VOL. 127 | NO. 75 | Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Wharton Presents Budget to Council
By Bill Dries
Memphis Mayor A C Wharton Jr. takes his budget proposal to the Memphis City Council at the Tuesday, April 17, council session.
Faced with a $37 million gap between expenditures and revenue in the fiscal year that begins July 1, Wharton is expected to do what he has done in past budget presentations – offer the council a menu of options.
The meeting begins at 3:30 p.m. at City Hall, 125 N. Main St., with Wharton’s address at the top of the agenda.
“Everything is on the table,” Wharton said last week as he prepared for the council presentation, which will be followed by budget committee hearings that begin April 28 and end May 22.
Council members rejected the idea of an 18-cent, one-time-only property tax hike in March to plug a $13.2 million dollar hole in the current fiscal year’s budget. The Wharton administration originally estimated it was $15 million of red ink but revised the dollar amount down the day of the council vote.
Instead of the tax hike, the council used $10 million from the city’s reserve fund and $3.2 million from a voluntary buyout program for city sanitation workers that hasn’t been activated by the city.
Neither was among the options Wharton had outlined for the council.
Both amounts are one-time funding.
Memphis Mayor A C Wharton Jr. will take his budget proposal to the City Council at a Tuesday meeting that begins at 3:30 p.m. at City Hall. He is expected to present several options.
Also on Tuesday’s agenda is a vote on $979,000 in funding to complete plans for a Wolf River Greenway between McLean Avenue and Hollywood Street.
The council will also vote on a planned development for a wood chipping and mulching site at Knight Road and Getwell Road by MTL Environmental LLC.
And there are three resolutions totaling $1.6 million to use capital improvement program funding for three flooding projects.
The largest is $1 million to repair the damaged sanitary sewer pipe at Jack Carley Causeway and Riverside Drive at Presidents Island. Acuff Enterprises was the lowest and best bidder.
Another $236,322 is to stabilize a harbor bank where water from the Marble Bayou Pumping Station comes out. Chris-Hill Construction Co. LLC was the lowest and best bidder.
The third project is a $418,204 first phase to improve Fairley Road. The first phase puts in place a drainage infrastructure with a reconstructed roadway to follow in the next phase. Ferrell Paving was the lowest and best bidder in a rebid of the project.
At an 8:45 a.m. committee session, council members will discuss a $328,272 contract for ceiling and skylight work in both the Hall of Mayors and the council chambers at City Hall.
The work includes replacing 128 skylight windows in the hall and in the chambers of the 46-year old building.