Wednesday, July 24, 2024–10:09 a.m.
-David Crowder, WRGA News-
Rome Police officers and firefighters are getting a pay raise.
On Monday, the Rome City Commission approved a new pay scale with a minimum salary of $52,000 a year for public safety.
In other city departments, the minimum hourly wage will increase from $13 to $16.
According to Rome City Manager Sammy Rich, Evergreen Solutions conducted a survey of 16 other local governments to see where Rome ranked regarding employee pay and benefits.
“The goal of this was to look at internal and external equity, and look at concerns with turnover,” Rich said. “We’ve got jobs that we are continuing to having to hire for and replace. We’re just trying to be as competitive as possible. We often tell our employees that we can’t compete with the private sector but what I never want, is our employees to leave us to go next door, or across the street, or down the road for a comparable local government.”
The cost to implement the pay plan is roughly $2.5 million. About $1.6 million of that will come from the city’s general fund with the remainder being paid for from various enterprise funds.
“It’s an aggressive plan, and it’s a plan we’ve never endeavored to do,” Rich added. “I’ve been with the city for a number of years and we’ve made some adjustments, but we’ve never done anything on a comprehensive scale. From a financial perspective, we think the time is right to do this now. In fact, I don’t know that we can afford to get further behind if we don’t do this now.”
The pay scale is set to go into effect on September 1.
