Asheville considers career-ladders for police and fire and 1.5%–3% citywide raises; staff to return April 8 with firm numbers

City finance and human-resources staff presented council members with multiple compensation scenarios on March 25, including proposals to replace step-based pay plans in both the Asheville Police Department and Asheville Fire Department with career-ladder structures and three alternative citywide pay scenarios for general employees.

Finance Director Tony McDowell said compensation and benefits make up roughly 64% of the city’s general fund and so any change would have a substantial budget impact. “compensation and benefits ... makes up about 64% of our general fund budget,” McDowell said.

Public safety: moving from step plans to career ladders

McDowell told council both police and fire have used step-based pay plans since the early 2000s and staff want to move to career-ladder structures that emphasize training, retention and clearer progression. He said the Police Department’s proposed move would require compression adjustments concentrated in mid-rank positions and estimated the average increase across the APD pay plan would be roughly 7%. APD’s proposed compression adjustments would cost “a little over a million dollars,” McDowell said; APD staff told council officers who did not receive a compression adjustment would instead receive a one-time bonus up to 3% of pay and would not be eligible for other increases discussed for general employees.

McDowell said Asheville Fire Department staff proposed a five-year phase-in of career tracks and that AFD expects minimal fiscal impact in the next fiscal year from the change, though future years could see additional costs as employees advance.

General employee options and costs

For non-public-safety employees (and AFD under the general scenario), staff modeled two styles of pay increases: a straight percentage across all employees, and a hybrid that pairs a flat-dollar bump for employees below the median salary with a percentage for employees above the median. Staff presented three levels:

- 1.5% (or hybrid with an $870 flat amount for employees below the median) — estimated cost about $2,150,000. - 2.0% (or hybrid with roughly $1,160 flat for lower-paid employees) — estimated cost about $2,500,000. - 3.0% (or hybrid with a larger flat amount for lower-paid employees) — estimated cost about $3,220,000 for the percent option or about $3,330,000 for the hybrid option.

McDowell and budget staff translated those scenarios into tax-rate impacts when layered onto the fund-balance tax increase staff has proposed. For example, the 1.5% option combined with APD adjustments would add about 1.08¢ to the tax rate (about $38 a year, $3.15 monthly for the typical homeowner), while combining a general-employee option with the 4.65¢ needed to restore fund balance yields a combined range of about 5.7¢ up to roughly 6.25–6.3¢ depending on the option.

Living-wage context and equity

Staff used the Just Economics living-wage figures as a local benchmark for discussion. McDowell said the organization’s 2025 pledged living wage converts to an annual salary of about $39,520; the fuller living-wage metric in the same calculation is about $48,150. He told council that after last year’s adjustments, no full-time city employees earn less than the pledged $39,520, but about 184 full-time employees remain below the $48,150 full living-wage figure.

Council questions and next steps

Councilmembers asked for additional detail on multi-year cost projections, vacancy counts by department and pay grade, and how quickly employees could progress on career ladders if they met training and education milestones. McDowell and department leaders said career-ladder progression would be tied to training hours (staff described a minimum of roughly 300 training hours per year) and that existing education and language incentives would remain in place and stack with career-ladder progression.

Unions: McDowell and staff said they had been working with the Police Benevolent Association and the Fraternal Order of Police and that the unions had reviewed the plan and expressed support for the concept, though some union members want larger increases than the staff-proposed budget can absorb this year.

Staff will return April 8 with refined figures, a breakdown of how many employees each option would lift above the full $48,150 living-wage figure, updated vacancy and recruitment data, and any additional multiyear projections council requested. No formal compensation decisions were made at the March 25 session.

Ending

Councilmembers generally signaled support for continuing to develop compensation options and asked staff to provide the requested vacancy and multiyear projection data ahead of the April 8 session.