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Many of the emails show Howard Chan forwarding complaints from residents about homelessness to other city staffers. (City of Sacramento)<\/p>\nThe Abridged version:<\/p>\n
The Sacramento City Council removed City Manager Howard Chan from the job in late 2024, but he stayed on the city\u2019s payroll for an extra year, per a provision in his contract. <\/p>\n
Chan received a salary of $340,812, plus at least $24,612 in medical benefits during that time.<\/p>\n
Emails sought by Abridged for that year show Chan communicated minimally with city staff during his year as a special advisor.<\/p>\n
What did Howard Chan do during his one-year stint as a special advisor to the city of Sacramento?<\/p>\n
Not much, apparently.<\/p>\n
After the Sacramento City Council declined to renew Chan\u2019s contract in late 2024, the former city manager stayed on the city\u2019s payroll for an extra year, per a provision in his original contract. Over the course of 2025, Chan received a salary of $340,812, plus at least $24,612 in medical benefits.<\/p>\n
During his seven-year tenure as City Manager, Chan wielded significant power as the city\u2019s top executive. He helped negotiate a term sheet for the Sacramento Republic FC\u2019s new soccer stadium and oversaw the city\u2019s emergency response during the Covid-19 pandemic. Amid the city\u2019s escalating homelessness crisis, the council granted him stronger authority to decide where new shelters for homeless individuals should go. <\/p>\n
He also made headlines as one of the highest paid city employees in California. In 2024 he earned $905,000 in total compensation, according to public pay database Transparent California. That included his $367,000 base salary plus hundreds of thousands in supplemental benefits.<\/p>\n
Emails acquired by Abridged under the California Public Records Act show Chan communicated minimally with city staff during his year as a special advisor. The city provided 47 pages of records, which predominately document Chan forwarding emails he received from residents to staffers in the city manager\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
Chan, city staff mum on emails<\/p>\n
Chan declined to comment on his work during his time as special advisor. When asked if any advising or projects are missing from the public records, Chan referred Abridged to the interim city manager at the time, Leyne Milstein.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going leave it at that. I\u2019m no longer working with the city,\u201d Chan said.<\/p>\n
Milstein declined to comment on Chan\u2019s final year with the city. Representatives for the city of Sacramento declined to detail any work performed by Chan during 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe city does not comment on personnel matters involving former employees, but the terms of his contract have been fulfilled,\u201d said spokesperson Jennifer Singer, in an email.<\/p>\n
Most emails forwarded to other staff without discussion<\/p>\n
Chan sent 19 emails between January and August 2025, public records show. The city\u2019s public records steward did not return any records sent between August and the end of the year.<\/p>\n
Chan sent most of the emails from an iPhone. Ten emails showed Chan forwarding messages sent to his inbox to other staff members in the city manager\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
The records detailed no discussions of city policies or exchanges with members of the Sacramento City Council. The email chains don\u2019t show any deliberation with elected leaders or staffers, nor do they show any substantial conversations about city policies or pending work.<\/p>\n
The records also reflect travel and professional meetings. Chan attended a panel for city managers in Winters. He flew to Burbank to deliver a \u201clunch and learn\u201d talk to public policy students at the University of Southern California, and billed the city $508 for roundtrip airfare to Burbank. He had lunch with the CEO of the League of California Cities at Brasserie du Monde in Downtown Sacramento.<\/p>\n
Residents sought help for abandoned vehicles, encampments<\/p>\n
Multiple times, Chan received emails from residents urging action on homeless encampments near their businesses or broken down vehicles abandoned near their homes.<\/p>\n
\u201cHello Honorable Howard Chan \u2026 Below you will see that the neighbor is in violation and has for the past year been blocking my driveway,\u201d wrote one resident, in March 2025.<\/p>\n
Chan forwarded the message to assistant city manager Ryan Moore, public works director Matt Eierman and Milstein.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonorable??\u2026he has definitely mistaken for someone else! Hope all is well,\u201d Chan wrote to the staff members.<\/p>\n
Many of the emails show Howard Chan forwarding complaints from residents about homelessness to other city staffers. (City of Sacramento)<\/p>\n
A big contract with big benefits<\/p>\n
Chan became city manager in 2017, following a long career with the city of Sacramento. He started in 2002 as a parking manager and worked his way up to an assistant city manager.<\/p>\n
His original contract as city manager \u2014 approved unanimously at the time \u2014 included a provision that allowed him to take a position as an assistant city manager for up to 12 months, if the council terminated his employment.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf this Agreement is terminated \u2026 Employee may, in his discretion, assume a position with City as an Assistant City Manager for a term of at least one year,\u201d the contract states.<\/p>\n
Chan\u2019s time as city manager ended on Dec. 31, 2024 after the council voted 6-3 to reject an extension. Members cited criticism over his compensation and calls for change in leadership to help the city move forward. <\/p>\n
The next morning, Chan sent an email to all employees with the city. He announced the council\u2019s vote and described it as \u201ca bittersweet moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cServing in this position has been a career highlight, but what I will miss most about this job is working with all of you,\u201d Chan wrote to his staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease be assured that I will continue to work nonstop for both you and our residents until my final day,\u201d Chan wrote. <\/p>\n
Severance pay, incentives \u2018inflated\u2019 contract<\/p>\n
Chan also made headlines as one of the highest compensated city managers in California.<\/p>\n
A consulting firm found that while Chan was not the highest paid city manager in California, supplemental leave benefits and severance pay \u201csignificantly inflated the total compensation\u201d for the city manager\u2019s contract.<\/p>\n
Those incentives pushed Chan\u2019s contract to be 47% above the market average, for city manager pay in comparably-sized cities, according to CPR HR Consulting. When looking at salary alone, the firm found that Chan\u2019s pay was 3% behind the market average. The city hired CPR HR Consulting to lead the recruitment efforts for Chan\u2019s replacement and to provide input on the next city\u2019s manager\u2019s compensation package.<\/p>\n
No similar provision for new city manager<\/p>\n
\u201cI would anticipate that is something that you would not be negotiating with the next city manager, it\u2019s not the norm,\u201d said Pam Derby, executive recruiter with CPR HR Consulting, at a council meeting in March 2025.<\/p>\n
The city council hired Maraskeshia Smith as city manager late last year at a salary of $399,000, a comparable amount to Chan\u2019s baseline salary. Smith\u2019s contract dose not include the same provisions for severance pay and benefits.<\/p>\n
Felicia Alvarez is a reporter at Abridged covering accountability. She\u2019s called Sacramento home since 2015 and has reported on government, health care and breaking news topics for both local and national news outlets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Abridged version: The Sacramento City Council removed City Manager Howard Chan from the job in late 2024,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[5592,121,123,122],"class_list":{"0":"post-154964","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sacramento","8":"tag-feature","9":"tag-sacramento","10":"tag-sacramento-headlines","11":"tag-sacramento-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}