City Manager Harry Black was rewarded with a three percent raise Wednesday after his first year on the job.
Taxpayers will now pay Black $256,135 to run Cincinnati. Black started on the job making $245,000 when he was hired last year and got a 1.5 percent cost-of-living increase earlier this summer.
City Mayor John Cranley advised city council to give Black the raise, but didn't provide a written review of the city's CEO.
City Council members generally praised Black's performance during the last year at a council meeting Wednesday. Some were upset that the mayor didn't provide any documentation of the review he conducted of Black's first year here.
WCPO requested a copy of the review but a city spokesman said it was conducted verbally.
"When any of us evaluate the manager, there should be evidence of what we found, what we evaluated him on and what our recommendations would be," Council Member Chris Seelbach said. "There's a lack of transparency when there's not evidence of an evaluation."
Some city council members suggested the council do a written evaluation of Black before voting on raise. But others argued that Black's salary shouldn't suffer because the council failed to do its own review of the manager.
"I'm going to not allow my feelings about the process to hold up the manager's raise," Councilman Wendell Young said.
All council members agreed Wednesday Black should get a 1.5 percent merit increase. A push for a bigger increase, at 3 percent, passed but only in a 5 to 4 vote.
The raise amounts to $7,460 in pay every year.
