The Peachtree City Council is expected to adopt its 2007-08 budget at its regular meeting Thursday night.

Council will also hold a public hearing on a proposal to double the annual salary for the mayor and city council members. The mayor’s salary would double from $9,000 to $18,000 and council members’ salaries would double from $6,000 to $12,000.

Council will not consider adopting the raises until its Aug. 16 meeting, and some council members have suggested they be spread out over several years to lessen the impact on the city’s budget.

Councilwoman Cyndi Plunkett has said the raises are needed to encourage more people to run for office who otherwise couldn’t afford to be away from their jobs or pay a babysitter for night meetings, for example.

If adopted all at once, the salary increases would cost the city $33,000 a year.

A vote on the $28.36 million budget would authorize six new firefighters and three new police officers in addition to an accountant and a one-year contract for a full-time assistant city planner. The general fund budget represents a 9.25 percent increase from last year.

The budget uses $852,000 of the city’s cash reserves to balance the budget, which will still leave the city with a healthy amount of cash on hand for emergencies, officials have said.

The six new firefighters will add two firefighters per shift, and the city is hopeful the new staffing will allow the city’s ISO rating to be dropped, which would result in homeowner’s insurance savings for residents.

The three new police positions are being added to patrol the city’s cart paths, but Police Chief James Murray said he won’t be able to assign officers to that beat until his department gets up to a full staffing level. Once five officers currently at police academy are hired, the department will still have several open positions and several other officers are planning to leave, Murray has said.

In a bid to recruit more police officers, the city is also budgeting a 4.5 percent hike to the starting pay for police officers and corporals, though that figure is well short of the initial raises sought by Murray. In previous budget meetings, council has discussed the possibility of phasing in additional increases by evaluating the issue each year.

Murray has said that the city’s low starting salary is a significant reason potential recruits are bypassing Peachtree City to join other agencies that offer a more attractive pay scale.

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