City Commissioners voted during an April 4 special meeting to extend the city manager’s contract and increase his base salary.

After meeting in closed session with Greg Doyon, the city manager, for his annual review, commissioners came back to open session to vote on his contract.

Mayor Bob Kelly said, “all the commissioners are in agreement that Greg has done an incredible job, an outstanding job.”

City manager gets favorable review, raise [2022]

He said that Doyon developed good communication and relationships with legislators and officials in Helena during what has been a difficult legislative year.

Kelly said that Doyon has also navigated the use of federal COVID relief funds, which has been “difficult at best.”

The commission voted to extend Doyon’s contract from April 5, 2023 to April 5, 2026.

They also voted to increase his salary by 3.5 percent, bringing Doyon’s base salary to $190.142.

Kelly said they debated the salary increase since it’s below the rate of inflation, which the state is expected to set around 8 percent for budgeting purposes this year.

There was no other commission discussion or public comment on the contract extension and salary increase.

Last year, commissioners voted to increase his base salary to $183,713, retroactive to March 24, 2022.

Commissioners renewed his contract in 2020 for three years.

In 2020, his base salary was $161,500.

Doyon gets favorable review, contract unchanged

Mayor Bob Kelly said in 2022 that the city’s human resources director researched comparable salaries for city managers in the state and region and used those to make the recommendation to increase Doyon’s salary.

Commissioners approve city manager pay increase

He said the minimum was $156,000, the middle was $183,000 and the maximum was $211,000.

Kelly said in 2022 that commissioners hadn’t been able to Doyon much in the way of increases during COVID due to budget uncertainty and it “wasn’t enough at the time to recognize Greg for what he’s worth to us.”

City manager’s contract renewed another three years

Doyon has been the city manager since 2008.

At that time, the city was involved in the failed Electric City Power venture that took years to extricate itself from.