Memphis City Council members delayed final votes Tuesday, Nov. 21, on a pair of ballot questions for city voters next year as they took the first of three votes on another referendum that would allow the council to set its own pay as well as that of city division directors.

Council member Chase Carlisle called for the delay as council member Jeff Warren left Tuesday’s meeting to see patients in his medical practice.

Carlisle said he wanted all 13 council members present for the final votes on the referendums.

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One would allow partisan primaries in what are now nonpartisan city elections. The other would bring back the runoff provision for the mayor’s race and the six city council super district seats.

The runoff provision requires that if no candidate gets a majority of the votes cast, the top two vote getters advance to a separate runoff election. It already applies to the seven single-member district council seats.

Council chairman Martavius Jones proposed the new referendum that would allow the council to set the salaries of city division directors and other appointees of the mayor as well as themselves.

The council already sets the salary of the mayor and took the first of three votes Tuesday on an ordinance to raise the mayor’s pay from the current $170,817 a year to $210,000 – a 23% pay hike that would take effect in January when Paul Young takes office as mayor.

It was approved without discussion as part of a consent agenda with other items.

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Jones confirmed before the first reading vote that he had not talked with Young about the possible pay raise and that Young is not seeking the pay raise.

The mayor normally sets the pay of his division directors in the resolution appointing them that goes to the council for approval as a whole. The pay for those directors and supervisors not voted on by the council is set as part of the city’s annual operating budget.

The council’s pay is currently set to automatically match whatever Shelby County commissioners are paid — a charter change approved by voters in the late 1980s. Before that voters had to approve any raise in council pay.

“Shelby County government for all intents and purposes is unincorporated Shelby County,” Jones said of the tie to county pay. “We’ve talked about this before about what police make compared to some of the suburban areas. This just takes us a bit further.”

The city charter set the council’s pay at $6,000 a year at the start of the mayor-council form of government in 1968. Every attempt to increase that in the next 20 years was voted down by city voters.

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Council attorney Allan Wade says there are still some legal questions to be settled on the referendum proposal that could include a requirement that any pay raises the council gives itself would have to apply to those elected in the next election or term.

Wade also warned that public reaction will likely be swift and adverse.

“You get to set your own,” he said. “That’s why you have these things talking about you can’t do it during your term of office. You’ve got to get into the weeds on this.”

“We were elected by the voters,” Jones replied. “This council has to be accountable to the voters.” The Tuesday meeting was the last chance to add some referendums to the August 2024 ballot since the ordinances putting them on the ballot must be approved in three votes.

The Tuesday session was the third-to-last meeting of the four-year term of the current council.

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Earlier this year the council put three other referendums on the August 2024 ballot to be decided.

They are:

• Requiring candidates for mayor and city council to have lived in the city for at least two years prior to Election Day.
• A multi-part ballot question of gun control measures to apply within the City of Memphis that would set aside the state’s open carry-no permit gun law and ban assault weapons within the city.
• Restore the city court clerk as an elected office starting with a special election in 2024 to a partial two-year term beginning in 2025.