INFORMATIONAL REPORT TO COUNCIL
SUBJECT
Title
Informational Report on Corrections to Santa Clara Weekly's Articles regarding City Management Compensation
Report
DISCUSSION
On Jan. 8, 2020, the Santa Clara Weekly published two articles by Carolyn Schuk about the salaries of new management hires since Deanna J. Santana became City Manager in October 2017. Unfortunately, Ms. Schuk demonstrates her complete lack of knowledge of public sector compensation and how to analyze data to provide responsible comparisons for the public to have accurate information. Schuk's article not only grossly presents erroneous interpretation of data, but she bases false conclusions on them in order to make her desired "story" work. This report is in response to the two articles and demonstrates how Ms. Schuk got her facts wrong. For example:
* Ms. Schuk selectively uses data to draw conclusions using an "apples to oranges" comparison to make her wrong findings. For example, in some cases, she wrongly compares salaries for Assistant Directors to Directors and then draws an inevitable conclusion that a Director would have a greater salary. A more accurate data analysis is to understand an Assistant Director to Assistant Director comparison or Director to Director comparison.
* Her articles do not take into consideration public sector compensation factors and relies only on one component of compensation, i.e., salary. A salary-to-salary comparison is inadequate to draw conclusions; a proper comparison provides information on (1) salary, (2) employer paid benefits (e.g., medical, pension, other benefits, etc.), and (3) employee paid benefits (e.g., medical, pension, other benefits, etc.). The NET amount of these costs equal an individual's public sector compensation and should be used for drawing conclusions of comparability-anything less is incomplete and in error. In fact, when you compare the compensation amounts based on an "apples to apples" comparison, the findings are quite diffe...
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