Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris just announced a tax incentive reform and consolidation initiative. The long overdue announcement came at this Saturday’s annual Shelby County Commission Budget Retreat.

Overdue because, while there may be data to support some types of tax incentives, there is no public data, at all, to support the existence of any tax incentives designed to support competitive empoyment growth. Why? Because per the Greater Memphis Chamber, Memphis is the lowest business cost operating center in the country. In this way, job tax abatements largely fund a problem that does not exist in needlessly lowering business costs. And then there is conclusive job tax incentive performance data over time, dooming the need for such incentives in Shelby County.

Further, there are 9 redundant, inefficient, and clunky boards administering tax incentives and grants across Shelby County with significant local public funds on their balance sheet. For example, with minimal operating costs, the Memphis Health Ed Board has $19M in cash investments bunkered in Duncan Williams investment accounts. Williams is currently Board Chair of the Greater Memphis Chamber. And that is $19M for only 1 of 9 Boards!

Not only that, but the Memphis Health Ed Board also recorded $1.1M in FY25 profits. Then there is EDGE, Downtown Memphis Commission, Community Redevelopment Agency, and redundant municipal boards that have balance sheet cash and potentially profitable revenue streams like EDGE's Port of Memphis. All of this to say, such cash could go a long way in replenishing and sustaining the County fund balance. Funding source identified !

This is a big deal, when locally some $80M in taxes are abated or restricted, each and every year, across Shelby County. Not all of that $80M in abatements will immediately go away, as they are part of long term abatement contracts. But this reform initiative is a step in the right direction. Meanwhile, the local press has the public focused on Milton Grants and MATA Grizzly suite and executive credit card spend. Go figure.

One moral hazard to the announcement is that local Redneck abatement boards may race to contract their balance sheet cash prior to local legislation passage.

Anyway, all this inefficient redundancy was created, over years, by the Redneck FedEx/Memphis Tomorrow/Chamber complex. The whole thing is an exercise in public inefficiency and financial recklessness in favor of elitist interests. Let’s look at the data on one form of tax incentives in job PILOTs.

The above chart shows Memphis/Shelby employment growth performance against the average of its national and Tennessee peers for 2019-25.

No Shelby County macroeconomic data exists to support any existence of job tax incentives. That is why Mayor Harris PILOT reform efforts should take the form of getting the County out of the job PILOT business altogether.

Now for the data proving the time-tested job PILOT policy failure. Per Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) data, since EDGE was created in 2011 and benchmarked against June 2010, Shelby County has lost 551 jobs from 466,776 to 466, 225 in June 2025. Remember job tax incentives are designed to increase employment not decrease it. Over the 2010-25 period, average employment growth within the national peer group, would have been 56,000 jobs. But Shelby County has job losses with excessive tax incentives!?!? 

And since June 2019, Shelby County has lost 38,456 jobs from 504,681 to 466,225. This loss occurred under the FedEx/Memphis Tomorrow connected Mickell Lowery as Chair of the County Commission Economic Development Committee.

This Shelby County employment loss is not a blip, it’s a trending verdict (See chart above).

The former abysmal numbers do not account for job loss announcements that have occurred since June 2025 and include Nike, GXO, IKEA and PMC. Not sure GXO has a PILOT, but Nike, IKEA and PMC have PILOTs. The Economic Development Growth Engine (EDGE), which is 1 of 6 job tax abating boards, will never admit job PILOT policy failure, as they are financially incented to abate taxes. How Redneck sick is that? In fact, at their most recent meeting, EDGE lowered the minimum standards for getting a job PILOT!!!

The other 5 job tax abating boards are Arlington, Bartlett, Collierville, Germantown, and Millington industrial development boards. As far as peer comparisons, Shelby County is at the bottom of its national and state peer group in employment growth.

The national peer group includes the host counties of Birmingham, Indianapolis, Louisville, New Orleans, Kansas City, St Louis, Oklahoma City, Nashville, and Milwaukee. The State of TN peer group includes the host counties of Memphis, Nashville, Knoxville, and Chattanooga. The Greater Memphis Chamber selected the national peer group. Again, see above chart for visual peer comparison, with Memphis/Shelby at the bottom of its peer group in employment growth.

Based on the data, job PILOT elimination is overdue. To that extent, PILOT reform should be politically easier, if Commissioners operate KNOWING that the elitist Redneck Twat Boyz have a bunker of cash at the Sports Authority for local projects. This Sports Authority bunker may exceed $1B over time. Let’s hope for the best in abating board consolidation, job PILOT elimination, and overall PILOT reform.