David Hebert has served as City Manager of Oakland Park, Florida since September 2014. Over the course of his tenure, his compensation has grown substantially — and understanding exactly how that growth happened requires looking at both his salary and an unusually generous retirement arrangement.
How It Started
When Hebert was hired in September 2014, his base salary was $170,000 per year. On top of that, the city committed to contributing an additional $27,000 — approximately 15% of his salary — annually toward his retirement. That placed his total compensation at roughly $197,000 in his first year.
Most city employees in Florida participate in the Florida Retirement System, a state-administered pension program. Hebert’s arrangement was different from the start: rather than enrolling him in the state system, the city agreed to deposit retirement contributions directly into a personal account administered through ICMA-RC, a financial services organization that manages retirement plans for public sector employees. The practical effect is that every dollar the city contributes goes directly into the city manager’s personal retirement account, rather than flowing into the state’s pension fund as it would for a typical FRS member.
A Richer Retirement Deal
In July 2016, the city manager’s employment agreement was amended to increase the city’s retirement contribution rate. Instead of the original 15.8%, the city agreed to contribute at whatever rate Florida requires cities to pay into the FRS for senior management employees — a rate that has climbed steadily over the years as the state has worked to address its pension funding obligations. At the time of the amendment, that rate was approximately 21% of salary.
By May 2026, the applicable FRS rate for senior managers had risen to 33.24%. Applied to the city manager’s current salary, that means the city is now depositing $106,875 per year into his personal retirement account — on top of his base pay.
Steady Raises Over the Years
Between 2014 and 2021, the city manager received the same annual cost-of-living increases given to other salaried city employees — roughly 3.5% per year on average. These incremental increases are standard practice and reflect citywide adjustments to keep pace with inflation and labor market conditions.
Then, in June 2021, the City Commission approved a more significant adjustment. By resolution, the city manager’s salary was increased by approximately 27%, bringing it to $264,320. Since then, he has continued to receive the same annual cost-of-living adjustments as other city employees, and these increases are not tied to his performance reviews.
By October 2025, those increases had brought his salary to $321,526.
Where That Puts Him
The city manager’s salary places him among the highest-paid municipal managers in South Florida. As of June 2025, a survey of all statewide city managers ranked his compensation third-highest among city managers in Broward County and 13th highest among all municipal managers across Florida — a state with dozens of cities much larger than Oakland Park.
The Full Picture
Adding together his base salary and the city’s retirement contribution, the city manager’s total annual compensation package as of May 2026 comes to approximately $428,400, a figure which will increase to approximately $446,000 in October 2026.
For More Information
The details in this article are collected from a variety of public records including: city commission agenda items and minutes, the city manager’s employment agreement, resolutions amending the agreement, resolutions approving cost-of-living increases for salaried city staff, Florida Retirement System publications, and more.