Raleigh first responders get their due from council

The changes the Raleigh City Council made to employee benefits for first responders – changes to go along with a pay hike for police and firefighters – spurred protests from those valued emergency personnel, and the Raleigh City Council has responded by scuttling some of the changes.

One policy, for example, would have changed the number of hours for which city employees would get time-and-a-half pay on holidays. Police and firefighters work 12-hour shifts, but they would have gotten holiday pay for only eight of those hours. That’s gone now, and city employees also will be not be prohibited from earning sick leave if they’re injured working a second job.

The changes to the plan reflect the Raleigh Way, perhaps, wherein elected officials and those who manage the city are capable of altering a decision if those affected make a case for altering a policy that, upon consideration, isn’t such a good policy after all. City Manager Ruffin Hall even apologized to city employees for what happened.

Elected officials didn’t mind doing the right thing even if it meant acknowledging they’d done the wrong thing. That’s very good indeed.

This story was originally published September 20, 2017 at 9:17 AM with the headline "Raleigh first responders get their due from council."