Budget takeaways: What Wanda Halbert’s mistake cost and more
Shelby County Clerk Wanda Halbert started collecting the increaed car-registration fee in February 2025 instead of July 1, 2024. (Patrick Lantrip/The Daily Memphian file)
In April, Memphis Mayor Paul Young released the city’s proposed budget and proposed capital-improvement budget, which is how the city funds capital projects.
The documents project an $883 million budget for fiscal year 2026 and detail spending hundreds of millions in taxpayer money in the future. Together, they are hundreds of pages.
The Daily Memphian continues to review the documents and plan for future stories outlining how taxpayer money will be spent and how the budget will change before the Memphis City Council approves it this spring.
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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.
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