A Monroe City Council majority seems determined to launch a risky pay raise plan and apportion more funds to a special district with a checkered recent history, contrary to independent Mayor Friday Ellis’ fiscal year 2026 budget.
In a special meeting, the Council proposed a number of changes to the Ellis plan. Most were incremental in nature in keeping with the roughly $72 million ceiling, but a couple stood out as significant.
One shoveled $323,000 more into salary increases for city employees. The Council majority of Democrats Rodney McFarland, Verbon Muhammad, and Juanita Woods previously had expressed a desire to attempt some kind of permanent pay hike.
But to do this they reduced the total amount of money to fund pensions. The city participates in three state plans for police, fire, and other city employees that require a certain contribution level determined annually by a legislative committee on advice from the respective retirement systems, from data generally gathered before the end of the calendar year. The actual amount owed will fluctuate depending upon personnel actions throughout the year.
In other words, this strategy gambles that Monroe will owe less than projected. If off, budget adjustments could be done at the appropriate time, but the problem is that in this fashion any raise creates a relatively fixed ongoing commitment tied to a variable source of potential funding. Further, the demanded contribution rate could go much higher next year depending mainly on fund investment performance. This approach is not sound budget practice.
The revision also dumps $100,000 into the lap of the Southside Economic Development District, now approaching a quarter-century in age. The political brainchild of Democrats former state Sen. Charles Jones and former state Rep. Willie Hunter, it covers basically areas of the city south of Louisville Ave. and Desiard St. essentially excepting downtown, within which it takes the city’s hotel occupancy tax receipts. It has a vague brief in statute to promote economic development in the area.
Which hadn’t happened a whole lot in its first two decades as it doesn’t take in much revenues. The boost nearly would double its $113,000 or so in revenues gathered for the last fiscal year reported. Most recently, its board, appointed by the mayor and City Council, has taken to doling out grants for various nonprofit initiatives in the few hundreds or thousand or so of dollars, spending money on its headquarters, financial reporting fees, and web operations.
In 2022, it passed into being with the city’s approval an ambitious, perhaps overly so, 25-year revitalization plan that would require tens of millions of dollars and much more in grants from other entities. Since then, little progress has been made, perhaps as a result of rejection of city aid, quarrels over membership, accusations of illegal meetings, and, most recently, hesitation even to approve the Board of Commissioners’ meeting minutes needed to draw funding stored with the city. Last year, it banked around $40,000 to increase its reserves to about $366,000.
The apparent use for the extra dough seems not for making progress on the plan, where any recurring funding could finance some bonds to tackle at least one infrastructure project, but to supercharge SEDD’s ability to throw around more grant money in the district, which mostly overlaps the Council districts held by the Democrats. It seems to be a questionable use given the unsettled nature of the district at present and the needs of the plan.
As such, if the final budget document heads to his desk with these items intact, Ellis needs to sharpen his veto pen on these matters.
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