SHELBY COUNTY, Tenn. — Several virtual meetings discussing the Shelby County budget have become tense as county commissioners and the mayor’s office look to pass a more than $1 billion budget.
Commissioners shot down the mayor’s $16.50 wheel tax on a 10-3 vote, but the mayor says this could mean layoffs.
The wheel tax was designed by Mayor Lee Harris to generate $10.5 million to go toward education.
Harris said the increased fee wouldn’t go into affect until businesses were back up and running.
But after the vote Monday night, Harris released a statement saying he feared decisions by the county commission will lead to layoffs.
“We are estimating that up to 144 county jobs will be put in jeopardy if the commission cannot find a replacement revenue source for the $10.5 million that the commission took out of the budget this evening,” part of the mayor’s statement said. “I’m not sure where the commission will find $10.5 million to resolve the budget hole created by their action today.”
WREG asked county commissioner and vice-chair of the budget committee Edmund Ford Jr. about the mayor’s statement.
“First of all, we should’ve had the conversation prior to the budget,” Ford said. “Last year we had a retreat. We did not have the retreat this year. Clerks as well as other electives were not even afforded any other type of leeway in order to figure out this themselves. If he wants to say that he has to lay off people in the time of a pandemic, that’s going to be his action, not the commission.”
Ford said in his 13 years in government, mayors have always threatened layoffs to get what they want. He called Harris’ budget presumptuous that they would approve a wheel tax increase.
“Nobody has mentioned that this is $30 million more than this year’s budget,” Ford said. “We don’t need to play around with people’s jobs. We don’t need to play around with the services that we give.”
Ford said commissioners and the mayor’s office are set to have a retreat Friday.
The budget does not have to be passed until the end of June.
WREG reached out to the mayor’s team to speak to him about his budget proposal, but we did not hear back.
