Metro Nashville employees moved a step closer to receiving a 2.5 percent pay bump on Tuesday night. The Metro Council needs to pass just one more vote on the pay raise.
Several city employees thanked officials for the likely increase. But those employees also used the moment, in front of hundreds at the Metro Courthouse, to raise broader concerns about possible changes to employee benefits.
911 dispatcher Lorenzo Clark spoke in favor of increasing the benefits for emergency communications workers. He said they play a pivotal role in public safety.
“In this year’s budget, we are grateful for the 2.5 percent ,and we are grateful for our and our future dispatchers’ pensions and that they’re secure,” Clark says. “We want to maintain a pension for all Metro employees going forward and that our benefits matter.”
Several employees said they spoke up Tuesday night partly as a message to incoming elected officials. Next year’s budget cycle could encounter some unresolved tensions with city employees.
The city has studied the health and retirement benefits that employees receive, making some suggestions that the benefits package be altered.
“Employees and services have in many ways been overlooked or shunted aside in the last four to eight years,” said Mark Naccarato
, spokesman for the SEIU
employees union.
“There’s also been this misconception that government employees make so much money. That’s completely ludicrous,” Naccarato said. “Generally, it has always been that government employees, or public employees, make actually less money than their private sector counterparts, but get better benefits. That’s been the grand bargain.”
Tyrone Jolley, a Metro Water employee for 24 years, said he supports the step increase in this year’s budget but wants to make sure “all Metro government employees are looked over equally.”
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