CHARLOTTE, N.C. — All Charlotte city employees are set to get a raise in the city's Fiscal Year 2024 budget, but many say it’s not enough.
People that work for Charlotte Water, Solid Waste Services, and other city departments rallied Monday evening for better pay.
As the group marched from Marshall Park to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Government Center in Uptown they chanted, "When city workers are under attack, what do we do? Stand up fight back!"
City workers are demanding higher raises than what’s currently being proposed in Charlotte’s upcoming budget.
"The city is growing every day, there’s new developments on my routes I do every day, and the money just does not equate to what we should be getting," Kevin Carr told WCNC Charlotte.
Carr is a CDL driver for the city’s Solid Waste Services and said under the proposed employee raises, he’d see 64 cents more per hour.
"It makes me feel kinda like I’m being slapped in the face," Carr said.
Once at the Government Center, many of the protesters signed up to speak at Charlotte City Council's public hearing on the proposed budget.
"We can’t talk about the water and how important it is and all these wonderful things if we don’t respect these workers enough to pay them to live in the city that they work and love," Sonia Watts said to council members.
Another city worker added, "I go and get my paycheck at night on Fridays and I'm at home and I'm almost crying because I can’t make it!"
The proposed budget offers hourly employees a 3% raise in July and another 3% raise in January. Salary employees would get a 4% raise in July.
The Charlotte City Workers Union is hoping Council will agree to bump those up to a 12% raise like it did last year.
The drafted budget also gives police officers a minimum 8% raise and boosts starting pay to $62,913 a year.
Firefighters get a five and a half to 8% raise and starting pay would go up 8%. However, many firefighters also spoke at the city council meeting, asking to be given the same raises as police.
Council members did not respond to the workers' comments during the meeting but Mayor Vi Lyles thanked them for their input.
"We try to work on what we believe are the priorities, but there's nothing like hearing people that read it and understand it and come down to tell us and share with us what they think is most important," Lyles said.
Charlotte City Council will discuss changes to the budget and vote on it before it takes effect on July 1.
Contact Julia Kauffman at jkauffman@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.