Bartlett aldermen voted in support of a measure Tuesday, Aug. 10, increasing salaries and benefits for city police, fire and ambulance employees effective Sept. 1.

That was accomplished through a budget amendment to increase the city’s general fund by $822,300 to cover the raises and additional benefits.

The vote on the resolution at Bartlett City Hall Tuesday evening was unanimous. Bartlett officials hope this will keep their employees’ salaries and benefits more in line with personnel from other nearby municipal governments.

“I’m just thankful we could find the resources in order to be able to do this, so we could continue to retain the good employees that we have and assure that the people we do hire are the best that are available,” Bartlett Alderman David Parsons said after the vote.

The raises for personnel in those three groups are in addition to a recent 4% raise for all full-time city employees. Those raises were funded by a 24-cent property tax increase as part of the 2022 FY budget that passed in June.

Bartlett passes $180.9M budget, increases property tax

The additional funding for police, fire and ambulance employees is coming from three revenue sources: local sales tax ($300,000), half-cent sales tax ($200,000) and state sales tax ($322,300).

Of the $822,300 in new funds, Bartlett police will receive $499,700 to allocate toward salary and benefits for employees, ambulance services $182,500 and the fire department $140,100.

“Our revenues from these three taxes have come in extremely well this year and last year,” said Dick Phebus, Bartlett finance director. “We believe it will generate the revenue shown here in the resolution in order to fund these salary increases for police and fire and ambulance personnel.”