{"id":402545,"date":"2026-08-10T12:55:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T12:55:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/402545\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T12:55:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T12:55:22","slug":"austins-lowest-paid-city-workers-could-get-bigger-raises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/402545\/","title":{"rendered":"Austin’s lowest-paid city workers could get bigger raises"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the Austin City Council debates changes to the city staff\u2019s proposed budget, City Manager T.C. Broadnax offered an amendment of his own Tuesday: a larger raise for the city\u2019s lowest-paid employees.<\/p>\n

Broadnax\u2019s original proposal included a 3% base wage increase for all regular, non-sworn employees, a $35.4 million citywide investment. Council members are considering amendments to his proposed spending planbefore adopting the final budget next week.<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s employee union union, AFSCME Local 1624, had asked for a flat $1,479 raise for employees earning less than $23.71 an hour. About 100 workers would have received more under that approach than they would through the proposed 3% increase, at an additional cost of roughly $5,000.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After reviewing the request, the city Human Resources Department determined that the budgetary impact would be minimal, Broadnax wrote in memo to the mayor and council<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Broadnax instead recommended a broader change.<\/p>\n

Under his proposal, all regular, non-sworn employees would receive either a 3% raise or a $1,590 increase, whichever is greater. The change would benefit an estimated 500 to 600 employees and add about $20,000 to the proposed budget.<\/p>\n

AFSCME Local 1624 President Brydan Summers said the union has spent the past two years advocating for a progressive cost-of-live adjustment that provides larger raises to the city\u2019s lowest-paid workers<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are grateful that City Manager Broadnax consulted with the union and included it in the proposed budget,\u201d he said in a statement. \u201cThis equitable raise will provide five to six hundred employees with increased financial stability during a time of high inflation and cost of living challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the Austin City Council debates changes to the city staff\u2019s proposed budget, City Manager T.C. Broadnax offered…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284616,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,8002],"class_list":["post-402545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-policy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}