Pay Increase Proposal For City Employees Heads To Alexandria City Council

ALEXANDRIA, VA — A compensation increase for Alexandria city government employees will be considered at Tuesday's City Council meeting as public safety unions have called for more competitive pay.

According to a memo from City Manager Mark Jinks, the proposed 1.5 percent pay rate increase was originally proposed in the fiscal year 2021 budget. That proposal was nixed in the amended budget proposal after the COVID-19 pandemic changed revenue projections for the city. In the fiscal year 2022 budget, merit increases were brought back, and a one-time bonus was paid in July.

Now City Council will consider that 1.5 percent pay rate increase for the rest of fiscal year 2022 and future years. A one-time $1,000 bonus would also be provided to all eligible full-time city and state-paid employees. Part-time employees would receive a prorated bonus.

Per the memo, Jinks considered recommending the $1,000 bonus be contingent on providing proof of vaccination. However, that recommendation was dropped due to a legal review from the city attorney's office. A COVID-19 vaccination requirement goes into effect on Oct. 25 for city government employees, and those who haven't submitted vaccination records will undergo weekly testing. To date, Jinks noted 76 percent of employees filed proof of vaccination.

The proposal also calls for a two-grade increase for police captains and police lieutenants, a one-grade increase for deputy sheriff captains and deputy sheriff lieutenants, moving deputy fire chiefs and chief deputy sheriffs to the executive pay scale, and $3,000 bonuses for city-funded deputy sheriff positions for which the state didn't provide the bonus.

In the proposal, Jinks recommends compensation will be a funding priority in the upcoming fiscal year 2023 budget process. However, a new city manager is expected to be in place next year as Jinks is retiring.

The pay rate increase and bonus proposal comes after firefighter and police unions have raised concerns about staffing shortages and Alexandria's lack of competitiveness for pay on a regional level. The organizations claim the staffing and retention issues originate from salaries that aren't competitive with other regional localities.

"City officials have dismissed these concerns as unfounded, and claimed that we are bringing these issues to the attention of the public as a collective bargaining tactic," stated Alexandria Committee of Police, IUPA Local 5 and Alexandria Firefighters, Inc., IAFF Local 2141. "This suggestion is almost as insulting as the 1.5% pay increase that the City Manager has proposed to solve our understaffing problem. Our members have been underpaid for years, and the City’s own benchmarks show that they aren’t meeting the promise of paying at the midpoint of our regional comparators."

The city manager also received backlash from IUPA Local 5 and IAFF Local 2141 for providing numbers from a 2019 benchmark study on pay competitiveness to City Council with the proposal. The organizations found a 2020 benchmark study was completed, providing more recent data on pay competitiveness.

The memo from Jinks acknowledged the proposal will not achieve a goal of average pay compared with other jurisdictions for all city pay scales.

"It will be important for the City to focus on pay as part of the FY 2023 budget process, and it will send a message to employees that Council recognizes that City pay needs to be competitive," Jinks wrote.