The City Council unanimously approved salary and benefit increases for executive and management employees Tuesday, authorizing $1.12 million in additional spending for the current fiscal year.
The increases will bring salaries for positions currently below market median up to median rates effective July 1, 2025, followed by 5% raises in each of the next two years.
The three-year agreement affects unrepresented executive and management employee groups, including department directors, managers and senior staff. Total labor costs over three years are projected at approximately $2.06 million.
With this increase, the city is bringing staff “up to just the average,” Mayor Ron Morrison said at the meeting. “And I do think our employees deserve that, and we’ve been doing that with our different (staffing) groups.”
However, Morrison expressed concerns about long-term fiscal sustainability.
“It’s not sustainable, and we’re going to have to find a way to bring in a whole lot more funds,” he said.
The council approved the item without discussion as part of the consent calendar.
According to the staff report, the increases aim to promote equity between employee groups and address salary compaction issues, where wages of represented employees may equal or exceed supervisors’ wages.
The city recently ratified three-year agreements with two union-represented groups — the Municipal Employees Association and Firefighter’s Association — and approved similar adjustments for confidential staff, which includes payroll technicians and risk management specialists.
In addition to base salary increases, the agreement provides one additional floating holiday per year for all unrepresented groups, pay incentives for staffers to live in National City of $100 per pay period starting in 2026, and training and bilingual pay eligibility for police captains and the police chief.
Executive employees will also be eligible for severance packages ranging from three to six months of base salary if terminated without cause, depending on length of service.
Sample salary ranges for July 2025 include:
Police chief: $224,800 to $281,000 annually
Fire chief: $187,500 to $250,000 annually
Deputy city manager: $187,500 to $250,000 annually
Director of public works/city engineer: $180,000 to $240,000 annually
Police captain: $144,372 to $223,968 annually
The General Fund will bear the largest portion of the fiscal year 2025-26 costs at $825,092, with the remainder distributed across multiple other city funds.