Suffolk residents and public-school teachers turned out by the hundreds on Wednesday to criticize the originally proposed city budget.

A total of 47 speakers — many of them teachers — stood in the first-floor hallway or outside city hall for hours, waiting their turn to request full funding of the school system, condemn hefty proposed raises for City Council appointees or ask for more money for their organizations.

Charles Thompson, a Creekside Elementary School teacher, said he has had to take two part-time jobs to stay afloat financially. He suggested a freeze on the salaries of city workers making more than $100,000.

“I guarantee you they’re not going to miss a mortgage payment,” he said. “Teachers pay for their own materials in the classroom. It costs me money to teach in Suffolk. I can’t go on.”

Criticizing proposed raises of 21-33 percent for City Council appointees, Leroy Schmidt said, “There’s no way in the world somebody should get a raise like that.”

Even before they’d officially heard the speakers, though, it was clear that members of City Council had heard their message.

At the work session that preceded the budget hearing, Mayor Linda T. Johnson presented recommended changes that she said represented a consensus after lengthy meetings with school leaders and city officials.

She suggested removing the hefty increases for City Council appointees and instead reviewing their salaries upon a satisfactory annual performance evaluation.

She also recommended that the city take an anticipated $2 million of revenue from new construction, which had been earmarked for transportation, and direct it to Suffolk Public Schools on top of the $3 million increase from last year’s funding already recommended.

With funding from the state budget — which passed in the General Assembly late in the afternoon — the recommendation should bring the school system close to fully funding its budget.

Johnson also recommended directing staff to implement the recommendations included in a compensation study, phased in with three parts. Those recommendations ultimately would give about two-thirds of the city’s employees increases of between 3 and 9 percent. The first phase would occur in fiscal year 2013, with the other two phases coming when the money is available.

Johnson further suggested directing staff to amend the budget to phase in changes to the Virginia Retirement System. The General Assembly recently acted to allow local governments, as well as school systems, to phase in the required 5-percent employee retirement contribution, an option that was not available when the budget was presented two weeks ago. The new 1-percent employee contribution would come with a 1-percent salary increase effective July 1 to help offset the effect on the employee.

In addition, Johnson recommended a 2-percent cost-of-living increase for all city employees, constitutional officers and City Council appointees.

Johnson also said the city and school system would begin working more closely to avoid future misunderstandings.

“We certainly value education,” she said. “We value education and we want everyone to be fairly and justly compensated.”

The budget will be voted on during the May 2 City Council meeting.