BATON ROUGE - In response to recent criticisms over alleged unfair pay raises, four Metro Council members held a press conference Wednesday to ask for equal pay for city-parish employees across the board. 

"We want to ensure that everybody in this parish understands that we see them, we hear them, and we want to make sure that it's not an 'us vs. them' situation, alright?" Dist. 2 Councilman Anthony Kenney said. "We don't want to leave nobody behind."

On March 19, Mayor-President Sid Edwards announced he was making an official recommendation to the Metro Council to give Baton Rouge Police officers a pay increase, moving starting salary base pay from around $41,000 to $58,000. 

Constable Terrica Williams spoke with WBRZ after the mayor's press conference. She said her office saw cuts in 2025, but Edwards said he would raise salaries in the future.

"He was like, 'Not now, I'll try to help you later, I'll try to do some things, in June and possibly next year,'" she said.

If approved, the pay gap between BRPD officers and city constables would increase from a $1,400 difference to a $17,000 difference.

During the press conference, Dist. 10 Councilman Carolyn Coleman said all city-parish entities should see raises, including law enforcement, finance department employees, mail workers and Department of Public Works employees. 

"If you don't believe that, let them not show up for work," Coleman said.

Dist. 5 Councilman Darryl Hurst said that city-parish employees are struggling every day to survive, no matter how hard they work.

"When you start looking at studies as to what leads to criminal activity, it's people who cannot meet the basic needs of their household, which is our city-parish workers," Hurst said. "So if the data is correct, that means that we need more officers to arrest our employees, because we're creating what we don't want to happen."

The council members unveiled a new proposed plan, based on a pay study of city-parish workers that happened before Edwards took office. 

Hurst said that according to the study, the lowest-paid city-parish employees earn less than $11 per hour, which totals less than $22,000 per year. Under the proposed fair pay increases, those employees would make $25,000 annually. 

Hurst said that approving the $58,000 starting pay for BRPD officers would have a $12.7 million impact on the city-parish budget. The fair pay raises proposal would cost $12.9 million.

"For $12.9 million, we can fund everybody. For $12.9 million, we can fund somebody," Hurst said. 

The councilman said that under their proposed plan, officers' starting pay would be $52,000, a 30% increase, and other mid-level city-parish employees would see larger paychecks.

"They get what they need, but all city-parish gets what they need as well," Hurst said. 

After the meeting, Edwards said that he agreed with 98% of what the councilmembers proposed. 

"My plan includes all the people we've talked about. I've told that to all the council, I've told that to our constable, I've met with DPW, so they all know we're working on it." 

Edwards said that his plan highlights BRPD for recruitment and retention, trying to avoid a possible costly fine for the city.

"What a lot of the public don't know, there's a thing called dissolution with BRPD, and if they drop below a threshold on the number of officers, we're fined," he said.

Edwards said that the $52,000 figure would not be enough to recruit officers when other nearby departments offer more. 

"We're not going to move the needle and do the things that we want to do," Edwards said. 

Edwards said he will be leaving the item as is on the Metro Council agenda.

"The plan I've got, I think, is solid," Edwards said. 

When asked about details of the plan, Edwards didn't give out any specifics. 

"A lot of people want to know when, a lot of people want to know how much. There's a lot of ways to chop up when you do a pay raise. Do you start at the bottom of a group? Do you go all the way to the top? So those are the things we're looking at now," he said.  

The council will vote on the matter at the April 22 meeting.