Charlotte city workers are already struggling. July raises could be just 60 cents more
Deddric Davidson worries about keeping the city clean during the day, but at night he’s got a different concern — whether his paycheck will go far enough to provide for his family.
Davidson is among city employees who could receive a 6% raise in the 2023-2024 fiscal year budget. That’ll mean 3% in July and another 3% raise in January. Translated to his paycheck, Davidson said he’ll see an extra 60 cents per hour in July. It’s not enough to continue to survive and live in Charlotte, he said.
“Please, tell me in these days in 2023 in the city of Charlotte where you can buy anything worth 60 cents?” Davidson, who is also a member of the Charlotte City Workers Union, asked during Monday’s Charlotte City Council meeting.
Davidson’s comments come as prices of food, gas, cars, furniture and appliances in the U.S. rose sharply over the past two years, putting financial pressure on consumers. In 2022, median rent in Mecklenburg County soared to $1,900.
He joined a crowd of city employees who walked from Marshall Park to the government center Monday night to ask the council to double the raise in the current proposed budget to 12% instead.
“All we ask is that you work with us,” said Kevin Carr, a union member and commercial vehicle operator.
Charlotte Water, sanitation employees ‘struggling’
Carr said many of his colleagues leave the city’s solid waste department for private waste management companies offering high salaries and lower workloads.
“I meet with (private employees) everyday when I go to the dump to dump my truck, and our salaries are not up to par. They don’t pick up as much as we pick up,” Carr said. “They have limits on the amount of stuff that they pick up and we don’t have any limits.”
Solid waste employee Rory Pegram works uptown and says he spends some days clearing homeless camps. But he doesn’t have a permanent home, either.
“I’m struggling like crazy. I’m tired. I go to work every day, hurt or not. We need to be compensated for what we do,” Pegram said. “I’m ... doing hazardous work. And then I go get my paycheck at night on Friday and I’m at home and I’m almost crying because I can’t make it.”
When The Charlotte Observer interviewed him last summer after the city approved an 8% raise for hourly employees, Pegram said he felt hopeful from the hotel room he lived in.
Nearly a year later, Pegram said he’s had two heart surgeries and is still living in a hotel room. The cost of his hotel, food and gas rose in the past year, following national trends. The country’s inflation rate was about 5%, following a 6% rise of consumer good prices in the year prior, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Kass Ottley, founder of local activist group Seeking Justice CLT who led a rally before Monday’s council meeting, said Pegram isn’t the only city employee living in a hotel.
“While we really appreciate the increases and everything that was done last year, they are so far behind that it would take several years like that just to have them break even,” Ottley said. “They are out in all types of elements: rain, snow, in water digging holes.”
Ottley also noted that earlier in the meeting the council proclaimed the week “Drinking Water Week” in honor of work by Charlotte Water workers.
“We can’t talk about the water and how important it is and all of these wonderful things if we don’t respect these workers enough to pay them to live in the city that they’re working in and love,” Ottley said. “We get up in the morning and we turn our shower on and take a shower. We take these things for granted. It’s not magic.”
Firefighters call for pay parity
The city’s 2023-2024 budget proposes a 5.5-8% pay increase for all Charlotte Fire Department employees, but an 8% raise for all Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department officers and sergeants. New starting officer pay would be $62,911.
Zakee Cook, a fire captain, was one of three firefighters who asked the council to structure police and fire pay the same.
The proposal would “unravel” joint efforts between the police and fire departments to balance pay and force them to compete against each other, Cook said.
“We have never been separated before,” he said. “And the most pressing concern is that the proposed budget does not include a systematic plan for how we move forward.”
The Charlotte City Council is expected to meet Thursday for its first budget workshop at 600 E. Fourth St. ahead of the budget’s adoption this summer. Meetings can be streamed on the city’s YouTube account.
The full proposed budget is posted on the city of Charlotte’s website.
This story was originally published May 9, 2023 at 6:41 AM.
