RESOLUTION NO. 8588 - A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF HAWTHORNE, CALIFORNIA AMENDING THE CITY’S SALARY SCHEDULE TO INCLUDE THE SALARY OF THE CITY MANAGER AND POLICE MEDICAL SERVICES DIRECTOR.
 

Staff recommends that this City Council adopt Resolution 8588 amending the City’s salary schedule to include the salaries of the City Manager and Police Medical Services Director.
 

As a contributing member of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS), the City of Hawthorne is subject to statutory and regulatory requirements for public agencies.  The Public Employees’ Retirement Law (PERL), the Public Employees’ Pension Reform Act of 2013 (PEPRA), and the California Code of Regulations (CCR) requires that public agencies contracting with CalPERS, adopt a publicly available pay schedule to provide the base information for determining pensionable compensation.  CalPERS has also provided guidance through the issuance of Circular Letter 200-003-20, which outlines the required elements under Title 2 CCR section 570.5 to be included.  “Publicly available” is defined as “posted at the office of the employer or immediately accessible and available for public review from the employer during normal business hours or posted on the employer’s website.”  The publicly available pay schedule is required to be duly approved and adopted by the governing body and made available to the public.

CalPERS requires that only compensation earned as defined in Government Code Section 20636 and corresponding regulations can be reported to CalPERS and considered in calculating retirement benefits.  In order to determine the amount of “compensation earnable,” a member’s pay rate is limited to the amount identified on a publicly available pay schedule.  2 CCR 570.5 requires that a pay schedule must have the following:

• Be duly approved and adopted by the employer’s governing body in accordance with the requirements of applicable public meeting laws;
• Identifies the position title for every employee position;
• Shows the pay rate as a single amount or multiple amounts within a range for each identified position;
• Indicates the time base, including but not limited to, whether the time base is hourly, daily, bi-weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, or annually;
• Be posted at the office of the employer or be immediately accessible and available for public review from the employer during normal business hours or posted on the employer’s internet website;
• Indicates an effective date and date of any revisions;
• Is retained by the employer and available for public inspection for not less than five years;
• Not reference another document in lieu of disclosing the pay rate.

Anytime new MOU agreements are negotiated, new or amended employment agreements are approved, or when wage rate/range adjustments or classification title changes are approved, staff will prepare amendments to the City’s Salary Schedule for the City Council’s consideration and approval.

As recently as June 2025, the City Council adopted resolutions pertaining to changes to job classifications and pay ranges as approved in the adopted by the 2025-26 Budget.  However, the positions of City Manager and Police Medical Services Director were inadvertently omitted from the City’s adopted Salary Schedule over the last several years because the terms of employment of those officials are provided in separate employment agreements.  However, for purposes of CalPERS, the salary information for those positions is required to be included in a publicly accessible Salary Schedule.

Because the Salary Schedule had not been updated to include the positions of City Manager and Police Medical Services Director, the Salary Schedules for those positions are being updated retroactively for the City Manager position commencing on May 10, 2021, and for the position of Police Medical Services Director for the period commencing on January 16, 2021.  This will bring the City’s Salary Schedule into alignment and consistency with the salary provisions provided by the City in their respective employment agreements, so as to ensure that the CalPERS retirement benefits are provided as provided by their employment agreements.

For these reasons, the salary ranges for the City Manager, as shown in Exhibit A of the attached Resolution, are intended to be effective retroactively, commencing on May 10, 2021.  The salary ranges for the Police Medical Services Director, as shown on Exhibit B of the attached Resolution, are hereby effective retroactively commencing on January 16, 2021. 
 

Not Applicable. 

No impact because the terms of the City Manager and Police Medical Services Director are already established in their employment agreements.

 

72 hours posted notice pursuant to the Ralph M. Brown Act.