Hundreds of Ventura city employees would get raises, and up to six police officers and three firefighters could be hired in the new fiscal year if the City Council approves a recommendation by the city's top administrator.

More than $4.2 million of $5 million in new revenue would go to boost salaries across all departments some employees haven't seen pay-scale raises in two years and to enhance police and fire protection.

The salary increases, some projected at double digits, delivers on city leaders' pledge to return the city work force to competitive wages, Ventura City Manager Rick Cole says in a statement attached to a proposed 2007-08 operating budget to be released Thursday. The new fiscal year will begin July 1.

Cole and city finance officials are to present the plan to the City Council on April 23. The council has the final say and could impose changes. It traditionally adopts a new budget in late June.

Higher-than-expected property and sales tax income would increase city operating revenues to $90.7 million, highest in city history, Chief Financial Officer Jay Panzica said.

That's a nearly 6 percent increase from this fiscal year's operating budget of $85.3 million.

The windfall, coupled with citywide cuts the past two years, puts the city in a position to begin a piecemeal approach to adding police and fire personnel something Cole vowed to citizens after a sales tax measure failed on the November ballot. Sixty-two percent of Ventura voters favored a quarter-cent sales tax increase that would have gone toward public safety, but the measure needed a two-thirds approval.

A coalition of citizens, business leaders and teachers is considering a second ballot measure, but it has yet to file any formal paperwork to begin the initiative process, the City Clerk's Office said.

Cole's recommendations would add the first city-funded police officer and firefighters positions in 17 years.

The new fire crew would neither be assigned to a specific station, nor work a traditional shift, Cole said. Instead, the crew and an assigned fire engine would work 40 hours each week "when emergency response demand is heaviest," Cole said, and rove around the city to where it is needed most.

Calls for fire service have tripled, from fewer than 3,000 in 1986 to more than 10,000 last year, with more than 75 percent for emergency medical care.

The roving personnel are aimed at improving response times, Cole said. The Fire Department currently reaches emergencies within the desired five minutes only about half the time.

The $3.4 million for employee raises could benefit more than 500 union and unrepresented employees, Human Resources Director Jenny Roney said. The raises would be based on a salary survey completed last year, she said.

If the council agrees to spend virtually all the new revenue on personnel, as proposed, that would leave few new dollars for streets, parks and community facilities, which the City Council is likely to discuss at budget hearings next month.

"This (the raises) doesn't get us all the way there, which shows how far behind we were in compensation," Roney said. "But this gets us a whole lot closer than we have been in the last few years."