North Myrtle Beach City Council votes August 17 on whether to give City Manager Ryan Fabbri a 5 percent raise, lifting his salary from $225,000 to $236,250 a year, retroactive to June 6 [City of North Myrtle Beach Resolution, 2026]. The increase follows Fabbri’s first performance review, conducted in a July 20 executive session, roughly one year after he took the job [City of North Myrtle Beach Resolution, 2026]. For residents, the question isn’t whether council has the authority to approve it. It’s whether the year behind it actually supports the answer “yes.”
A First-Year Review, Not a Track Record
Fabbri was appointed city manager in June 2025 [MyHorryNews, 2025], which means this raise rests on a single transition year rather than a sustained record. That matters for how residents should read it. A comparison to Myrtle Beach is useful context, not a defense: that city’s manager, in his role since 2021 with years of results behind him, was paid roughly $292,000 as of the end of 2025 while overseeing a city with nearly double North Myrtle Beach’s population and budget [Post and Courier, 2026; WPDE, 2026]. The comparison shows Fabbri’s raise isn’t unusual by regional market standards. It doesn’t show he’s earned it — those are different questions, and North Myrtle Beach’s raise resolution answers only the first one.
What the Year Actually Looked Like
Three department-head positions remain unfilled as of this writing: Public Works director, Human Resources director (currently led by interim director Crystal McGhee), and Streets and Drainage superintendent [City of North Myrtle Beach job posting, 2026; City of North Myrtle Beach, 2026]. These vacancies aren’t new — a MyHorryNews interview from Fabbri’s first days in office already flagged the outgoing public works and finance directors as challenges he’d need to solve [MyHorryNews, 2025]. A year is exactly the runway a performance review should measure against that goal, and the goal isn’t yet met. Finance has seen three different directors during Fabbri’s one-year tenure, and a Finance Director posting stayed open on the city’s job board for roughly six months before it was filled [City of North Myrtle Beach job posting, 2026]. The city has also acknowledged it had to overhaul its accounting system following findings from its outside auditors — a department central to how residents’ tax dollars are tracked was, for much of the year, in flux.
How Fabbri Built His Own Team
Records obtained by this outlet under FOIA-2025-536 show that when Fabbri filled the Assistant City Manager position — one of the most powerful roles in city government — only one applicant was interviewed, and the city never publicly announced that the position had been filled [City of North Myrtle Beach, FOIA-2025-536, 2025]. Two other hires from the same period, an Operations Manager and a Chief Financial Officer, at least involved multiple interviewed candidates, even though those hirings also went unannounced [City of North Myrtle Beach, FOIA-2025-536, 2025]. A results-first standard applies to how a manager builds his own leadership team, not just how he fills inherited vacancies — and an unadvertised, single-candidate process for a top deputy role is hard to square with that standard.
The Budget Vote Behind the Tax Increase
The clearest test of the year is the budget itself: a roughly $190 million spending plan that raised property taxes from 45 to 50 mills [MyrtleBeachSC News, 2026; MyHorryNews, 2026]. Text messages obtained by this outlet show that the day before the June 1 vote, Mayor Jay Baldwin and Fabbri arranged individual meetings with council members, and Fabbri reported back that “we need to pass the budget tomorrow night,” naming which members were confirmed and which — Councilman Hank Thomas — still needed convincing [City of North Myrtle Beach, City Manager Text Messages, 2026]. After the vote passed, Fabbri and Baldwin congratulated each other on how well it “went down” [City of North Myrtle Beach, City Manager Text Messages, 2026]. South Carolina’s open-meetings law restricts public officials from using private, one-on-one contacts to build consensus outside a public meeting [S.C. Code Ann. § 30-4-70]. These messages alone don’t prove that line was crossed, but they raise a legitimate question about whether the year’s signature achievement reflected open public deliberation or a vote secured beforehand.
Has He Earned It?
Add it up: three empty department chairs, a finance office that changed hands three times, a top deputy hired without competition or announcement, and a tax-raising budget vote that may have been locked in before the public hearing began. None of this proves Fabbri is a poor city manager, and none of it makes his salary unusual for the region. But a raise is supposed to certify that a leader has already delivered — stable departments, a steady finance office, transparent process. On the record so far, North Myrtle Beach is being asked to certify that before the evidence exists. Residents deserve a City Council that can point to specifics, not just an evaluation held behind closed doors.
Further Reading
- City of North Myrtle Beach — Human Resources Department
- Q&A with North Myrtle Beach city manager Ryan Fabbri as city embarks on a new chapter — MyHorryNews, 2025
- North Myrtle Beach adopts 2027 $190 million budget — MyHorryNews, 2026
- North Myrtle Beach Tax Increase: $225/Year Budget Proposal — MyrtleBeachSC News
- Will Myrtle Beach keep its city manager? — Post and Courier, 2026
- Myrtle Beach confirms city manager’s salary after questions about online records — WPDE, 2026
- Finance Director job posting, City of North Myrtle Beach
- Public Works Director job posting, City of North Myrtle Beach
- City of North Myrtle Beach, response to FOIA-2025-536 (hiring records for Operations Manager AFC, Assistant City Manager, and Chief Financial Officer positions)
- City of North Myrtle Beach, City Manager text messages (records obtained by this outlet)
- S.C. Code Ann. § 30-4-70 — South Carolina Freedom of Information Act, meetings provisions
