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Highlights of the adopted FY 2023 budget include:
 A balanced and fiscally responsible budget that:
- Does not increase taxes.
- Does not reduce core services.
- Does not use any operating reserves.
- Does not lay off or furlough employees.
Focuses on retaining and investing in our employees:
- Provides an 8% salary increase for all general hourly employees (4% in July and 4% in January).
- Increases the minimum wage to $20/hour for 40-hour per week employees by January 2023.
- Increases starting police officer and firefighter pay by 9% in July, and 10.5% by January 2023.
- Provides a 3% market adjustment (1.5% in July and 1.5% in January) plus a 2.5 to 5% step increase for all eligible public safety pay plan employees.
- Maintains current employee healthcare premiums.
- Provides a 4% merit pool for salaried employees.
- Provides a 2% one-time retention incentive (from American Rescue Plan Act funds) for full-time employees (senior management and executives not included).
- Creates a 2.5% salary incentive for jobs that require a commercial driver's license.
- Supports a shift differential incentive of 2.5% beginning in January 2023.
- Enhances the education incentive so there is no up-front cost for employees to receive an associate's degree from CPCC.
- Provides for homeownership assistance for city employees through the House Charlotte homeowner assistance program with $2 million in the program dedicated for city employees.
Plans for our future through the $226 million 2022 proposed bond:
- Maintains $50 million investment in affordable housing.
- Doubles the 2020 bond totals for the bike program, from $4 million to $8 million.
– Provides $17.1 million of funding for the Vision Zero strategy:
– $12.6 million to enhance transportation safety, more than six times the previous bond
funding of $2 million in the 2018 and 2020 bonds.
- $4.5 million for street lighting program - new program to implement new street lighting projects along high-injury network streets or to enhance existing street lighting by converting existing lights to LED.
- Invests $10 million for the Corridors of Opportunity program.
- Invests $10 million in congestion mitigation projects in South Charlotte, University City, and Steele Creek.
For additional budget highlights click here and see news reporting by Joe Bruno and Gina Esposito of WSOC-TV here.
 I have worked diligently to be a good steward of our taxpayers' dollars and very much want to continue the work I have started as your At-Large City Councilwoman. I humbly ask for your vote in the upcoming primary election.
Dimple Ajmera
Charlotte City Councilwoman At-Large
[email protected]
Click here to invest $22 for our 2022 campaign.
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