Several city and school employees were among the 11 people who spoke to the City Council in a public hearing on the budget during council’s Wednesday meeting.

They came asking for raises, instead of the 1.5-percent bonus that has been proposed.

“We are in a state of collapse in the schools,” said Wendell Foster, president of the Education Association of Suffolk. “If we don’t give salary increases, teachers will be departing by the hundreds. The time has come for us to receive what we are worth.”

But city staffers said any raise offered needs to be sustainable. Lenora Reid, the city’s finance director, said the money isn’t there.

But Councilman Mike Duman said a number of revenue generators, such as real estate assessments and building permits, are improving, and he said he believes a raise for city employees would be sustainable.

“There are a lot of things going in the right direction,” he said, adding that he believes there is enough money in the school system’s current budget to cover raises without extra funding.

Mayor Linda T. Johnson said she did not want the city to make promises it can’t keep.

“What we want is to be on a solid footing and give every single employee what they deserve,” she said. “If we go out on a wing and it doesn’t work, our employees are going to think a whole lot less of us.”

The council members’ comments came after the public hearing on the $538.7 million city budget. Despite intense preparations for a big turnout — including the presence of at least six extra police officers and the fire marshal as well as temporary lighting outdoors — the council chambers still had seats available as the meeting began.

Some City Council members, including Vice Mayor Charles Brown and councilmen Curtis Milteer and Charles Parr, said they are comfortable with the proposed budget.

“I’m going to support the budget as presented,” Milteer said. “A bonus will be better than nothing at all.”

A compensation study for city and school employees also has been approved by the City Council. The city completed a similar study for its employees two years ago, but the data is about four years old, Human Resources Director Nancy Olivo said.

Duman inquired why the city would spend money on another compensation study and allow employee pay to get further behind when it doesn’t have the money to fully implement the first one. The last study was broken up into three phases, but only the first phase was implemented in fiscal year 2013.

Councilman Roger Fawcett also said he is not a big proponent of studies.

Council members including Brown also wondered what happened to the $3 million in increased funding provided to the schools last year. Some council members have said they believed that money was going toward raises, but school employees did not receive them.

“To insinuate that teachers can only receive raises if additional money is provided is disingenuous,” Duman said.