Charlotte council advances several budget adjustments for costing, includingSafe Alliance restoration and firefighter modified-duty positions

Charlotte’s city council used a budget‑adjustment session to collect councilmembers’ priorities and send a slate of items to staff for detailed costing and return. The meeting, held as the manager’s proposed budget is under consideration, produced a set of exploratory decisions: staff will analyze restoring Safe Alliance funding at roughly $400,000, cost adding five permanent modified‑duty positions within Charlotte Fire, model pay‑parity scenarios for public‑safety employees, and run tax‑rate tradeoffs for a possible one‑time $200 million Housing Trust Fund.

The mayor read a letter from the mayor pro tem that recommended several immediate priorities, including “raising all firefighters to the 10% level in alignment with COPD,” funding the Greater Enrichment Program at $200,000 and providing some level of ongoing funding to Safe Alliance. Councilmembers repeatedly emphasized public safety, service continuity and equity in the discussion.

CFO Matt Halstead and budget staff told council that building $200 million of one‑time housing trust capacity would require an additional roughly 0.157 on the property‑tax rate (permanently) and described tradeoffs if the council opted to redistribute proposed increases across departments. Staff said the additional capacity would not automatically revert in future bond cycles and promised written scenarios that show both the immediate tax impact and multiyear implications.

Pay‑parity for first responders dominated debate. Several members proposed moving firefighters to a 10% increase while holding police increases to 7%, a combination staff said would yield roughly $4.4 million in available savings compared with both groups receiving a 10% rise. Council asked staff to model multiple scenarios — a 7% across‑the‑board option, a 4% flat increase for hourly city workers, and targeted increases paired with restored step increases for firefighters — and to return comparative costs.

Council also pressed on transit equity: members asked the manager and CATS staff to explore fare and accessibility adjustments for riders with disabilities, citing inequities in current fares cited in the meeting (representative fares mentioned in the record included a comparator of $3.50 and $140 monthly, versus a local monthly pass of $44). Members said paratransit wait times remain a daily barrier and asked staff to include any staffing or technology fixes in the modernization plan.

The session included debate over the Financial Partners grant scoring process after members noted that some organizations being discussed did not attend a mandatory preapplication session and scored lower under the agreed rubric. Several councilmembers asked that staff explain exceptions and that the scoring process be honored when possible.

Rather than final appropriations, the council conducted straw votes: items that reached the council’s internal threshold (five or more votes) will be costed and returned for formal action. Mayor and staff said those costed proposals will be included in the next packet; the council will see full dollar impacts and where offsets — cuts or revenue changes — would be required before any final adoption.

Next steps: staff will return written cost scenarios for the prioritized items (pay scenarios, the $200 million housing trust option, Safe Alliance funding, and transit equity measures) and identify whether offsets exist within the current proposed budget or whether additional revenue (e.g., higher property‑tax rate) would be necessary. The council scheduled follow‑up work and expects the materials before its June meeting.