Departed Prosser's compensation deal pales compared to new hire Pomeranz's

CEDAR RAPIDS - The city of Cedar Rapids will pay $112,778 a year more in salary and retirement benefits to its new city manager, Jeff Pomeranz, than it paid departed City Manager Jim Prosser, who left on April 13 as part of a “separation agreement” with the City Council.

Last week, Mayor Ron Corbett announced that Pomeranz's annual salary with the city of Cedar Rapids would be $225,00 a year, compared to Prosser's annual salary of $165,000.

The city's contract with Pomeranz, which was made public on Tuesday, also will pay him an additional 32 percent of his salary each year in a retirement benefit, an amount equal to $72,000 a year at the current salary.

The city paid an amount equal to 11.65 percent of Prosser's salary each year in retirement benefits. An additional amount equal to 5 percent of the salary went to a private retirement account and an amount equal to 6.65 percent of salary went to the state IPERS pension system. The city won't pay into the state IPERS system for Pomeranz.

In total, the city will pay Pomeranz $297,000 a year in salary and retirement benefits, compared to $184,222 that the city paid for Prosser, or 61.2 percent more.

The difference would not be so stark had Prosser not refused to take a salary increase in his 44-month run as city manager.

The City Council is slated to approve the Pomeranz contract at its meeting this evening at 5:30 at Hiawatha City Hall.

The Pomeranz contract also provides Pomeranz with a $300 a month travel allowance and will pay up to $30,000 for relocation expenses as he moves from West Des Moines, where he has been city manager the last 12 years, to Cedar Rapids. The relocation expenses include the Realtor fees and closing costs on his current home and any similar costs for the purchase of a residence in Cedar Rapids. Prosser's contract provided the same travel and relocation payments, the city said.

Interestingly, Pomeranz's contract also stipulates that the city pay him one year's salary and one year's medical benefits should the city's Home Rule Charter Commission, which reconvenes in 2011 as required by Cedar Rapids' City Charter, recommends and voters subsequently approve a change in the city's form of government to a form that does not include a city manager with a scope of duties as outlined in the current City Charter. The city moved to a council/manager government in 2006.

Pomeranz's contract mirrors the Prosser one in that it also provides a severance agreement in which he will receive a year's salary and a year's health insurance premium should he be asked to resign by the City Council and he agrees or if his contract is involuntarily ended for reasons other than death, a felony conviction or neglect or refusal to perform his duties.

The city paid Prosser a year's salary and up to a year's medical benefits upon his departure.

Pomeranz's contract calls for him to start his job with the city on Sept. 7, though it notes that his current employer, the city of West Des Moines, must agree to the date.

Pomeranz's current contract with West Des Moines requires him to provide a six-month notice before he leaves, a fact pointed out by West Des Moines Mayor Steven Gaer last week.

Gaer reported that he had advised Pomeranz to submit his six-month notice to the city of West Des Moines, and Gaer said the City Council would sit down this week with him and identify a list of “critical items” to get accomplished before Pomeranz moves on to Cedar Rapids.

“If those can get accomplished sooner than the six months, happy to let you out early,” Gaer said he told Pomeranz. “But we need to sit down as a group and figure out what those items are.”

Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett has said he hoped to have Pomeranz on board in Cedar Rapids after Labor Day.

Told that, Gaer continued: “Well, I told Jeff, ‘Look, I know you'd like to get up there and get started,' and I said, ‘We don't' want to keep you here any longer than we need to.'” Gaer said. “‘But by the same token, we all owe it to the city of West Des Moines that we get the things done that we need your help on. And if that's three months, that's three months, if it's six months, it's six months. We just need to sit down and see what that list is and see how quickly those things can get accomplished.'”

Pomeranz's current annual salary with the city of West Des Moines is $198,100. As in his new contract with the city of Cedar Rapids, an additional amount equal to 32 percent of his salary is put into a retirement account. The retirement money equals $63,392.

His total current salary and retirement package pays him $261,492 a year, or $35,508 less than the $297,000 in the Cedar Rapids compensation package.