MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Memphis Mayor Paul Young signed an executive order on Monday, July 20, establishing a paid parental leave policy for City of Memphis employees, giving them six weeks of leave following the birth, adoption or fostering of a child, Action News 5 reported. The station reported the policy applies to all City of Memphis employees and took effect immediately.

Action News 5 reported that the leave is provided through the city's sick leave bank at no additional cost to employees, and that the effort was driven by Councilwoman Jerri Green and Councilwoman Michalyn Easter-Thomas, who worked with the mayor's administration on the policy. Young said the early months are formative and that it is important for families to spend as much time together as possible, according to the station.

The order follows a Council resolution passed in June. Action News 5 reported on June 10 that the Council approved a resolution asking Young to issue an executive order creating a paid parental leave program giving full-time employees six weeks of paid leave "for childbirth, adoption, foster care or fertility treatments." The station's July 20 account of the signed order describes birth, adoption and fostering, and does not mention fertility treatments.

The 901 Report has requested the text of the executive order from the City of Memphis and will publish the covered categories, the eligibility rules and the administrative mechanism as written once we have the document. Until then, we are not asserting that any category was dropped. We are noting that the public record currently contains a Council request and a news account of the signed order that do not describe the same scope, and that the order itself is the only thing that settles it.

The funding mechanism is the second open question. Action News 5 reported the leave comes through the city's sick leave bank. A sick leave bank is normally a pooled reserve, and how a new six-week benefit draws against that pool, whether the pool is replenished, and what the projected annual cost to the city is are all questions the order or an accompanying personnel policy should answer.

Shelby County government moved first on this. The county made a six-week paid parental leave policy permanent in April 2026 through a Paid Parental Leave Ordinance passed by the County Commission, applying to eligible full-time employees following the birth or adoption of a child, for both mothers and fathers. That distinction matters for durability: an ordinance passed by a legislative body outlasts the administration that signed it. An executive order does not. A future Memphis mayor can rescind an executive order without a Council vote.

Why It Matters for Memphis

This is a real benefit for city workers, and it is worth saying so directly. Six weeks of paid leave at the birth, adoption or fostering of a child is a meaningful improvement for police officers, firefighters, sanitation workers, librarians and everyone else on the city payroll, and it brings Memphis in line with what the county already provides.

It is also a personnel cost with no publicly stated figure. The city budget is the largest pool of public money most Memphians contribute to, and a new leave benefit affecting every full-time employee has a price, whether it shows up as backfill overtime, as a drawdown on a leave reserve, or as both. "No additional cost to employees" is a statement about employees. It is not a statement about the city.

The Oversight Question

The city should publish the executive order and the implementing personnel policy in full, along with a projected annual cost and an explanation of how the sick leave bank absorbs a new six-week benefit. A policy this good for workers is worth defending with numbers, and a policy that exists only as an executive order is worth codifying.