The pay gap between state and county employees of the Shelby County District Attorney’s office will be closed after the Shelby County Commission passed a resolution allowing raises for county employees in the DA’s office Monday.
In a packed commission chamber, many employees of the DA’s office spoke about how the pay disparity impacts morale among county employees, and how the high turnover rate in different positions threatened public safety and the mental health of victims of crime.
Commissioners Charlie Caswell, Erika Sugarmon, Michael Whaley, David Bradford, Britney Thornton, Shante Avant, Henri Brooks, Mickel Lowery and Chairwoman Miska Clay Bibbs voted in favor. Commissioners Amber Mills, Edmund Ford Jr. and Mick Wright abstained.
Some of those pay discrepancies discussed Monday were nearly $50,000 between employees doing the same work, at the same experience levels.
Initially the DA’s office requested $2.25 million in the 2024 fiscal year budget to immediately provide comparable raises for county prosecutors, with $965,000 of that money going to the Shelby County’s Office of the Public Defender.