Montgomery County Council Backs Pay Bump for County Employees

All but one member of the Montgomery County Council voted to approve pay raises for county government, police and fire and rescue employees Tuesday. It will be the first raise for government employees in four years. 

Councilman Philip M. Andrews (D-Dist 3) of Gaithersburg, was the only dissenting vote. 

County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) negotiated the pay increases in his $4.8 billion budget proposal for fiscal 2014 as part of new two-year contracts with employees’ unions. Fiscal 2014 begins July 1. 

Most county employees will receive two raises this summer: a cost-of-living increase and a step increase. A step is a pay raise for one year of service. Police officers will receive an increase equal to one-and-a-half steps and firefighters will receive an increase equal to two steps.

Most county government employees will see a 6.75 pay increase in September. In July, most police officers will see a 7.35 increase and most firefighters will see a 9.75 increase. The contracts call for similar raises in the next fiscal year that will not have to be approved by the council next year.

"Our cost cutting efforts were necessary, but they called for great sacrifice from county employees," Leggett said after the vote. "The work I and the County Council have done to put the county’s fiscal house in order—boosting reserves, cutting the workforce, reducing expenditures and the hundreds of millions of dollars in employee savings—has given the county the room to provide some compensation increases after four lean years."

Andrews previously said that the county could not afford the type of increases Leggett proposed. In a statement after the council's vote Tuesday, Andrews called the raises "excessive, irresponsible and unsustainable."

"County employees deserve a pay raise after three years ... and I support (and proposed in March) a reasonable and sustainable increase in pay of 4-6 percent for county employees for each of the next two years," Andrews said.