Pay Increases to Be Revealed : Thousand Oaks Scraps Staff Bonus Program

The Thousand Oaks City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to scrap a controversial secret bonus plan for top-level city employees and to replace it next year with a program under which salary increases will be based on performance and made public.

But lump-sum bonuses under the old plan still will be paid next month to some of the 90 city employees with management or department-head status for service during 1985, said MaryJane V. Lazz, assistant city manager.

The cash bonus program, based on how employees meet performance goals set early in the year, has been criticized by community activists because the amounts of and reasons for individual bonuses have not been revealed.

About $878,000 has been paid since the program began five years ago, Lazz said.

The state attorney general’s office and the Ventura County Grand Jury have said details of the bonuses should be public. But city officials have maintained that releasing the information could embarrass workers who received small bonuses.

Lazz said the city would release the amounts of the 1985 awards, and a summary of the reasoning behind them, as soon as City Manager Grant Brimhall determines them. The City Council will decide the bonuses paid to Brimhall and City Atty. Mark Sellers.

The new system, called the Pay for Performance Compensation Program, will base annual raises for the 90 top-level employees on performance criteria that have not yet been determined, Lazz said.

The new program will be implemented in two steps, city officials said.

The first step is designed to bring the salaries of as many as half of the management employees up to or near salaries paid in cities of similar size. Those raises, scheduled for January, could cost the city up to $120,000 next year, Lazz said.

The second step begins in July, the start of the 1986-87 fiscal year. The council will decide how much it wants to spend on performance raises, and that pool of money will be divided among the top-level employees based on their performance.

Under the program, only employees who meet or exceed job expectations will get raises.

There will be no automatic increases, such as for cost of living, Lazz said. But the council each year could raise salaries to stay competitive with other cities and to keep up with inflation, Lazz said.

On Tuesday night, the council also approved a new salary schedule for about 230 lower-level employees, including average raises of about 5%.