County Commission adds $3,000 EMS pay increase to FY2026 budget, approves tax-levy amendments

The County Commission on a called meeting amended its fiscal year 2026 General Services appropriations to include a $3,000 annual pay increase for emergency medical services personnel and approved related tax-levy amendments on first reading. The commission also approved urban-services appropriations and the urban tax levy.

The change came after Commissioner Landon Gulley proposed an amendment to add a $3,000 lump annual pay increase for EMS employees, saying, “When I say 3,000, though, I don't care if we're paying out in one lump paycheck, but that it doesn't go as an hourly increase. It's each year, one lump, $3,000 here on out. It's not a bonus. It's a pay piece.” The amendment passed 12–5 with three commissioners absent and was folded into the ordinance when the commission approved the first reading of the general-services appropriations.

The commission’s county counselor reviewed conflict-of-interest rules at the start of the meeting, citing Tennessee Code Annotated § 5-5-112 and saying, “no member of the county, a legislative body who is also an employee of the same county or whose spouse is an employee of the same county may vote on matters in which the member has a conflict of interest.” The counselor also noted that voting on a general budget or tax-rate resolution is not prohibited unless the vote concerns a specific appropriation in which a member has a conflict.

Earlier in the meeting Commissioner Chris Gregory moved a different amendment to shift half of a $64,000 increase that the budget placed in school coaching supplements (about $32,000) into EMS raises; that amendment failed 7–10 with three absent. Commissioners who opposed that move argued for preserving the school supplement increase. After discussion, the commission considered Gulley’s $3,000 EMS amendment and approved it.

Commissioners and speakers debated how the EMS increase would be funded. At one point a commissioner asked whether the change would require raising the tax levy; a commissioner responded that the adjustment would require roughly a one-cent increase to the levy. The body later considered and amended the general-services tax levy; the amendment to the tax levy (to $2.10) passed 13–4 with three absent, and the vote to adopt the levy with the amendment carried by the same margin on first reading.

The commission also approved the urban-services appropriations for fiscal 2026 with no general increase and approved the urban tax levy, which was set at 0.6731 and was voted on by the Urban Services Council (three votes in favor). The urban-appropriations ordinance passed 15–2 with three absent.

During public comment, a school board representative thanked commissioners “on behalf of the school board and these hardworking coaches” for approving the amount the school board had requested for coaching supplements. Kendrick Jones, an EMS employee, told the commission he makes $15.88 an hour and asked commissioners to consider long-term retention, saying, “some of us are literally living paycheck to paycheck. And if we want a future, one day we'll have to chase the money somewhere.”

The budget ordinances passed their first readings and will return for the next readings at the commission’s regular meeting on July 28 at 7 p.m., when the body may take final action or further amend the measures.