Shelby County Mayoral Candidates Duke It Out in Democratic Primary

By Candice Ludlow

Memphis, TN – Sheriff Mark Luttrell is running for the Republican nomination for Shelby County mayor, with token opposition. But on the Democratic side, there's a fight. Candice Ludlow reports.

Otis Jackson is running for the Democratic nomination, but he's a bit of a surprise candidate. He was elected as General Sessions Clerk in 2008. That's his first elected office, and its financial ledgers are currently under investigation.

The two heavy hitters in the race are the current interim mayor Joe Ford and county commissioner Deidre Malone. Ford was appointed interim mayor, but only after he told the commissioners that he would not be running in this election.

That's the first point of contention between Ford and Malone. The second point is keeping The Med afloat. Ford says the Med was in financial trouble, but now it's not.

"The first two weeks I was in office, the county commission approved $10 million. We have another $10 million in our budget coming up for July 1st. That $10 million will go to Nashville to Washington, come back as $30 million," Ford said.

Candice Ludlow inquires, "How does that work?"

"It's based on Medicare and the federal government. If we can put up $10 million, they'll match it two to one and bring back $20 additional million, along with the ten we've put up, will make $30 million dollars," Ford explained.

Malone says that isn't enough money. She says, "For someone to be out there saying that the Med is saved just because there's an additional $10 million given, is absolutely ludicrous, quite frankly. The $10 million each year, cause it would be on top of the 27.5 that we currently give them, will help."

Ford and Malone are also at odds over how to fund the two public school systems. Malone wants Memphis to stop chipping in money for the city schools. Instead, she says the county should cover it.

"The city of Memphis by their good graces has given money to Memphis City Schools. And so based on our charter though, the county is responsible for funding education, not any other municipality. So there are those of us who feel that if it is our responsibility, we need to figure out how to handle that funding. So there's a resolution that sets forth how the city of Memphis can ramp down their funding and lower their taxes while Shelby County ramps up their funding to Memphis City Schools and we figure out how we're going to pay for it. That's the tricky part right now."

Ford says the system for funding the Memphis City Schools is not broken, so why fix it?

He explains, "Here's what we do. We collect the county taxes and we give the Memphis City Schools 364 million dollars a year. We give the county schools 138 million dollars a year. And the city schools, under the leadership of two or three councils, they kept increasing additional dollars to put air conditioning and for building schools. They put it in place, so as far as the county is concerned, we are single source funding."

Still the decision about how to fund Memphis City Schools won't be up to the county mayor alone. And whoever wins the Democratic Primary for Shelby County Mayor, will have another pot of money to worry about. Republican Mark Luttrell has $145,000 dollars for his bid for county mayor. That's more than Ford and Malone combined!

Early voting continues in the Shelby County primaries through April 29th. Election day is May 4th. Next week, we'll bring you the sheriff's candidates.

For early voting locations and election information, click this link.