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Athens City Council approves one-time equity salary adjustment for full-time employees
Summary
The Athens City Council approved a one-time step adjustment for full-time employees based on years of service; the change will take effect in June 2025 and is limited by existing step maximums.
The Athens City Council approved a one-time equity salary adjustment for all full-time city employees, voting 4-0 to implement step increases based on years of service that will take effect in the June 2025 payroll period.
Council members approved a resolution that grants a three-step increase for employees with 15 or more years of service, a two-step increase for those with 10 to 14 years, and a one-step increase for employees with five to nine years. The city will determine years of service using a measurement date of May 1, 2025. The step adjustments are capped by each employee’s pay grade and will not exceed 18 steps.
The adjustment was described to the council as a corrective follow-up to a prior pay-plan change. A city staff member said the earlier change raised entry pay and expanded the plan from 12 to 18 steps, “and what we found out later was that we did not carry this all the way through” for longer-tenured employees. The staff member said the city employs 454 people and that “almost 50% of them have under 5 years of service.” The staff member also told the council, “The money is there. It's available.”
Council suspended the rules to consider the resolution and approved it by unanimous roll call. Roll-call votes recorded were: Mrs. Henry, Mr. Seibert, Mr. Harper and Mr. Lucas — all voting yes.
The resolution states the adjustment will be effective for the payroll period ending June 14, 2025, with pay to be issued in June 2025. It limits step increases to the maximum number of steps in an employee’s pay grade and will not push any employee past 18 steps. The resolution does not specify additional line-item budget appropriations beyond the staff statement that funding is available.
City officials said the adjustment is intended to correct internal pay compression that emerged after the earlier pay-plan changes and to better position Athens City to be competitive with surrounding municipalities as growth continues.
