ROANOKE, Va. – Increasing pay for workers in the Star City is a big focus for Roanoke leaders in the upcoming fiscal year.
As the fiscal year approaches, all eyes are on the budget, and where money will be allocated.
For city manager Bob Cowell, the most important item for this budget is looking familiar to what the goal has been in the past, raising pay.
“It’s been the last couple years, compensation ya know obviously with the cost of living increasing and inflation increasing,” Cowell said.
Monday morning, the city council gathered for their monthly budget preparation briefing talking mostly about pay increases.
“We are a people business we have 1800 people who are necessary to deliver all the services, we got to take care of our people, and that has been ongoing in the last four years council allotted us to spend about 22 million dollars additional on salaries for firefighters, police officers, engineers, guys working on the back of trucks, out in the streets all of that so that still would be our top priority,” Cowell said.
In Roanoke City, the total compensation increased $9.2 million from 2023 to 2024 and in the past 3 years pay grew by $21.6 million or 18.69% since 2021, despite the effects of the pandemic, but for some public safety, Roanoke City is still behind on the pay scale.
“Even though we’ve invested heavily in public safety we still have the lowest starting pay for police officers in the region. Even as we are making these investments even as they are benefiting from them the market continues to move,” Cowell said.
I reached out to Roanoke police to see what the starting salary for officers was and they told me its 42,500 annually, in the meeting they proposed pay advancements for police, fire and EMS, and sheriff’s departments, which would cost just above a million dollars that Cowell says they are having their budget. On April 15th they will present the final budget for this upcoming year.
You can watch the March 4 meeting here and see the presentation here.