The City of Tampa recently reached an agreement with employee unions for three-year employment contracts that would increase pay for police, firefighters and transit workers.
On Thursday, Tampa City Council unanimously approved raises of 18.5 percent over the next three years.
The pay hikes will be done as 9.5 percent raises in the first year, which 4.5 percent raises in the second and third years. The raises will impact more than 4,800 employees. Negotiators said the higher amount in the first year was designed to close the current inflationary pay gap.
"We have been talking about inflation, we've been talking about housing affordability, we've been talking about groceries being more expensive – the rising cost of gas," Councilmember Guido Maniscalco (District 6) explained during Thursday's meeting.