With an audience of dozens at city hall, hundreds more in front of the television at home and thousands more anxiously awaiting the news, City Council members on Wednesday vowed to come up with the money to fully fund the school system’s budget request.

The request included $3.9 million to fund the first phase of a compensation plan that, to no one’s surprise, determined teachers in the middle of the pay scale are drastically under-compensated compared to their peers in other cities — as much as 19 percent below the market. A handful of positions that are more than 20 percent below the market would also be brought up to par in the first phase.

The city manager’s proposed budget would have funded only $2 million of that plan — halfway there but not nearly enough to appease teachers who have gone nearly a decade without a meaningful raise (in other words, a raise that wasn’t so small it got swallowed up by increased taxes, increased retirement plan contributions and increased health insurance costs).

So they turned out in force, and City Council members claimed they had gotten the message. What remains to be seen is whether they truly did.

They directed the city manager to get with the commissioner of the revenue and the treasurer and put some smaller streams of revenue under the microscope. The real estate tax, which will go up to $1.07 per $100 of assessed value under the proposal, is the city’s largest local revenue source. But behind it are personal property, business license, tobacco and lodging taxes, the latter two of which also are proposed to rise.

The council members want to see if there’s any possible way $2 million more can be squeezed from those car owners, business owners, smokers and travelers in order to fully fund the school request.

If that happens, everybody will be happy. But if the city manager’s answer is that the money can’t be found, that’s where it will get interesting. How will the council members respond? Which will stick to their vow, and which, if any, will back down? How will the new members handle their most important vote to date? How will the city manager’s impending Richmond employee status change the situation?

Let’s all hope we don’t have to find out for sure the answers to any of those questions, because the city’s teachers need and deserve those raises.