Council Set to OK Final 2004 Spending Plan
WSBTV - Channel 2 Action News, Atlanta
ATLANTA -- Dozens of Atlanta firefighters and police officers rallied at City Hall Wednesday, demanding pay raises from city leaders who are already struggling to make ends meet on a tight spending plan.
The march was held as the finance committee of the Atlanta City Council was expected to convene Wednesday afternoon to consider giving final approving to Mayor Shirley Franklin’s budget for this year.
The march began at Turner Field before advancing to City Hall. Police officers said they are asking for a 4 percent cost-of-living increase while Atlanta firefighters are demanding pay parity with police.
Representatives from the firefighters union said pay levels between police and firefighters were equal until 1999 when the city approved pay and pension raises for the officers. Firefighters, however, received a bonus in 2000 in lieu of the raise.
“If a firefighter works the same amount of years as a police officer, he retires with a 27 percent less pension,” said Capt. David Rhodes, president of the International Association of Firefighters. “That’s just absurd for a city of this size to try and divide employees of this manner.”
Last week, Franklin and Police Chief Richard Pennington met with leaders of the police unions, who were are lobbying the city administration for promised pay increases.
The sides met behind closed doors. After the meeting, police union leaders said the city must make good on pledges to increase police pay.
“This is the third budget year and nothing,” police Sgt. Scott Kreher, who is president of the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, said at the time. “We haven’t seen any increases in our salary and the increment has been frozen two out of the three years. We’re here to hopefully rectify that.”
Union members have erected 18 billboards throughout the city that proclaim Atlanta as a city “protected by some of the lowest paid police officers in the country.”
The national average for police pay in the U.S. is $40,418 a year, according to the Web site of Policepay.net, a group of police pay consultants. The group found last year that Atlanta’s starting salary was ranked 170th among the country’s 200 largest cities. Last year, the starting salary for an Atlanta police officer was $32,783.
As part of the 2004 budget submitted by the mayor, the city planned to hire 100 police officers, 25 firefighters and give city employees a 2 percent cost-of-living raise.