Several City of Oak Harbor department heads received an extra large paycheck last month.

City Council members took action last week to give retroactive salary increases to three men in administrative positions who were supposed to receive raises nearly a year ago.

Councilman Eric Gerber discovered that five department heads did not immediately receive the raises that City Council members voted to give them last June; three of the men still had not received raises as of mid-May

At the council meeting last Tuesday, Gerber moved to correct the problem, but he also questioned why the council’s decision had not been followed. He pointed a finger, figuratively, at Mayor Patty Cohen.

“I am very confused at how this could happen,” he said. “This is not how you treat people.”

City Administrator Thom Myers, however, said the delay in salary increases was basically an accident. He said Mayor Cohen was in the process of negotiating with the administrators to turn them into regular city employees instead of “at will” contract employees; he said it’s a very fine distinction.

Myers said the raises would have been implement after the contract issues were settled.

“The process took much longer than anyone expected,” he said.

In an interview Tuesday, Cohen said there was a simple miscommunication between her administration and City Council. She said the raises were certainly not withheld for any purpose.

The issue goes back to last summer when the city’s consultant completed a salary and job classification study of non-represented city employees. The study looked at what employees are earning at comparable cities. It concluded that a wide range of positions should be classified differently and receive salary increases.

The study stated that the police chief, the fire chief, the city attorney, the finance director and the city administrator should be classified at a higher level and receive higher salaries.

At the June meeting, the council unanimously carried a motion to implement the changes to the five administrative positions, which includes salary increases of 6 to 9 percent.

In January, Gerber realized that salary increases had not been handed out. At the Jan. 18 meeting, he advised Cohen to go back and look at the videotape of the June meeting. He said Cohen was not following council’s direction accurately. He questioned whether she had the authority to be renegotiating contracts with the employees or hiring outside legal help to help with the process.

At the meeting last Tuesday, Gerber said he was concerned that three of the administrators had still not received their raises. He noted that the police chief got his raise, as did the the city attorney.

In fact, Gerber said city administration recently discovered that City Attorney Phil Bleyhl had been working for years without a contract.

Cohen agreed that Gerber was right and said the men would receive their raises immediately, including 11 months retroactive pay. She said the problem was just an oversight.

“I’m not sure why that didn’t happen,” she said, referring to the raises.

Gerber, however, suggested that Cohen had a hidden agenda.

“I would also like to suggest to the mayor to treat your staff fairly,” he said. “If you are not happy with a department head it is your decision to do what you wish. It is not fair to drag us all through the mud in the process.”

You can reach Jessie Stensland at jstensland@whidbeynewstimes.com or 675-6611.