City Chief Operating Officer Maura Sullivan said an approved budget document giving some city employee raises was "human error."
She told the City Council, "We made a mistake."
Ms. Sullivan is asking the council to undo the error, noting that due to the pandemic no pay increases were possible.
She said what was passed "was a budget working document from before the COVID."
Ms. Sullivan said, though the council, employees and the public were told there would be no pay increases, the "wrong document went through finance and our whole collaborative process."
She said, thankfully, the mistake was caught before any money could be paid out.
Though no raises were given, the city has been able to avoid laying anybody off, she said.
Ms. Sullivan said the city is working on installing "more internal controls" to prevent a similar error from happening.