A Budget to Accelerate Our Momentum Mayor Jim Strickland Presentation to the Memphis City Council, April 16, 2019 Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the Council. As is our custom for the second meeting in April, I’m here to lay out our vision and to propose our 2020 fiscal year budgets. Henry Ford once said, “ Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success. ” For the last three years, we have worked extremely well together. And, now for the fourth
time, I’m looking forward to collaborating with you on a budget that meets the needs of our citizens in a responsible and meaningful way like we’ve done since 2016 focusing on core city services — public safety, paving roads, and picking up your trash. Before I get too much further, I think it’s important that we all remember what we’ve been able to accomplish by working together over these last three years: • First and foremost, our employees are the lifeblood that make City government work. Over the last three years, we’ve worked hard to show our appreciation by raising pay and offering improved benefits (especially in this budget proposal, as City government will be absorbing the rising insurance costs for employees and not placing 2 | P a g e
that burden on them). Now, would we like to do more? Of course, but the reality is that we only have so much money to go around. • After years of underfunding, we have paved 90 percent more roads in our first three years than the three years immediately prior, and we are proposing to do even more in the upcoming fiscal year. • We’ve continued to increase what we do for our young people and are going to do even more. Thanks to your partnership last year, we initiated what has become a community-wide effort that will result in free, universal needs-based Pre-K for the first time in our history. 3 | P a g e
• And, we’ve further shored up our pension fund. For the first time since 2006, we will fully fund our pension in this year’s budget. That ’ s right — the first time since 2006. Now, if you’ve heard me say it once, you’ve heard me say it a hundred times — Memphis has momentum — more than we have experienced in a long time. Today, I am presenting a budget that will help City government do its part to accelerate that momentum. Such as, we are proposing a 3% pay increase for public safety employees and a 1% increase for all other employees. 4 | P a g e
It’s not revolutionary, but it is absolutely necessary to recruit and retain quality employees and further demonstrate that City of Memphis government is truly a great place to work. Since 2016, public safety has been a top priority of mine -- as I know it has been for you, and is the No. 1 priority we all hear about in every neighborhood in every corner of our city. When we came into office, police recruiting had been nearly non-existent, and we were beginning to feel the negative effects of it. Fortunately, we have hired 423 more police officers in our three years, added 115 PSTs and have 71 recruits in the academy now. We are continuing the long- term work of rebuilding MPD. Shortly after I became Mayor, we were down to roughly 1,900 officers. Now, we’re back 5 | P a g e
over 2,000 -- and we are working to be at 2,100 later this year. Our goal is to be at 2,300 by the end of 2020. Now, let’s talk about p aving —it’s an expensive but very necessary budget item. Just like public safety, this is one we all hear about in every neighborhood in every corner of our city. With your partnership these the last three years, we have dramatically increased paving. But, because of years of underfunding, you can still drive throughout our city and easily see where more work is needed. So, for the fourth year in a row, we are proposing another increase to pave our city streets. 6 | P a g e
The next area I want to accelerate is our service to the youth in our City. And in just about every community meeting I attend -- and I’m sure it’s the same for you -- someone suggests that “we need to have more productive things for our young people to do”. Well, I agree. Over the last three years we ’ve made summer camps free at community centers, we started and made free spring break camps, added literacy education to spring and summer camps, introduced staffed summer play at 20 City parks after its absence for decades, and the number of youth participating in our library programming has more than doubled. In addition, we increased City youth summer jobs by 50% -- the second increase since taking office . In today’s budget proposal, I’m asking for yet another increase – to ramp up our summer jobs which will be a 75 percent increase over three years. 7 | P a g e
Having said all that , we’re still missing an important segment of young people. In 2015, Memphis was said by one national study to have the highest percentage of “opportunity y outh ” of any city in the country. Opportunity youth are young people between 16 – 24 years old, out of school, and chronically unemployed. These young people are not being reached by our traditional means, and we must do more if we’re going to help them change course. To try and do that, we’ve been working with members of The Collective, representatives from Shelby County Government, WIN, Memphis Athletic Ministries, Memphis LIFT, Moore Tech, TCAT, Tech 901, Boys and Girls Club, Regional One and others. Over the last several months, this group has created a multi-pronged plan to reconnect opportunity youth in Memphis. This plan addresses poverty and crime in our city 8 | P a g e
in a new and meaningful way. We will work with our partners to reconnect our youth by meeting them where they are and focusing on enrollment and attendance in school. Through our partners, we will try to help them find full-time employment in careers in which they can grow. And lastly, help them find meaningful early work experiences. Young people are the future of Memphis, and their success o r failure will define our city’s path for years to come. We must substantially change what our community does for opportunity youth if we want better outcomes. If not us — who? If not now — when? 9 | P a g e
I’m excited about this proposal and I hope you will be to o. I look forward to discussing this more in depth and working with you to make this plan a reality. Now, you’ve already heard me talk today about how this budget is geared toward every neighborhood in every corner of our city. And I mean that. Ours is a neighborhoods-first administration. And like I said in our State of the City speech a few months back, as much as we celebrate all that’s going on Downtown, it’s just as important what’s going on down the street. Based on the strong input from 15,000 Memphians all across our city, Memphis 3.0 is our road map to build up, not out – and to invest in our core and our neighborhoods. For far too 10 | P a g e
long, certain areas of our city have not seen the type of development we would all like to see. So, in this budget, I’m proposing the creation of two new, recurring funds that will help turn that corner. One, you already know about because we discussed it in January – it’s the Community Catalyst Fund. As far as I can tell, it’s the first time City government has created a dedicated, recurring source of funds solely to improve infrastructure in key anchors of neighborhoods throughout our city. By investing in our neighborhoods through the Community Catalyst Fund, we’ll work hand in hand with neighborhoods to identify infrastructure we can improve to 11 | P a g e
jump-start private development – and to send the visual message that every neighborhood is important. The other fund, we haven’t talked about – and I’m proud to announce it today for the first time. It’s called the Memphis Affordable Housing Trust Fund. For far too many families in Memphis, housing takes way too much of their income. It’s a problem that’s gotten worse. And, as outside funding streams have reduced in recent years, it’s time for City government to step in and help Memphis families, particularly our most vulnerable. By providing grants and loans, the Affordable Housing Trust Fund will be used for new construction and rehab of 12 | P a g e
multifamily homes, as well as minor home repair and rehabilitation of single family homes for those who qualify. Though the Memphis Affordable Housing Trust Fund will go a long way toward improving our neighborhoods, it will also be a great tool in our ongoing fight against poverty. In addition, this new fund will be a strong complement to our Health, Education and Housing Board that has rehabilitated or built over 5,100 affordable housing units over the last three years. There are many details to this, and we look forward to sharing them with you in the coming weeks and months. With both of these funds, I’m asking us to work together to 13 | P a g e
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