LONGVIEW, Texas — On Thursday, the City of Longview held their annual budget meeting to determine what proposed funding could be placed throughout the next fiscal year. The plan created by City Manager Rolin McPhee focused on various topics like increased funding toward public safety to a slight increase on sanitation rates.
The city's new police department is still under construction, but that didn't stop a proposal to continue adding an incentive and mental assistance to their team.
"I'm going to talk about something that we don't like to talk about a lot of times," McPhee said. "Our police officers in that profession suffer some of the highest rates of heart attack, diabetes and many mental health issues."
To address this issue, the proposal will add a physical fitness incentive and licensed counselors to their office per the police chief's request. Although officers already have benefits to speak to a professional over the phone, the city will allot funding for a professional to visit the department at least four times a year to help employees deal with any mental health issues.
When it comes to sanitation rates for city residents, a raise has not been implemented by the council for years due to the COVID-19 pandemic’s financial strain on residents. According to the proposal, residential customers will see a 85-cent increase per month if the budget is approved.
"The proposed commercial sanitation rate would be an increase of $2.20 per month," McPhee said.
Mayor Andy Mack said the city has absorbed the $1.98 hit that should've been passed down to residents since the start of the pandemic. He believes since the virus has slowed down it's time to stop absorbing that cost.
Another raise that will take place will be a $15 per hour minimum pay for all city jobs.
The proposal also said city officials have been witnessing resignations due to burnout from the pandemic. The proposal sets to offer more incentives and pay raises to help prevent further resignations and encourage more people to take on the jobs.
The city wants to continue offering more items needed to fire departments and an incentive pay for ambulance services.
When compared to last year's budget, the Longview Fire Department will get a 3.58% pay increase, and the police department will get a 5.6% pay increase from last year's budget.
When it comes to the city's water rate, the proposal has no plans to increase cost. The same goes for city property taxes as the proposal aims to keep them steady.
A public discussion on this proposal will be held Aug. 10 and the council is set to vote Aug. 24 at city hall.