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Surfside Beach officials approve first reading of 2024-2025 budget
SURFSIDE BEACH, SC (WBTW) – The Surfside Beach City Council met Tuesday night and approved the first reading of the 2024-2025 city budget.
The majority of the budget affects both the police and firefighters. The proposed $22.5 million budget was approved 5-1, with the exception of removing a $15,000 salary study.
The study would have used a third party to analyze employee salaries in other counties and cities along the Grand Strand.
The budget also includes hiring seven firefighters and five part-time firefighters. Eliminates the position of deputy fire chief and freezes two police positions and one facilities position.
Some of these changes come after the board decided in a recent special meeting renting police and fire vehicles instead of purchasing them, saving about $110,000.
City employees could receive a $3,000 raise and $1,500 for part-time employees who work 20 hours.
A 4 million tax increase is proposed, but Councilman Chris Stamey proposed increasing it to 6 million to help pay firefighters and police officers more.
“If you want to keep this city where it is for the facilities we have, to get police and fire protection, we have to pay for that,” Stamey said. “The county is not going to come in here and not give us money. We’ll have to make it. There’s no other way to get it except through the people who live here in this city.”
The budget proposal still needs to be submitted to council for second reading.
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Adrianna Lawrence is a multimedia journalist at News13. Adrianna is originally from Virginia Beach, Virginia, and joined the News13 team in June 2023 after graduating from Virginia Commonwealth University in May 2023. Follow Adrianna at Instagram, FacebookIt is X, formerly Twitter. You can also read more about her work, here.
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