we serve the general public good that features defending susceptible populations, defending civil rights and cleansing up blight in neighborhoods which will by no means yield a excessive financial return on funding.”
Mahan unveiled the primary model of the pay-for-performance proposal in March, which initially sought to make use of a poll measure in 2026 to ask voters to help tying benefit raises for the Metropolis Council and higher rung of the town’s administration to obviously outlined objectives. That proposal wouldn’t have impacted base salaries, cost-of-living changes, or workers beneath the senior administration degree.
Seeking to simplify the method, Mahan and Vice Mayor Pam Foley introduced a revised proposal final month that aimed to make the most of a provision within the metropolis constitution, which permits councilmembers to voluntarily scale back their salaries and would permit San Jose to save lots of taxpayers roughly $1 million to place the measure on the poll.
The revamped initiative additionally dropped senior administration officers from the proposal as they have been already topic to efficiency evaluations.
Mahan had argued that the accountability measure would drive authorities effectivity and ship the outcomes residents persistently known as for in neighborhood surveys. Whereas every council district has its personal points, Mahan mentioned that polling confirmed no important variance between the town’s totally different areas by way of residents’ prime priorities. He additionally added that the council didn’t make district-specific insurance policies and made selections on a citywide foundation.
“This doesn’t simply align compensation with outcomes, which, by itself, I believe is efficacious, nevertheless it strengthens our general finances course of by integrating efficiency targets straight into our annual finances deliberations and our quarterly scorecard and dashboard updates,” Mahan mentioned. “We’re guaranteeing that our objectives and useful resource allocations should not solely aligned however are publicly seen, publicly debated, and grounded in actual accountability.”
Drawing on his personal expertise in schooling and the nonprofit sector, Mahan additionally disputed that pay-for-performance would curb dissenting opinions however as a substitute would encourage extra dialogue if the town did not make progress on the problems necessary to residents.
Nonetheless, whereas the idea of accountability and driving higher efficiency outcomes was interesting in principle, a number of council members outlined issues with the proposal.
District 3 Metropolis Councilmember Carl Salas, who got here into workplace from the enterprise world, mentioned he has discovered that public service isn’t “a performance-based contract,” and couldn’t consider a related metric that will embody all 10 districts.
Though he acknowledged that the finances was handed citywide, District 4 Councilmember David Cohen famous that each workplace comes with its personal priorities, that are integrated into it.
District 1 Councilmember Rosemary Kamei, together with Cohen and District 8 Councilmember Domingo Candelas, additionally authored a memo noting that the town’s Wage Setting Fee already served as an unbiased physique to make sure salaries have been insulated towards political pursuits.
“It seems logical, however frankly, elected workplace isn’t a company position, and I don’t assume ought to be handled as such,” Candelas mentioned. “We’re not pushed by a revenue motive or incentive. Our motivation is bigger than that, and I believe now we have a variety of duties as elected officers, and in the end, the first mechanism for efficiency for us as elected as councilmembers is on the poll field.”
District 10 Councilmember George Casey and District 6 Councilmember Michael Mulcahy joined Mahan and Foley in supporting the pay-for-performance proposal. Mulcahy expressed disappointment that the Metropolis Council would proceed with the established order.
“I belief that our metropolis can do nice issues, and hopefully, there’s an iteration of one thing like this that we are able to take into account transferring ahead,” Mulcahy mentioned.
