WILLFUL NEGLECT OR BOTCH: City Budget Process
Local & National News | May 29, 2024
Local & National News | May 29, 2024
Riddled with missteps, the FY25 City of Memphis budget process is a botch. The enormity of the missteps points toward willful neglect when coming from re-elected competent City Councilors. In other words, this is not their first rodeo. Such shenanigans might not be so consequential if not for a 75-cent proposed property tax increase on the table.
Example of missteps include a $20M unsupported budget line item for “Major Repairs and Carpentry”, $20M in missing interlocal FY25 budget revenue from the repayment of a MATA loan, the absence of any presented fund balance history to present or discussions of actuals with a special focus on $30M in FY24 over budget spend in “Materials and Supplies”.
Meanwhile, as of 7:19 pm on 5/28/24, a promised revised Council budget hearing calendar has yet to be published. A revised hearing schedule would include hearings for the Human Resources department and MATA. The MATA budget hearing has now been cancelled twice. And there is more.
Effectively throwing cold water on community budgeting, several budget centric FOIAs remain unanswered by the Mayor Young Administration. The City's projected response times to these FOIAs, in effect, castrate community voice in the budget process. Below are specific examples:
The Young administration's projected response times to the above FOIAs work to hobble public participation and community budgeting in a majority black community in need
You may have seen the above holes dotting City streets. MLGW and the City of Memphis are perfectly equipped to partner in patching these holes. After all, MLGW has the cash and the City has the paving infrastructure with a City owned asphalt plant. Revenue to the City from such a MLGW service contract would be $10-20M in FY25.
On other matters, Councilors chose not to ask for Memphis River Parks Partnership (MRPP) current FY24 financials or current MRPP outstanding debt in budget hearings. Nor did any Council members choose to ask MRPP about fees charged for new Tom Lee Park month of May tenants MemphoFest and SmokeSlam. Then there is the lingering state approved $20M for boat docks that no one is talking about.
Further, of interest related to the capital improvements budget would be an exhaustive Accelerate Memphis project listing, spend to date as well as remaining project work to be completed. And finally, an exhaustive listing of approved forthcoming Federal and State funding would help to find potential revenue sources for community needs as opposed to a 75cent property tax increase.
Examples of needed information regarding Federal and State money would concern public transit and potentially $50M from the State of Tennessee for public safety. There is more, to include the need for a deep evaluation of management agreements that have materialized over the years, with the Chamber likely to attempt to enter into yet another management agreement of sorts adding to the list. Examples of such agreements include: MRPP, Tennis Memphis, Botanic Gardens, Brooks and more.
But even before management agreements, these fundamental requests will for sure overwhelm an already entirely inadequate Memphis City Council FY25 budget process…..
