El Cerrito’s Problem Isn’t Pay. It’s Leadership.

A resident asked us to benchmark city manager salaries.

There’s a common instinct when a city faces financial strain: look at executive salaries. It’s an easy place to point. A visible number. A clear target. But in El Cerrito, that instinct leads to the wrong conclusion.

The El Cerrito City Manager is not paid at the top of the market. However, her city has been in financial distress since she took over in 2018 and service delivery is questionable, especially since they don’t measure it. That shifts the conversation entirely.

This is not about compensation. This is about leadership.

Let’s start with the facts. El Cerrito’s City Manager earns approximately $261,000 annually before a modest increase. Comparable cities tell a different story. Albany is paying roughly $323,000 with longevity pay. San Pablo’s base salary is about $274,000, and when you include deferred compensation and allowances, total compensation approaches $300,000. El Cerrito is not leading the market. It’s not even at the midpoint. If anything, it sits below peer cities.

So we can set aside the idea that the City is overpaying for this role.

Since 2018, under current leadership, the City has faced a consistent pattern: ongoing structural imbalance, spending exceeding revenues, reliance on reserves to close gaps, and rising personnel and pension costs. This is not a one-year issue. It is a sustained trend.

The City has been drawing down reserves at an estimated $2.5M to $3.0M or more annually. Over time, that erodes financial stability. And once reserves are depleted, the choices become unavoidable: cut services, raise taxes, or both.

At the same time, there is little evidence that the City is systematically measuring service delivery. There are no clearly defined service level agreements. No consistent cost-per-service-unit analysis. Limited benchmarking against comparable cities. No transparent performance metrics tied to spending.

That is not a systems failure. That is a leadership failure.

Because measurement is a choice.

Accountability is a choice.

Clarity is a choice.

And those choices sit squarely with the City Manager.

The City commissioned a $150,000 service delivery study intended to answer these exact questions. Are we structured to deliver services effectively and sustainably? But the study has been delayed beyond the point where it could inform the current budget. That is not just a missed opportunity. It is a failure of execution.

Leadership is not just about managing what exists. It is about ensuring the organization has the tools, data, and discipline to make informed decisions. That has not happened here.

Albany | ████████████████████████████████ $323K
San Pablo | ████████████████████████████ $274K–$300K*
El Cerrito | ████████████████████████ $261K

El Cerrito does not have a compensation problem at the top. It has a performance problem at the top.

Budgets are growing, but outcomes are unclear. Costs are rising, but service levels are not defined. Decisions are being made without the data needed to support them. These are not abstract governance issues. They are the direct result of how the organization is being led.

The El Cerrito City Manager is not paid at the top of the market. But leadership is not judged by salary. It is judged by results.

And right now, the results raise a much more serious question:

What has the City actually gained from that leadership since 2018?