At its meeting on April 1, 2025, Mayor Lester Miller recommended spending $3 million from revenue from the school public safety cameras to help recruit and retain public safety employees and improve pedestrian infrastructure.

“The money is going to where the state law requires it to go,” said Mayor Lester Miller. “Public safety is where it’s supposed to go. This money will be used effectively and will make a difference.”

$2 million of that funding will be used to raise the salary for non-certified public safety employees, both current employees and new hires. These raises – which will be about $5,000 per year – will start with the Fire Department and Sheriff’s Office.

“It has been an ongoing challenge for us to retain firefighters because they are leaving to find higher pay in other surrounding departments,” said Fire Chief Shane Edwards. “This increase will help retain those firefighters and also allow us to be more competitive when hiring new recruits.”

“When we compared our starting salaries with some of our surrounding neighbors, we’re lagging behind,” said Sheriff David Davis. “That’s why this will really put us in a competitive nature, starting them off at $45,700, right along there for a non-certified officer.”

$1 million of it will go to the Bibb County School District to recruit and retain School Resource Officers. It will also be used to install new or improve existing crosswalks to help make our roads safer for students walking to school. This follows an allocation from earlier in the year where Macon-Bibb provided funds to pay for school crossing guards.

Since revenue began collected from people speeding more than 10mph over the speed limit near schools, Macon-Bibb has collected $8,909,152.76. Of that, $8,292,000 has been spent or allocated to a variety of public safety projects, including:

• Public safety employee salary increases;
• School Resource Officer & Crossing Guard salaries;
• Crosswalk installation and improvements;
• Flock, Verkada, and Adapt to Solve Cameras to help the Sheriff’s Office solve crimes;
• Knox boxes to allow deputies and firefighters access to schools in an emergency;
• School zone flashing lights as additional warning system;
• Public safety vehicles; and
• Other equipment.