At the conclusion on Monday of what had been a marathon discussion
of a resolution aimed, ever so indirectly, at prohibiting
discrimination against Shelby County employees based on sexual
orientation, the Shelby County Commission next turned to the rest of
its agenda. In an emotional sense, it was a moment of anticlimax. In
the larger governmental and political senses, it was anything but. In
the vernacular of politics, there was a lot still left on the
commissioners’ plates — much of it potentially unpalatable.
The next item up on an agenda that would stretch through the middle
evening was a measure to establish a new prevailing wage ordinance for
the county. In seeking to table the ordinance, which ultimately passed,
Commissioner Mike Ritz invoked a malapropism once uttered by a member
of a previous commission, Minerva Johnican. Ritz asked that this
measure, too, like one which Johnican had opposed a generation ago, be
relegated to “Ponderosa’s Box.”
The commission and the City Council now find themselves beset with
difficult issues that have lain dormant for too long and now swirl
about them. Worse, they can’t be stuffed back into the box —
Ponderosa’s, Pandora’s, or whoever’s.
The most vexing issue for both bodies is budgetary. The commission
and council are each faced with an approaching fiscal-year deadline
with numbers that perversely just won’t add up.
In the case of the commission, most of the discussion Monday
afternoon, as before, had to do with draconian personnel cuts proposed
across the board of county agencies and departments. Some 100 employees
overall, 31 of them in the Sheriff’s Department, were slated for the
outbox unless the commission chose to authorize new revenues. County
mayor A C Wharton had made it clear he welcomed such a development, but
the commission would have to make the first move.
Against all odds, it did so on Monday — though it needed to
employ some rhetorical sleight of hand. The present county tax rate is
$4.04 per $100 of assessed value, with the rate applied by state law to
only 25 percent of that value (thus, $1,515 annually in the case of a
property assessed at $150,000). Acting on a motion by Commissioner Mike
Carpenter, the commission gave its preliminary approval to lowering the
tax rate to $4.02, and the debate centered around whether that figure
represented a tax-rate reduction or a tax increase. In actual fact, it
is something of both, since the 2008 appraisal carried out by the
county assessor’s office was substantially higher, on average, than
previous appraisals. Lower rate plus higher assessed values equals more
revenue — and more tax required of most property owners.
The City Council’s dilemma is similar (see Viewpoint, p. 17), with
council members facing an unappetizing choice between retrenchment of
city services or a possible tax increase. The council’s choice is
complicated by the fact of still unresolved litigation involving the
extent of city government’s financial obligations to Memphis City
Schools. However the council ultimately resolves the problem, something
will have to give. What is required is some serious original thinking
— outside the box, as it were.
