(Image source from: Saporta Report)

Atlanta City Council approved $661 million budget and personnel plan for the upcoming year on Monday, merely leaving many on sides of the dais miserable with pay for public safety officers.

The plan for city's spending includes raises of 3.1 percent for recruits and to sworn officers in the police and fire departments.

"This 3 percent isn't meant to fully fix what is broken," said Councilman Dustin Hillis, after he introduced the raise.

"We have an overtime issue because we have a retention and recruitment issue. We have a retention and recruitment issue because we have a compensation issue," he said.

The city has a yearslong history of losing police officers to forces that offer better pay, particularly longtime officers who missed raises during the tight budget years of the financial condition. Earlier this month, the city auditors documented in a report by the city: overtime pay is concentrated in the police department.

The raises will be funded by fire and police department's vacant positions.

The national representative for the International Brotherhood of Police Officers said the raise amounts to putting a Band-Aid on cancer.

"This is not going to be anything that has any major impact for us, on the problems that we are seeing and the vacancies that are within the Atlanta Police Department," said Allen. "We have hundreds of open positions right now and it’s only going to grow."

Councilman Howard Shook said he did not expect police to form a choir to sing council's praises and he and his colleagues are earnest about spending the succeeding year working on a real fix.

Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said during the Council meeting that when it comes to public safety officers, "We recognize that we have a tremendous amount of work to be done in that area."

An umpteen amendments to the mayor's draft spending plan for the year that begins in July was approved by the council. The biggest addition was $3 million for improvements of cybersecurity.

The extra $1 million was as well added by the council for the office of Cultural Affairs, which encourages and assists arts in the city.

Public works

- $500,000 on filling potholes
- $400,000 on animal control, city's pre-arrest diversion program, and the public defender.

Other budgets

$258,000: City's ethics office
$100,000: HIV and AIDS infection prevention efforts
$3.9 million: Parks and recreation

By Sowmya Sangam