IT TOOK Amalia Alarcón de Morris nine years at the helm of the Office of Neighborhood Involvement (ONI) to work up to her final annual pay of nearly $144,000.
David Austin reached that rate after less than three months.
Austin, the deputy chief of staff for Commissioner Chloe Eudaly, was tapped to run the embattled ONI on an interim basis after Alarcón de Morris announced she’d be stepping down as of March 20. In moving him to the new position, Eudaly chose to pay Austin the highest possible salary for the job—money that will come from the ONI budget, not Eudaly’s.
The city’s most recent salary scale report shows the ONI director job pays $102,981 at minimum and tops out at Austin’s current salary, $143,811, which he’ll earn until Eudaly hires another full-time ONI director in coming months.