Shelby County Commissioners will try to get most of the heavy lifting in their budget season done this week. Their June 23 meeting will be the last regularly scheduled one before the new fiscal year starts July 1.

The commission has a list of 23 amendments and adjustments to County Mayor Lee Harris’ $1.7 billion consolidated county budget proposal.

The amendments proposed by various County Commissioners and some countywide elected officials total $122.6 million.

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Budget Committee chairwoman Miska Clay Bibbs says there could be still more amendments made from the floor at the June 23 meeting.

“That’s part of the process that never fails,” she told The Daily Memphian after a Saturday, June 14, budget townhall at the Brooks Museum of Art. The gathering drew only a handful of people on a rainy morning.

“I’m hoping that the (Monday) working session on the sheriff’s budget will help alleviate that,” Clay Bibbs said.

The Shelby County Sheriff’s Office is seeking a restoration of cuts made in Sheriff Floyd Bonner’s original budget request. Harris made the cuts while putting together the consolidated budget proposal.

Bonner wants to remove a restriction in the budget on filling $44.3 million worth of vacant positions in the Sheriff’s Office that comes out to $48.6 million when health insurance and other fringe benefits for the positions are included.

Add another $16.3 million for “priority operational needs” the SCSO wants restored that include uniforms, food for prisoners in the County Jail, software and technology upgrades and overtime.

Other budget amendments include:

1. $1.4 million to bring all county employees to a minimum pay of $40,500 a year — a proposal by Commissioner Erika Sugarmon that is supported by Harris.
2. $679,479 total in a “reallocation” of funding to the District Attorney General’s office and the Public Defender’s office in two amendments.
3. $7 million to fund a Joint Memphis and Shelby County Office of Public Safety proposed by Commissioner Charlie Caswell.
4. $35.1 million for public safety and public health initiatives in the city and county also proposed by Caswell.
5. $1.5 million for the Memphis Zoo proposed by Commissioner David Bradford.

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Clay Bibbs anticipates much of the discussion in the coming week of committee work will involve the 4 cents on Harris’ proposed property tax rate that is above the $2.69 rate set by the state as the certified county property tax rate.

The state sets a rate that it estimates will generate the same amount of revenue for a local government based on the growth in property values from the reappraisal of property for taxation purposes that took place this year.

The county finance division estimates each penny on the county property tax rate proposed will generate $3.2 million in revenue.

That means the 4 cents in Harris’ proposed tax rate of $2.73 will generate $12.7 million more in revenue than the county gets in the current fiscal year.

County mayor’s property tax proposal becomes tax hike

“I do think that’s going to be quite a bit of discussion,” Clay Bibbs said. “The amount of money it brings will be an opportunity to justify why we should say yes to what the mayor proposed and if you are saying yes, where would it be allocated.”

Harris may also encounter some resistance to his assertion that the 4 cents above the state-certified rate he is proposing is not a property tax hike.

“The County Commission is fully empowered to set the tax rate wherever it wants,” Harris said on the WKNO-TV show “Behind The Headlines.”

“That is only a procedure so that you can be able to compare the tax rate from one year to the next in a reappraisal year,” he said.

Harris is relying on how the state law reads on resetting a property tax rate after a reappraisal.

It outlines the process without any of the intent of the Tennessee legislature in passing the law.

The state officials who set the certified rate as part of their official duties say the goal of a certified tax rate is to set a rate that generates the same amount of revenue and to separate that from a local legislative body raising the tax rate through a separate process with public notice.

Harris judges this an easier budget season — at least as far as the commission debate goes.

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“This one the commissioners are much more experienced,” Harris said in the podcast version of BTH.

“I feel like the bickering has really been cut down a bit,” he said. “And some of the people that are rabble-rousers — obviously (Commissioner) Edmund Ford Jr. and others — have created a lot of strain. Some of those rabble-rousers have really been shunted off to the side. I think it’s a great budget season.”

Clay Bibbs says she is looking for more explanations about some of the amendments that don’t include corresponding cuts in the budget to fund the amendments.

“Some of these items I don’t even understand — what is the funding source,” she said.

“We moved through them very quickly because the person wasn’t there who actually was responsible for sponsoring it,” she said of last week’s committee discussion. “I’m looking forward to hearing what the funding source is and who do you get there. And quite honestly if it’s something we can’t get to, I think that’s an easy no.”