The city of San Juan approved its annual budget for the fiscal year 2022-23, which includes an 8% salary increase for all city employees.
The budget, which will go into effect on Oct. 1, was approved unanimously at the city commission meeting Tuesday evening.
City commissioners initially approved the 8% salary increase during a budget workshop held on Thursday, Sep. 8.
“It’s pretty much a done deal,” Mayor Mario Garza said Tuesday. “On Oct. 1 those raises will kick in.”
Garza said that city employees have seen pay raises every year since he’s been on the commission, but this year’s 8% raise marks the largest pay increase since then.
“At one point, I can recall that we started at 1.5%,” Garza said. “Last year, I believe it was 3%. This year, our city is going — as far as the improvements with businesses and our general fund was tremendously increased to where our budget allowed us to give our employees an 8% raise.”
“That’s the largest raise they’ve received in our city,” he added.
The city announced the pay increase in a news release shared Tuesday evening before the city commission meeting.
“For the past 3-½ years, under our administration’s leadership, we have seen our great city of San Juan grow exponentially,” Commissioner Markie Villegas said in the release. “Our residents are benefiting tremendously from an increase in businesses, economic development, parks improvements, and continued growth, and there is much more to come. Our employees are the lifeline of our operations, and we are proud to be able to include this well-deserved salary increase for them.”
“Our employees deserve it,” Garza said. “They’ve worked tremendously hard. From our maintenance department all the way to our directors and our upper management, it’s a team. We felt as a commission that they deserved this 8% raise.”
