Atlanta City Council Approves 2014 Budget, Compromise Deal Struck on Employee Pay Raises

Despite still declining revenues, the budget avoids service cuts and a property tax hike, while adding about a million dollars to the city’s $126 million reserve fund and paying for a new 311 customer service hotline.

In addition, the budget includes the mayor’s new employee pay raise plan, which promises $3.2 million for salary increases – $400,000 more than the mayor originally proposed.

“The mayor and the administration has made a commitment to a fiscally sustainable pay structure and set of increases for employees,” said Duriya Farooqui, the city’s chief operating officer.

The city’s roughly 3,000 classified employees will get a 3.5 percent pay raise, rather than the three percent originally proposed by the mayor. All sworn officers, including police and firefighters, earning less than $60,000 will get a one percent pay raise for the first half of the year and a 1.5 percent increase the second half of the year.  

Ken Allen, head of the local chapter of the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, which represents about 1,200 Atlanta officers, was satisfied with the deal. He said the mayor’s plan most importantly provides a framework to establish a permanent funding source for future pay raises.

“The commitment for the long-term part of it is the biggest thing to me. There’s a lot of numbers that we’ve already put together that will fit into place as soon as we can be at the table. But to be at the table is the most important part,” said Allen.

The plan calls for the creation of a salary compensation committee made up of the mayor, city council members, and union reps. The committee is tasked with identifying government inefficiencies to fund future pay raises. Mayor Reed said one area already identified is getting more officers to show up in traffic court.

“If our law enforcement officers improve their participation in the judicial process that’s somewhere between 3-5 million without doing anything differently,” said Reed.

Three council members including finance chair Felicia Moore voted against the budget plan. Moore said it didn’t prioritize employee salaries enough.