All East Baton Rouge city-parish employees are set to receive a raise soon, after the Metro Council approved a plan in a 10-1 vote Wednesday.
Employees will see at least a 3.5% increase in their paychecks, starting with their first paychecks in July.
The timing of the raise was spurred by Metro Council Democrats, who pushed for it in the name of fairness after the Baton Rouge Police Department received a historic pay raise in April.
The raises will cost the city-parish $4.2 million in the first year, and around $8 million in the years to come. Just under half of that is coming from the city’s general fund.
City-parish employees who attended the meeting sprang from their seats in cheers when the measure passed.
“I have a lot of emotions right now,” Mayor-President Sid Edwards, who wore a Department of Public Works uniform to the meeting, said after the vote. “I’m more emotional than when the police pay [raise] got passed. And a lot of it is that our council… they did it together.”
Before the raise, the lowest-paid city-parish worker roughly made $21,932 per year, or $10.54 per hour. Now, the lowest-paid worker is slated to make roughly $26,063 per year, or $12.53 per hour. Many positions, however, were brought to or above $35,000. A study by the Baton Rouge Area Foundation classifies a household as experiencing poverty if its income is less than $35,000.
The raise amount is based on a study commissioned in 2024 by previous Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome. At the time the study was released, Weston-Broome said she could not act on the plan because of St. George’s effort to become its own city.
“While this study was being carried out, the outcome of the City of St. George
incorporation case and its resulting transition timetable became a reality,” Broome wrote in a letter accompanying the plan. “... We will not be able to move as quickly as I would have liked in raising the pay of City-Parish employees.”
The study found that the minimum pay at the time was 25% lower than other cities in the study’s peer group, like Houston or New Orleans. It recommended weighted raises, meaning the 3.5% bump is a starting point for some positions. From there, raises will be put on a scale to make them more equitable, so lower-paid employees move past the poverty line.
This approach, however, only brings employee pay to the 65th percentile of what the 2024 study found its peer group paid its employees, bringing Baton Rouge in line with the top half of that study.
While it’s a step in the right direction, leaders acknowledge that the pay raise still isn’t enough for some and does not completely solve the problem.
“Y’all are worth more than that,” Councilwoman Jen Racca said at the meeting. “(3.5%) is embarrassing, but that's what we have here for you today, and I apologize for that.”
The plan is also freezing 100 positions across the parish, which the mayor-president can do without council approval.
Cristial Slaughter, at the mayor-president’s office, says it’s almost time for another pay study.
Constable fight
The across-the-board raise ends a drawn-out fight by Constable Terrica Williams, who is ecstatic about the results.
“I love what happened today because it brings our city back together, it builds morale. "Williams said.
She raised concerns at the end of last year when her office received freezes, while BRPD did not need to make those cuts. Then, when the raise for BRPD was announced without a raise for her deputies, Williams began campaigning for her office to receive raises.
During the process, Williams questioned whether the fact that she is a Black woman affected who was getting a raise.
“ I do feel that if I was not their boss or their commander, would they be going through what they're going through right now?” Williams said.
Edwards denied this, and said race has nothing to do with his decisions, and he’s disappointed to hear Williams think it did.
“It’s very disappointing, and of course it is absolutely false,” Edwards said. “I’ve never made a decision about anything I’ve done based on race.”
Impact on benefits
The raises also gesture to the administration and council’s plan to continue their efforts to redo the parish retirement policy to save money as another means of funding.
The 2024 pay study also said the parish is a market leader in its benefits. While giving out the best benefits is good for employees, it drains parish funds — 75% of what the parish spends on employee compensation is spent on benefits.
Some of what the parish was far ahead of peers on was adjusted last year when the council adjusted retirement benefits.
The plan also flagged “total leave accrual days and third shift pay differential” as areas the parish is far ahead of its peer group.
Republicans on the council still raised concerns about this, asking for more time to discuss them with the mayor-president’s office before this item was brought to the public.
“It would help a lot if y’all (the mayor-president’s office) could bring us in before the 11th hour,” Mayor Pro-Tem Brandon Noel said.
The unfunded liability of the parish pension plan has ballooned, meaning there is a large gap between the money being brought into the system compared to the benefits owed to people in the system.
Councilwoman Racca said the metro council’s underfunded liability grew from $452 million in 2015 to $752 million in 2025. This is in part due to the number of frozen positions because the fewer people on payroll, the less gets paid into the pension.
Democratic council members countered that this raise will increase retention and make the remaining open positions more attractive. This mirrors a conversation had during police raises, where there were concerns the parish would incur fines for lack of officers on the beat.
Ultimately, leaders warned of major changes on the horizon. Slaughter said there are plans to create a task force to look at retirement benefits, though these changes might not lead to instant relief since parish employee benefits cannot be forcefully changed.If city-parish leaders want to make proposed changes affect more than new hires, they will have to sell current employees on them, too.
