The new Encinitas city manager, Jennifer Campbell, will receive an annual base salary of $309,000, plus a $20,000 yearly contribution to her retirement plan and a monthly $500 car allowance, under a contract approved Wednesday.
The City Council voted 4-0, with Councilmember Joy Lyndes absent due to family medical leave, to approve Campbell’s proposed contract, thus taking the second step in a two-step process to establish Campbell in her new job. She was selected for the post during a closed-door meeting March 5.
“I’m convinced we’re on the right path and I think we’re paying her appropriately,” Mayor Bruce Ehlers said as he discussed Campbell’s qualifications just before Wednesday’s vote.
Council members praised Campbell as being “high energy” and said she will be the “quarterback” that the city needs at this time.
“You’re our next Tom Brady,” Councilmember Jim O’Hara told her.
After the vote, Campbell told the council members that football was her favorite sport, and said she was thrilled to have the job and very pleased by praise she’s recently received from city employees.
“I am beyond grateful and I am beyond excited for this …. I know the magnitude of this position, I will not let you down,” she said.
A former Glendale, Ariz., assistant city manager, Campbell was serving as Encinitas’ acting city manager early this month when she was picked as the permanent replacement for Pamela Antil. Campbell started working for the city of Encinitas in 2016, and was appointed assistant city manager in 2021.
Antil departed the city manager’s job after the council majority changed with the November election. A former city of Santa Barbara administrator, she was making a base salary of $309,758 when she left Encinitas. When she was initially hired by Encinitas in 2020, her base salary was $250,000.
At Wednesday’s meeting, Encinitas resident and frequent council meeting attendee Rachel Graves congratulated Campbell on getting the city manager’s job, but said she was “a little concerned about the heftiness of this contract.”
“I’m not a cheap person, I’m a frugal person,” Graves said as she mentioned the lower salaries that other North County cities, including the much bigger cities of Escondido and Oceanside, have paid for their city managers.
When Escondido hired Sean McGlynn in 2021, he received a base salary of $280,000 plus a $750 monthly car allowance and an annual payment into a retirement account of 7 percent of his base salary, or $19,600 a year, the Escondido city web site states.
A salary chart posted on the city of Oceanside’s web site indicates that its current city manager makes a base annual salary of $305,488, with a monthly car allowance of $600.
Carlsbad hired a new city manager in December. He is receiving $335,635 in salary, auto allowance and deferred retirement compensation, Carlsbad’s city mayor has said.
Ehlers said another San Diego city had tried to lure Campbell away from Encinitas some years ago and said that since she was hired in 2016, she falls under a less costly pension plan — the 2-percent-at-age-62 plan — that cities now pay for newer municipal employees in California.
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