Beginning Jan. 1, Erik Walsh will be making $461,000 annually. That’s a 23% raise from his current salary.
SAN ANTONIO — On Thursday, San Antonio City Council approved a significant pay raise for City Manager Erik Walsh.
Beginning Jan. 1, Walsh will be making $461,000 annually. That’s $86,400 more than his current salary, marking a 23% raise made possible thanks to voters.
In November, 54% of San Antonio voters approved a charter amendment item that removes pay and term limits, allowing City Council to set pay and term lengths based on qualifications of those currently holding the title.
The proposition received heavy pushback from the San Antonio Professional Firefighters Association, which played an instrumental role in capping the term and pay for the city managers position in 2018.
The cap for city manager was 10 times the amount of the lowest-paid city employee. For Walsh, that meant he could be paid no more than $374,400 a year.
“We hired Eric in 1994 as a city. He was promoted in 2019, and he has more than 23 years of executive experience,” said Adriana Rocha Garcia, councilwoman for District 4. “And so that, places him, I think, near the top fourth quartile of his salary range.”
With Thursday’s approval, Walsh will now become the second-highest-paid city manager in Texas. Austin’s city manager is still No. 1, with a whopping $470,018 salary.
San Antonio is the largest city in Texas that has a strong city manager, meaning the city manager oversees the police and fire departments. It’s larger than Austin by 500,000 people.
Fort Worth pays their city manager $435,000. In Dallas, the position has a $423,247 salary, and in El Paso the city manager gets $350,000.
Every council member who was present Thursday, except for Councilwoman Melissa Cabello Havrda of District 6, voted for the pay raise.
“I can’t in good conscience approve a $100,000 raise with poverty levels as they are in the city, when so many people in San Antonio are struggling and we’re still scrambling to find funding for essential city services,” Cabello Havrda explained. “This is not an attack or a criticism on Eric or his work. I do believe he’s doing a good job. It’s very difficult for me to do this and go out into the neighborhoods of our city and talk to them about what they need and not give them what they’re looking for, and giving one of us a $100,000 raise.”
Though City Council approved the raise, when Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez of District 2 brought up the city’s multi-million dollar budget deficit and asked where the funding was going to come from, only Walsh had an answer.
“The item before you is as of January 1st, so it’ll be less than that throughout the fiscal year, and obviously we’ll have to work within the city manager’s office budget,” Walsh said. “We do our mid-year budgeted ordinance to the City Council, where we update all the departmental, based on spending. These types of transactions are happening all the time in an organization our size. So we’ll look at that as we do the mid-year and see where we’re at.”
The city manager’s new pay raise will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2025.