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August 30, 2006 I just received an email from a brave soul with knowledge of Shelby County government. Thank you for alerting watchdog. The message points out an upcoming bid package for the County BID NO SB I001230 for Dell Computers. The bid due date is September 12, 2006 at 2:30 PM. The whistle blower points out that the County can buy Dell computers off of a State contract for a very cheap price with a considerable savings over the likely winner of this bid, Thomas Consultants. Click here to see the County bid sheet. Watchdog has posted a lot of information on Thomas Consultants in the past pointing out their successful contracts with the MLGW, the City of Memphis and the County. Here is a partial list of Thomas Consultants deals. • MLGW for $1,974,572 • MLGW for $1,420,812 • City of Memphis thru the ACS contract for $2,351,055 • Shelby County Government for $934,856.21 We have been told that Thomas Consultants does a good job. The point is what is it costing the taxpayers for these minority contracts? We do not know although the Shelby County contract appeared to cost more than a quarter million dollars over and above the Gateway price. The success of Thomas Consultants raises the question of whether this firm should be graduated. I refer to a letter dated April 20, 2004 to the Mid-South Minority Business Council from Carlee M. McCullough, Esq., Contract Compliance Officer. In this letter she pointed out the graduation of Gipson Mechanical. Surely Thomas Consultants more than meets this requirement and no longer deserves special consideration at the expense of the taxpayer. Click here to read about Gipson Mechanical's graduation from the minority preference program.  July 13, 2006 Watchdog decided to see who in Memphis has contributed to Mayor Wharton’s campaign, how some of the money was spent and how much is left over. ($283,369.06 as of 2/21/06). It is very revealing to see the same contributors come up again and again.Quickly going through the list we see the following familiar names. Note the payments to Roscoe Dixon, Michael Hooks and W. W. Herenton. Expenditures Committee to Re-Elect Mayor W. W. Herenton 5/14/03 $2,000 Roscoe Dixon, Contract Services 5/27/03 $3,000 Friends of Roscoe Dixon 9/03-9/04 $1,000 Friends of Michael Hook 9/03-9/04 $1,000 Roscoe Dixon Senate Campaign 9/03-9/04 $1,000 Yo! Memphis 9/03-9/04 $500 Robert J. Lanier, Salary 9/04-9/05 $23,345 Robert J. Lanier, Salary 9/05-12/05 $9,338 Contributions Ron Belz 9/02-9/03 $333.40 Jack Belz 9/02-9/03 $666.60 John and Lisa Bobango 9/02-9/03 $2,000 total J. Bayard Boyle Jr. 9/02-9/03 $500.00 Charles E. Carpenter 9/02-9/03 $500.00 Gregory M. Duckett 9/02-9/03 $250.00 Federal Express Pac 9/02-9/03 $5,000.00 James F. Huntzicker 9/02-9/03 $500.00 Jim Rout for County Mayor 9/02-0/03 $500.00 Autozoners for better government 9/03-9/04 $1,000 Jack Belz 9/03-9/04 $1333.20 Ron A. Belz 9/03-9/04 $666.80 J. Bayard Boyle Jr. 9/03-9/04 $1000.00 Committee to Elect Dr. W. W. Herenton 9/03-9/04 $1000.00 Reginald French 9/03-9/04 $1000.00 Arnold E. Perl 9/03-9/04 $1000.00 Darrell K. Thomas 9/03-9/04 $1000.00 Henry M. Turley 9/03-9/04 $1000.00 Dan B. Turley Jr. 9/03-9/04 $1000.00 Ricky E. Wilkins 9/03-9/04 $1000.00 We have posted the contributors and the expenditures. Take a look and you will see many of the same contributors as on the Herenton list. Click here to see who contributed to Mayor Wharton. Click here to see who got paid from Mayaor Wharton's war chest. June 26, 2006 Watchdog has been trying to find out the rules and the true cost of minority purchasing requirements in Memphis City government, Shelby County government, MLGW and other branches of local government. Here is an interesting example. Click below to read the recent open records request to the Shelby County government. Click here to read watchdog's open records request to Shelby County government. Last Friday, watchdog went to the Shelby County Office building and met with various personnel. They were very competent, friendly, open and cooperative. Watchdog was trying to find out what the cost of minority preferences was on various contracts. First we went to the finance division where we looked at various invoices over the period requested. We found no invoices from Reginald French or Integrate Technologies, no invoices from Associated Softworks or Affiliated Computer Services, No invoices from Monguinn Enterprises and a very small amount from Mitchell Technology Group. However we found lots of invoices from Thomas Consultants (Darrell K. Thomas) starting in 2003 and running through 2004. The total for this period as we calculate it is $934,856.21. But the important fact about this revelation is how it came about. We were trying to determine if Thomas got this amount of business through competitive bidding. There was in fact a sealed bid process as shown on the documents below. Click here to see the paperwork and bid evaluations of this multi million dollar bid on computers for the county. It was sealed bid No. I000745 dated 3-25-03. There were 17 RFB’s sent out and 7 bids received. The total pricing is shown on the attached documents and it shows that Thomas Consultants bid $7299.00 versus Gateway Companies bid of $5383.00, a 26% difference for desktop computers. There is a point award process that awards 50% of the points to price and the balance to other factors as shown. The selected companies were Gateway at 97.13 total awarded points and Thomas Consultants at 76.23. On the basis of this analysis each company was awarded an estimated annual expenditure of $3MM over a three year period, $6MM total. This decision was signed by Sybille S. Noble, Administrator of Purchasing on 7-7-03. What actually happened? In response to watchdog’s open records request, we found that Thomas Consultants received purchase orders for $934,856.21 and Gateway received orders for $39,572.00. At 26% price differential, this means that the taxpayers paid $232,773.00 extra over and above the Gateway price. There is no explanation and no justification for this split of the orders other than what you can read on the attached documents. Shown also is an example purchase order to Thomas Consultants for 50 A-OPEN computers at $1231.75 ea. These orders went to most branches of Shelby County government including but not limited to the following. • Shelby County Election Commission • Shelby County Sheriff’s Office • Shelby County Regional Service • Shelby County Support Services • Shelby County Public Defender • Shelby County General Sessions • Shelby County Code Enforcement • Shelby County General Sessions • Shelby County Fire Department • Shelby County Corrections Center • Shelby County Health Services • Shelby County Attorney • Shelby County Housing • Shelby County Assessor and of course the Shelby County Mayor The initial contract was renewed for another year until June 30, 2005 and probably beyond. Obviously the word has come down that the orders are to go to Thomas Consultants, not Gateway. In addition Mayor Wharton nominated Darrell Thomas to the Shelby County Healthcare Corporation. Thomas Consultants also sells medical billing software. Again, our question is “What is the cost of minority set asides? The taxpayers need to know what these programs are costing and are these extra costs being fairly and evenly distributed in the minority business community or just to a favored few.” Here are other Thomas Consultants deals. • MLGW for $1,974,572 • MLGW for $1,420,812 • City of Memphis thru the ACS contract- $2,351,055 It is obvious that Mr. Thomas is well connected to all branches of local government. May 5, 2006 I recently sent an open records request to the Shelby County Election Commission and got a reply fairly promptly. I must admit that dealing with Shelby County on open records request is much easier and nicer than MLGW. I requested salary, pension and benefit information and also the operating budget, legal expenses and contract information. This is basic information that should be posted for all government units but is not. There are several interesting things shown below. • The election commission budget was $3.03 M in 2003 and is projected to be $3.79 M in 2007. It varies with the number of elections in the budget cycle. • Monice Hagler Tate does the legal work for the election commission. • Two contracts with the election commission were interesting. One was with Watkins & Uiberall, PLLC and Banks, Finley, White & Co. for the examination and tabulation of votes for elections held in FY 05/06. This contract was for $49,000. • The other contract was for Small Planet Works, Inc run by Janice A. Banks, President and CEO. The scope of the work for $24,000 is shown below. • The salaries and pension dates are shown below. Benefits include life and medical insurance. The board members also receive life and medical insurance and they along with the employees pay 30% of the medical premiums. All five members of the board have life insurance but only O. C. Pleasant and Richard Holden have medical coverage. You have to ask yourself if our election process was well served by these two vendors in retrospect with the actual vetting, voting and verification problems we have had iin recent elections. Click here to see salaries and pension information on election commission staff and board. Click here to see waltkins uiberall invoice for election examinaion and tabulation of votes. Click here to see small planet's bid proposal for work at the election commission. June 16, 2006 Some time ago someone sent an email to watchdog and asked how many appointed positions were in Shelby County Government. Since we have written a lot about the appointed positions in the City of Memphis Government and the fact that around 110 positions are allowed by the City Charter but the Mayor has over 400 and the fact that the City Council passed the January 2001 pension resolution which could allow them all to retire after 12 years regardless of age and start receiving their pensions and health care benefits immediately, we thought we would ask the County the question. As usual, the County was very prompt and cooperative and gave us the information. First let me say that there is no similar January 2001 pension resolution that applies to these county employees but I was surprised at the number and the dollars involved. The county charter does not have any restriction of appointed employees like the City Charter supposedly has, and they have a lot more elected officials so the number is probably not surprising but it is a lot of dollars and people. We have attached below a list of all the appointed employees in the following offices. • TRUSTEE • SHERIFF • REGISTER • PROBATE CLERK • PROBATE JUDGES • JUVENILE COURT JUDGE • JUVENILE COURT CLERK • GENERAL SESSIONS JUDGE • GENERAL SESSIONS COURT CLERK • LEGISLATIVE • COUNTY COURT CLERK • CRIMINAL COURT CLERK • CIRCUIT COURT CLERK • CHANCERY COURT CLERK • ATTORNEY GENERAL • ASSESSOR • MAYOR The total annual salaries of these 573 employees is $33,501,341.86 of which 47% is in Mayor A. C. Wharton’s office. Looking at the employees in Wharton’s office we see some familiar names such as • Ricky E. Wilkins • Dedrick Brittenum Jr. (Now also on City Council) • Monice H. Tate • John L. Ryder • Martin W Zummach • Mark E Beutelschies • Gordon B Olswing Lots of legal talent there mostly on a part time basis. Also one other point we note is that county employees are employed for 37.5 hours per week, not the normal 40 or more hours of the taxpaying stiffs who work in private industry. Click here to see shat your taxes are paying for in Shelby County Government. April 4, 2006 In a recent open records request, we asked for and received information on the salaries and benefits of the part time and full time lawyers working for the Shelby County Attorney’s office. In that request we also asked for the years of creditable service for these attorneys and we finally received the information as shown on the attached file. The attorneys working for Brian Kuhn are designed in the first column as “COATTY”, county attorney. The others work for various divisions of county government. The job title column shows those that are full time and part time. Note that the full time attorneys theoretically work 37.5 hours per week. The last column shows the years of creditable service towards their pensions. There is a national movement to change public pension systems to a defined contribution system and away from a defined benefit system. This is in fairness to the hardworking taxpayers who mostly work in the private sector where a defined benefit system is almost unknown. Some local candidates for the county commission are calling for this change and they are right. We can no longer afford the current system. Click here to see which attorneys are on the county pension system and how many years of creditable service they have.  April 17, 2006 Welcome to April 17, tax day. There is a story this morning in the CA about an argument between the Shelby County School System and the Shelby County Board of Commissioners. They are arguing about who should pay for a new County School to the tune of over $10 million dollars. As we taxpayers struggle to pay our Federal and State taxes we need to consider how to get out from under our mountain of local debt. Consider that the CA and Mayor Wharton have been saying that the county debt is $1.7 BILLION dollars. In fact it is $2.09 BILLION as of February 28, 2006. The City of Memphis debt is over $1 BILLION. Consider that this is over $3 BILLION for Memphis and Shelby County. The long term debt for the state of Tennessee is $1.2 BILLION. Enough to make you cry. What must be done? 1) Bring spending under control by changing the City Charter first and then the County Charter later. 2) Work out a school financing plan that only costs the taxpayers $1 for each $1 spent on a new County school, not an extra $3 to the City Schools for each $1 spent on new County Schools. This is the main factor in the huge county debt. 3) Independent audits of major expenditures as oversight and public exposure is lacking in both the City and the County. Many other steps need to be taken to bring this huge debt under control. Click below to see the County debt problem. Click here to see how much you owe as a resident of Shelby County. March 31, 2006 In a recent open records request, we asked for information on Shelby County Attorneys, their salaries, retainers, per diem pay (hourly rate), whether they were on the pension system and whether they were receiving health care and other benefits. After some back and forth with Brian Kuhn, we were grudgingly given most of the information. We have posted a spreadsheet below to show what we obtained. Some of it is interesting due to the political connections apparently necessary to get one of these part time jobs while still getting county regular county business. Kathy Kirk is Cleo Kirk's daughter. Cleo Kirk is a sitting county commissioner. Gordon Olswing is in Charlie Perkins' firm. Charles Perkins is a past county commissioner. Dedrick Brittenum replaced Janet Hooks on the City Council and is in the firm with John Farris and John Bobango. Farris and Bobango are prominent representatives of Time Warner and are opposed to competition from Networx at MLGW. Mark Beutelschies is Tommy Hart's son-in-law. Tommy Hart is a former county commissioner. I'll never get the logic of why the county pays part time attorneys on a retainer basis, nor why they give them pension and health care benefits. Do all part time county employees get retirement and health care? Click here to see the full time and part time county attorneys and what they make in salaries and benefits. Click here to see what Shelby County paid to outside attorneys some of whom are part time employees. Click here to see what Shelby County paid to outside attorneys some of whom are part time employees.  March 21, 2006 My name is Joe Saino and I have been active in open records requests in Memphis and Shelby County. After filing a suit in Chancery Court in February of 2005 as a result of a refusal to open the records of the City of Memphis, I have been able to get many records that needed to be reported to the public. I have been regularly reporting the results of these open records requests on memphiswatchdog.org. In my opinion, nothing is more important in keeping politicians and governmental bodies honest than good ethics laws and open records laws. I hope that local and state governments will propose strong ethics laws that apply statewide and also apply to local governments such as Memphis and Shelby County. However politicians hate tough ethics standards and tough sunshine laws. Concerning open records laws I have some proposals based on real world experience that I think should be part of any ethics and open records proposals. a) Local government units and boards should be required to post on the internet the following basic information and be required to keep it up to date. These postings will cut down on the number of open records requests. • Names, job titles, salaries, benefits, job descriptions, pension information such as years of completed pension service. • All contracts and bidding results on those contracts should be posted and payments based on those contracts should be posted. This would include HCD and MHA contracts and personal service contracts. • Audits of governmental units and pension plans should be posted. • Personnel policies, pension rules and job postings should be posted. • Pilots granted should be posted and all active Pilots and dates that they end should be posted. • All studies and outside governmental recommendations should be posted. • All agendas, minutes and ordinances should be posted. b) The person requesting the information should have the option to get the information in an electronic form (on a disc or email) if the documents that are presented to be reviewed came from a computer. If the documents are not in an electronic form, then the cost of the copy should be the same as any office supply shop (currently 6 to 8 cents per copy for an 8-1/2 x 11 black single sided copy) and the governmental unit should not be able to set any price they choose. (They are currently charging 25 cents to 1.25 per copy). They currently refuse to furnish it in an electronic form even though it is obvious that the offered copies come from a computer printout. The disc cost, if offered, should be the raw cost of the disc and not include labor and research. (See a recent email from Brian Kuhn, the Shelby County Attorney to see their attitude concerning this subject). c) Email records are increasingly important and should be made available on a disc with the same cost provision as above. Rules should be set to prevent destruction of email. d) Police records are a problem in Memphis and Shelby County as the police department is very hostile to records requests and require a front end fee before they will do anything. They should be subject to the same rules as any other unit of government. e) The requested records should be provided in a timely manner and this should be made specific with a maximum of one month from the date of request. f) Penalties should be harsh for a refusal to provide the records if the refusal requires the person asking for the records to file suit. It is apparent today that newspapers and TV media do not have the resources to do the research necessary to turn up governmental waste and fraud and it is up to the citizens through strong open records laws to take up the slack and to prevent further Tennessee Waltz type incidents. Governments generally like to operate in darkness. Taxpaying citizens want sunshine and transparency. Click here to read emails back and forth in order to get public records from Shelby County Government and they are one of the best in this regard.  WATCHDOG IS NEITHER REPUBLICAN NOR DEMOCRAT. WATCHDOG BELONGS TO THE TAXPAYERS' PARTY AND OUR PLATFORM IS HONESTY AND TRANSPARENCY IN GOVERNMENT. BUT WE APPRECIATE A GOOD AD. GOOD LUCK IN THE ELECTION MR. RITZ, WE NEED MORE NON DANCERS IN GOVERNMENT November 4, 2005 We received the following copy of a letter from Bob Patterson, the Shelby County Trustee, to Brian Kuhn, the Shelby County Attorney. It is the story of how difficult it is to get rid of a government employee who is not performing their job in a satisfactory manner. For some unexplained reason, Shelby County Mayor A. C. Wharton is continuing to pay Ms. Scott. We need an explanation as to why. To: Brian Kuhn County Attorney Disputed employee on the county trustee's payroll Gloria Scott 1796 Edmondson Memphis, Tennessee 38114 1-901-573-2264 Dear Mr. Brian Kuhn Starting June 30, 2003 Gloria's annual review came in under a 3 or unsatisfactory. She was counseled on the things she needed to do to correct her evaluation in six months. The semi-annual evaluation was completed on December 31, 2003 and it was under a 3 or unsatisfactory. At this time she was counseled and given three months to correct any unsatisfactory items or be dismissed . At the end of three months she had grown worse in her work habits and was dismissed. After a loudermill hearing was conducted with an attorney present to make sure that all parties were fairly represented and correct procedures were followed, the appointing authority upheld the dismissal. She applied to the State Department of Employment Security for unemployment benefits. The State Department of Employment Security reviewed her employment record, as well as interviewing the applicant, and unemployment payments were denied. She hired an attorney and requested a civil service review. The Civil Service Board returned her to work subject to a 30 day forfeiture of pay through June 30, 2004, the end of the fiscal year. The Civil Service Board is by law an independent body elected by the Mayor, County Commission, Sheriff, Assessor, Trustee, Clerks, and other County Wide elected Officials. Each official has one vote including the chairman of the county commission. During the budget preparation, Shelby County Trustee Bob Patterson met with Mayor A C Wharton to see if he had an interest or a position for Gloria Scott. His comment was that he was laying off several hundred people and he did not have the money to pay her. The Trustee agreed with the Mayor to transfer both the position and funds from the Trustee's budget to the Mayor's salary budget. During the budget process, the trustee's office lost 5 positions and funds, as well as the Sheriff, Penal Farm, Oakville Hospital and other elected officials. Ms. Gloria Scott's position was not funded by the County Commissioners or the County Trustee's Office in the 2004 -2005 fiscal years budget. The Trustee was working with Ms Scott's Attorney to complete the pay out through June 30,2004. On the October Payroll summary, the Mayor had Mr. Jim Huntzicker back pay Ms. Gloria Scott including the 30 day forfeiture of pay. Thinking that this must surely be a mistake, the County Trustee met with Mayor A C Wharton to have the mistake corrected. The Mayor under the home rule charter does not have the authority to put anyone on the Shelby county payroll except the departments under his administration. Mayor A C Wharton had sworn to uphold the home rule charter and blasted the prior administration for playing with taxpayer money. Mayor A C Wharton referred the Trustee to Jim Huntzicker. Jim Huntzicker said he could not touch Gloria Scott’s pay period for any reason, and he did not want her on his payroll. The Trustee suggested to Mr. Huntsicker and the County Attorney that all of the hundreds of people, positions and funds that were eliminated by the County Commission, have the same rights as Gloria Scott which is 18 months pay plus all benefits including retirement. The County Trustee went to court to get Gloria removed from his payroll. Her attorney delayed the hearing until April. The Judge ruled that Gloria Scott must work to be paid. The sheriff let her work in the filing department until she fell down and bumped her knees and had to take family leave to have both of her feet operated on. This required twelve weeks of family leave with pay, and she brought in a doctor’s release which the judge required in late June 2005. The Judge remanded the case back to the civil service board as Gloria Scott did not have a position nor funds to pay her salary in the trustee's office budget nor does the civil service board have taxing authority. Only Mayor A C Wharton knows why he picked this person, Gloria Scott, and continues to pay her full pay and benefits including retirement out of the hundreds of employees laid off by the County and Other Elected Officials. The next civil service hearing is scheduled for December 8, 2005. To add to the confusion, the county attorney has appealed the 2004-2005 Wage petition which has been completed and agreed to by the Trustee, the Administration and the Judge. Sincerely Bob Patterson County Trustee October 17, 2005 Recently in an open records request to the City Attorney we asked for the following information. I want to inspect the documents and records that show the amount of payments from 1992 to the present time from the City of Memphis for legal services or for other services to Mr. Ricky Wilkins and Mr. Robert Spence. This would include but not necessarily be limited to the Lottery, the Convention Center, MLGW bonds or FedEx bonds and other matters. The answer gives great encouragement to struggling young lawyers. The partial answer I received is Spence received $310,912.44 from 4/1/04 to 7/1/05. Ricky Wilkins received $472,703.03 from 9/16/03 to 8/31/05. They are still compiling what was paid to the law firm of Burch, Porter when he worked there. In addition to this, look at what he got on the convention center dispute. Here is a portion of a letter from Sara Hall, the City Attorney. “Beginning July 1, 2004, the City and County entered into a flat monthly legal fee arrangement as to defense of the City in the Cook Convention Center litigation and all payments were made to Less, Getz & Lipman. Under this arrangement, Ricky Wilkins received $30,000 monthly from the flat amount paid to Less, Getz & Lipman for his representation of the City and County in this case.” Do the math. $30,000/month times 12 months equals $360,000/year. What a deal. Mr. Spence was the former City Attorney. Let us not forget that Spence, in his capacity as city attorney, signed off on the FedExForum deal, non-compete clause and all. Wilkins has close ties to the Mayor as his former campaign manager. We have earlier reported on Allan Wade, the attorney for the City Council and his additional private practice. They are all doing very well at the tax payer’s expense. Click here to see what legal services are costing the tax payers and who gets the benefits. Also check out the sweet deal Robert Lipscomb is getting in his dual jobs. October 6, 2005 Dr. Flinn, the Shelby County Commissioner, is meeting with his constituents this evening, October 6, 2005, at 7pm at St, Francis of Assisi at their Parish Life Center ,room 108. St. Francis is located at the intersection of Germantown Parkway and Chimneyrock. August 29, 2005 On Friday, August 27, 2005 Bob Patterson, the Shelby County Trustee, presented information that every Memphis and Shelby County resident should be aware of and be concerned about. It shows what is on the Shelby County credit card (read how much bonded debt we have). The figures should frighten every resident and make the voters of Shelby County want to change their political leadership in the City of Memphis and Shelby County. Elections of County Officials are next year (2006) and City Officials are the year after (2007). The figures shown below show that the bonded indebtedness of Shelby County is $3.1 billion dollars (not million but billion). Put on top of this that the bonded indebtedness of the City of Memphis is over $1 billion and growing. You, as a taxpayer, have a debt that you are legally responsible for of over $4 billion dollars. The bonded debt of the state of Tennessee is $1.2 billion dollars. Yes, Memphis and Shelby County has four times more debt than the state of Tennessee. What should we do? Vote most of these people out of office and replace them with smart and experienced business people who know how to run a business efficiently. Cut spending and particularly cut unnecessary capital improvement projects such as the light rail system and the riverfront development projects of the City of Memphis, cut PILOTS and tax abatements and lay off unnecessary public employees. Click here to see what your owe due to the spending habits of local City and County elected officials. August 8, 2005 Here is an executive summary of the 1/2 million dollar study done by Marlin Mosby for the County Government. According to Mr. James Huntzicker "I don't believe there are any additional copies still available, but you could review a copy in our offices. If you would like to do this, please give Paula Lewis a call to schedule an appointment. Thank you. Jim Huntzicker Director Division of Administration & Finance" I plan to do this but I read through the executive report and on page 3 it is evident that more revenues will be needed over and above what is currently being collected. Mosby promised a savings of $385 million over 5 years whereas he has only promised a $50 million savings for the City. I do not think the City is more efficient than the county. Makes you wonder why more savings are not available from the City. Click here to see the Marlin Mosby PFM executive summary that cost the County $500,000. August 22, 2005 I have figured out part of the reason why we depend almost entirely on residential property taxes in Shelby County. One good reason is the Shelby County Health, Education and Housing Facility Board. This board and a similar one for the City of Memphis can grant tax freezes to apartments in return for a promise to have some of the apartments available for low income residents. But is this in fact what happens? What is a fact is that millions of dollars in tax money has stopped flowing in to the City and County. Here are some examples. Trezevant Manor/Allen Morgan Health Center, 177 N. Highland. They pay zero taxes. St. Peter Manor, 108 N. Auburndale. In 2004 they paid $6,792 in taxes. Eastwood Apartments, 3007 Getwell. Sponsored by the CME Church. They pay zero taxes Raleigh Forest Apartments, 4183 Troost. Sponsored by the CME Church.They paid $35.15 taxes Sherwood Apartment, 3647 Rhodes. Sponsored by the CME Church. In 1995 they paid $22,908 to the County. In 1996 they paid $11,046 to the county. Thereafter they paid nothing. The Corners Apartments, 4150 Winchester. Sponsored by the CME Church. In 1996 they paid $30,616 to the County. Thereafter they paid nothing. Spring Creek Apartments, 2046 and 2020 Winchester. Sponsored by Cornerstone Housing Corporation. In 1996 they paid $12,700 to the County. Thereafter they paid nothing. Raleigh Woods Apartments, 4168 The Plac. Sponsored by the Foundation for Social Resources. In 2004 they paid $41.21 to the County. Cameron at Kirby Parkway Apartments, 3119 Kirby Parkway. Sponsored by the Cornerstone Housing Corporation. In 1996 they paid $106,479 to the County. Thereafter they paid nothing. Stonegate Apartments, 2791 Coleman. Sponsored by the Cornerstone Housing Corporation. In 1996 they paid $60,404 to the County. In 1997 they paid $31,739 to the County. Thereafter they paid nothing. Kirby Pines Estates, 3535 Kirby. Sponsored by Psalms, Inc. Currently appraised at $28,350,600.Currently paying $23,530 to the County. Countryside North Apartments, 6920 Reese Road. In 1998 they paid $61,692 to the County. Thereafter they paid nothing. Knightway Apartments, 4365, 4449, 4505, 4252 Knight Arnold. Sponsored by the CME Church. In 1998 they paid $59, 874 to the County. Thereafter they paid nothing. Charter Oaks Apartments, 4585 VAndergreen. Sponsored by the CME Church was acquired in 1998 and is subject to a PILOT. Parcel is currently appraised at $1,642,000 which would result in current Memphis taxes of $18,193 and County taxes of $23,251. Because the PILOT is based upon 50% of the actual 1997 taxes, Memphis will receive an annual PILOT of $7989 and Shelby County will receive $7939. Danville Apartments, 4427 Knight Arnold Road. Sponsored by the CME Church. In 1997 they paid $28,622 to the County. Thereafter they paid nothing. Lexington Apartments, 1654 Harbert. Sponsored by the CME Church. In 1997 they paid $5523 to the County. Thereafter they paid nothing. Hedgerow Apartments, 6905 Shelby. Currently appraised at $6.89 million. They would currently be paying Memphis taxes of $76,375 and County taxes of $97,606. Because the PILOT is based upon 50% of the actual 1998 taxes (prior to annexation by Memphis, they will be paying County taxes of $38,876. July 25, 2005 There was an article in the Sunday, July 24th 2005, issue of the CA with the heading “Retirees get sweet deal on insurance, government jobs pay off in premiums”. This article pointed out things that we have been talking about on this website for some time, the fact that local government jobs are great jobs with better salaries and benefits than are normally available in the local private sector jobs. The article pointed out many problems ahead and mentioned a new government accounting requirement that will soon require governments to report their long term obligations associated with post employment benefits. The reason for the problem seems obvious as does the solution. Local governments generally allow retirement after 25 years regardless of age. This allows people to retire at age 50 to 55 and then start receiving their health care benefits with most of the premium cost paid by taxpayers. This should be changed to require those not eligible for medicare to pay a much higher percentage of this premium, if not all of it, to encourage them to not retire early and work on to a medicare eligible age like the general taxpaying public. This will keep experienced people working and hold down the numbers in the retiree population. This early retirement benefit is generally only available in the public employment sector and should be changed to make the public employee benefits more like the taxpaying private sector. July 18, 2005 I have finished my salary and benefit comparison spreadsheet and have given the City, The County, the MLGW and the two school systems a chance to review and correct any errors. I think it can be useful in trimming back some of the costs of government. Basically these are great jobs compared to private sector jobs. The real problem with the City is that it is run as a patronage job factory and not as a business. I think it could be run much more efficiently with the top jobs being filled with real professionals and with the Mayor’s job filled with someone who cares more about the taxpayers than he does about his supporters, his cronies and his business contributors. For the future, I think the pension system should be changed for future employees from a defined benefit plan to a defined contribution plan and more restraints should be put on PILOTS and other tax giveaways which mainly benefit the Mayor’s contributors. Another key problem is oversight or lack thereof. There is currently very little oversight on how and for what money is spent, particularly at HCD and MHA and when there is an audit it is generally done by someone who knows the outcome the Mayor wants in advance. Looking at the spreadsheet, the following are areas that could be looked at. Some MLGW salaries are too high but those jobs requiring high technical skills may be are worth it. If you start filling the MLGW with City Hall patronage types, they will certainly be too high. But then lookout, when the lights go out and no one knows how to turn them back on. The health care costs seem somewhat high compared to private companies considering the huge numbers in the groups. Vacations (5 to 6 weeks) are 1 to 2 weeks longer than private companies. Sick days for the City and County (30 days) should be cut back to 12 days like the others. Car allowances should be discontinued as they are really salary. If they are required to get and keep great employees, then they should be rolled into salary. All the various life and disability insurance benefits should be reviewed to see what they are actually costing and who is selling these policies. And finally, the appointed people, over and above what is authorized by the Charter, should be laid off. This, of course, does not touch the CIP budget items which desperately need to be removed before the bankruptcy notice is posted at City Hall and at the County. What can you, the taxpayer, do about the situation? You have the power to replace the Mayor and the City Council in October 2007. Replace them with people who care about this City and who want this City to return to its former beauty and safety. Look carefully at what they say and compare it with their public record. Most taxpayers want low taxes, good safe schools, their garbage picked up, the public parks cut and maintained, the public roads repaired and the parkways planted with flowers and the grass cut and the criminals taken off the streets. They do not care about trolleys, light rail dreams, basketball forums that few can afford or grandiose riverfront fantasies. Throw out the long serving, self serving politicians and replace them with good people who want what you want. Click here to see what great jobs these public service jobs are. July 6, 2005 Last night (July 5, 2005) I gave a speech to the SouthEast Memphis Betterment Association (SEMBA) which is a group of local neighborhood associations which are coming together to get a better hearing from the local politicians due to their increased numbers of members. My speech concerned my experiences since I filed an open records suit in Chancery Court to open up the public records in the City and subsequently in many other divisions of local government. Also it concerned my starting a local news website (www.memphiswatchdog.org) to publish the information that I have obtained from my open records requests. At the meeting was County Commissioner Mr. John Willingham. Mr. Willingham is the author of a proposal to create a 2.5% payroll tax, roll back other taxes, and create a gambling Casino at the Pyramid and other proposals. While I admit that I have not studied the proposals in detail, I certainly agree with Mr. Willingham about some aspects of his thoughts. He is for putting severe controls on the out of control PILOT program which favors those who are already rich and in least need of additional tax favors. He is for putting a damper on the out of control Capitol Projects that are driving the City and County towards bankruptcy. We both agree on more oversight and controls on many of the boards and commissions which are run by people such as Ricky Peete, Robert Lipscomb and John Elkington. He gave me a package of correspondence and proposals and I thought them important enough to publish them below. One very interesting one is his letter to Stan Meadows of the Grizzlies. Note particularly paragraph 1 of page 2. These are important proposals and worthy of a public debate. Click here to read Commissioner Willingham's letter to the Grizzlies to ask them to not oppose a solution to the Pyramid problem. Click here to read Commissioner Willingham's letter to the Memphis Flyer about his various tax proposals. July 5, 2005 Politicians have not shame. You probably read in the Commercial Appeal this morning about three Shelby County Commissioners begging for more money to pay Allan Wade to take their appeal to the higher courts to try to overturn a decision by 81% of Shelby County voters to put term limits on their offices. What a nerve. What a great deal for Allan Wade. Here is the information that we requested and found out about Allan Wade, a private attorney who is also the attorney for the City Council and also a City employee. We requested total payments for 2004 and 2005 to Mr. Allan Wade, an attorney in private practice who is also the attorney for the City Council and in addition does work for the City Administration. His salary at the beginning of 2004 was $65,000 which the Mayor raised to $80,000. In addition to that, he was paid $250,913.75 in 2004 and has received $165,446.93 in 2005 and we have three months to go yet. Don’t forget that in addition to his salary, he receives health benefits and is on the pension system. Hopefully the courts will turn down this outrageous appeal and in the future we can put term limits on our City Council which is badly in need of change. June 27, 2005 Many people have emailed information to us on this website about situations in their City, County, MLGW, Memphis School System, County School System, HCD, MHA, IDB and other public jobs. They had information about things that should be investigated, things that were not fair in their employment situation such as promotions and job discrimination and things that were illegal. We have tried to investigate these situations through various means and verify the information. In many cases we have been successful and have published the information on the website. Now people have asked us to provide a way to communicate this type of information without revealing their names. We prefer to know who we are dealing with and we can assure everyone that we will hold the source of the information in absolute confidence. However people are afraid of losing their jobs if their names become public and we understand that fear. Certain organizations are paranoid about covering up what they do and will retaliate against a whistle blower if they know who it is. Therefore we have been asked to provide a way for you to send us information so that the sender’s identity is not known to us. This can be done in two ways. 1) From your personal computer or a public library computer go to our website (www.memphiswatchdog.org) and go to the CONTACT US button and then to the E-MAIL FORM. On this form you only need to fill in the first name, last name, city, state, zip and e-mail slots. None of this information needs to be your actual information in order for the email to come through to us. So if you want to conceal your real name, address and email address just fill in false ones. Do not use your work computer as the bosses might be checking. Then put your information in the comment section of the email form and send it. However we would like for you to use the same name each time so we can tell if it is from the same person more than once. If we need to get more information from you we will post a message to you on the website under E-Mail answers. Check this message board from time to time to see if we need a further communication. Also you can give us your private cell phone number and we can call after working hours. 2) Another way is the old faithful snail mail method. You can write an anonymous letter to Webmaster, P. O. Box 172301, Memphis, Tn 38187 and we will get your message. If you have a private P.O. box, let us know and we can respond if necessary or if you have a private cell phone number that you will share with us, we can call after working hours. The honest hardworking people who work for the various government entities deserve good honest government but they are not always getting it. We need to expose those that are not fulfilling the highest ethical standards. You can help in that effort. April 23, 2005 As a result of our open records request, you can go to the download page below and see the results. The request was for the annual salaries for all employees making $60,000 per year or more, both bargaining unit employees and non bargaining unit employees, including overtime for bargaining unit employees. This was to include all departments listed under the Shelby County Organaizational Chart. Click here for the Shelby County Government salary schedule.  The following letter was sent to Mayor Wharton requesting detailed information on County salaries, benefits and pension information. When this information is furnished, we will publish it on this website. March 21, 2005 Mr. A. C. Wharton Mayor Shelby County Government 160 North Main Street Memphis, Tennessee 38103 Dear Mayor Wharton, As a taxpayer of the City of Memphis and Shelby County I would like to inspect the municipal documents in accordance with the Tennessee Open Records Law that contain the following specific information. 1. The records and documents that show the names, yearly salaries, birth dates, job titles, years of completed creditable service towards retirement for all employees (non bargaining unit employees and bargaining unit employees) making $60,000 per year (total compensation including overtime) or more for the period of March 1, 2004 to March 1, 2005. Also I want to inspect the documents and records that show the memorandum of understanding between Shelby County and the union or unions representing the County’s employees. This would include all departments listed under the Shelby County Organizational Chart attached as a part of this letter. 2. The records and documents that show which of the above employees listed in item 1 receive car allowances and which receive cell phone services and the cost of car allowances and cell phone services (whether paid for by Shelby or by some third party other than the employee) for each person who receive these benefits. 3. The records and documents that show the benefits and perks, including life and medical insurance, that non bargaining unit employees of the County get upon employment with the County. 4. The records and documents that show the pension ordinance or agreement under which County employees operate. 5. The records and documents that show all consulting contracts and agreements between Shelby county Government and any and all consultants from January 1, 2004 until today. I want to examine the cost and payments paid or owing for these contracts during that time period. I trust that you will inform promptly whatever department and personnel are necessary to make these documents ready for my inspection. In accordance with the County policy concerning copies and cost of copies, I may want copies of some or all of the documents after inspection. Since I assume also that the documents containing the information requested should be available readily on a computer, I should like to inspect the documents on Monday, April 11, 2005 at a time on that date at the County’s convenience. If you need additional information or have questions about this request, I am available during working hours at 754-0699. Sincerely yours, Joe Saino 6560 Kirby Forest Cove Memphis, Tennessee 38119  AN EMAIL TO MAYOR WHARTON
Mayor Wharton is a very smooth politician and a thoroughly likeable person. He says that he is dedicated to open government and open records. Therefore, after hearing his speech at Grace Saint Luke's on March 17, 2005, I sent the following email as I was not able to ask the question during the Q&A session after his talk. Hope it gets results. Dear Mayor Wharton, I was at Grace St. Luke's tonight and heard your speech. I was impressed with your openness and your sincerety. However I did not get a chance to ask you the following question. Recently you hired Linda Rendtorff and Roscoe Dixon for high priced county jobs. I understand that the jobs pay a high salary. According to the commencial appeal, Dixon left a Senate post with an annual salary of $16,500 for a county job paying $101,856. Ms. Rendtorff left the county commission job paying somewhere in the $30,000 range for a similar job pay as Mr. Dixon. My question is this. Will these two people become qualified for a county pension based on the $100,000 salary? If so when will they become qualified? How many years of creditable service do they now have towards a county pension? I would appreciate a prompot answer to these questions. I would recommend that you post all salaries, name, job titles, a schedule of benefits, car allowances, insurance, sick days, bonus days, cell phone policy, credit card policy and pension plans on the web for all to see. This way, you will avoid most open record requests. I appreciate your openess attitude as I believe that good government requires absolute transparency. Regards, Joe Saino | SHELBY COUNTY SCHOOL SYSTEM | | Return Home | 2009 NEWS | MEMPHIS CITY GOVERNMENT NEWS | MEMPHIS CITY COUNCIL NEWS | MLG&W NEWS | SHELBY COUNTY GOVERNMENT | CONTACT US | |
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