(The Center Square) - Shreveport officials will calculate the cost of accelerating pay raises for city employees after council members pushed to move those increases closer to the proposed Dec. 1 raises for police officers and firefighters.

Under Mayor Tom Arceneaux's plan, police officers and firefighters would receive a 6% base salary increase effective Dec. 1. The raises would initially be funded with building permit revenue from data centers, with the city eventually shifting to recurring revenue to sustain the increases.

During Monday's administrative conference, council members argued that employees in various city departments were just as essential to city operations as police officers and firefighters and should not have to wait months for pay increases.

More than 400 city employees are expected to receive raises beginning Jan. 1, 2027, Shreveport Chief Administrative Officer Tom Dark said, after a compensation study found their salaries fell behind those for similar positions in other cities.

Dark said the raises were purposely spread out over several months to avoid payroll mistakes.

"Doing these all at once raises more and more of the possibilities of payroll errors and things like that," Dark said. "We were trying to spread it out."

Councilman James Green argued that all city employees face the same rising living costs as those working in police and fire.

"If we found that fountain of money from the data centers and whatever, then we should look beyond putting a few in a bowl and then tell others to wait because they've got to go to the gas pump like everybody else," Green said. "They got to go to the grocery store like everybody else."

Councilman Grayson Boucher echoed Green's concerns, warning that delaying raises for some employees could hurt morale across city departments.

"I think there's going to be some animosity amongst the ranks if we don't," Boucher said.

Councilwoman Tabatha Taylor said increasing salaries will not solve staffing and morale problems within the Shreveport Police Department. She called for changes to the department's structure, particularly promotion procedures and opportunities for advancement.

"We can give a 20% raise but if the structure and morale suck, then what do we have?" Taylor said. "I think that we have to look at that in its totality because our first responders when they go and if they work other jobs or whatever, they utilize the equipment and stuff that we have."

"I don't want our officers to be so tired or other fire responders to be so tired that they have to work double shifts and all this stuff when I think we really need to look at the restructuring of the department itself."

The council is scheduled to vote Tuesday on the proposed 6% raises for police officers and firefighters.