The Minneapolis City Council voted unanimously Thursday to direct Mayor Jacob Frey’s administration to share a report detailing employee compensation across the city with members of the council. The issue is yet another example of the mayor’s administration butting heads with the council over their roles in a strong mayor system.
Council members have been frustrated by what they see as the administration dragging its feet in sharing the complete results of a $650,000 survey conducted by the consulting company Guidehouse that compares Minneapolis employee compensation with other cities.
Council Member Emily Koski authored the legislative directive, and said at Thursday’s meeting that the information is important as the council works to finalize next year’s budget. She said the council has asked for the report “multiple times, and in multiple ways,” which under rules adopted by the council would qualify as official requests.
“Any further delay is simply a distraction from the issue at hand, that the administration is refusing to abide by the charter, and through its action and inaction denying the council access to data that is our legal right to have,” Koski said.
The information was first requested by Koski in September, according to a memo this week from City Operations Officer Margaret Anderson Kelliher. She said city staff provided updates and a summary of the report to council members, but Kelliher maintains the compensation qualifies as “nonpublic labor relations data.”
In that memo, Kelliher said they’re willing to “share the report through a confidential process.” Kelliher said council members’ characterization that the “administration was withholding information or being uncooperative is entirely false.”
Council Member Linea Palmisano, a close ally of the mayor, pointed out that the city has spent resources to try to identify leaks of confidential information in the past and said “I think it’s a reasonable decision of the city administration to decide not to print 13 copies and distribute them to all of us.”
.“We’ve been regularly communicated to on this. Council was apprised on its status and offered regular updates,” Palmisano said. “We also need to appreciate that while our salaries are public, this is a sensitive topic for city employees.”
The council’s legislative directive isn’t asking for the entire report to be made public, but for council members to receive access to it as they believe is their right under the city charter.
Council Member Jason Chavez said it’s a reasonable request that should have been fulfilled much earlier.
“I hope there’s no violation of the city charter and that we just get this information as quickly as possible,” Chavez said. “It didn’t need to come to a legislative directive, but it’s clear that with this administration, sometimes you have to do that.”
Minneapolis City Clerk Casey Carl said during the meeting that the mayor’s administration has five days excluding Sunday to approve or not approve the council’s legislative directive.
Council also wants more scrutiny of contracts
At the same meeting, the council passed an ordinance requiring the mayor’s administration to inform the council of all contracts the city engaged without council approval. In an email statement, Council Member Robin Wonsley said that transparency is necessary to prevent “fraud, waste and abuse in public spending.”
“Multiple high-profile incidents this term made it clear that there need to be significant improvements to the transparency protocols and financial policies to prevent unscrupulous contracts by the Frey administration and any future Mayors,” Wonsley said.
In an emailed statement, Frey’s spokesperson Ally Peters said the mayor will sign the ordinance: ”Accountability and transparency remain top priorities, and it’s baffling that some City Council Members are trying to create a political division over an issue where there is no conflict.”
Among other issues associated with city contracts, a report by the city auditor last month found that the city had overpaid a health and housing contract by more than $170,000 and made “duplicate and erroneous payments.”
The mayor’s spokesperson said that overpayment was identified and fully repaid by the city before the audit took place. She pointed to steps that the Office of Community Safety took last year to improve their contracting processes and a similar measure he signed in February giving the council access to city contracts under $175,000.
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