Morro Bay’s City Manager has been given another contract amendment and raise, bumping her salary over the $230,000 a year mark.
City Manager Kim Kimball was hired in August 2023 to replace Scott Collins, who took a job with the Housing Authority earlier that year. Her initial salary was bumped up for the first time in April 2024 putting her pay at the top level, Step 5, and over $222,000 a year, plus a full complement of fringe benefits.
But while the other city employees, including those in a union, and non-union department heads, got annual cost of living adjustments (COLAs) with their latest contracts, Kimball didn’t. This second contract amendment apparently seeks to rectify that.
First, she’s getting a $1,063 “retention bonus,” a one-time payment. According to City Attorney Chris Neumeyer’s report, “COLA increase to City Manager’s salary in conformity with the COLA salary increases received by City Department Heads, which will total $35,155 for the three years of approved COLA increases for City Department Heads through Fiscal Year 2026/27; and thereafter consistent with COLA salary increases as approved later in time for City Department Heads.”
This arrangement could prove tricky, as the city manager normally helps negotiate the different employee unions’ contract terms, and those are tied-in with what department heads make.
Kimball was also given the ability to bank an additional 10 hours of unused vacation time, so now her upper limit of accrued time off will be 310 hours.
As to that new salary, Neumeyer’s report said her salary for this fiscal year (2024/25) would be $234,000; FY 2025/26 will be $245,773; and FY 2026/27 will be $258,066.
