Richmond City Council approved the schools' updated plan to fix its aging buildings Monday night, and proposed reducing the tax rate by as much as four cents.

Council also got an earful from Mayor L. Douglas Wilder who defended his raises for top city employees, as well as asked council members to stop their "personal and insulting" verbal attacks against city administration officials.

Wilder criticized a recent news story that showed he had given raises from as much as 13 percent to 20 percent to certain top city employees. He listed several salaries for city counterparts in Henrico and Chesterfield counties, showing that -- despite his raises-- his employees were still paid less. The raises were approved in March 2007 when the economy was more positive, Wilder said, but the increased pay was still needed to obtain and keep top talent in the city.

In regards to recent public comments by council members about his staff, Wilder urged members to show him proof or stop the negative comments because they were only hurting the city and its residents. He spoke of former council members, a mayor and top aides who were criminally corrupt.

"It's become a sport to level a criminal activity accusation without one shred of proof," he said. "I call on this body to cease and desist such reckless charge or produce the evidence of this criminality that you claim to exist so that we might root it out and prosecute it. I won't tolerate it, and you are bound to produce such evidence if you have it."

Wilder mentioned how council members have likened actions by his administration to "money laundering," referred to the administration as "the mayor and his gang" and called chief administrative officer Sheila Hill-Christian a "criminal." Last week, councilwoman Ellen Robertson (6th) -- who called Hill-Christian a criminal in regard to her work in redistributing city money without council approval, according to Style Weekly -- retracted her comments and said she misunderstood the reporter's question.

"I didn't come here for this job to engage in this type of nonsense. I came to help this city, and this behavior severely tarnishes the city," he said.

"I have not and will not participate in levying personal and unsubstantiated attacks on anyone. If any of you, I say again, if any of you have any evidence of criminality, you have a duty to report it. If you cannot prove any of this heated and personal rhetoric, then you have a duty to be responsible and serve the city."

Council members Marty Jewell (5th) and Doug Conner (9th) introduced a resolution Monday night calling for all elected and appointed city government officials to "temper their public remarks with prudence and to demonstrate proper decorum at all times." The paper also supports Robertson's public apology to Hill-Christian and expresses continued support of Hill-Christian in her capacity.

In other business, council members approved the Richmond Public Schools' updated facilities master plan, but not without criticism from council members Jewell, Conner and Reva Trammell (8th), who questioned why they were being asked to approve a plan when they personally had not discussed it during a workshop or had their own public hearing on it. They also complained they had not been made aware enough of the process and questioned why they were asked to approve the plan -- which did not include approving any funding -- when they had not held any public hearings on the issue.

Several schools officials, including School Board chairman George Braxton, repeatedly told the council that they had held more than six public hearings, advertised the meetings in the newspaper and receiving lots of feedback in creating their plan.

"It's not our charge," Braxton said. "Our charge is to go out and come back with an updated facilities study, within the budget and with a plan. We've done that. As far as giving the community a chance to give their opinion, we've gone above and beyond."

Braxton also pointed out that any delay in the plan, which includes making Richmond schools compliant with the American Disabilities Act, closing some schools and building new ones, would be costly to the city because of increasing construction costs and a fixed amount of money with which to work.

Council president Bill Pantele (2nd) said the school board followed the process council set forth two years ago. To delay voting on the paper Monday night, as some council members suggested, would be "the epitome of not rushing it through," he said.

Council woman Kathy Graziano (4th) agreed.

"This is not a budget item. All we're doing is giving the schools the opportunity to begin to move forward with a project," she said. "The schools are in a bad shape, but we don't seem to want to go forward to improve these schools. I believe we need to move forward."

Council also introduced several papers at its informal session related to reducing the real estate tax rate from its current $1.23. Council members proposed reducing the rate from as little as a penny to as much as four cents. Since 2000, council has reduced the tax rate by 20 cents, and revenue for the city has continued to grow because of increased assessed values and increased growth in the city, according to council's fiscal analyst Ralph D. Harris.

The mayor has said the city can't afford to cut the rate again because of the economic downturn and the anticipated loss of money from the state because of its budget shortfall. Cutting the rate, Wilder has said, would require immediate and drastic cuts in city services.

For each one cent cut in the tax rate, the city loses nearly $2 million in revenue.

Council will be analyzing the mayor's proposed budget amendments during the next month and must approve a new rate by April 15.