2022, 02-03 meeting summary CITY OF
okane OFFICE OF THE CITY CLERK
Valley® Christine Bainbridge,City Clerk
10210 E Sprague Avenue • Spokane Valley WA 99206
Phone: (509)720-5102 • www.spokanevalley.org
cbainbridge @spokanevalley.org
SPOKANE VALLEY INDEPENDENT SALARY COMMISSION
Spokane Valley City Hall, Conference Room N212
(In person and via Zoom)
February 3, 2022 Meeting Summary
Commission Members Present: Staff Present:
Dan Allison Cary Driskell,City Attorney
Charles Dowers John Whitehead,Human Resources Manager
Tes Sturges Chris Bainbridge, City Clerk
Kathe Williams
Steven Wareham
Eric Rieckers—Alternate(present via zoom)
Members of the Public:Barb Howard
Meeting Summary:
City Attorney Driskell convened the meeting at 4:00 p.m. Mr. Driskell noted that the last time this committee
was formed,the alternate member also partook in the discussion, and he encouraged Mr. Rieckers to feel free to
enter into the discussion.
Mr. Driskell also briefly went over what was discussed at the last meeting, as noted in the meeting summary.
Regarding the survey of questions to Council, it was stated that those have been distributed to councilmembers,
with copies to the salary commission members, and asking Council to return the survey to City Clerk Bainbridge
by 5:00 p.m.Wednesday,February 9,2022. Commission members agreed they would like Councilmember Wick
to complete two surveys,one as councilmember and one as mayor.
Discussion moved to the chart of data that Human Resources Manager Whitehead provided. Comments included
noting the difference between a council manager(CM) and a strong mayor(SM); and that it was considered best
not to consider benefits due to the multitude of variables. Commission members then focused on which cities to
include in the data, and it was decided to omit Shoreline and Pasco since they haven't had a salary change since
2014 and 2018 respectively,to use the other seven council member cities form of government from the last time,
but to omit the large cities of Bellevue and Vancouver, and bring up Lacey from the bottom tier to include in the
top tier, which would then result in using the seven cities of Burien, Kennewick, Kirkland, Olympia, Richland,
Yakima,and Lacey.
The citizen web survey from last time was also discussed. Suggestions included adding another bracket or two
higher for the councilmembers and the mayor;to wait until we get more information on minimum wage and the
salary questions results from the Councilmembers; there were also suggestions to re-word the citizen questions.
There was discussion on the minimum wage and the CPI; and about how much focus is on council wage versus
value of service.
It was determined that the next meeting will be Friday, February 11 at 3:30 p.m. at which time the commission
will review the city data and survey results. There were no public comments.
The meeting ended at 4:56 p.m.
Salary Commission Meeting Summary 02-03-2022 Page 1 of 1