Higher pay has at least temporarily solved Peachtree City’s problem of vacancies in the police and fire departments, the City Council was told last week.
In response to dwindling applicants and increasing vacancies, the city is fighting back with higher pay for all city employees, with added bumps for public safety employees.
If you apply for a rookie cop’s slot in Peachtree City as of Oct. 25, your starting pay will be $47,809, plus benefits, according to the new pay schedule adopted by the council Oct. 7. The pay hikes make Peachtree City workers some of the highest paid among cities of its size in Georgia.
Even the bottom starting pay on the city’s roster — like library assistant, sign technician and maintenance technician 1 — start at just over $34,000 plus benefits, or over $16 an hour.
That works out to an immediate 5.2% cost of living pay bump for all city employees except police and fire. The public safety raise is 8.2%.
“This should enhance our recruitment efforts,” said Councilman Mike King.
“We don’t want to be the employer of last resort,” noted City Manager Jon Rorie.
The pay raises become effective Oct. 25.
The big question now is, with all the annexation and rezoning, how many more police and fire are we going to need to maintain safety in the city? Not to mention we already need more patrols on multi-paths.
Shouldn’t you already know the answer to these?
I have been an advocate for better police and fire pay for years. Beyond that we need more police to better patrol the multi-use paths. Stop the wasted spending in other areas to hire more police.
I do not have access to the status of our fire department personnel.
Anyone from the defund the police crowd care to chime in?
It’s going to be a sneak attack.
Please pay them a wage where they could afford to live in Peachtree City.
Help us out with more thorough reporting. Show us some of the surrounding and comparable cities for reference. This sounds ridiculous of its face but it’s hard to tell without some good reference.
I’d rather be above the curve in this regard…
Fayette County Library Assistant starting at 30k, Clayton County Library Assistant starting at 29k.
“We don’t want to be the employer of last resort,” noted City Manager Jon Rorie. That’s how it should be.
Most of surrounding counties have started to give out essential worker bonuses or hazard pay. When will Fayette County join in????