Charlotte approves equal pay raises for fire, police departments
The Charlotte fire and police departments will receive equal pay raises next year under a tentative agreement approved by the City Council Monday night.
Employees in both departments would get 10% raises across the board, a reversal from an earlier draft that would have favored police officers.
The vote is not yet binding. The council will adopt its final budget next week.
But Mike Feneis, president of the Charlotte chapter of the international firefighters union, hailed the vote as a win for his department and the residents it serves.
“I think this is gonna make some really great changes within public safety to keep the hardworking men and women here in the City of Charlotte,” Feneis said. “It’s about equity within public safety.”
The decision followed two hours of debate and multiple failed motions — including a proposal to lower police raises — as leaders attempted to balance equity concerns with budget constraints.
The city will rely on a mixture of public safety reallocations and a tax increase to cover the raises.
City Manager Marcus Jones had already proposed increasing property taxes by 1.89 cents per $100 valuation, or about $5.71 per month for the “typical homeowner.” Every cent will go toward the police and fire departments.
Firefighters were initially slated for lower raises, receiving 7% compared to 10% for police. Jones used vacancy rates to justify the discrepancy, which he said demonstrated a more dire need to attract officers.
The council wasn’t satisfied and voted 10-1 in favor of equal raises.
“I hate that we’re kind of pitting one against the other,” said City Council member Malcolm Graham. “We don’t want to be here because they’re both valuable, and they both in their own way provide the type of safety net that our community needs.”
The higher fire department raises would put Charlotte more than $4.4 million over Jones’ original proposal.
To compensate, the budget will likely eliminate three new field technician jobs that were planned for the fire department, saving about $366,000; strike $1.86 million in safety technology investments such as upgrades to the automated dispatch system; and cut back a proposed increase to fire overtime pay by $2.2 million.
Fire Chief Reginald Johnson told the council he can sleep at night with those cuts.
“Our number one priority is making sure we have pay parity with CMPD,” Johnson said. “There’s some questions as to how (the cuts) will impact us. We will work through those.”
The fire department has “substantially exceeded” its budgeted overtime amounts in recent years, according to the city. It ran $5 million over budget in fiscal year 2024 and $7.3 million over budget in fiscal year 2025.
The initial budget proposal would have increased the overtime pay amount by $4.1 million. The council’s vote on Monday will likely slash that increase to less than $2 million, which is still higher than years past but remains below recent spending levels.
