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Council strikes compromise over city worker pay raises

By  and , Daily Memphian Updated: June 11, 2025 6:10 AM CT | Published: June 09, 2025 3:26 PM CT

The Memphis City Council approved a proposed budget compromise Monday, June 9, that reduces the amount of raises city employees will receive and sends some of what could be more than $12 million in tax revenue from xAI to the city’s rainy day fund.

Council member Pearl Walker proposed the amendment that would give all city employees a flat 3% raise across all divisions. That proposal supersedes the 5% raises the City Council passed in May.

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Memphis City Council 2025 budget season Subscriber Only

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Samuel Hardiman

Samuel Hardiman

Samuel Hardiman is an enterprise and investigative reporter who focuses on local government and politics. He began his journalism career at the Tulsa World in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he covered business and, later, K-12 education. Hardiman came to Memphis in 2018 to join the Memphis Business Journal, covering government and economic development. He then served as the Memphis Commercial Appeal’s city hall reporter and later joined The Daily Memphian in 2023. His current work focuses on Elon Musk’s xAI, regional energy needs and how Memphis and Shelby County government spend taxpayer dollars.

Bill Dries

Bill Dries

Bill Dries covers city and county government and politics. He is a native Memphian and has been a reporter for almost 50 years covering a wide variety of stories from the 1977 death of Elvis Presley and the 1978 police and fire strikes to numerous political campaigns, every county mayor and every Memphis Mayor starting with Wyeth Chandler.


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