A Monroe City Council majority seems determined to launch a risky pay raise plan and apportion more funds to a special district with a checkered recent history—moves that contradict independent Mayor Friday Ellis’ fiscal year 2026 budget.

In a special meeting, the Council proposed a number of changes to the Ellis plan. Most were incremental, keeping within the roughly $72 million ceiling, but a couple stood out as significant.

One shoveled an additional $323,000 for city employee salary increases. The Council majority–Democrats Rodney McFarland, Verbon Muhammad, and Juanita Woods–had previously expressed interest in implementing some kind of permanent pay hike.

But to do this they reduced the total amount of money to fund pensions. The city participates in three state-run retirement plans for police, fire, and other city employees, with annual contribution levels determined annually by a legislative committee on advice from the respective retirement systems, from data generally gathered before year-end. The actual amount owed will fluctuate depending on personnel actions throughout the year.

In other words, this strategy gambles that Monroe will owe less than projected. If that assumption proves wrong, the budget will require adjustments. But the real problem is that this method ties a relatively fixed, ongoing salary commitment to a variable and unpredictable funding source. Worse, required contribution rates could rise sharply next year, depending largely on fund investment performance. This is not sound budget practice.

The revision also dumps $100,000 into the lap of the Southside Economic Development District, now approaching a quarter-century in age. The political brainchild of Democrats former state Sen. Charles Jones and former state Rep. Willie Hunter, it covers basically areas south of Louisville Ave. and DeSiard St. essentially excluding downtown, within which it takes the city’s hotel occupancy tax receipts. It has a vague brief in statute to promote economic development in the area.

Yet in its first two decades, little development occurred, largely because it generates minimal revenue. The proposed boost would nearly double its most recently reported annual intake of about $113,000. Most recently, its board—appointed by the mayor and City Council—has taken to doling out grants in the hundreds or low thousands of dollars to various nonprofit initiatives while also spending on its headquarters, financial reporting fees, and web operations.

In 2022, the board pushed through an ambitious, perhaps overly so, 25-year revitalization plan requiring tens of millions of dollars, mostly in outside grants. Since then, little progress has been made, perhaps as a result of rejection of city aid, quarrels over membership, accusations of illegal meetings, and, most recently, hesitation even to approve the Board of Commissioners’ meeting minutes needed to draw funding stored with the city. Last year, it banked around $40,000, bringing its reserves to roughly $366,000.

The apparent use for the extra dough seems not for making progress on the plan, where any recurring funding could finance some bonds to tackle at least one infrastructure project, but to supercharge SEDD’s ability to throw around more grant money in the district, which mostly overlaps the Council districts held by the Democrats. It seems to be a questionable use given the unsettled nature of the district at present and the needs of the plan.

As such, if the final budget document heads to his desk with these items intact, Ellis needs to sharpen his veto pen.