As the calendar makes perfectly clear, July 1st, the beginning of fiscal year 2026, is just around the corner, and the budgets of neither the city of Memphis nor Shelby County are in final form to everyone’s satisfaction.
The city’s situation is complicated by successive acts of compromise by Mayor Paul Young and the city council which may have made figures add up technically but may be in conflict with the city’s existing financial obligations.
The matter became public via a statement from the law firm of Snider & Horner characterizing the Memphis Fire Fighters Association Local 1784, which the firm represents, as being “very disturbed” by “what appears to be a blatant breach” of the city’s standing agreement with the union.
The issue has to do with a formal compact achieved a year ago between the city and the firefighters granting a 5 percent pay increase for both fiscal 2025 and fiscal 2026.
The problem is that the budget approved last week by the council authorizes an across-the-board pay raise in fiscal 2026 for all city employees amounting to only 3 percent. And this budget seemingly ignores the prior carryover raise of 5 percent for the firefighters.
Says the law firm: “The pay rise for Memphis firefighters was expressly agreed to in writing … and literally signed off on by the mayor, chief operating officer, chief human resources officer, and city attorney. … If the city is blatantly ignoring what they agreed to do in writing for its firefighters how can these firefighters — or the citizens of Memphis — trust them?”
The statement goes on to threaten a lawsuit: “We will be expecting the city to get this corrected before the deadline of July 1 … [to] do the right thing, honor their written commitments so that legal options will not have to be explored. … We’re ready to rumble.”
To underscore its dissatisfaction, Snider & Horner posted on its Facebook page a mocked-up version of the firefighters’ logo (see image).
For its part, the county government is still very much in the bargaining process, with compromises yet to be reached. The county commission scheduled two emergency meetings this week — one on Monday to work on outlays of concern to the sheriff’s department, another on Wednesday to examine a variety of other projects and amendments competing for fiscal attention.
Meanwhile, controversy continues as to whether County Mayor Lee Harris’ proffered tax rate of $2.73 is in conformity with the state’s established base tax rate of $2.69.
The state rate is set at a level meant to ensure that the amount of revenue raised will not exceed the amount that would have been generated under the current tax rate of $3.39, which was set prior to the most recent county reappraisal. This is the so-called “windfall rule.”
Critics of Harris’ tax rate say it amounts to a 4 percent property tax increase. Harris insists otherwise.
• Meanwhile, the ranks of contenders for the office of Shelby County mayor in 2026 got one more formal entry last week — the long expected one of Criminal Court Clerk Heidi Kuhn.
There is no surprise in the fact of Kuhn’s announcement, although the manner of it — specifically, the optics — have occasioned some bafflement in the political community.
The announcement by Kuhn, a sometime professional model, juxtaposes a brightly lit version of her facial image against a deeply dark background symbolizing the gloom of what she designates, without specifics, as the county’s ongoing “crisis” and promises “hope with Heidi.”
Gotta say, that one is different.