(The Center Square) – The Spokane City Council and Mayor Lisa Brown could receive substantial salary increases beginning in 2027 as the dais eliminates staff to address the funding cliff it created last year.
Nicolette Ocheltree, manager of housing and homelessness initiatives, confirmed Monday that her final day in the council office is next month. She is among the first to see the door after the dais cut its own budget by $550,000 last fall to close a deficit heading into 2026 by only funding its staff through July.
Ocheltree said the decision came from Council President Betsy Wilkerson, who did not provide confirmation or comment to The Center Square before publication.
She isn’t alone either; Ocheltree said Alex Gibilisco, manager of equity and inclusion, was also notified last Thursday that he is being let go.
“Just got the official word. My last day with the city is August 7,” Ocheltree told The Center Square.
Gubilisco confirmed in a phone call with The Center Square on Monday that he is also being laid off.
After publication, the city provided a memo from Wilkerson to the council explaining her decision to The Center Square.
“An immediate decision had to be made to reduce central staff expenditures and align them with the council’s adopted 2026 budget before the end of this summer,” Wilkerson’s memo states.
The decision didn’t come as a surprise; Councilmember Michael Cathcart, the only conservative on the dais, said months ago that staff should’ve taken the funding cliff last fall as a layoff notice at the time.
A consultant’s report recently laid out several options the officials could take to restructure their staff and suggested that the council members are underpaid for the number of hours they work. The job is technically part-time on paper, but the seven members generally work more than 40 hours per week.
The report recommended asking the Spokane Salary Review Commission to consider the discrepancy.
The commission meets every other year to decide whether to give raises to the city’s elected officials.
Last Friday, three commissioners voted to develop a recommendation that contemplates higher base salaries for the council, which some say haven’t kept pace with the cost of living or current workload.
“The salary determines who can be here and do this job,” Councilmember Zack Zappone said, arguing during the meeting that compensation limits the candidate pool to people who don’t need the income.
Commissioner Lee said Friday that he could point to a dozen factors that suggest local elected officials should receive more than a 2% or 3% salary increase this year, but he didn’t put a hard number on it.
The commission previously fixed Brown’s salary at $186,400 for 2026, Wilkerson’s at $70,600 and the rest of the council’s wages at $53,150. Lee said he wants to see a “significant adjustment” in 2027-28.
Commissioner Beau Madsen suggested giving the mayor a base salary of $230,000, a 23.4% increase; the council president $86,000 annually, a 21.8% increase; and the council $78,000, a 46.7% increase.
Applying those figures would increase the city’s elected officials’ base salaries by more than $200,000.
The commission has until Aug. 30 to decide how much the salaries will actually increase in 2027-28.
Wilkerson’s apparent decision to lay off Ocheltree and Gibilisco tracks closely with one of the options in the consultant’s report. It proposed eliminating both initiative manager positions while transferring the last one under Brown’s administration to save $321,838 annually, but not without any consequences.
“[This option] reduces overall service capacity, responsiveness, and ability to provide specialized policy and constituent support,” according to the consultant’s report obtained by The Center Square in June.
Meanwhile, the council is awaiting budget projections that could unveil another deficit before 2027.
