Police pay hike stirs city debate

Decatur Daily Democrat:

An hour and 20-minute budget discussion at Tuesday night's Decatur City Council meeting was mostly devoted to a stirring, passionate debate over a requested pay increase for members of the city police department.

In the end, three council members voted to provide a $2,500 increase to each of the 17 members of the department. That will be in addition to the two percent pay boost set up earlier for all city employees.

The issue of extra police raises came up as, for the first time, the proposed city budget for 2013 came into public view. It carried a figure of $7,131,597, up $275,710 from last year's $6,855,869 proposal. But the new proposal will now have to be recalculated due to the hikes granted the police department.