The City Agreed to a $22 Hourly Floor. Its Solid Waste Budget Set Aside $704,284 for Raises, and That Fund Is Already Budgeted to Lose $4.5 Million.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - AFSCME Local 1733 announced Tuesday, August 4 that it reached a tentative agreement with Mayor Paul Young's administration setting a baseline wage of $22 an hour for city workers, with sanitation workers receiving a 5 percent increase. The agreement takes effect October 1, 2026.

The 901 Report has not obtained the agreement text and has not confirmed whether the Memphis City Council has ratified it.

What can be established is what the city budgeted for raises before the agreement was announced, because that budget is a public document adopted in June.

What the budget actually sets aside

The fiscal 2027 Proposed Operating Budget carries a line item numbered 051137, labeled Potential Raises, in each fund.

In the Solid Waste Management Fund, which pays the sanitation workforce, that line reads $704,284 for fiscal 2027. The same line was zero in the fiscal 2026 adopted budget, zero in the fiscal 2026 forecast, and zero in fiscal 2025 actuals.

Total personnel services in that fund for fiscal 2027 are budgeted at $45,860,374. Full-time salaries alone are $32,438,439. The Potential Raises line is 1.54 percent of personnel services.

Citywide, the General Fund carries $11,977,030 on the same line against $479,531,679 in full-time salaries, or about 2.5 percent. The Fire Services division alone carries $3,907,309.

The number underneath the number

The Solid Waste Management Fund is budgeted to run a deficit in fiscal 2027 before any new wage agreement is layered on.

Total revenues are budgeted at $104,591,653. Total expenditures are budgeted at $109,089,904. The net change line reads negative $4,498,251.

That is the adopted plan. A fund already scheduled to spend $4.5 million more than it takes in is the fund that now carries a $22 hourly floor beginning October 1.

Why It Matters for Memphis

A wage floor is a promise with an invoice attached, and the invoice has not been published.

Three questions decide whether the October 1 date holds and what it costs.

How many workers are below $22 today, and by how much. That number, multiplied by hours and by the benefits that ride on wages, is the annual cost. Neither the union nor the administration has released it.

Whether $704,284 covers it. If the total cost of moving the sanitation workforce to $22 exceeds that line, the money comes from somewhere else in a fund already budgeted to lose $4.5 million: fund balance, a rate increase, a transfer, or a budget amendment the Council would have to vote on.

Whether the Council must amend the budget it adopted in June. A budget adopted in June that did not contemplate an agreement announced in August is not a criticism of anyone. It is the ordinary sequence, and the ordinary remedy is an amendment. But an amendment is a public vote with a public number, which is how residents would learn the cost.

The history here is not decoration. Memphis sanitation workers struck in 1968 over pay and conditions, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in this city during that strike. A wage floor for the same workforce is a story this city will read closely, and it deserves a real figure rather than a round one.

There is a fair reading on the administration's side and it belongs here. A Potential Raises line is a placeholder, not a ceiling. Cities routinely budget a provisional amount and fund the actual settlement from salary savings, vacancy lapse, or fund balance once the number is known. Nothing in the budget prevents the city from paying more than $704,284, and the administration negotiated an agreement it presumably believes it can fund. The point is that the public cannot check that belief without the cost.

Accountability Watch

Who is accountable: Mayor Paul Young's administration, which negotiated the tentative agreement. The Memphis City Council, which adopted the fiscal 2027 budget and would vote any amendment. The Division of Finance, which manages the Solid Waste Management Fund. AFSCME Local 1733, party to the agreement.

What is pending: Publication of the total annual cost of the $22 hourly floor and the number of employees below it. Council ratification of the tentative agreement.

Timeline: Fiscal 2027 budget adopted June 2026 with a Potential Raises line of $704,284 in the Solid Waste Management Fund. Tentative agreement announced August 4, 2026. Stated effective date October 1, 2026, 57 days after the announcement.

Status as of August 5, 2026: Tentative. The 901 Report has not obtained the agreement text, has not confirmed Council ratification, and has identified no published cost estimate.

How to verify: The fiscal 2027 Proposed Operating and Capital Improvement Program Budget is a public document. The Solid Waste Management Fund appears as Total Entity 0204 in Exhibit F, Fund Detail By Category, where line 051137 Potential Raises reads $704,284 for fiscal 2027 and the fund summary shows a net change of negative $4,498,251. The tentative agreement and any ratifying resolution will appear on a Council agenda at memphistn.gov.