UPDATE: Jackson City Council takes closer look at FY budget during work session

May 29, 2025

Brooklyn Kent,

UPDATE (05/30/25): Friday, in an email sent to council members and WBBJ 7 Eyewitness News, Mayor Conger says he’s made the decision to remove all unfunded capital requests from the proposed budget.

He says only projects already supported by secured grant funding will remain. The mayor adds this will solve the current year’s deficit, and prevent the fund balance from dropping too low.

Council Members,

Thank you for last night’s discussion. It’s always encouraging to witness such an active interest in the budget process, particularly the renewed focus on numbers and fiscal mechanics. While the detailed materials provided over the past few weeks may not have answered every question as clearly as hoped, your curiosity signals a great opportunity for deeper involvement in the planning process moving forward.

In response to the concerns raised, most notably Councilwoman Busby’s observation about the uncertainty of our current fund balance, I’ve made the decision to remove all unfunded capital requests from the proposed budget. Only projects already supported by secured grant funding will remain. This approach ensures we avoid speculation around reserves and keeps us from committing to long-term investments without a full consensus or clearly defined financial picture. This will additionally solve the current year’s deficit, and will prevent our fund balance from dropping dangerously low.

It’s important to note that many of the capital needs we’ve identified, roads, equipment, facilities, don’t disappear simply because they’re removed from the budget. They will remain, waiting on our willingness to prioritize them.

To that end, and in recognition of the council’s growing interest in taking a more hands-on role, I recommend that you, as a body, begin working together in July to develop a long-term financial strategy for the City. We will work on a schedule to facilitate these discussions. These discussions should guide future budget planning and capital prioritization, ensuring that the direction we take is fully aligned with council vision and understanding.

As always, I remain committed to transparency, collaboration, and supporting your efforts in any way I can. The budget may be my proposal, but as last night made abundantly clear, the final plan is yours to shape. I look forward to working together and seeing your plan take shape.

Councilwoman Marda Wallace responded requesting a listing of all unfunded capital requests that are being removed.

For clarity and full transparency please provide a listing of all unfunded capital requests that you are removing from the proposed budget. I look forward to working with you and the other Council members to arrive at a budget that will help the City grow and thrive.

Later, at 7:41 p.m., Mayor Conger made a Facebook post addressing his decision. Click here to see the full post.

Original story (05/29/25):

JACKSON, Tenn. — After Jackson Mayor Scott Conger made a social media post regarding a possible tax increase, we were able to hear city council members reactions to that proposal.

SEE ALSO: Property tax potentially increasing in Jackson; Mayor explains

During Thursday’s work session and agenda review, city councilmen were able to see a proposed budget breakdown for the upcoming fiscal year.

City council leaders provided their opinions on the upcoming budget. City Councilman Larry Lowrance is opposed to the proposed budget that involves increasing taxes.

“One of the questions is, in the last two years, our budget’s increased about 23%, [and] inflation’s been up at 5%. We need to look real hard–there’s some reasons for some of that–but we’ve got to look real hard at where that 23% came from,” said Lowrance.

Before voting, Lowrance believes that there should be more facts and new ways to come up with a balanced budget without raising taxes.

“While we’re doing this, we need to start a complete analysis of city government and city costs. Not wait until two weeks before the budgets come up to say ‘We need a tax increase,’ we need to start this in January,” said Lowrance.

He also suggests that there are other funds that can be used to help, that wouldn’t raise taxes.

“We also have a $26 million bond issuing that’s set out there that’s going to be approved any day. So there’s a lot of money floating around here, we just got to really stop and look at it and say ‘Ok, let’s spend it wisely,'” said Lowrance.

City Councilwoman Candice Busby says she too opposes the tax increase.

“We’re gonna have to make amendments to the way that it’s currently read or written. I feel like all of us will eventually be on the same page and do what’s best for the City of Jackson,” said Busby.

She believes there may be a way to make the budget more viable.

“We would need to look at what possible cuts are now, most programs are great programs but when you get back to raising taxes you need to look at every program again to make sure it’s doing what it should do,” said Busby.

Each city department head has already shared they have made all necessary cuts.

Most councilmen are leaning towards using the fund balance with the possibility of the city sticker increase.

“Realistically, we have a fund balance to be able to utilize, do we want to do that? Absolutely not, but we need to balance this budget. The way to do, I think, as a whole, councilmembers are gonna see that we may need to dip into that,” said Busby.

There was also a protest regarding the proposed tax increase Thursday evening.