Six Municipal School Districts Have Not Received Their 15 Percent Capital Share for Three Fiscal Years Because Memphis-Shelby County Schools Has Not Spent Its 85 Percent.

SHELBY COUNTY COMMISSION

MEMPHIS, August 10, 2026 - Municipal school districts in Shelby County have not received their share of county capital improvement funding for fiscal years 2024, 2025 and 2026, and the reason is a formula that ties their money to spending by a district they do not belong to.

Commissioner Amber Mills raised it at the August 10 commission meeting while the body was considering the Memphis-Shelby County Schools budget.

She asked the county finance director whether the failure to release the municipal 15 percent share is a county problem or a consequence of Memphis-Shelby County Schools not spending its capital money for those years.

How the formula works

The finance director confirmed the mechanism. Memphis-Shelby County Schools must spend its 85 percent share before the county releases the 15 percent to the municipal districts.

She said fiscal year 2024 is the year the county allocated funding for the East Campus and that the district has not expended those funds, which would be the holdup on the 15 percent going out to the municipals.

On fiscal 2025 and 2026 she said she was not certain, that she thought the county had expended all of the funding, and that she would check.

Commissioner Mills said that according to the municipal districts' own paperwork, the money has not come in for those years.

The wheel tax question

Commissioner Mills raised a second item. She asked why municipal districts have not received their portion of the wheel tax, naming Arlington Community Schools and citing roughly $342,000 in tax with about $85,000 at issue.

The finance director said wheel tax revenue is calculated within the revenue issued as maintenance of effort, and that the county has allocated funding to all of the municipals out of the maintenance of effort amount.

Commissioner Mills said the districts had reached out to a county senior accountant who prepares revenue reports. She said the districts are being held up, that the situation is better than it was before the current term, but that they are still having to use reserve funds.

The finance director said she and a deputy director would look into it and make sure everything has been paid out.

The report that does not exist yet

The same afternoon, Commissioner Michael Whaley asked the finance director for what he described as an aging report of capital dollars by year, going back to fiscal 2024, so the commission can see how much is being carried forward.

She said the county used to include that schedule in its quarterly report, that since transitioning to the Oracle system the county has not been able to produce it, that the county has been tracking the dollars, and that it will appear in the coming quarterly report.

Commissioner Whaley said this is history repeating itself, that a backlog of older unspent dollars was a challenge the commission inherited when many of its members first took office, and that it led to the revision creating the 85 percent rule. Under the previous policy, he said, a district had to spend the entire allocation or receive nothing. The change improved matters but left the 15 percent able to compound over five years.

He said the aging report would tell the commission for certain whether the fiscal 2024 funds have been paid out to the municipals.

What happens next

The county finance director committed to check whether municipal districts were paid for fiscal years 2025 and 2026, to look into the wheel tax question with a deputy director, and to include an aging schedule of capital dollars by year in the county's next quarterly report. No deadline was attached to any of the three.

Your city. Your money. Your receipts.