City of Chattanooga employees are asking the City Council to bump a proposed raise by 2 percentage points and establish a minimum wage of $45,000.
Dozens showed up Tuesday in purple shirts to support the city’s local union. Several city employees spoke during the evening meeting, saying they wanted to see council members take a second look at the proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year and make room for higher pay.
Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly’s proposed budget offers a 3% raise across the board for city employees after a property tax increase was approved by the council in summer 2025. That property tax increase led to significant raises for police officers and firefighters, with dozens of top positions jumping to six-figure salaries.
The local union representing non-sworn employees — meaning staffers who aren’t police officers and firefighters — is asking for the council and the Mayor’s Office to consider pay increases for them as well, said Jason Brown, the union’s main representative, during the meeting.
Ideally, that would mean a 5% pay increase overall and a minimum wage of $45,000, Brown said.
Chattanooga city employees asking for 5% wage increase after police and fire raises
“Let’s see if there’s more you can put in the pockets of the hardworking employees of the city,” Brown said during the meeting. “While our brothers and sisters in the Police Department and Fire Department well deserve what they received last year, we’re simply asking for the same diligence.”
(READ MORE: Chattanooga tripled number of employees making six figures in 2025)
The city’s average salary as of December 2025 was about $76,700.
Over a thousand employees make under $45,000 as of December 2025. The majority of them work for the city’s Early Learning and Public Works departments. That means dozens of city-funded daycare and preschool teachers make less than the starting salary the union is asking for, alongside dozens more crew workers who take care of things like park maintenance and garbage pickup.
Some public works crew members, library services staffers and community center specialists make under $20 an hour. The lowest-paid city employee in December made about $16 hourly while working as a front desk clerk for the Department of Community Development.
The living wage in Chattanooga for one person without any children is about $47,000 annually or about $22.50 hourly, according to a report from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The report takes into account regional costs of living before taxes.
City employees who spoke during the meeting said the city’s property tax increase — 24% above the state-certified rate that would have brought in flat revenue to city coffers — affects them, too. Some said they can’t afford to live in the city they work for.
Shawanda Tucker, a city truck driver, said during the meeting that the city’s expectation of crew members is that the position will be their primary job.
“Why we can’t get the primary money?” Tucker said. “We’re looking at what other people are making. We are struggling … Without all these people, you can’t keep this city together. Y’all need us.”
The low pay requires many of her coworkers to take on multiple jobs alongside the stress factor of a full-time city job, she said.
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The consumer price index’s inflation rate from April 2025 to April 2026 was 3.8%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
When asked for comment on the union’s request, Stephanie Cepak, spokesperson for the Kelly administration, pointed to Kelly’s comments during his budget proposal presentation.
“As a service delivery organization, the services we provide are delivered by the people we employ,” Kelly was quoted saying in a press release at the time. “Park stewards, crew workers, firefighters and police show up to serve when there’s litter on the side of the road, a fire or an act of violence. It’s our people who fill the potholes, pick up the recycling and plant the trees, and it follows that they represent by far the largest portion of this or any city budget.”
Kelly has increased the city’s starting and average salaries by 46.5% and 43%, respectively, since he first took office in 2021, according to Cepak.
Contact city and county reporter Siena Duncan at sduncan@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6354.