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- Budget season in the suburbs tonight on Behind the Headlines.

[intense orchestral music] - I'm Eric Barnes, with The Daily Memphian and thanks for joining us.

We are joined tonight by Mayor Stan Joyner of Collierville.

Thanks for being here.

- Thank you for the invitation, I look forward to it.

- Absolutely, along with Keith McDonald, Mayor of Bartlett.

Thank you for being here.

- Great to be back.

- Absolutely, and it's good to have you both in the studio after so many Zoom sessions.

I also have Bill Dries from The Daily Memphian.

- It is budget season for the county, the city.

We've been focused on that and in various ways over the last few weeks, maybe a month Maybe I'll start with Collierville.

You all have approved your budget, and coming off, you know, one of the obviously most difficult, strangest, challenging years.

A couple things, and you can correct me where I got this wrong.

You all approved a budget that's about $90 million operating budget, about $13 million in capital expenses, roads and building and all that kind of stuff we'll go into that.

And $99 million to the schools, and then this was a reappraisal year where much of the county saw some, you know, on average the county was 20% increase of property taxes.

That gets adjusted down because you can't have a windfall.

But you all passed a bit of a tax increase about a 10% tax increase that brought some more revenue back in.

I guess that's the headline.

Where and why did you end up having to do this tax increase?

- Well, that's a great question and we start our budget process actually at the first of the year in January, February, start meeting on it.

And so, you know, a lot of thought had gone into that and we knew that we, because of the reappraisal, we're gonna need to roll back our rate at that time was $1.83.

We rolled back to, we rolled back 26 cents so we were starting at $1.57 and then added 15 cents to that so we're at $1.72.

That increase is gonna go where our focus has returned to and is gonna be this year, and that's on public safety.

We're starting our own ambulance service in our fire services division.

We have ordered three ambulances that will be in service, and two more as backup so a total of five.

And we will begin the process after July the 1st of hiring 22 additional firefighter, EMT, paramedic people to staff that, so start off cost on it is over $4 million, recurring cost will be about 2.

We are projecting so that part of it is the largest expense, but we've also increased our compliment in the police department.

We are, have approved the hiring of three new police officers, four part-time officers that will probably be from the retired ranks, who will come in and man our courts.

- And I wanna come back to a bunch of that, real quickly on the police.

That's three more, how many are in your police department right now?

- Oh, on patrol?

Approximately 60, 65.

- Let me bring in, and we'll come deeper into a bunch of those questions, but let me get Mayor McDonald in.

You all have not approved your budget, you got some notice in technical, legal requirements before you can do your final vote, but it looks like it's set, and you can correct me if I'm wrong.

It's overall, it's about, what is it a $57 million operating budget, do I have that correct?

- That's just the general fund.

The total schools, and everything is $180 million.

- That you're looking at around a 16%, again a similar dynamic to, for all the county where property values are up in a reappraisal year, you gotta lower your rate, but then you're raising it back around 16% increase, back up to about $1.75.

Is that what y'all are looking at?

- Yeah, ours is $1.00, I mean we do the same thing that Collierville does, we start working on this in January and try to see the trends, and of course this year that was really hard because we had this bump year that was such an anomaly and we've been given money by the feds and the State of Tennessee, and so you don't wanna use nonrecurring funds on recurring expenses, so you know, I think some of our citizens are like well you're getting all, first, they thought we were gonna get $16 million and actually you're getting 5.8 or 9.

- From the Federal Government?

- Yeah through the RF--whatever.

So, that's fine when you use that in your budget but you can't be thinking next year you know, you gotta take that out, and so as we look, now we are getting some but it is highly regulated.

That money is highly, so we can't count on it for all of our other things, and so we needed some additional money to be competitive because if they're going into the fire business, guess what?

They might be interviewing some of our folks you know?

It's a highly competitive field right now.

- And if I've got this right, part of what the increase in taxes, or increase will go to raises for full-time employees of 4% and just maintaining city services and some amount of debt service that needs to be taken care of?

I think one quote, I think I read, was that "If we don't do something now it only gets worse."

Is that about debt service or is that about other expenses?

- Well, it's in general, and you know if the board were to say okay we're not doing anything, well I have a year and a half left as mayor, I can make it, we can patch together a budget but it won't be good in the long run, you know?

- Because of debt service, because of other increasing?

- No, debt service is just part of it.

That's a million dollars for this year, but that's an ongoing thing you know.

We just issued $12 million of debt and we had to have a way to pay that back.

So, we balancing what we think we're getting in sales tax, which thankfully we had a much higher sales tax number this last year than we were expecting.

- Right, given COVID.

- Yeah because of the state shared tax.

- Yeah, let me bring in Bill.

- Mayor Joyner, on the American Rescue Plan Act funding, were you expecting a higher amount than Collierville wound up with?

- About three times higher yeah.

I think ours has come down now at 4.2 and originally it was thirteen I believe, and you know we're still have a call-in to our congressman to try and find out where, where the rest of the money is because we've found that there are lots of smaller municipalities in the state that are receiving a lot more than we are and it's hard for us to stand, and we have a meeting next Tuesday I believe with a comptroller and maybe that will clear some of those things up, we hope.

- Does you're money come through the state or does it come direct from the feds?

- Well we get it directly, and I think Bartlett does too.

Yeah, I believe that if you're 50,000 population or more, it comes directly to you, but if you fall under that then it comes to the state and it's divided out that way, by some formula.

- Mayor McDonald, to your point about what we've just been through, I think in budgeting, I think it's pretty common for local governments certainly in Memphis, it's been common to say well, every year our revenue has grown by about this amount, in the case of the City of Memphis, it's maybe $8 to $10 million usually a range.

But what we've been through has really scrambled things.

Is that some of the reason why there was this discussion about a tax hike, that you don't know if you can rely on the past economic indicators?

- Right, that's true Bill.

We have to make up these grants in our budget because that's a line item that's not coming back even though we're spending it on nonrecurring items.

It's still like last year, $4.5 million, and so as we were planning this budget I was thinking okay take out the 4.5, what do we need, and how do we keep employees.

That's a big item that's not just public safety.

You know, when they can go to McDonald's and get $15 an hour, that really puts a strain on our budgets.

So, in the next year or so we'll be doing some studies on wages, and that's why I keep saying in the meetings this is not about my administration, really.

This is about future administrations.

If I can't hire really good people now and they come in and they can't hire really good people, you know, that's not good.

Our people came to Bartlett because they wanna feel safe, right?

So, we have to do something about that.

- Right, Mayor Joyner you're experience when you sat down in January or so to start looking at this budget, did all of the old assumptions go out the window to some degree?

No?

- No, no, you know, we projected a 3% growth in revenue just like we do almost every year.

If we get more than that, that's great, but you know we're very conservative and we project very low.

We built in a 3% increase for our employees as Mayor McDonald mentioned a moment ago.

But, anytime you look at a tax increase, you don't wanna look at it for the short-haul.

You wanna look at it, you know, for several years out because you don't wanna have to come back next year, or even the following year with another tax increase.

People just, you know, citizens, taxpayers, I'm a taxpayer, don't like that that you're constantly talking about a tax increase.

So, our philosophy is when we take one we wanna take one that will sustain us for several years.

- About those tax increases, you mention people wanna go Bartlett you know because it's safe.

That's been a selling point for Bartlett, for Collierville, for many of the out layer suburbs.

Low taxes, as you just alluded to, has been another one and how much pushback have you gotten?

How many angry phone calls or emails have you gotten on your increase?

- Well, I'm proud to tell you that after three readings on the tax rate and two presentations on the budget, I've not had one person whose signed up to speak at the board meeting, I've not received a telephone call or an email about the taxes.

It's been my experience that if you tell people what you're going to take the tax increase for, and then you're truthful and you have some fidelity to your word and you deliver that, that by and large the taxpayer, you know, trust you.

They know that you're making decisions for the betterment of the whole community, and people do enjoy living in a safe community.

Living in one that has nice amenities, good school system, and all those things that come across.

I have had residents speak at meetings when I've made budget presentations at that type thing, and say I cannot believe I get all that for this tax rate.

- Yeah, for you Mayor Joyner, mentioned the schools and back in the day when the consolidation, de-consolidation on you were sort of all but another guest host or, I mean a regular on the show in that 'cause you were out front on that and your desire to have Bartlett to have its own school system or however many years into that cause.

I've no sense of time.

COVID eliminated my sense of time.

It's about seven years I think it feels like, seven or eight years.

Do you look at that as huge part of your budget?

Do you look at that as being managed that's something where's there's a lot of employees, a lot of demand for services, a lot of capital expenses?

Do you look out in the future and worry about the school budget or do you feel like that's being managed well?

- Well it is being managed well, but most of their money doesn't come from us, it comes from the state, and the feds and different programs that they run, so we do a maintenance of effort.

Were still giving them what we were giving them seven years ago.

They've manage to be able to build up really strong reserve, and now are doing a lot of updating on the schools 'cause we didn't get any updates much in the eight years prior to our having our own school system.

- Capital improvements, roofs all the boring stuff that's very important, I assume.

- That's right, so even though it is a large part of the budget, it is not necessarily a large part of what we have to pay.

- Same question to you, and you all built a big, what, $99 million high school in the last, what, two years?

Again time is kind of lost a little meaning for me.

Are you comfortable with where you're school budget is going?

Where the school board, the spending that you all have to do, beyond what the state, federal government does?

- Well, and that's a good question, and interesting question because, you know, we have oversight.

We approve the school board's budget, but we don't control the school board's budget.

We don't dictate what their spending is.

We don't, as Mayor McDonald said, we don't have a lot of control on the other sources of revenue that they receive to operate the schools.

Now it does have to be approved by the town because it is one of the funds the come under the umbrella of the town's budget, but other than that it's kind of a step back.

The thing that we are concentrating on is that we have a very good rapport and relationship with all of our school board members along with our superintendent of schools, and you know, to a great deal, trust comes into that and you know, you hire good people and you tell them what your dreams are and then you get out of the way and let them you know, take over.

- Let me bring Bill back in.

- Well one final note on the whole tax question.

The County Commission in the process of setting its budget, approved resolution that says were going to move from property reappraisals every four years to a property reappraisal countywide every two years, which means all seven of the cities reset their tax rates every two years now instead of every four years.

Mayor Joyner, do you think that's a good idea?

- I do not, I would not be for that.

I would not vote for that, you know.

It's a big deal, I can't imagine how their going to be able to do that every two years instead of every four years.

And you know, it's constant, as I said a moment ago, unsettling that, you know so, that's my opinion on it.

- Mayor McDonald, what do you think about that?

- Well, it's an unfunded mandate.

When they do it, an assessment, they charge us a sizeable fee for doing that, and so if this becomes in fact law they will then have sent us an unfunded mandate where we have to pay hundreds of thousands perhaps in money every two years rather than every four years.

I do understand it gives you a better snapshot but there's so much work in it to go the two-year route, and the cost of it.

I'm very concerned about it.

- Let me come back to, you mentioned public safety and both of you did, you know as a selling point, as an attraction for your communities.

Your adding three full-time officers and as many as four part-time officers you mentioned.

In COVID, I mean nationally it wasn't just a Memphis thing.

It was really an everywhere thing.

Big jumps in crime, and particularly juvenal crime and people have speculated and it at least intuitively makes sense, had a lot to do with schools being closed and kids being kind of unsupervised or listless or bored or you know all those things.

And your schools were by and large in-person, some hybrid learning, some closures, I mean kind of you know, everyone staggered through but by and large were open.

Did you see an increase, I'll start with you, an increase in crime in Collierville during the pandemic?

And if not, why the new police officers?

- Yeah, well I think that there was some uptick, and I'll call those, we did notice some crimes of opportunity in neighborhoods with unlocked cars and that type thing.

They really, you know, as they would drive through they would not vandalize a car but they would check and see if the car was locked.

If it was locked, they would move onto the next one.

And we got this information from porch cameras, okay?

And you know, it would be a car that would just pull slowly down the street and the back doors would open and somebody would work this side of the street, somebody would work this side of the street.

But other crimes I'm not aware that there was a lot there.

Again you're always gonna have you're bad checks, you're always gonna have shoplifting, that type thing, and I don't think that's necessarily something that it's just part of being there, you're just gonna have it.

- And so the new police are for what purpose, what drove that decision?

- Right well, not only did we, or let me back up and say that we added a patrol, a motorcycle patrol unit.

So, we actually took two police officers out of a car, and put 'em on motorcycles, so, you know, they're still doing traffic enforcement and making calls and that type thing, but we needed something to backfill the cars that they came out of.

And, so, and we need to grow our department.

As our population grows, we need to grow.

- Yeah, same, did y'all see an uptick of crime in any measure or not so much?

- Yes, in a couple of different areas.

Now we have 108 post-certified police, and we saw domestic violence go up.

- Yeah, that's a national phenomenon.

- And we saw mental health issues that caused some of those things.

So, there are things that were byproducts of the decisions we made as far as closures.

Businesses being closed and causing businesses to go out of business.

And so yes, we saw those kind of things go up, and Collierville is a little insulated because they've got Germantown, as far as crime or criminals that are coming from urban core.

'Cause we know where the people we arrest are from and a lot of them are young people.

Most of them trying to come in, and like he says, either do crimes of opportunity or in some cases steal cars.

So, that's something that as a county, we've all gotta work on, because they don't care where they're at as long as they can get something.

- I'll go back to Bill, but one last question.

This whole last year, I mean it's a couple years now you know, these debates about the role of police and the notion of defunding the police and so on.

But one of the more interesting conversations we had which I think was with some City Council folks and someone who said, you know I don't care how many police we have I just wanna use them correctly.

And we got into a conversation about is it the appropriate thing to send police to deal with mental health issues?

I mean I know that domestic violence issue which can be very literal violence, and we'll take that one off, but you know I think the example people use sometimes is you've got a homeless person, who's not threatening, doesn't have a knife, but is a disturbance and is causing trouble.

Is there another answer then the police or are the police the appropriate people to go in that situation?

- Well, we've trained our police in-depth on that very issue.

We started that training, I don't know, five years ago before it became a thing you know on television.

We were already doing that.

We were already recognizing the need, both in drug intervention.

- Drug use, not selling so much, or is both?

Drug use?

- Who's using it and then were called because you know he looks like he's dead you know and he's overdosed and he will be dead, or she.

And so we had to learn the Narcan for the police and our fire department, and so we do use both of those if we know what the case is.

If we know that home has somebody that has a mental illness of some kind, then we might make sure that the fire department goes with them because we may have to transfer.

- Yeah, yeah, I saw you nodding before I go to Bill, I mean those notions of like de-escalation training and I'm not maybe using the right terminology, but have you all embraced that, that you're gonna send the police but it's not always guns out?

- Oh yes, and that's not something new.

We've had, as Mayor McDonald said, we've had trained negotiators, you know for a long time.

It's been my experience though in observing these things is that, when you send a negotiator you've gotta have someone that's willing to negotiate.

A lot of times it's so far down the road that there's not a lot that you can do other than take 'em into custody.

- Yeah just a few minutes left here, Bill.

- Alright, Mayor McDonald you've made a decision not to run for office again.

Are you gonna, and we should point out, you would leave office at the end of 2022.

So, a while to go.

Are you gonna miss this?

- Oh yeah, You people have asked me all through these 19 years now, you know, do you like what you do, and my answer's always been most days.

You know, there's the tedious things I will not miss.

I believe that mayors of communities need to be focused on vision, but everybody wants to talk to the mayor about their garbage or their grass, or their neighbor.

Yeah, we do those things, but that really, I mean we have people for that.

We hired really good people for that, and of course, everybody knows me.

You know, if a policeman pulls them over they say, "Well, I know the Mayor," you know, so.

It's not to say that any of that is beneath us.

We are public servants, we ran originally as alderman and got into this business for serving people and making their lives better.

So, I am concerned, I have a meeting tomorrow with a citizen, and I don't know that I'm gonna be able to do anything but split the baby on it because of the information I've been given, but I'm gonna spend probably an hour, hour an a half on that.

It needs to be vision.

Whoever's running, whoever wins, that's what they've got to be thinking about the next four years for them, they need to have a vision of what it looks like at the end of four years and a road map to get there.

- Mayor Joyner, different subject.

Let me ask you about the concern about how businesses would fare during the pandemic.

What is happening with businesses in your community now that we are on a somewhat steady path back.

- I think, you know, that you see as they begin to reopen and the stores begin to refill I think you see a real feeling of optimism that we are onto recovery, and that's a positive thing.

There were some dark days there back this past year, and people began to, it began to outwardly show, you know, the stress and the strain on business people, but I think there's an optimism out there, especially with the vaccine, the number of people that have been vaccinated.

If we can continue that I think we'll see things even better.

- Alright, we will leave it there.

Thank you both, thank you both for being here.

This means that if I get pulled over in Bartlett I'm gonna call you?

I'm just gonna mention your name and you're gonna get me out of there.

- You can mention it and they'll say that's good.

- Thank you for being here.

- If you get pulled over in Collierville, call me.

- I will do that.

- Thank you all for joining us.

Next week we will have a conversation about the aquifer as well as the pipeline.

Join us then, but thanks and goodnight.

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