County Commission - Regular Meeting

Are we good? Okay. Alright. Good morning everyone. Thank you all for being here for our FY27 budget hearing. The purpose of this morning is to be able to hear from our internal divisions and other elected officials around the county around potential budget requests that were either in or in probably most cases not included in the proposed budget. So you've got the agenda in front of you. Each office will have five minutes for your presentation, which we'll make sure we set the clock for. And then any questions from commissioners as they come through, we'll be sure to give them time to ask those questions. We've also asked to receive your presentations electronically, which I know we're all gathering so that all commissioners can have that. Next week at our Budget Committee on the 27th is when we'll begin to start considering any potential amendments. It's also when we'll need to bring the budget resolution itself. We'll need to bring a Recapture resolution on the tax rate, which I know you're familiar with and then we'll continue reading the tax rate ordinance So those things will happen starting next week As always if you have an amendment request, it's important to get at least one Commissioner to sponsor that that's how you get it potentially considered that you have to have a commission sponsor And it has to have a proper funding source so that's something that's also quite important to be able to consider and then balance the budget and So with all that, the first up we have is Juvenile Court. We've got that presentation already passed out for us. So thank you very much, Judge Sugarman, Chief Folsom. We'll turn it over to you. And so we'll make sure we'll put, after you introduce yourselves, we'll put five minutes on the clock for your presentation.

All right. Thank you, Commissioner Whaley, Judge Tarek Sugarman, Juvenile Court Judge, Memphis and Shelby County. Why Juvenile Court has shifted its approach? We have shifted from a reactive intervention to a proactive family stabilization court. 80% of our child welfare cases and then 20% are our justice cases, the delinquency matters. We shifted to a trauma-informed court and addressed the root causes of problems with our families. And we focus on prevention and rehabilitation. We'll discuss the Nurturing Parenting Program with Porter Leith in just a moment. and we rely upon our community partners to provide the services we need.

Good morning. Karam Folsom, Chief Administrator, Juvenile Court. What we're seeing currently at the court, one of the, we have over about 40,000 cases that we see at Juvenile Court. And what is a stark contrast for us right now is our child support petitions, 7,619. the child support petitions that we are seeing coming through the court. By way of the 20% that we talked about as it relates to youth justice, we are seeing domestic assaults as being the number one delinquency referral. Family instability drives this system involvement and these trends require intervention before court involvement occurs. A few years ago, well, a couple of years ago, maybe about 18 months ago, the court was given the opportunity to bring forward to the commission programs that it believed would be supportive of the issues that permeate our community and show up at the court, and those five programs more youth advocacy program, our nurturing parenting program, our parent leadership training institute and inside circle. Another was Rafa Institute of which we're not asking for funding for. However, these particular programs that the commission approved the funding for, they had a renewal attached to those contracts. So we're in the midst of wanting to continue these programs. However, they were not added to the budget for this fiscal year in order for us to do so. And Judge will talk about the Nurturing Parenting Program in particular because it is a very vital program for the court.

To date, our nurturing parenting program in partnership with Porterleaf, we've had three cohorts with 33 participants being served. It's a six-week program. We provide transportation, food, and child care, all while the parents are attending the classes and sessions. It's evidence-based parenting and family strengthening model. It builds healthy relationships, increases positive parenting outcomes and practices, and it mitigates child abuse and neglect. 85% of the program completion has been accomplished by those that are participating. We have three cohorts, as I said. We're now into the fourth, and we have 12 additional parents in that class.

Our youth advocate program is the program that we utilize on our youth justice side. We have had 18 participants serving since July 2025. Majority ended with felony level or serious legal involvement. We're at 100% completion for the program. 100% working towards a diploma of GED. This program assists with improving home stability and most not employed at entry, at discharge, they have a mix of supported work full-time and community service. So it's a very vital component. program. So our formal operating request is to restore the dollars necessary so that we are able to provide the appropriate renewals for this upcoming fiscal year so that we can continue the positive outcomes that have already manifested by way of these programs. So we don't want to end the work in the midst as we all know that typically you need at least three years of funding in order to show a positive trend or even a negative trend so you can have clarity around the efficacy of programs. This is our capital ask. We made a presentation to the capital improvement budget committee and we talked about the renovation that the court needs. What I have learned over the years is that when there's an opportunity to speak up and speak out, we need to do that. I think the judge really should have an opportunity to talk about some of the things that the court experienced prior to now, but we have some ongoing concerns currently at the court.

Thank you. As the Commission would remember, in 2024, we were disposed or displaced from our building. It was because of mold, asbestos, and lead concerns. Those issues were addressed at that time. However, we have ongoing problems with mold and asbestos and, again, lead concerns. We have structural deterioration. We currently have water intrusion. Our elevators are out because of water. We have at least two foot of water in our elevator shafts. We have failing plumbing infrastructure, elevated reliability is sparse, and immediate health and safety risks not just to staff but visitors and families who come into our court. We're asking that the CIP be moved from 2028 to the 2027 budget to address these concerns.

Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Commissioner Mills, did you have anything? Can you just on the capital request confirm that Your request is simply to move the FY28 up to 27, but leave what's in 29 and 30 and 31? Are you trying to move the whole thing forward?

We want to shift it all up because the building is starting to seriously deteriorate and we are also actively on a trajectory to get temporary space to move the court.

Okay. All right. I think we got it. All right. Thank you all very much. All right.

Thank you.

Okay. Next up we'll have mental health court. All right. Judge Renfro.

Good morning, commissioners. I'm the presiding judge of a mental health court, Shelby County General Sessions Division 9. I'm before you again today asking to be amended to be In the budget, we are currently not in the county budget. It's my ask each and every time since I've taken this position in 2022. However, we're in dire straits this time. Our program is in jeopardy. We are currently funded by a state grant which supports two positions, two managers and a part-time position. One I have here with me to my right, Ms. Ward, who is the deputy administrator. To my left, I have a part-time employee, the courtroom coordinator, Mr. Brian Carson, who are here with me today to help support our request. Shelby County Mental Health Court was established in 2016, so we've had 10 years of not being in the county budget. It's crucial that we have these funds to continue our program. We are currently funded, again, by the state budget and opera funds. Our opera funds will end in December of this year, and we will lose two of our case managers, making it unable for us to function. Case managers are needed to provide treatment for our participants in our program, which we currently support. We graduate out into the community and help them become stable citizens and help them thrive as they reintegrate into the community. Our program has four phases and I'll let Ms. Ward talk to you about those.

The four phases are the steps in which our participants take in order to successfully complete our program. Phase one is stabilization and orientation. They have about 45 days in inpatient treatment or four weeks in outpatient treatment. They also begin their frequent drug screens to ensure sobriety. In Phase 2, it's also intensive treatment. They continue their inpatient and or outpatient treatment. They also continue drug screening determined by the court and they continue to come to court weekly. In Phase 3, it's healthy living and development. They do gain more independence. The court schedule for them may change depending upon what judge orders and what's needed. They continue their sobriety checks to get drug tested weekly. And in Phase 4, it's transition to aftercare. So that's where we ensure that they have the resources that they need to live independently and healthy in the community.

I request, I merely ask that those two positions be maintained with an additional coordinator, a part-time coordinator, and a position referred to as peer recovery, which our team lacks, which is... actually required from the state to be a part of the team. Having said that, this court has built a team that is the enemy of the state and we have been asked by the state to mentor other teams across the state. We need this program in the community for public safety and for our people to thrive and for our community to grow. So this is our ask today. We've met with several commissioners prior to. Commissioner Whaley, we thank Commissioner Lowry, who's not here. But this is our request. Any questions?

Okay, thank you. Will you just clarify the total amount of that request?

$800,000. And we have listed out here under our Exhibit A all the breakdowns of categories required. Okay.

I don't think we've got any questions on that, but thank you all very much. So as I said earlier, the process is we'll start bringing amendments once we have the budget resolution in front of us, which ought to be next Wednesday. And I know I've had a conversation with you all about this, and so just make sure you're staying tuned on it because we've got a lot to do in a short period of time. But I appreciate you all coming out.

Thank you. Thank you for your time. Okay.

Thank you. Next up we have Environmental Court. All right, good morning, Judge Dandridge. Good to see you. We'll put five minutes on the clock for your presentation, and the floor is yours.

All right, my name is Judge Patrick Dandridge. I'm the judge of General Sessions Criminal Court Division 14 on this environmental court. I'm gonna, we got five minutes, so I'm gonna get right to the point. Let's go to the next slide. So my request is total $83,075.66. It's mainly for salary increase for the referees. I have two referees. They are Worked closely with the court, and that salary was not increased when the Judiciary Commissioner's salary was increased, about $20,000 in August 1st. And, of course, back pay from August 1st is another $18,000. I'm also asking for a Whitehaven Community Court, $6,000 for that, $500 a month out in Whitehaven. We lost that court about five years ago. Let's go to the next slide. Environmental court, in case you don't know, consists of two courtrooms. I have three community courts. I'm trying to get the fourth one ahead for many years, the Los William Community Court. Two referees or judicial magistrates. I have over 14 dockets and growing. We hear cases Monday through Friday, of course, and we have morning docket and afternoon docket. I hear on average about 5,000 traffic cases per and over 1,700 environmental cases per month, over 60,000 cases. Let's go to the next slide. So here I wanted to show the revenue generated by General Sessions Criminal Court Division 14, which is over 7% of all revenue generated by General Sessions Criminal Court. And FY25, I assure you, is 71.54% of all revenue, $3.1 million generated by General Sessions, Division 14. And right now we're on page two, either pass that or equal that. We had 2.3 million, about 69%. All right. Next slide. This is also in the handout. It shows what I just told you about each division, by division, and the percentage collected. And this is for FY25. Next slide. Similarly, what's created, 68.69%. You can go through this, and it has shown a continual increase in the volume of cases that this environmental court is experiencing. And while experiencing the increase, we have to have the referees, only two, on board. Now, let's get to the crust, the next slide. An equity pay study was done by HR in 2010 that compared the environmental court referees to the judicial commissioners and was found that they are similarly situated. And so $760,000 was granted to the judicial commissioners on August 1st, 2025, and the salaries did not increase for the referees. And if you go to the next slide, you'll see how that pans out. From 2010, prior to May of 2010, the referees were making $60,000, and the Judiciary Commission was making $84,000. From 2010 to August 1st of 2025, the salaries are parallel. Exactly the same, equal amounts just about going up since that time. And August 1st occurred, and whatever happened, I still can't figure out why the referees, why referees did not get the increase. And by the way, these referees work four times. They're not part-time. They're four times. They have four dockets. to assist the court. And I had communication with the administration, communication with General Sessions Criminal Court. All judges agreed that the referee should get it. That was prior to the budget last year. And then somehow August 1st it didn't happen. I had continued communication with the administration as to understanding why it was not increased. And I thought we had an agreement, but then I saw the budget and we don't have an agreement. I think this is just fairness. I don't even see the issue. This is simply fairness. The study has already come out, and that's the handout that I gave out. That's the study that was done in 2010 that compared to two positions. Everyone agrees. And I haven't got a response, by the way, from the administration as to why the salaries are not matching. I don't know. I don't know. So that's the reason why I'm here to ask for that increase. And I'm also asking for back pay. And I talked to HR about the back pay, and he agreed. That's $18,432.15 to equal it back to what it would have been had they got the increase on August 1st.

All right.

Thank you very much. Any questions about this?

Okay. I don't see any questions on this one. So thank you, Judge Dandridge. And, yeah, I think we've got it very clear. Thank you. All right, thank you. All right, next up we have Circuit Court.

Mr. Joyner, good to see you. Good morning. Good to see you all as well. Michael Burnett Joyner, Chief Administrative Officer for Shelby County Circuit Court, where we're under the leadership of the Honorable Clerk, Shelby County Clerk, Jamita Swearingen. At this time, we do not have a presentation, and we will yield our time to any other courts or bodies that need it.

Love it. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, it's like a rounding round of applause. All right. Okay, hopefully we'll have the same here from our next one. Probate court clerk. No. Clerk Jones, good to see you. We'll put your time on the clock.

I'm good. Clerk Eddie Jones, probate court clerk. I'm going to keep it real simple and go through what our ask is and why. So first of all, we have been approved for a satellite office. So everything that we're asking for, with the exception of salary adjustments, would be for the satellite office. We're asking for 22,000 in O&M. That's all we're asking for, 22,000. And most of that would be the adjustments on supplies and all that that will go into the satellite office. All right, so for 22,600. Also, we're asking for salary adjustments. And that total for our PCB is 108,503. And that is 50,000 in salary changes. We will need another position for the satellite office. That's 40,502 and included with the fringe benefits. So basically, that is our request for the clerk's office. That's what we will be asking for. Also, for our judge in Division II, he is asking for a salary adjustment for his staff in his office and for 19,501.41. So that's coming from the judge's office, and that's pretty much what we're asking for. If y'all can't find the money, I think we can because we've overcollected. We're a fee-generating office, and we went way over. And so to put something on the table, we will increase our revenue projections. So we're not pulling any money out of the general fund to get done what we need done. So once again, that's $22,600 in O&M, $108,000 in salary changes, and $19,000 for the judge.

All right, thank you very much. Clerk Jones, so the satellite office and the personnel go hand in hand, this is correct? They're the same, basically the same item? Yes. Okay. All right, thank you all very much. All right, next up we have General Sessions Court Clerk. All right, good morning, Clerk Sawyer.

Good morning, everyone. Tamara Sawyer, General Assessor's Court Clerk. Thank the Circuit Clerk for the extra five minutes she provided me. I'm just waiting on the presentation.

Right now it says we'll have to reset it because right now you're still, we're still on, we have one minute left. We'll give you a full five minutes.

That's six minutes and ten seconds. Thank you so much. First, allow me to say thank you to the commissioners, recognizing that this is your final budget in this iteration of the commission. Some of you, this is your final budget after eight years of service, and so I thank you for hearing us today. Thank you to Mayor Harris and his final budget as well as his administration. Chief Collins and Director Tipton and the staff of Shelby County. We recognize that putting together a budget that achieves everyone's needs and goals is a tough thing to do. So recognizing that Mayor Harris put forward a budget that allows the county to transition into new leadership in a way that is both prudent and safe. We just want to cover quickly where we are, where we came from, and where we're going. Coming into this position a year and a half ago, we had a steep learning curve. And I will tell anyone who is going from legislative to administrative leadership, you are going to have a steep learning curve. We went through operational learning and development. We had challenges to overcome. We inherited backlogs both in the civil and criminal side. But after a year and a half, we had very strong wins as a team. Today, after a year and a half in this position, I am very proud of where the 180 people that make up General Sessions are. We've invested in our team. Recently we had a mental health day where we did yoga and got green juices from Groovy Gratitude. We do monthly pop-out awards where we celebrate the contributions of our civil service staff. We've also invested in strategic modernization. Prior to this administration, General Sessions was behind the state on innovation and technology. When the Memphis Safe Task Force came on board, we found that we were the only court in the state, even though we are the largest court in the state, not utilizing state resources to process highway patrol tickets. As of today, thanks to my team, especially our IT team led by Vashont Shaw, we are able to say that we now are no longer the only court in the state manually processing tickets. And we are proud of the cross-agency alignment. I can tell you that many of the people sitting in this room for the first time, we are meeting almost monthly for the Interagency Justice Operations Work Group. And we are building community engagement efforts together. We are discussing technology together. And we are no longer working in silos. We've improved our processes through the Justice Portfolio Bond Task Queue, which allows us to speed up the process of arrest to bail and that required the sheriff's office my office the general sessions judges and judicial commissioners as well as the mayor's pre-trial team to come together and build a system that sped up our processes and i'm really proud of the work that we've been able to do together We are headed into a place over the next two and a half years to continue to invest in our team and our modernization. We're preparing for the deployment of e-filing in the civil service, I mean the civil division, as well as the deployment of the state's portal and system. We are also working on efficiency. We went from having one screen at the front counters to making sure that our team had two screens. My chief, Chris Thomas, he has introduced gimbal walks where we are going around and operating and making sure that we're not missing anything so that we can improve the efficiency of our office. We are not requesting any operational additions. We agree with the mayor in presenting a flat budget, but Mayor Harris did state that he was open to discussion about the salary increase. The economist wrote this week that gas will be $5 in the next 30 days per gallon. We know that the people who make up Shelby County government, the over 6,000 employees, are also the people who are most impacted by the economic state of this country right now. We are headed into really tough times economically. A 1% proposed salary increase is actually a negative salary for our team. Thank you to this commission as well as the administration for last year's increase, but we ask that this body consider a 5% increase or more for all civil service employees as you all head on to either next roles or to a next iteration of this commission. I thank you all for your service, and I ask that you all... ensure that the people who serve Shelby County every day, who are taking on the extra work due to the political times that we are in, the people who are donating their time, not being paid overtime, the people who are most impacted by the financial constraints that so many of us are suffering under, that we make sure that they receive at least 5% so they can have a positive salary increase. We ask that you come, final slide, to general sessions, see what we're doing. Our doors are open, and we thank you.

Okay. Thank you very much, Clerk Sawyer and team. Thank you for being here. All right. Next up, we have Chancery Court.

Good morning, Commissioners. Aaron Hall, Clerk and Master, Shelby County Chancery Court. With me is my Deputy Administrator, Dylan Holzmer, and my Chief Administrator, Gina Boone. First, I want to thank Clerk Sawyer for carrying the torch about the employee increases. That's usually my job, so I'm glad someone else is taking up the standard and moving forward to take care of our employees. And then for Clerk Jones, I'm going to follow him and go straight to the crux of the matter. I mean, most people know what the courts do, so we won't go over all that. We have two increases that we included in our budget that were not put in the final budget. One is an increase of $5,705 to O&M for our PC refresh program, and that's the four-year program where our computer and Monitors and things are replaced every four years to keep the technology current. Over the years, we've had to increase the number of PCs in our office. We've had to increase the monitors, as Clerk Sawyer said. And so that is funded in a four-year cycle based on the amount given to us by ITS. And so the current version of that is $5,705 more. So we're asking that to be added to our OEM to cover that expense. And the other increase was a direct ask from the chancellors of Chancery Court for their judicial law clerks who do their research and help write briefs and keep the court on track to keep increasing their salary, to be able to attract and retain experienced attorneys. We mostly rely on recent graduates who don't have the experience we're looking for. based on the salary issues. So that's a total of $39,660 in salaries and $13,220 for fringes for a total request of $45,366. And then our revenue, Commissioner Whaley understands I say this every time and he kind of rolls his eyes, but Our excess revenue is gonna have excess again, so our excess excess revenue this year is pretty significant. And then next year, we expect even more. The clerks haven't mentioned it, but in January 1st of this year, a statute was changed that covered our costs and fees and fines for the courts, which is gonna increase our revenue overall. And so therefore, we increased our revenue projection for FY27 to cover these increases, and then still significant excess excess revenue over that will come in through the court. Oh, okay.

All right. On that point, so what is the, based on what's in the proposal and your revenue projections, what's the difference?

So current year or 27? 27. 27, you got that on there? Yeah, so we increased the overall budget by 10%, so roughly $320,000, $350,000.

And that's not referenced in the proposal? It is. It is?

The revenue increase is included in the proposal.

Okay.

But the expenditure increases were not.

Right, but I'm saying we're already budgeting the increased revenue. Correct. Yeah, okay.

All right. Anyone have any questions for clear call?

Okay. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Next up, juvenile court clerk. All right. Good morning, Clerk Gordon. Good to see you.

Good morning, everyone. I'll make this really, really quick and I know I'll follow after Aaron because most of you know what the Juvenile Court Clerk's Office does. However, I pride myself in what we've done in the last three and a half years and it's really modernizing and really improving our processes. When you think of Before three and a half years, so about four and a half years ago, all truancy filings for Memphis Shelby County Schools and the other six municipalities were all done through paper filing. So for each child in every single school district, they had to bring packets down to 616. That is now, thanks to our system, all electronic. We are now deploying a computerized check-in system for three of our six departments, which has gone along very well. We have also transitioned to electronic filings of summons and subpoenas. And if you know anything about that process, when our process officers go out, if they're waiting on that green card to be returned back to the court clerk's office and the magistrate, it takes some time. Now electronically, it could be done in a matter of days. Prior to that, it was weeks. We've also continued to improve in our Giga Track, which was implemented about three years ago, and that is to track every legal jacket throughout the halls and departments of 616. And when we implemented it, someone said it's better than sliced bread. I do agree. Lastly, with the MOU that we have with the Shelby County Sheriff's Department, we have installed the bonds kiosk, so that will help once Judge Sugarman decides to move forward with contempts. So we are already in process for that. Why wait? It's already there, and so we have planned and prepared. And lastly, we will join the e-filing system for all of our attorneys and our pro se litigants at no fee. And really at the end of the day, my purpose is to streamline internal and external processes. I want to continue to improve customer service because that's what excellence and efficiency looks like. I want to reduce our paper dependency. and really move our office to a paperless office. We're 50% there, and in the next four years, we'll be 90% there. So that will be able to... really help us save and I am a great steward of the juvenile court clerk's money because it's all of our money and I really operate it like it's my home budget and so I am fiscally aware of what needs to be done and still maintain an office with 94 employees and I'll say it again, before I came in three and a half years ago, We had 34 vacancies. We have seven. And we are doing all of that with the same budget that the Juvenile Court Clerk's Office has had for five years. And we'll continue to do that. But our ask today is simple. $150,000. And that really... is for increased funding for postage. And when I was here last year, Maximus has taken over, Veritas has taken over for Maximus, which is our child support agency. And for 15 years, Maximus was mailing out those child support orders. Veritas has agreed to no longer do that and that is the responsibility of the clerk However, that is not in my budget. So I've come up with a process to where we will email those orders However, we still have to capture those emails and that is a process so we're still dependent on mailing those out and lastly for at least two new or well-maintained vehicles We have three vehicles that are almost 20 years old, 160,000 miles on one and 130,000 miles on the other. They're used for our process officers who use their own vehicles to serve our summons and subpoenas, but when their vehicle goes down, we need to have a backup plan for them. so that they can show up and continue to serve our process officers their summons and subpoenas. And that is my ask, $150,000, and it's simple. I wanted to make sure that my CAO didn't have anything to add or my finance administrator.

Good morning, and thank you for the opportunity. And just to piggyback on what Clerk Gordon has said, the improvements that have been made in the stringlining increase our ability to serve our community and to serve the families that come to the Juvenile Court and Juvenile Court Clerk's office. We have had an asking... Almost each year, and we've not been able to get the increased funding. It's so dire that we get this. The juvenile court has been able to petition the commission and receive additional funding for additional magistrates. Well, it's the clerk's office that supports those magistrates.

I'm sorry, will you just state your name again for the record?

Oh, I'm sorry, Eugenia Wagner. Eugenia Wagner, juvenile court clerk's office, CAO. And so again, in order to support the work of the juvenile court, the clerk needs that staff. We need additional funding to be able to support our ability to serve and to move these cases through the court and to serve the families efficiently.

Okay. All right. Well, thank you all very much, commissioners. Any questions for Clerk Gordon? All right. Hearing none, thank you very much for your time today. Next up, we'll have County Clerk. Good morning, Clerk Halbert. Good morning, Chief Williams. Good to see you all. We'll put five minutes on the clock, and we've got your presentation pulled up. No, we've got a hard copy of it, I believe. Yes.

Good morning, Mr. Chair, County Commissioners, Wanda Halbert, Shelby County Clerk.

CAO Mike Williams, Shelby County Clerk's Office.

For the purposes of this morning, we do not have our final numbers together, but we can get that to you all later today. We have a host of needs. However, we've narrowed those immediately down to four specific needs. Additional facilities and or some kind of change with the facilities. Most of you have received quite a few complaints, and this has been an issue for decades. We have lines. Sometimes they could be in line an hour, hour and a half. However, the lines are nothing like they used to be. So that we're very proud of. We've created internal ways of addressing that as well. But the additional facilities is going to be significantly critical because our largest customer space in the Shelby County Clerk's Office is downtown in motor vehicle registration. When you come through the door to the right, that's that area. And for the purposes of showing how dire the need is, the law only allows us to have 12 to 14 customers in that room at a time. That's impossible for this size of a district, of an operation. Of course, we need additional positions. We have a employee complement. We've added a few, but the work has significantly grown. So that's been a challenge. And then upgraded technology. We've been talking with the IT department. We still have not finalized anything, but we are currently working on that. And then last would be overtime money. Because of the number of employees, we're going to have to go back to some of our opportunities to have overtime work with our employees. So for the, again, like I said earlier, for purposes of today, we've been very general, you know, not wanting to bring, we actually have a huge list of needs, but this would be a great beginning and we would like to ask the County Commission if there's nothing else that we can do These are sensitively critical because of the volume of services and the volume of work we perform.

Okay. Any commissioners have questions? Chairman Avent?

Is there a number associated with any of these additional facilities, number of positions?

We're finalizing that. We do have the comprehensive list. There were three different real estate agents who helped us for free. So we've been working on that list, and we can provide that to you all too, and then add the numbers. We're just trying to finalize and get what the emergency needs are right now, but that list is in process, and we can bring it over to you all.

Okay. If I... Any more? Chairwoman, any more? Okay. If you would, we're having some issue with the feedback on the mics today. So just because the budgeting process is such a huge effort and requires a lot of work by a lot of people, really what we're aiming for today, and this is how it's been in the past, is that we're looking at requests that have already been submitted, went well into the process. So they've been identified, often years in advance, and for whatever reason maybe didn't make it in because it's really impossible for us to take kind of requests as they come all the way up until June. It's not a good process because inevitably there will be real emergencies that come up and we've got to have some ability to cover those. So it's important that we've got you that we make sure we will we look at all these requests We're getting that we will match them up with the requests that were made earlier on in this process, and if they don't match up It's it was clearly a request that came in too late. Okay. All right. Thank you very much clerk Albert appreciate you being here next up We'll have criminal court clerk Thank you All right, we will reset the clock and put five minutes on for you. If you'll state your name and title and then we can get the presentation from the criminal court clerk.

Good morning. Good morning, Board of Commissioners. Thank you for having us here. My name is Rebecca Terrell. I'm the Chief Administrative Officer of the Shelby County Criminal Court Clerk's Office, and I'm here with our Director of Human Resources, Anthony Gunn. We're presenting on behalf of Clerk Kuhn, who sends her regards. As you may remember from fiscal year 26, the Criminal Court Clerk's Office did not ask for a budget increase. And that was our intent for fiscal year 27. However, on May 7th of this year, the Honorable Governor Bill Lee signed HB 1268 into law, which gave the Shelby County Criminal Court clerk two additional courtrooms. And because of that, we are asking, if you go to the second slide, for two things. We are asking for tech. costs, which would equal $12,456.32 because we need computers for the judges and the courtroom clerks. We need printer kiosks for both courtrooms, and we need digital docket displays outside of our courtrooms in alignment with our other nine divisions that we currently have. Additionally, we are asking for personnel, which would equal $247,655 including fringe benefits for four employees. Each of our courtrooms, to be fully staffed, require two employees. That would be one principal court two and a deputy court clerk two. So we need four employees. Those two asks for tech and personnel equal two. $260,111.32. And we are humbly asking this body to increase our budget so that we can fulfill our statutory obligation by Governor Lee. Thank you.

Okay, thank you very much. Any questions? Commissioner Caswell?

Thank you, Chairman Whaley. So I know that this was a request to us, this body, to get the state to put in there. I'm glad that we do have those two judges. I think we were asking for a civil court judge in the general session, but we got the two criminals. So is this not in the budget now, budget chair? Okay.

No, it's not because the judges weren't there during the budget. I mean, this is a unique situation because the judges were added just recently. Yeah. All right, thank you.

And if I may say, Rebecca Terrell, Criminal Court Clerk's Office, thank you very much, Commissioner Caswell, and for those of you who advocated for the return of our courtrooms, it is much needed. Okay.

All right. Any other commissioners? All right. Seeing none, thank you all for the presentation, for being here today. Next up, we've got the sheriff. All right, good morning, Sheriff Bonner, Chief W. Buckner, Chief Lindsey. Good to see all this morning, and we'll reset the clock and turn it over to you. We've got your presentation.

Good morning, commissioners. Alicia Lindsey, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. Thank you so much for the opportunity to present our budget. Today we're gonna focus on the items that we submitted but were not included in the consolidated budget. So the Sheriff's Office budget, it should request operational staffing, financial needs necessary to continue providing critical public safety services throughout Shelby County, including law enforcement, corrections, court security, detainee transportation, investigations, and other essential functions. This presentation primarily focuses on the significant operational and financial items which were not included or fully funded within the consolidated budget. So to assist the commission and administration with the review, we've prepared a detailed schedule that's been emailed out to you. We call it our little proposed budget document. It has a table of contents, and then on page 60, it tells you where you can find the support for the budget modifications or the increased requests that we've asked for. I understand this year the administration did not provide that document, so we've sent it to you in a soft copy. If you require a hard copy, we're more than happy to get you a hard copy, but we were trying to save some trees. So, Sheriff Bonner took office, I want to say, September 1, 2018. And at that time, there were 2,115 positions in his budget. Since 2019, inflation has increased by 30%, significantly impacting the cost of personnel, detention operations, maintenance, equipment, fuel, food services, utilities, technology, and contractor services. So beginning in 2019, the gross personnel budget was about $180 million. I think I heard the other day that our overtime has increased by 154% over the last few years. But if you take a look at the salary restriction that has been applied to the Shelby County Sheriff's Office budget, that is 271.5% over the last, well, since 2019 to now. So I think all of those numbers need to be taken into consideration, not just pick and choose numbers that may be interesting to the user of the data. So the salary restriction, if you were to look at our budget, if you were able to get some financial information, today you will see that our salary restriction is approximately 66.5 million, even though the commission adopted a budget of 50.8 million. And on February 2nd, 2026, the Shelby County Sheriff's Office submitted its budget to the administration. We highlighted that there were several positions within the Sheriff's Office that are related to memorandums of understanding. So there is a salary schedule specific to these positions, such as jail lieutenants or law enforcement lieutenant, sergeant, captains, those positions are not budgeted at the specific salary schedule. So in that detailed budget document that we provided for you, you'll see all those salary schedules. And basically what that means is, you may recall that we've recently engaged a contractor to help us with promotional exams, both on the law enforcement side and on the corrections deputy side. So as we go through making those promotions, funds need to be available for those positions and currently they're not. So I'm going to run through the presentation real quick because I see my time is getting limited unless I can get a few more minutes. So on page two of the presentation, the very left side column is the adopted budget that the commission adopted on June 30th, 2026. The second column is the mayor's proposed budget. And the third column is the variance. And so if you look at the personnel, the total personnel, we believe that the way it is presented in the mayor's consolidated budget that is below the maintenance of effort, which is required by state law. And so if you look at the fourth column, you'll see the Shelby County Sheriff's Office budget and it includes those vacant positions related to memorandum of understanding budgeted appropriately based upon the salary schedule. And then the next column is a combination of budget requests or budget modifications. As you know, we deal with four unions and they have all presented proposals to us and And I'll leave it up to them to make their presentation to this body regarding those requests. But they have been included in our budget just for visibility. And then the very last column would be our total requests. And if you could skip to page four. One more slide, please. So I believe I heard in the mayor's budget address that he's recommending a 1% salary increase. Just know that that 1% salary increase is not included in the Shelby County Sheriff's Office budget. And based upon our calculations, including all our positions at the appropriate value, then that would be around $1.8 million that would be necessary for the Sheriff's Office budget. Next slide, please. Commissioner Whaley, may I have a couple of minutes?

Yes, that's fine.

Thank you so much for indulging me. I also heard that health insurance will be afforded to temporary employees. I reached out to see if I could get a number on what that would be per employee, but to date I haven't heard anything. So I'm just using an assumption that it would be the same as any other employee. So a vacant position. It's currently budgeted at $8,040 for health insurance. So we have 101 temp positions, and that will be $812,040. The next slide, please. So as I mentioned, and I won't go through this because you have the support and the detailed documents that have been emailed to you, but the next three pages illustrate our increase request. The majority of that is related to overtime. It's also related to guns and ammunition that we requested in fiscal year 26 but did not receive. And then basically... What the Sheriff's Office did this year, because we were really tired of doing line item transfers, and before Oracle came on board, we were like, we really need to budget by the line. So we went through this entire exercise beginning in December of 25, saying everyone needed to budget what their needs are. Say, for example, if the longevity was not budgeted correctly in a section, then we made all of those adjustments. all the way down for each section. So we wanted to try to be better partners as it relates to doing budget transfers. Then if you could jump to page nine, that is our CIP request. We submitted a request for $9.6 million, but only 5.7 of it is included in the consolidated budget. And if you look at the next slide, you'll see why we really need the $300,000 for the toilet repairs. It is a TCI standard, and these toilets are the epoxy. The coating that's around them is wearing off, and I believe our staff is using flex, something that is not really designed to fix this, and so that's why we really need to get new toilets. I'm sorry, what did I say? I'm sorry, Tennessee Corrections Institute. Excuse me. So their request is $300,000 and it is not included in the CIP process. project. Then there's a jail security tile installation that's $2,160,000 and that is also required by TCI and that it is a safety issue because though the ceiling tile is no longer manufactured and so the pieces that we have left were down to a very few and so it's going to require a full replacement. That's the request there. We requested $2 million. That's like the fourth item for the jail, lower level, and tunnel doors. In the current year, we had an emergency to fix our admin SIG doors instead of this particular project and push this project into fiscal year 27. But we have not received the full amount of it. So we estimate that that will be $2 million, and we really need that. And as well as the second item, which is $500,000, is related to the gel intake tank doors and frame replacement. So those are some real needs. And then the next slide just basically highlights our full five-year plan for CIP, just for your perusal. And then finally, just a one-page snapshot of what we submitted versus what has been included in the consolidated budget. and we're happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you so much for your time.

Okay, thank you. Any commissioners? Commissioner Caswell?

Thank you, Chair. Again, thank you for this presentation, CFO. I just know I know I appreciate you last night, Chief Buckner, for helping me understand the overtime. questions that we had the other day that I had towards that. I just wanted to ask just a couple of questions. One, I know that you said something about the toilet situation too, because we just had a shower situation that we moved some dollars over and that was for the inmates. Is this for the inmates or this for the jail as a whole?

Alicia Lindsay, Chief Administrative Officer. Commissioner Caswell, this is for the detainees.

For the detainees, okay. And so did we take care of the shower situation or that was being moved to another year as well?

Alicia Lindsay, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. Commissioner Caswell, I'm not sure if you remember, but we had trouble getting an architect to design the renovation of the jail shower. So that project has been pushed to fiscal year 27 and it is in the the mayor's consolidated budget.

Okay. And so if you can help me, Sister Lindsay, when we talk about where we are today, I know the budget situation is we're needing the $18 million for the request there. Was that budget, because I was getting ready to say too on record the other day when the constituents talked about in part, that it wasn't budget, but a lot of things was not budget be doing to safe task force and a lot of things that happened after the budget occurred. So it's hard for you all to budget for what we don't know expected. But how much of that was budgeted, if you can help me understand that, because our budget was cut about $20 million at that time by this body. And I'm trying to see what may have been cut in that $20 million. Did any of that impact the sheriff budget at the time?

Alicia Lindsay, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. For the last three years, our overtime budget, so fiscal year 24, 25, and 26, that overtime budget has been $11,720,000. For the last two years, we've requested increases from this body to increase our overtime, and those increases were not included in the final budget. So last year, I know we requested $8 million to increase the overtime, and it was not approved. This year, in our budget, we're asking for $10.1 million. And I just want everyone to visualize. You hear a lot in the public or you read comments to Facebook or the Daily Memphian, and they always say, but... The sheriff has all these vacant positions, okay? Yes, we do have a lot of vacant positions. But guess what? There is a $66 million salary restriction today on those positions. So can you fill those positions? No, you cannot. You can fill them, but technically you're going to go for budget.

Yeah.

So nothing prevents you from filling them, but the outcome or the consequences are you will exceed your budget. As we are projected to currently exceed our budget because of due to overtime, due to vacant positions, due to increased population in the jail, and we are a 24-7 operation, and our work continues. So we have to make sure the buildings are staffed and we have – corrections deputies and law enforcement on the street, as well as dispatchers. If dispatchers get sick, someone has to fill that shift. If there's an increase of detainees coming into 201 Poplar and the community is in an outroar because, oh, it's taking too much time for you all to process them and intake, well, guess what? You've got to get civilians to go down and help in the jail to process those detainees.

So one last question. So if you can help me understand what you just said about the vacancy and then being able to fill that staffing, because if the money is there for vacancy, then I know it may be held over here in the finance office, I guess, until it's transferred over to you, but the money is supposed to be there, right, to fill the job. So if you've got your new recruits coming in, the money should be there, or if you're telling me it's not there, right?

Alicia Lindsay, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. Commissioner Caswell, what I'm saying is there is a budget for a position. All 2,156 positions that we have full-time and then the 101 temporary positions, there is a specific budget for those positions. Okay? And so our total, I want to say our total salary amount is $143 million. Mm-hmm. Let's say we have, I don't know, 600 vacancies. Those 600 vacancies, the salaries and benefits may be $64 million, okay? So you got the 143 in the top number, but then you got this vacancy savings down here, which pretty much absorbs any vacancy. So you can fill it, but what the result at the end of the year is, you will exceed your budget.

Okay. All right. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Commissioner Haslund. Commissioner Morrison.

Thank you, Chief Lindsey. Looking at page two, I'm just trying to follow here. You have under the budget increase request, I see rent, utilities, and maintenance, $5 million, and the total here under O&M is $12 million. And so then I go to page 6, 7, and 8, and I'm trying just to track it. Can you explain where is the rent, utilities, and maintenance? I see the O&M column totals around the 12th too.

Alicia Lindsay, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. Commissioner Morrison, what I'll need to do is to send you and the other commissioners a document that breaks it out by account. Pages 6, 7, and 6 through 9 are by section. So I need to send it to you by pool or object so that you can see the breakdown. And I'm happy to get that to you as soon as I return to my office.

Okay, that would be great. Because it looks like many of the lines, I guess it's because it's by section, do have the overtime part in there. Another question from me would be, of your $143 million, how many million is the overtime? What percentage? And is there... Have you looked at the best ways to manage that?

Alicia Lindsay, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. So the overtime is not in salaries. Overtime is part of other compensation.

Okay, I see. So basically the answer to that question is currently 21, correct?

Well, not all of that is related to overtime. So in that group you have things such as hazardous pay, longevity pay, K-9, supplemental pay, things of that nature, college incentive, et cetera. But the bulk of that, only $11 million currently is budgeted for overtime, $11.7 million.

Okay. So in the O&M number, then none of that really is the overtime. That's falling into one of these other categories. I'm following you now.

Correct. So if you look at the second to the last column where it has increased requests, that $12 million, 10.2 of that is the overtime request. Okay. Okay.

Okay. All right, Commissioner Caswell.

Thank you, Chair. I just had one other question that came to mind. I know that we had the situation where money was sent from the state, the $2 million-something for prevention and intervention. We had to use that. Is it any other dollars coming from the state from now? I know the city of Memphis received a high book of $100-something million or whatever. One, is any... prevention and intervention sheriff, chief deputy, or in the budget in CAO, but two, how do you all as the sheriff department, because they give it to you, see those prevention and intervention dollars able to help the work that the sheriff department do? Because I know, unfortunately, we had to use that another way with feeding the inmates. But for me, and I was sharing this with Chief Buckner last night, Sheriff, I'm an upstream person, too, with this. I appreciate the suppression piece that we got to do, but how do the sheriff's department, because many in our community do look up to our law enforcement and police, and I know more on the city side than it is on the sheriff's side that we see the cop unit come into the community to do different activities and things to do that. But I was just wondering, what do that look like for our sheriff's department? when it comes to prevention and intervention.

Shepherd County Sheriff Floyd Bonner. We are working throughout the community with the dollars that we're using with our PILES program, Police Athletic League. We're big sponsors with them. Then I think, Commissioner, you've had an opportunity to come over to the jail with Inside Circle, which is a contract that we have with an outside group dealing with trauma with the inmates in there, something that we will probably go at least another year. I think this is our third year doing it. It seems to be highly successful. And then we also work with Feed the Need all throughout the community.

So, I'm sorry, and so what do that look like with some of the career violence type work, like the 901 blocks of the world, Memphis Highlights, do y'all do any of that work? Because I know that a lot of the states I've been to looking at this work, it's the police and community relationship that work together to help them capture many of those individuals because they're working with those interventionist people. or getting them to turn theirself in. So I was just wondering what do that look like for the Sheriff Department with some of their work, if y'all are doing any of that.

Shepherd County Sheriff Floyd Bonner. Yes, we are. We have been working with Memphis allies, Susan Deason in particular, Devin Lane. I have a pretty good relationship with him with not on one block. But one of the things that I've really been disappointed with is the lack of funding from the state as well as the federal government. As we move forward with this Memphis Safe Street Task Force, dollars were promised, and we have not received any. Right now, you know, we have over 400 inmates that are not in our jail that are our inmates, 200 with the state, another 200 out at the correction center, as you may may or may not know we were talking about trying to get that facility up in Millington up and running but that's a five six hundred thousand dollar acts that we're asking the federal government since it's their building asking them to pay for the renovation because we have gone to the Tennessee Correction Institute and have them to take a look at that building. And that building is going to need quite a bit of rehab. So I don't think, this is my personal opinion, I don't think the taxpayers of this body should pay to fix a federal facility. It's their building. They could put us out at any time. So we're asking them to pay for it. But we hadn't gotten any response back from the federal government or the state.

Last question. To the lawsuit or the potential threat of lawsuit from, I think it was from our body, to the state when we talk about the amount that's being paid or not collected for the inmates at the jail, are you a part of that or is that the administration? I know the mayor spoke about that. You know, I think we get like 40-some dollars or something. Yeah. Do they fall to the sheriff's department or the administration for receiving that payment? And if you can just kind of update us where, if it is, where we are with that.

Alicia Lindsay, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. So the state pays us $41 a day per inmate, and that is all we are entitled to by law. I think there is a different issue with the Division of Corrections, and so we don't want to speak on that. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Commissioner Caswell. Chief Lindsay, just really quick before we let you go. Back on page two, just trying to understand here the – The variance between the proposed budget that we have from the mayor and your proposed budget, the difference is about $573,000. Is that correct? And so the additional request or something that came after you submitted your proposed budget. So just trying to clarify these different variances between your budget and the proposed consolidated budget. that it appears via page two that the variance is actually 573,000, but what you're requesting, the 36 million, are requests that came after your initial proposed budget. So just help me understand why the variance is 573,000 between FY27 mayor's proposed budget and FY27 sheriff's proposed budget.

Alicia Lindsay, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. Thank you for the question, Commissioner Whaley. So we submitted our budget and all increase requests February 2nd, 2026. We did not receive the mayor's budget until last Thursday or Friday, maybe Friday morning. So the variance here is just a variance between The current year's budget. The first three columns are the current budget, fiscal year 26. The second column is the mayor's budget. And that's the variance between the two. So what I'm saying here, the $573,000 is that it doesn't meet maintenance of effort. So what the mayor presented to you guys is short $573,000.

Okay, so on this page I'm comparing columns two and four.

Okay, so two and four, they're pretty much the same. One and four are pretty much the same. And four is what we presented as our proposed budget. And if you look at column two, column two is less than column one and four by $573,000.

Right, yeah, so I'm just trying to be clear that The difference, so your request is obviously much larger than that $570,000, but that was the difference between what you initially requested and what has come out in the proposed budget?

Correct.

Okay, great.

May I have a point of privilege to say two more things? It's important, I didn't mention it, but when we went to the $40,501 minimum pay for everyone, I think that created some compression issues because some supervisors are making just a little bit more, if a little bit more, than people who are making the $40,000 501. I'm not sure if that issue has been brought before this body, but we didn't make any recommendations or adjustments in our budget to account for that, but I think it's important for this body to know. Of course, due to all the ongoing repairs at the jail, we did submit an increase request for the jail, but It's not included in the budget, and I didn't highlight it, but there is still a need for a jail, and I think everyone knows that. And then finally, this is the last budget that Sheriff Bonner will be presenting to this body, and I just want to take this moment to thank him for his leadership and his guidance and just for everything he does for Shelby County, for Shelby County, Tennessee, and then also for taking a chance on me. Thank you.

Okay, that's great. Thank you so much. All right, well thank you all for the presentation. Next up we'll have the District Attorney General.

The Sheriff has something.

Sorry, yeah, Sheriff Bonner, go ahead.

No, Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner. Commissioner Caswell, going back to some of the questions that you were asking about inmates and things, just for the record, we have 114 state inmates in our current jail at the Walter Bailey Justice Complex, I've got to get used to saying that, in the jail right now. So just for your information, 114.

And just to that question, to that, in other counties, they pay over $100 and some dollars per person, right, per person with the people in there. I mean, I know they don't want to open a whole other door, but I know we're only getting $44 a day, right? But in other counties, I heard it was more. CFO.

Alicia Lindsay, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. No, Commissioner Caswell, I think if it's a facility that the state runs or has partnership with, then there may be additional cost. And I think at some point in time, the state was paying the Division of Corrections more, but I'm not sure what happened there. But it's not.

I don't want us to get into that. That's not their wheelhouse. And so just to keep those kind of, clean and clear.

Yeah, yeah. Let's do that. All right. Thank you, Sheriff Bonner and team. D.A. Mulroy?

May I proceed? Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. This is District Attorney Steve Mulroy, and I appreciate the opportunity to come before you and talk. I appreciate the invitation. We're going to very briefly go over what we had originally asked for, and then there's a a new ask in addition to that. And I have with me my CAO, Jessica Indigaro, who could probably answer a lot of questions that I won't be able to answer. So we start off with what we had proposed last year that did not get funded. So originally, we only proposed that which did not get funded last year. We didn't ask for anything new. We just asked for to fill that gap that had not been funded last year, and that was two video technical litigation analysts and four paralegals. Next slide. With respect to the paralegals, we currently have only six paralegals staffing 14 divisions, and I will mention that when I first took over as district attorney, we... as part of the transition process, contracted with the PFM Consulting Group, which is the same consulting group that Shelby County uses. I know you're familiar with them. And they did a comprehensive review of the staffing of our office. And the one thing that they emphasized more than anything else is that we didn't have paralegals. And they could not believe that we didn't have paralegals because, as you know, every law firm, every government law agency has paralegals. And we didn't have any. So we asked for some and we got some. But we currently only have six paralegals for 14 divisions. The national average ratio is about one paralegal for every six attorneys. We have one for every 20. So we were asking for that. Next slide. I'm sure you're aware of the fact that we have thousands of hours of body cam video and dash cam video and poll cam video that we have to process as part of discovery and that now juries are expecting video in cases. So we have a lot of processing of video to do. We currently have two employees who do that. We were hoping for two more to do that as well. But then the state hit us with something. Next slide. in the state, as you know, created two new criminal courts and there is a state law that says when you create new criminal court divisions, you're supposed to provide funding for prosecution staff to staff those divisions. And in the original bill, they had staffing. They had four prosecutors and two criminal investigators and at the last minute, they took that out. So now we are now being asked to staff two whole new criminal courts with no additional staff. And that's why we're coming to you now and asking. The state thought that we needed at least four prosecutors to staff these two new courts. We're not asking for that. We're asking for two. We're going to try to make do with existing staff and rearrange things I can tell you about that in more detail if you want So we decided to take one of our litigation Analyst position asks away because we know we were asking for new stuff because of what the state did and so what we've now done next slide is We're continuing to ask for the four paralegals, and we need them now even more because we're going to be staffing two new courts. Only one, two new prosecutors, and then rather than two, just one video technical litigation analyst. So that's what we're asking is we consider to be the absolute minimum we need to do. to both keep up with the flood of video that we've got to process, and also to staff these two new courts that the state has created. Again, I'm grateful that the state has created the two new courts. I wanted to address the backlog, but we have to staff them. We have to staff the courts, and that's why we're coming to you for help. I think the next slide adds it all up, and that is our total ask, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

All right. Thank you, DA Mulroy. I'm going to actually turn it over to Chairwoman Avian. If you wouldn't mind, I've got to step out for a quick second, and she can help guide us through the rest of it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Madam Chair.

Yes. Commissioner Caswell. Thank you, Matt.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, DA, for the presentation. It is truly unfortunate when we talk about what the state wants for us to continue to do down here but don't support that. Then it's even more burden on that. And again, with my upstream lens, I want to say that we keep throwing the babies down the river and not doing things up here. We can't do it. And then on this body, we couldn't. So you're going to see more of our people out of our communities coming through your court, through your prosecution, because we can't do anything to prevent an intervention, right? Say it. And so when you talk about another $300-some thousand that we are, for the paralegal, so how many attorneys do you have that are state attorneys in your office? Because I know we funded up gay race there, others, for the county to be at the same level. How many are the state of your prosecutors?

Yes, District Attorney Steve Moore. Thank you for the question, Commissioner Caswell. First, I couldn't agree with you more about the focus on upstream. I think we should be focusing a lot more on prevention and intervention like Memphis Allies and HEAL 901 and then prevention things like pre-K and a lot of other things. We're just trying to deal with the downstream effects that we are required to deal with. To answer your question, we have 120 attorneys. Approximately 40% of them are state attorneys. So 40%, so yeah, okay.

And so you just said.

The actual number would be. 55 or 60.

That's fine. And you said it's one per 20 per legal right now.

Yeah, we have one per legal for every 20 attorneys, which is extremely low compared to just about any baseline you would use to compare. To do that. Okay.

And so, yeah, that really was my guess. I just wanted to make that statement on record because I just found it concerning. I know you have a lot of opposition at the state level. Any just... To do your job.

Is that right?

Yeah. And so it makes it hard for us when this type of things are happening. Because we've got to go back to our constituents and say, well, we can't pay for this because we've got to do that. But this is the state requiring. Again, appreciating the judges, appreciating the fact that we can get those case laws to people not spending so much time in intake. But we have to. Look at how do we fund it. One last question to the, I know you're not asking anything in here when it comes to the forensic center. How are we doing on the progress there?

Yeah, DA Steve Mulright. Commissioner, we, I think the commission just recently approved the consulting contract with Mr. Jackson, whom I met with. And so we're using the funding that had previously been authorized on a recurring basis last year, and we're using that money to fund the technical consultants so that we'll be able to actually start buying equipment and hiring staff. The mayor has decided to shift the focus from Originally, the focus was going to be digital cell phones, rapid DNA, and confirmatory ballistics. I think the shift now is to the first two of those three, the things that can be done very quickly and relatively cheaply, the cell phone forensic and the rapid DNA. and I expect you'll be hearing more detail in the next couple of months as the technical consultant finishes his job.

And one last question, I'm sure, is that when we talk about last year, I think we was pushing for victim advocacy. Are we good there? I know it was about to be reduced.

Yes, we're good. Thanks to you all, we're okay. I think Ms. Indara wanted to add something, if that's okay.

Hello, this is Jessica Indengaro. I'm the Chief Administrative Officer for the DA's office. So that was approved last fall for one year. It ends June 30th, 2026. You're going to see a fresh commission packet for a new contract that would start July 1st in the coming weeks.

And that will be grant-funded, right?

We have four grant-funded victim witness coordinators. That is the process you were referring to from last year. And we were so grateful for that. But yes, we would like to have another contract for FY27. And we'll have that before you shortly.

And just to clarify, DA Steve Moore, this is not an ask for new additional money. This is simply approving grant funding.

Commissioner Mills.

Thank you. My question, we were all excited about the two new judges. Do you happen to remember who amended to cut the staffing for those two when the bill was going through?

DA Steve Mulroy, I don't. We can get that information for you, but I do know that it was done at the last minute.

I would love to know if you could get your hands on that.

Commissioner, I will be more than happy to research that and get that to all of you because I think that is an important piece of information.

I do too.

Thank you. Appreciate it. And one last, Madam Chair.

Commissioner Caswell.

So, in DA, and again, I heard you speak about the prevention and intervention piece, right? Like, at the last minute, we can find out, too, who cut the $30 million from the state, because I know the money went out east, because that, too, hits what we have to deal with. And what your cuts, your courts deal with when we... Don't put money in prevention and intervention that many of these individuals end up before our prosecutor and in our justice system and that whole cycle. Because I guarantee that cut of what that came out of also at the last minute did the cut of the $30 million for prevention and intervention and other work. So if you can help us look at that, but I know it impacts that work.

D.A. Steve Moore, Commissioner, absolutely. We'll look into that. I couldn't agree more about the need for prevention and intervention. I just want to point out, we're asking for this extra only because... We have no choice. The state thought that we needed, at a minimum, four prosecutors to staff these two courts, which probably itself isn't enough. We're not even asking for that. We're just asking for two. We originally thought that we needed two technical analysts to keep up with the flood of video. We're cutting that back to one. We understand the position that you all are in. We're not asking for the moon and the stars. We're trying to work with you, but we feel this is the minimum we need to A, keep up with the flood of video, and B, staff these two new courts.

Thank you. Thank you, D.A. Mulroy. Appreciate your time and presentation today. We'll now move on to the trustee presentation.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, members of the committee.

Tracy Newman. Good morning, Commissioners, Madam Chair. We do have an online presentation.

I think they're pulling that up now.

This is Administrator Joseph Lee from our office.

Okay.

You can proceed.

Thank you. Regine Newman County Trustee, I am going to cut to the chase here. If we could skip to page three. The first page is the cover sheet, and the second page is the statutory and charter duties and constitutional duties of the trustee. And there's a lot of historical information at the back of the presentation. But page three is going to encapsulate where we are in this budget season. Our FY26 amended budget was in column one. Our request for FY27 is in column two, and the difference between those was essentially three items. When we made the request, we asked for two non-recurring expenses in our O&M budget, And we put those requests, since they were non-recurring and were capital, in the CIP request. We were asked by the administration to move them from CIP to our O&M request, which we did. That is $614,000. The details are on the next page. And the other request we had was for the increased cost of the tax relief matching program for our low-income seniors and disabled, et cetera. These are not... costs of the trustees office. They're in the trustees budget because we administer them, but they are for all of our constituents. However, the mayor's proposed 27 budget came out. I will start at the bottom of column four. There is no money for the property tax relief matching program at all, despite the ordinance which exists. That cost for the coming year is $3.9 million. There is no money for the Greater Memphis Financial Empowerment Center, which has existed for some time, and that cost is $200,000. uh... the six hundred fourteen thousand dollars for the two one-time expenditures for effort twenty seven is not included in the mayor's budget and despite not making any increase request in our personnel section and also how we have managed to be cut by five hundred thirty five thousand dollars as best my staff can tell part of that is because some salaries are injured incorrectly existing staff members are budgeted at half their salaries. So that is a problem. We are continuing to work, the trustee staff's continuing to work with finance and at the mayor's administration to try to figure out what the rest of those differences are. I was going to provide you the funding source for our budget amendments should they not be approved, which were the three items in the column three. I cannot fund the entire tax relief matching program at this time. I will continue to look for funds, but thank you to the many of you who have agreed to co-sponsor that budget amendment resolution. I do not have the funds for this personnel change, this $500,000, which we can't even identify what it is. So I am hopeful that we will be able to bring funding sources for the budget amendments we will be bringing. but any assistance that all of you could provide would be greatly appreciated. We are especially disappointed because the $614,000 won was for three kiosks, which speeds up the receipt and deposit of money for the county. and the taxpayers love them. So that was $185,000. The remainder was for replacing 30-year-old cubicles in the trustee's office, which can no longer be repaired. So that is our third request in three years for that. I'll be happy to provide the funding for both of those items. Those are one-time expenditures. Those are not continuing recurring budget costs. So... That is the budget request. I will assist the commission in any way possible to try to discover the funding sources for the entire tax relief matching program. The details are on page two, I mean on page four, the next page of the presentation. If we could go to page four. Somehow. There. And so we didn't request personnel changes. We're trying to figure out what the half a million dollar cut is. The details on our other expenditures that we proposed are there. And then an update on the Financial Empowerment Center, our historical budgeted positions. and the historical revenue and expenditures of the Trustee's Office and collections and delinquencies. So, if anyone has any questions, I would be happy to answer them.

Commissioner Caswell?

Thank you, Madam Trustee, and again, for continuing to bring to light the ordinance and the tax relief that was put forth by this body to support it. I guess it is, unfortunately, even when we see that we have an opportunity last year with the tax rate that we didn't do what we need to do so we can make sure these things were taken care of And then to see that it's a proposed budget of 266 rate from the 269 rate, still missing the opportunity to take care of our seniors and others in our community. You know, I'm just as unhappy right now with the proposed where we are. And to see, you know, again, I appreciate all our course, when I write down the amount for a lot of these things that's been requested, I think one penny almost take care of a lot of that. But we could. And so one of the things I want to ask, just getting out of this conference, I just came back from the NOBCO, and it was good in the sense that something was brought up that other counties, and then I found out as I reached out to our state representatives that have long passed this year, that the state is even doing it, that they are now that the SEC and the FDIC have approved cryptocurrency banking capacity. The state is now investing dollars into crypto because of where we're going. We see with the federal, with the presidency, it's all moving that way. My question to you is because I have seen it and seen some investments made there. Even when you go back as far as Bitcoin, 10 cents, 15 years ago, that's now $77,000. I want to know from you, what do you think about that opportunity? Have you explore that in any kind of capacity. I've seen some other counties kind of going that way as well.

Regina Newman, Shelby County Trustee. It is against the law for counties to invest in Bitcoin in the state of Tennessee. They have not changed what the trustees can invest in. I was at a trustee conference last week. This was discussed. We are not able to include cryptocurrency in our investment portfolios.

The county is not, but the state is, though.

I am not familiar that the state is because they didn't seem in favor of the process last week. So if that has changed, I'm not familiar with it. And we invest in what they invest in. So I can check into that. But I would think that it is doubtful that they have moved in that direction. Some states have. Tennessee is not one of them. Personally, I have Bitcoin. It's been profitable. It is also extremely volatile. It is not something you want to invest the taxpayer's money in that's going to go feast or famine on a regular basis.

And I know it's a capacity of hedging, right, any type of funds you invest in. But please do. I'm going to look at it. because I haven't called their representative who told me it passed, and he told me it passed at the state level to do that. And so I just know that looking at how they are using those dollars into other investments, whether it's pension towards the retirement or other funds to help, like I talk about a lot of upstream type things for their community, it's hedging, but it's a new thing that just came out, and some of them are moving that way. So I just wanted to know if you were looking into that as a way to it.

Regine Newman, County Trustee. We don't handle the pension fund. That is other people's money. We only handle county money. And so that is the money that the budget has to run off of. So what we can invest in is somewhat limited AAA commercial papers, CDs, cedars, things like that, T-bills. And it has been that way. It remains that way through last week, according to the comptroller's office. So we'll double check on that.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am.

Thank you, Trustee Newman, for your presentation. Appreciate you. We'll move now to our final presentation, which is the Register of Deeds.

Oh, I'm sorry.

The assessor is next. My apologies. My apologies. Mr. Bailey, don't take that as a slight at all. Good to see you. Is there a presentation?

No. Okay. Jay Bailey, Chief Administrative Officer, Office of Assessor of Property. We do not have an additional presentation. We are going to live within the budget submission by the administration. I do need to bring one thing, put one thing on the record, if I can. There was a one-time expenditure of $1 million. $386,000 that the commission approved last year in amending our budget. Those funds came from monies invoiced to the municipalities for the reappraisal. Those monies are encumbered. They're not in this budget. So when you look at our budget, you'll see that they're now taken out. However, we want to make sure that we put on the record that we have not utilized all that money. The conversion, it was for the purchase of a new CAMA system, and they're still converting. We're moving from Tyler, which was our initial CAMA system, to a company called Catalysts. which is the same system that Nashville uses, Davidson County uses. But we want to just put on the record that we do expect those monies to come over. They have not been completely depleted. They're still in the middle of that conversion process. So other than that, we'll live within what the administration has submitted.

Is it reflected in the budget that the funds have been in convert?

Yes.

Okay.

Yes.

All right. Seeing no commissioners in the queue. Thank you, Mr. Bailey.

Thank you.

And now we will move to the final presentation, which is Register of Deeds. Register Brooks. Is there a presentation? Yes.

Okay.

If you'd like to introduce you and your staff that have accompanied you for the presentation.

Thank you, and good morning. To my left, I have Cheryl Floyd, who's the CEO for the Register of Deeds Office. I have Tina Richmond, who is the accountant A in our office. Okay. All right. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to come before you. We do have some requests. Just want to just give you a quick overview of the Registry of Deeds Office and what our mission statement is, and that is to ensure the accuracy of Shelby County property and land records and to preserve the continuity of those records. When we went in the office, we had a vision, and that is to provide the exceptional customer service and to enhance the technology within that office. And we have done just that. If you can move to slide three. I don't know if we have it up. Are they putting it up? I think they're working on it right now. Okay, but you do have... We do have the hard copy. The hard copy. All right, so if you go to page three... Basically, it gives you an overview of our office and the duties of the register. We have three locations, downtown location, Southbrook location, and the Mother Station location. The average daily volume for FY25 in terms of transactions through our office was 109,000. Trending, we had 123,000 average daily volume as related to the work activities going on through that office. On page four, you'll look at what our filing fees have been in terms of collections. We are trending above our FY25 revenue at $3.6 million in comparison to $2.7 million in 25 during the same time period. If you go to page four, it actually gives you a breakdown of the operation and what's going on in our archives and record management in terms of the number of records that's being recorded in our archives department from December 25 to May of 26. This is on slide five, okay? So it does give you a breakdown of our archives department. On page six, It gives, what we did is capitalize what our staffing position is currently. We have a total of 38 employees, and it gives you a breakdown of the number of positions we have in relationship to appointees and staff in our office. So this is one to kind of give you an overview of what's going on in our office. In terms of our budget summary, We have worked to increase the awareness and participation of our Fraud Alert Program. When I went into the office, it was roughly 7,000 persons that enrolled in the program. Today, we have over 42,000 persons that have enrolled in the program, and we have been very aggressive being visible in the community in terms of attending various events, churches, et cetera, to make sure that we are registering people in the program. When you look at our consensus, we had over 196,000 property owners. So what we want to do is continue to increase that. When you look at the number of cases of fraud that we had in 2025, we had 40 cases of fraud. a total of $7.2 million of loss in terms of property. In 2026, we have 36 cases of fraud at $3.1 million. We believe the increase, the awareness of what we're doing is allowing people to go back and look at the documents that's been coming through our offices that relate to fraud and so fraud only occurs when one alleged that fraud has occurred when a person submitted quit claim form and have completed all the necessary requirements according to state Therefore that document is recorded if they're in the fraud alert program they receive a notification from our office that a transaction has occurred and At that point, the property owner can either agree to what has occurred or they can disagree. And at that point, that's when they will allege the opportunity of saying something that's going on that I don't agree with. And it becomes an allegation of fraud. So that's how fraud occurs. It doesn't occur as a result of activity in our office in terms of what our staff is doing. It's a result of the documents that's been filed. where the property owner would allege that there is fraudulent activity as it relates to their property. So I kind of want to share that with you because it's important to understand the numbers and the activity and what's being impacted in terms of dollars lost as it relates to people losing their homes. And so we're continuing to increase the awareness by being visible in community events and sending churches information What I have discovered is that most people don't realize that they can enroll into the program. And that's why we are continuing to be very aggressive, being at churches, billboards, to promote this program so they can be aware of the activities. And let me just say, in the cases that we had in 2025, when we talk about 47 cases, 12 of those cases were family cases, where family members alleged fraud activities. All right? So that's very important to us. I'm going to turn it over now to our CAO. She's going to talk about the budget request that we asked him for.

Cheryl Floyd, CAO, Register's Office. A couple of things I just want to make sure that we cover today. As far as the CIP request, we're operating on a land recording system that has been in place since 2004. Obviously, the technology has changed with the semi-efficiency there. We do have an approved FY26 CIP out. and we will be bringing forth that to the County Commission for final resolution on that. We just got it back from the Attorney's Office with some red lines on that that we have to address. We are continuing to address our customer service opportunities there as well as the training for our staff. We just recently had one of our staff members to complete the Tennessee's Archives management certificate while the state does allow some stipends for that, but we definitely want to make sure that we have the opportunity within our current budget without the ask today to be able to have our staff get certified through the CTAS program. Our request for the increase today, if you go to slide eight, is we have three items that we're requesting for. As the register mentioned before, with our flagship opportunity to reach out to the individuals for the fraud alert program, obviously there's communications, there's flyers, there's different information that we have, which increase our printing request for $6,500. In addition to that, we have a satellite office out at the Southbrook location. The rental increase rate has gone up, which is comparable to the other county divisions that are out there in that facility. We were paying $1 per square foot for a commercial piece of property, but now it's been brought up to $2.50 per square foot. which is an increase of $24,000 that we would have to have in our budget to sustain our location. Additionally, we have a vehicle, a van, a Shelby County van that we use to work with our archives, storage inventory, as well as taking out and doing the campaign programs promotions for the fraud alert. The van installment maintenance fee is $2,850 and we have been making line item transfers from other areas of opportunity to cover that because we didn't have it in the budget. So our total request for FY27 is $33,350. That concludes our request. Thank you for your time.

I don't see any commissioners in the queue. So registered. I think that is it.

Thank you very much, Madam Chairman.

Yes, appreciate your time today in the presentation. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Colleagues, I believe that concludes our budget hearings for this morning. I'm following my agenda as printed, so I didn't know.

Go ahead. Oh, I'm sorry. Good morning. Audrey Tipton, Director of Administration and Finance. I guess I was thinking about Commissioner Clay Bibbs. I always call finance up at the end. To give closing remarks. Oh, sure. My apologies. I'll be very, very brief. I just wanted to point out that in your proposed book that you received, you'll see a lot of the detail that was discussed when the presenters came up and talked. So if you have any questions about anything that's in the proposed book, definitely give me a call, and I'll be glad to go over that with you. Also, I think it was mentioned that the temp benefits program that the mayor talked about was going to have a significant increase on some of the electives budgets. That's not correct. That will only be impacting the administration because that is a special program that we are looking at to do for temp it's like other companies have done this before and it's a flat fee so we've included that amount right now the amount that's included in a proposed budget is only about two hundred and forty thousand dollars and that's included so that's not going to be an impact to any of the other electeds or other departments as far as the temporary benefits And the other thing that I wanted to mention was we did follow the same process this year that we followed last year, but we cut all vacant positions that had been vacant for 12 months or older for all departments under the administration as well and electives, not the sheriff and not corrections. We did not cut their vacant positions, but we did cut 12 months or older for departments and other elected officials. I think those are the only things that I had. That's it. Okay. Commissioner Caswell.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Two questions I have. So for the temps, I know the sheriff, that also includes the sheriff temps as well? Okay.

It does.

Okay. I think that we make sure we communicate that with all those departments so they're clear on that as well.

Okay. Audrey Tipton, Director Thornton, was just telling me a lot of the attempts for the Sheriff's Department are retirees from the Sheriff's Department, so their benefits are already covered. They already have them covered.

Okay. Yeah, let's just make sure we get that clear. So the other was, I know the trustee talked about her being cut $500,000 because some salaries have been cut wrong. Is that something that you attest to that happened?

Actually, I was surprised to hear that some of her positions have been cut. I don't know what that is, so I'm going to investigate that when I get back. But I know she did have some positions that have been vacant for longer than 12 months. So those positions were eliminated as well. in order for us to balance the budget, and as far as the tax relief, the ordinance did state $2.6 million if budgeting was available, and we did check on that with our attorney, and that was the case, so that's why it's not included.

So to the administration, is it nothing that we can look at? I mean, because if that was something this body said that we support, and so we've got to keep revisiting it, is it anything that the administration needs to be looking at that say we need to be taking care of the $2.6 million? I understand at the time what the penny was at that time for the tax relief.

Audrey Tipton, the body can vote to include it.

Okay.

All right. So we will have to bring a resolution basically saying, having you go look back at the budget to see where cuts can be if we don't do a tax rate increase?

Correct, if that's what you choose to do. You can read the ordinance. It said if budgeting is available, and to balance our budget, that meant budgeting was not available.

And I heard some things around the 1% tax, I mean increase of revenue, and often the salary rate. So is that for everybody? Everybody?

We included that for everybody.

Okay. And I just heard the impact of that may not be as positive as it should be. Okay. And that's on top of what happened last year with the 5% or whatever raise?

That is correct, yes. Everybody total to date, I think, have received about 11% over the last three, four years.

Last thing, did you send a digital copy of the budget Do we have a digital copy of the proposed budget?

Oh, yes.

Okay.

Well, it's actually online at the website, but I'll make sure you can get it.

Okay. Thank you, ma'am.

Commissioner Mills?

Thank you. I have two questions. With the increase for the temporary employees, did y'all take funding already in the mayor's budget or did it increase the maintenance of effort for the mayor? It didn't increase. Well, it's in the administration, yes. It's part of the proposed budget. Okay. But did it increase the mayor's maintenance of effort since he has a maintenance of effort now that we have to maintain?

It increased the administration's budget. Now, when you talk about the mayor, it's not under the mayor's control. Department is okay.

It's in HR. Okay. Okay, and my second question I guess would be for you Do we still have our budget person for the Commission? Okay. I need to see him. Okay. Thank you Is he here today?

I don't know if Commissioner Whaley coordinated with him for today, but we can I can make sure that we have a follow-up.

I

Are you? Commissioner Morrison, if you can. Oh, your screen's not working. Okay. Commissioner Morrison, you're recognized.

Director Tipton, the 1% for temporaries that you said is just for the mayor's administration and sheriff's department, correct?

Audrey Tipton, no. The 1% is just for full-time employees. Okay. No temporaries.

But then there's another 1% for temporaries. No.

No, I thought I heard you. No, the 1% is for full-time employees. That's the 1% increase that the mayor talked about in his proposed budget. The temporary benefits.

I got you. That's the 1%. And that's not 1%.

It's just we're going to provide benefits for temporary employees.

And the fiscal note, what is the fiscal note for that? $240,000. That's what you're talking about, the $240,000. Okay. So do we fear that, like, when we've done in the past, when we've done increases for certain groups, then we, the next fall, have all the other offices showing up and saying, you know, what about me? So do we not fear that when you're doing it sort of selectively like this?

Audrey Tipton. Yes, that is what keeps me up at night because everybody wants to be whole, everybody. But unfortunately, due to our tax rate and how much our revenue source comes out to, everybody cannot be whole. So we have to rely on you guys to make a decision on who's not going to get what they want.

Commissioner Morrison.

That's all I have. That's a problem for this body, really, that seems to be a pattern.

Commissioner Clay Bibbs.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Director Tipton, can you tell me what is the dollar amount of the 1% that was built into the budget?

Okay. I have closed my laptop, but it's less than $5 million. It's about $4 million. $4.3 million.

And what was the thought process around?

Around 1%. Honestly, we were just trying to give an increase to the employees. And because our revenue source is so tight and all of the needs are so strong, that's basically what we could do.

And last year we did 6%? 5%. 5%. We did...

Last year, we did five, and then we did six the year before that because we did three in one half of the year and then three in the second half of the year.

So if it's possible, can I get in writing, I'm sure other commissioners would like this information too, just for the past, at this point, the past eight budgets that have been presented through this administration around salaries and how we've moved each year. That would be helpful.

And I think additionally, Commissioner Bivs, it would be helpful to see what departments were impacted by that salary increase because if it was the administration versus elected offices, Director Tipton, did you hear that additional? Yes. So additionally, I think the nuance is the salary increases for administration, full-time county employees, but how that also may have impacted different divisions or departments. So for the electeds, were those employees also privy to those same increases over the years so that if there was a difference in that, which we saw in some cases, we'd like to make sure that that information is more comprehensive in that way.

Good morning. Gerald Thornton, Director of Human Resources. Also, if you recall, you all voted in the $20.77 last year and those individuals went from 31,000 $500 to $40,501, that was actually an 18.5% increase plus those increases throughout the process. So some of our employees have actually received as much as a 25% to 30% increase since Mayor Harris has taken office.

You're alluding to exactly what I would like to see in writing. So I think, for me, that's what I'm trying to see. Since day one, now going into this last budget cycle of a couple months, watching how employees have increased over time, just so we can have a better idea around where we are versus each year we seem to be coming back throwing this number here, that number there. It needs to make sense to me.

Right. And also, if you recall, the DA's office and the public defender's office, some of them received as much as 80,000 increases throughout the process. And plus they also receive exponentially increases as well. So we'll try to get that document together as soon as possible. maybe as soon as monday um thank you thank you madam chair that would be quite helpful to show that department And if you recall, Gerald Thorne, Director of Human Resources, I am going to present my compensation policy. I actually did send it before the Civil Service Commission. There was various individuals in that meeting where additional increases throughout the process, so it did not go as well as I thought it was going to go that day. But that's atypical here. I lost my thought process. But whenever you all increase, I think there's maybe the miscommunications here is in that it goes across the board. I've heard various individuals saying that their people did not receive increases. I've heard two clerks today say it, but that's not true. Whenever there's a salary increase, it's across the board. When you all gave that $40,501 increase increase, it impacted all across the board, all of the clerk's office. And that's one reason why I get beat up often because I'll have various clerks coming in asking for an additional increase. Like I heard one clerk ask for a 5% increase for her personnel. I'm not going to call her out, but she asked for that 5% increase. But if you all gave that 5% increase just to that office, it would create compression across the board. All the elected officials years ago came together, and I heard someone recently say something. It may have been you, Commissioner Morrison, just recently said something about Me Too. And there's a Me Too unofficial clause within Shelby County government. So whatever the General Sessions clerk's office received, so does probate court clerks receive. Me Too. So we can't just arbitrarily give one clerk's office a 5% increase in various classifications, and then I give them across the board. Commissioner Clay Bibbs, if you recall last year, you actually had our vendor last year from Segal to come down and give a presentation on Wednesday, and those individuals told us that whenever we give those increases, it goes across the board for everyone. Because what we don't want is, like I'll use clerk Sawyer's style terminology, jumping from office to office because they're making $5,000, $6,000 more. So one of the jobs I'm tasked with doing is making sure there is continuity as well as within the salaries. So you may hear that they're not getting paid the same, or you may hear the term compression. Yes, there was some compression within the salaries. increases. However, we're actually addressing those compressions, and that's one of the issues that the current compensation policy, once you all approve, is going to address. So we're definitely working on that.

I think that's great. And for this body just to have a comprehensive understanding so we can all be singing from the same songbook. Because our task is to balance. Obviously, we want our employees to be compensated appropriately as much as possible. We're balancing that with community services. And so like the tax relief program. And so, you know, choosing which year to do it and all of that is part of our decision making. But that's very helpful.

Last thing I'm going to say is Gerald Thornton, Director of Human Resources. That is, whenever you vote the compensation policy in, you are actually affecting across the board for all elected officials, not just the clerk's offices, but whomever, sheriff's department and the like. And that's one of the things we actually do within the compensation policy is make sure that people across the board in the various classifications get paid the same amount of money. And if there's someone they may hire that has more seniority or experience, we do look at those on a case-by-case basis. Because oftentimes, believe it or not, we'll have sometimes individuals who will ask for an additional amount of money for someone they may like, right? And therefore, having been an attorney, not an attorney for every kind of government, but it does create compression as well as forms of discrimination within the workplace. And we try to avoid that as much as we possibly can.

Okay, thank you. We look forward to that information. I think it'll be helpful in making our decisions and the budget amendments that are coming before us. Commissioner Caswell?

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I just got one last, because I know this is your all last budget, right? And I know y'all, however you may be here, be where your next steps are. To that point. I'm unopposed, right, in this election. So it looks like I'm back here, right? I'm telling you, I'm back here not happy because when you talk about the compression and all that, and I heard you say about the DA, about the administration, there were big raises at the administration. When we talk about the 41,000, these people still living in poverty wages. It's a reason why we're number one in poverty and the number one black poor per capita city in the state, in the country. I mean, yeah, in the country. It's a reason why we got the Memphis Safe Task Force here. It's a reason why our schools are being taken over because we penny it. THE INVESTMENT TO CHANGE IN THE NARRATIVE FOR OUR COUNTY. WE'RE CELEBRATING PENNIES. EVEN IF WE GAVE THEM A TWENTY, IF WE WERE PAYING THEM POVERTY WAGES BECAUSE THEY LIVE IN MY DISTRICT, MANY OF THEM GOT TO WORK TWO JOBS. MANY OF THEM ARE AT THE SCHOOL WITH THEIR KIDS BECAUSE THEY'RE NOT SPENDING TIME WITH THEM BECAUSE THEY HAVE TWO JOBS RIGHT NOW. AND SO, What we're coming back with, with the fact that we just was all over the news last year, $43 million short, whatever, come November. You said it the other day. If we do this, $18 million to the sheriff, we're going to be back in August all over the news that we got the barrage from Peter to pay Paul. But yet this administration went back and came back down here with a $0.03 less tax rate. I was sitting with the Bartlett mayor a couple hours just the other day talking about how they went up $0.15, $0.12 in the tax rate then. They invested back. They're doing new streets. They're investing into their community, into their people. We can't do none of that because we celebrate a 1% or a 2% increase to people that's already in poverty and think that these clerks are supposed to be happy when we walk into their office and they got to work two jobs just to survive in this county. Fraser houses used to be $800 a month. It's $1,500 a month now or more. What are they going to do? We have to figure out how we're going to build affordable housing just to put people that work for the county because they can't afford to stay in their own county. And I've seen this happen in other cities. And so we're not winning. We're losing. And for this administration to go back and come down from 269 to 266 and still see cuts, it's disheartening to me, I just got to say. And because I know that what we're dealing with and what we're faced with in coming forward for this next commission and for the next administration that's coming forth. We're coming back in a hole. And I heard that even coming in here. We're $9 million short. We're $9 million short. Now we're $43 million short. We know we're short, but we're still not making the bold, encouraging, ask from you all to us, or for us to back to the county. People don't care. The people who was mad at us or upset at first about the phrase of the investment for those schools now celebrate out there. They try to thank you for y'all fighting for this, because they can see their children. Children don't have to go to a school that got molded and hole in the wall. When they can see where we're putting the investment, it does not matter. We can't celebrate being bottom of everything and we still making the same investments, that's all. CAO, I know you came up if you had anything.

Harold Collins, Chief Administrative Officer. Commissioner Caswell, thank you for your comments. I was waiting to see if there was question that you were going to ask of the administration and so that's why I was prepared to speak to it but since there wasn't a question then I'm not going to respond to that.

The question is why with what we were looking at last year and then just before the commission on Monday night said that we're going to be back here where we were last year having to borrow money from reserve to be able to just get through that we are not making forward investments in this county so that we don't continue to do this same thing over and over again. I don't know, I mean.

Well, I think the question is, Harold Collins, Chief Administrative Officer, I think the question is twofold. The first is when Mayor Harris presented his FY26 budget during the reassessment, petition and before that in 2025 FY 2025 this Commission stepped forward boldly to provide as the director of HR mentioned to you all hundreds of thousands of raises and percentages to employees after the budget cycle and we had to use cash reserves to pay those raises because they were reoccurring expenses. And then right after that, the FY26 budget was proposed on the assessment, and this commission decided that they would not, for various reasons, increase the tax rate. As the trustee had mentioned to you in budget retreats, that The tax rate for Shelby County had not been increased in excess of 12 to 15 years. 18 years, thank you. And then lastly, this administration has felt that the appetite collectively for increased revenue was not what They wanted to see because we had not seen it in the last couple of years as you recall There was a huge debate on January June the 30th of 2026 About a four or five percent five cent increase and that debate lasted hours and then eventually Nothing came of it. And so we believe that the appetite for this commission to find revenue was not there. And then on top of that, the state found it prudent to say that we needed to reduce our tax rate by three cent for FY27. And so that's why the administration was put and has been put in a position that we're in. Fortunately, we're able to balance our budget And we're able to at least give 1% raises to our employees and finally provide health care insurance to temporary employees so that they can stay healthy to maintain working for Shelby County government. So I appreciate your thoughts and your comments, but that's the position I think the administration has taken.

Thank you. Yes, Mr. Stewart.

And also, I'm glad you asked that question, Commissioner Caswell. Also, you heard D.A. Moore, Gerald Thornton, Director of Human Resources. D.A. Moore made a comment about the, and I heard Commissioner Mills as well, about adding two courtrooms as well as two judges. What you didn't hear was that the administration at some point, we've got to add public defenders to those courtrooms because not only do you have DAs, but there's also public defenders. There's also going to be an impact upon the sheriff department for sheriff deputies. There's courtroom bailiffs. There's all the personnel that, I mean, this is not to be a political statement, but it sounds like Nashville is against us. They open up two courtrooms. They didn't give us the infrastructure for those courtrooms. The answer is no. They gave you two DAs. I mean, I'm saying they gave you two judges, but they didn't give you any DAs, nor any public defendants, nor an additional sheriff department, nor an additional clerks and the like. So each one of those departments are going to be adversely impacted because Nashville gave us the courtrooms. I'm sorry, they gave us the judges that the government's going to be able to appoint. political appointees, and then did not give us all the infrastructure. So you're looking at over a million dollars in salaries and benefits and everything else that Nashville has given us, but they didn't really give us anything. They really taken away from us. So if you think about that, DA Moore came down and asked the four bodies. I looked at them just to operate those courtrooms. That's not including the impact that the administration is going to have to suck in for public defenders and clerks. And the sheriff's going to give additional personnel, three to four sheriff deputies per courtroom. So you're looking at eight additional personnels from the sheriff's department that Nashville's put someone, for whatever reason, did not give us. So those are the balancing acts that myself and Chief Collins and Chief Chipton here, we had to literally balance every single day. Now, the electors can often come down here, so we're not doing our jobs, but they don't really get to see the impact that we do daily. We work until 8 o'clock, 9 o'clock, every single night just to try to balance off these things.

Thank you, Mr. Thornton. I appreciate the understanding. It helps us, again, think about the full scope needed in these projects. If there are no other questions, then this meeting is adjourned.