OGDEN — Ogden City’s budget for the next fiscal year has been approved, highlighted by pay raises for city employees, and in a departure from the past three years’ budget sessions, no property tax increase.

On Tuesday, the Ogden City Council adopted the city’s Fiscal Year 2020 budget, which includes merit pay increases for general employees, step increases for public safety employees, 11 additional positions throughout the city and no increase in property taxes for Ogden residents.

Council Chair Ben Nadolski said the budget prioritized public safety needs, infrastructure improvements and incorporating cost efficiencies to allow for additional resources to be used in the city’s recreation programs.

Merit pay increases of up to 4 percent were included for most city employees, along with 4 percent step increases for public safety employees. The police and fire department raises have been an ongoing issue for Ogden and other cities along the Wasatch Front. Representatives from each department met with the city council in May, saying despite the requisite step-pay increases, their ranks were being depleted with officers and firefighters leaving for higher paying jobs in Salt Lake County.

Angel Castillo, an Ogden Planning Commissioner who is running for mayor this year, told the council an eight percent increase for public safety employees would be more appropriate. She implored officials to look for efficiencies in other facets of the city’s operation and pass the savings along to the two beleaguered departments.

Ogden Mayor Mike Caldwell said pay increases are the first thing administrators discuss during the budget process.

“Everything else comes second,” the mayor said. “And we feel the pain of the public safety groups. It’s not just a pinch we’re feeling.”

Caldwell said there are some 700 open public safety positions along the Wasatch Front. He said in Ogden, it’s difficult to keep pace with Salt Lake City, which measures public safety pay against much larger cities.

“It’s difficult when a city like Salt Lake benchmarks against a Seattle or a San Francisco or a Denver,” he said “Matching wage for wage is an issue that everybody is collectively feeling across the Wasatch Front.”

Caldwell said the city had instituted property tax increases during each of the past three years for the explicit purpose of raising police and fire salaries. Before 2016, the city had gone 28 years without a true property tax increase.

“I don’t want the narrative to be that we’re not focused on our public safety and what’s happening there,” Caldwell said. “We’ve collectively made some really hard decisions to address that.”

According to a council press release, the budget also includes new positions throughout the city, including a three-person crew for field maintenance and two recreation supervisors, three positions in the police department and three in the fire department.

Funding was withheld for some Redevelopment Agency projects, with the council asking for better information about future developments earlier in the process.