CRESTVIEW — City officials have good Labor Day news for municipal employees.
Under the 2016-17 budget, most workers will receive a 3 percent raise starting Oct. 1.
Police officers and firefighters will receive 5 percent salary increases. Full-time city workers who earn less than $25,000 a year will see a 6 percent raise.
Officials said the raises are necessary to attract and retain qualified workers, and were done without increasing ad valorem taxes.
“You try to keep the people you have rather than hire new ones,” City Clerk Betsy Roy said. “It’s a lot less expensive to keep the people you have than train new ones.”
Roy said during the budgeting process, her office presents the city council with various scenarios, including several raise options “or a no-raise scenario,” she said.
“It’s all part of the budget process,” Roy said.
This year, when city councilmen reviewed the budget in depth, they chose to reward city workers with raises, Roy said.
“When we got down to the bottom line in the budget, the money was available,” she said. “It’s their way of rewarding employees. There were a couple years when we couldn’t offer raises.”
“We realize that we have to take care of our employees,” Councilman Shannon Hayes said. “If we have the resources, we want to look after them. They deserve it. And we did it without additional cost to our citizens.”
In the $35 million budget that the City Council approved, $9.5 million will go toward employee salaries, up from nearly $9 million in the 2014-15 budget year.
“We try to look after our employees as well as our citizens,” Hayes said.
The budget will undergo two public hearings, 5:30 p.m. Sept. 8 and 22 at city hall, before going into effect Oct. 1.
Here’s how much of Crestview’s budget was devoted to employee salaries over the past several years:
●2014-15: $8,591,446
●2015-16: $8,988,784*
●2016-17: $9,511,038**
*Includes 5 percent police salary increase; 4 percent for other employees
**Includes 5 percent police and firefighter salary increase; 3 percent for most other employees; 6 percent for full-time employees whose salaries are under $25,000.
BY THE NUMBERS
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Crestview workers to receive raises in new budget year