The first ever city pay supplement for public defenders who represent most Richmond residents charged with crimes.

Significant pay bumps for city employees.

Those are among the highlights of the $772 million general fund budget that Richmond City Council is poised to approve for the 2021-22 fiscal year that takes effect July 1.

Other amendments would increase funding for recreation programming, provide money to conduct a fiscal audit of city and school spending and partially fund a civilian oversight board being created to investigate complaints of police wrongdoing.

The council is expected to vote on the budget plan at its Monday, May 10, meeting.

The new budget the council is wrapping up represents expenditures of about $3,350 for each of the estimated 230,000 city residents, or about the same level as the current year.

The spending plan does not incorporate any of the $79 million the city expects to receive shortly as the first half of a projected $158 million from the federal American Rescue Plan. City Council already is eyeing using a big chunk of the new cash to beef up the city’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund and to improve services to the homeless.

At a budget session Monday, a City Council majority overrode objections from the administration and a minority of members and agreed to provide $570,000 to supplement state salaries for staff attorneys in the Richmond Public Defender’s Office. The purpose: To enable that office to match the pay of assistant commonwealth’s attorneys, whose pay the city has long supplemented along with the pay of other elected constitutional officers and their staffs.

The money represents the first phase of a two-year plan to boost the pay supplement to the Public Defender’s Office to $1.14 million a year.

Council members Stephanie A. Lynch, 5th District; Michael Jones, 9th District; and Katherine Jordan, 2nd District; spearheaded the push to get Richmond to follow Alexandria, Albemarle County and other localities to beef up pay for the underpaid attorneys who play a key role in ensuring fairness and equity in the criminal justice system.

Separately, after balking last week, a City Council majority embraced Mayor Levar M. Stoney’s proposal to pump more than $8 million into pay improvements for city workers in a bid to stem the tide of city employees leaving for better pay elsewhere.

Under the plan, most of the nearly 2,500 general city employees will receive a 3.25 percent bump in pay effective Oct. 9, the largest increase in at least 10 years. First-year employees hired after Oct. 1, 2020, and employees at the top of the salary range would be left out of the increase, although there could be bonuses for them.

The $5.8 million for the pay increases also would allow the administration to boost pay for about 900 employees whom a 2018 salary study found were receiving salaries well under market. Those employees range from computer programmers and planners to property inspectors and customer service workers in the city’s 311 call center.

Police and firefighters, as well as social workers, already have received higher salary adjustments recommended by the study, the administration said.

Lincoln Saunders, the city’s acting chief administrative officer, described the plan as a “win-win” that would boost the income of the workers and potentially help the city address major challenges in retention and recruitment.

Currently, one in six City Hall positions are vacant, while one in seven employees leave for better-paying jobs each year, Mr. Saunders has told the council. The city’s job offers often are rejected by applicants based on pay offers that are considered inadequate, he said.

Among the vacant positions are 600 jobs frozen by the administration to help cover the cost of the pay hikes.

Supporters included 4th District Councilwoman Kristen N. Larson, who had pushed for a 5 percent pay hike and led the April 27 effort that initially blocked the mayor’s plan. She changed her position following weekend talks with other council members and staff.

Separately, City Council upheld its decision to go along with the mayor to provide a two-step increase to sworn police officers and firefighters rather than implementing a new pay plan that could cost $12 million a year and was being pushed by the Richmond Coalition of Police and Local 995 of the International Association of Fire Fighters. The plan would pay people based on rank and years of service.

The two-step increase is to be effective Oct. 9 and will cost $2.5 million. Approval of the plan drew tart criticism from police and firefighters groups, who argued the current pay plan is broken and needs to be replaced to prevent further attrition in the ranks. The police and fire departments now are using mandatory overtime to provide coverage after losing dozens of trained personnel in the past 12 months.

The council, heeding the cautions from its staff and the administration, agreed to fund a study of the proposed new pay plan, leaving any changes likely until the next budget cycle.

Eighth District Councilwoman Reva M. Trammell, chair of the Public Safety Committee, objected. “We’ve got to stop saying ‘a study, a study, a study’” and get on with implementing a change, she said.

Ms. Trammell called the situation a crisis that is reflected in slower response times from police officers due to the shortfall in personnel.

In other amendments, the council agreed to add $200,000 in funding for the impending civilian review board, or one-third of the projected annual cost of $600,000; added $580,000 in additional funding for city recreation programming; and included $100,000 to establish a program to allow residents to participate in allocating about $8 million in the budget.

Another $300,000 was set aside to pay for a financial audit of both the city and the school system’s use of tax dollars. The council also agreed to provide $25,000 to the Hull Street Merchants Association to help pay for litter removal and cleanups, while rejecting a similar request from the Carytown Merchants Association.