City of Conway leaders begin process to finalize upcoming budgets

CONWAY, S.C. (WMBF) - Last week, the city of Conway staff met to discuss what their 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 budgets will be going towards.

City leaders are working to increase the salaries of all city employees, including public safety.

They say they want to see the starting salary for police officers to be at $40,000 for the upcoming year.

City Administrator, Adam Emrick said right now, starting Conway police officers make about $37,000.

Firefighter salaries could also see an increase from $31,000 a year to $38,000, Emrick said the change is needed, as all city employees could see a 6% cost of living increase.

“A few years ago, we did a salary study for all of our departments and we’ve been working on bringing our levels into the right norm for all of our area,” Emrick said. Clearly, with COVID and the aftermath of COVID, cut salaries have gone up. So, one of the things we addressed in this year’s budget is to bring everybody up.”

Amongst other items, city staff is looking to go into a partnership with Santee Cooper to take over the ash pond area at Ash Pond Road and Marina Drive to create an inland beach.

The city said the idea would add another marina, as well as allow more people to kayak and paddle board, which would also extend the Riverwalk to Highway 501.

Emrick said the city hopes to use part of its 2023-2024 budget for the project.

He said, “It’s something that would be the equivalent of a state park but in our downtown and riverfront. It would be something really really special or Conway.”

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