SANTA FE, N.M. (KRQE) – City workers in Santa Fe will be taking home more money thanks to a pay bump. The latest round of salary increases is part of a multi-million dollar increase package.
“The bottom line is we want people who work in Santa Fe to live in Santa Fe. That’s how you maintain diversity; that’s how you keep the city’s culture, history, the sense of place that is so important,” stated Santa Fe Mayor Alan Webber.
To do that, the city is giving its employees a big pay bump starting this week.
“As of yesterday in the pay packets that went to our city employees, there was an average eight percent raise for city employees,” Webber said.
The extra cash went into the pockets of more than 700 city workers. These pay increases are part of an $8 million package. The money comes from the city’s general fund largely based on gross receipts tax. Webber said the city did a study to see how its pay scale stacked up to other cities around the state and region.
“We were below the level of competitive cities. We had to bring ourselves up so the first component of our pay increases is to get everybody at least to the minimum competitive level of other cities that we are competing with talent,” said Webber.
The mayor mentioned there will also be another pay increase from the city’s budget they’ll be rolling out soon.
“The punchline here is: the city’s services depend on our employees. We will only be as good as they are, and they need to be recognized and rewarded for doing hard work and a great job, and that’s what the whole pay increase is about.”
Webber says the $8 million package will be used over the next few years for this purpose. Last month, the city also updated its living wage to $14.60 per hour. All employers within the City of Santa Fe are required to pay workers at least that living wage.
