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Follow the money. This page collects our budget coverage across every body we track: the City of Memphis proposed $898 million operating budget, the roughly $1.7 billion schools budget, the Shelby County budget, and MLGW's ratepayer spending. One place to see where the public's money goes.
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Circuit court hearings set for September 21 and 22 were postponed to November 16 and 17 at the county's request, on the strength of a September 15 council resolution that recast the blocked transfer as invoice-by-invoice reimbursement.
The 901 Report
A claimed $14 million in reserves shrank to about $3 million on correction. On September 18 the county's three commissioners voted unanimously to start with a limited audit to get the FY2027 budget numbers right, with a broader look back to 2023 under discussion.
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Protect Our Aquifer is taking a 1,000-signature petition to MLGW asking the utility to end volume discounts for its largest industrial water users and adopt a conservation structure, pointing to Jackson, Mississippi, where higher-usage tiers now cost nearly double the base rate.
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Prince George's County's council voted 8-2 to rewrite the terms of a disputed $39 million transfer from its park and planning commission days before circuit court hearings, while two of its own council members seek an independent audit of the council's "project charges" spending.
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The amendment raises the multiplier from 2.25 percent to 2.50 percent and removes a 5 percent early retirement penalty. The cost is charged to a fund created by a 2019 sales tax referendum, with an automatic step-down if that fund cannot carry it.
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S&P lowered the sewer revenue rating to A from A+ on July 14 with a negative outlook. On August 18 the Chief Financial Officer told a Council committee the system was carrying a negative claim on cash of about $13 million, one month after a $37 million interfund rescue.
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The money funds a partnership with LeMoyne-Owen College athletics, including indoor tennis courts, an expanded pro shop with locker rooms and a turf field. The project still has no CIP number, and the filed resolution opens by citing Glenview Park Aquatic Facility.
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The Parks and Environment Committee moved every item on August 18 with no questions on eight of nine. The filed resolutions carry PK-TBD where a CIP project number belongs, and two of them cite two different numbers in the same document.
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The Information Technology division asked the Budget Committee on August 18 to move another $300,000 into the line it can actually spend from. A council member asked what happens if no emergency comes. The answer was that the money stays where it is.
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The stopgap passed the House on September 1 and went to the President. If signed, the government stays funded through December 11 and the rule that would put political appointees over federal grant approvals stays blocked.
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Doug McGowen says the city and county will seek about $18 million in reimbursement for the August 22 storm. The application, the program, and the split are all still unpublished.
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The sealed report, obtained by CBS News Miami, traces settlement money owed to the state through a charity tied to the First Lady's initiative and into a political committee, and concludes nobody would take responsibility for the decision.
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The State Comptroller's office confirmed a Memphis credit rating downgrade in a letter to Mayor Paul Young and the City Council, citing billing failures and rates unchanged since January 2020, per Action News 5. The 901 Report's FY2027 budget analysis flagged the sewer fund's slide toward exactly this outcome.
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Republican legislative leaders are floating a special session to rewrite property tax appraisals after Lower Broadway bar owners complained about surging valuations. The state already built a mechanism to divert up to $30 million in convention surplus toward those tax payments.
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Mayor-elect Mickell Lowery announced his "One Shelby" transition team on August 13 and said the county needs deep financial audits, naming the payroll borrowing and the generational bills coming due: schools, the jail, Regional One, and county buildings.
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The Economic Policy Institute estimates roughly $1,961 per Tennessee taxpayer through the end of the current presidential term. DHS calls the spending vital.
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Shelby County releases capital funding to municipal school districts only after Memphis-Shelby County Schools spends its 85 percent share. The county finance director confirmed on August 10, 2026 that fiscal 2024 funds tied to an East Campus project remain unspent.
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The Shelby County Commission voted ten to one with one abstention on August 10, 2026 to allocate up to $350,000 in contingency funds for a jail study. The sponsor said the figure came from his own consulting experience rather than a formal solicitation.
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The Shelby County Commission approved a $366,623.26 contract and emergency purchase order with Access DNSI, Inc. on August 10, 2026 for low voltage and information technology construction at the Election Commission operations center. County engineering told the committee the work was completed by April 15.
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A substitute resolution handed out at the August 5, 2026 committee meeting raised the Memphis-Shelby County Schools budget figure from $1,679,759,131 to $1,799,354,177. The Shelby County Commission approved it on August 10 by a vote of seven to four with two recusals.
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Memphis Parks told the City Council on August 4, 2026 that fiscal year 2027 carries $3.1 million dedicated to Jesse Turner Park, that a resolution has not yet come to the council, and that whether the money builds indoor or outdoor courts depends on stakeholder meetings not yet held.
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The Memphis Parks director showed the council's parks committee video of six construction projects on August 4, 2026, describing them as the wrap-up of Accelerate Memphis and capital improvement dollars. No cost was stated for any project and no member asked.
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The measure would fund the government through December 11 and carries the grant-approval provision The 901 Report reported on August 4. The House must still reconcile its own version before any of it becomes law.
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The Memphis City Council authorized a financing lease up to $7,100,000 for solid waste vehicles on August 4, 2026, and amended the FY2027 capital budget to appropriate the same amount. The only floor question was about the meaning of a phrase in the caption.
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A $9 million interfund note at no interest closed June 29, 2026, borrowed by the sewer treatment and collection fund from debt service. A $28 million note from the storm water fund carries 3.761 percent, a rate Tennessee law sets. Both were reported to the budget committee August 4, 2026 without questions.
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Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library runs on two 600-ton chillers more than 20 years old and four boilers 25 years old. General services told the council on August 4, 2026 that replacement money starts in 2028 and beyond, and confirmed nothing is being added to 2027.
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The Pentagon told Congress the National Guard mission in Washington will cost an additional $1.43 billion, about $51 million a month, from October 2026 through January 2029. The number exists because a senator asked for it in writing. Nobody has asked for Memphis.
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General services walked the council through seven vacant city-owned properties on August 4, 2026. The city has an $870,000 demolition estimate and a $6 million to $10 million renovation estimate for 247 Washington Avenue. It has no demolition estimate for the Mid-South Coliseum.
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The city's federal housing and community development entitlements for the coming program year total $14,531,739. Three council members told the committee the presentation named programs without saying what they do or how many people they serve. The item moved to the floor with same night minutes and passed with no floor discussion.
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The county could not issue its payroll borrowing without an emergency waiver from the Tennessee Comptroller, because its fiscal 2026 budget was never state-approved. The fiscal 2027 budget is due August 31.
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The Memphis City Council approved Mayor Paul Young's FY2027 budget 11 to 1 on June 23, holding the tax rate flat and adding $5 million for AutoZone Park, but without the transit and violence-prevention money residents pressed for over weeks of hearings.
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The Memphis City Council delayed its FY27 budget vote on June 9 after residents demanded more funding for violence prevention, transit, and housing. The decision is due back at the Council's next scheduled meeting.
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Janika White (Super District 8-2), chairing the budget block, stated publicly that the FY27 budget cannot meet the city's needs through cuts and named a tax increase as a topic Council needs to discuss. The 10,000 housing units math gap was confirmed. The City Attorney did not mention the Tyre Nichols civil trial. The livestream dropped during the Parks presentation.
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The administration confirmed on the public record that the Memphis Police Department's proposed $29.8M FY27 overtime budget is not an operational reduction. $4-5M of it comes from a state Violence Intervention grant that expires in FY28. When the grant ends, the cost lands back on the General Fund.
The 901 Report
The first FY27 Memphis budget hearing in plain English. Council got real answers on the debt cliff, pre-K, and potholes. They did not ask about police overtime, the $13M contractor cut, or the Tyre Nichols civil trial. And the 10,000 housing units promise got quietly redefined.
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Gov. Bill Lee’s Education Freedom Scholarship Act is now a live fight for Memphis families, not a talking point. The question for Shelby County is simple: who gets paid first when the state redirects education money?
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MSCS has put a $1.7 billion budget on the table for 2026-27, and the new state-appointed board is walking into the hardest question in city schools: what gets cut, what gets protected, and who owns the fallout?
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Police and fire went before Council on May 19 in the first substantive FY27 budget hearing. The Memphis Police Department is on track for roughly $221 million under the mayor's proposal.
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72% of Mayor Paul Young's proposed $898 million FY27 budget is personnel: salaries, health insurance, and pensions. The pension piece is the one nobody wants to talk about.
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Memphis-Shelby County Schools unveiled a roughly $1.7 billion 2026-27 budget as lawmakers moved to put the district under a state-appointed oversight board.
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