Shelby County Clerk asks commission to authorize $1.1M for pay raises and reclassification

Shelby County Clerk Wanda Halbert asked commissioners to approve or release roughly $1.1 million aimed primarily at reclassifying positions and raising salaries to address high turnover and pay compression in the clerk's office.

"We were asking for roughly $1,100,000 to add managers, to add accountants, and to basically the majority... of the money was to to take care of our front line workers," MVR Administrator Benny Smith said during the presentation. Smith outlined a plan to create supervisory layers and add two accountants to improve financial controls.

Halbert said the office is the largest county clerk operation in Tennessee and described a personnel shortfall: about 90 employees on the payroll with 8–10 in onboarding and roughly 50 frontline workers earning below $18 an hour even after a 6% mayoral increase. "If we can at least get that, if we can take care of our employees who have not been taken care of for many, many years then I think we will be headed in the perfect direction," Halbert said.

Commissioners pressed staff to clarify whether the request is new or whether the larger budget already approved by the commission included the position-control allocations. Benny Smith said the office had presented the ask in the budget process and either needs the commission to approve outstanding requests or to release funds that staff expected to be allocated to position control. Deputy Director Michael Thompson offered to work with the clerk's office and commissioners during the FY26 budget cycle to vet discretionary requests and statutory or contractual increases.

The presentation did not result in a recorded vote; commissioners asked for follow-up details on exact position counts and vacancy savings before taking action.