Did Tom Leatherwood Trade a Temporary Penny for a Permanent Property Tax Hike?

He's campaigning on killing a sales tax. But what did that vote leave behind for the homeowners, business owners, and renters of Shelby County?

On April 8, 2025, in a committee room in Nashville, a bill died that most Shelby County voters never heard about. It was called HB 308, and it would not have raised anyone's taxes. It would have done something far more modest: it would have let Shelby County voters decide for themselves.

The bill, carried by Republican Rep. John Gillespie of Memphis with Democratic Sen. Raumesh Akbari carrying the Senate companion, SB 337, would have authorized a countywide referendum asking voters whether to raise the local option sales tax from 2.75 percent to 3.75 percent. One penny on the dollar. And the bill's language was unusually strict about where that penny could go. Every dollar was locked by law to one purpose: construction of a new county jail, or retiring the debt on that construction. When the debt was paid, the tax ended. The sunset was written into the bill itself, capped at eight years.

The vote in the House State and Local Government Committee was 7 ayes, 13 noes. Among the noes was Rep. Tom Leatherwood of Arlington.

Which raises the first question: why would a Shelby County Republican vote to keep Shelby County voters from deciding their own fate on a potential sales tax increase?

The Crisis the Bill Was Written For

Nobody disputes that the Shelby County Jail at 201 Poplar is failing. The facility was built for 2,400 inmates and is now overcrowded. The county spent nearly $17 million last year just to make temporary repairs to keep the building operational. Estimates for replacing it have run as high as $1.4 billion, with some figures cited even higher.

The math on that number is brutal, and it only offers two roads. Road one was HB 308: a temporary, voter-approved sales tax, restricted by statute to the jail, that would have captured revenue from the millions of visitors who pass through Shelby County every year. Nationally, non-residents typically account for 15 to 25 percent of local sales tax collections. On a project this size, that is potentially hundreds of millions of dollars paid by people who do not live here.

Road two is the property tax. And thanks to Tom Leatherwood and his committee, road two is the only road left. Every property owner in Shelby County, every homeowner and every business, is now driving the wrong way down a one-way street, and the oncoming truck has "up to $1.5 billion" painted on the grille. There is no exit ramp. There is no turnaround. The only question left is how hard the hit lands, and on whom.

What the Alternative Actually Costs

Shelby County already carries one of the four highest property tax rates among Tennessee's 95 counties, and just this week, on June 29, the County Commission voted 8 to 5 to raise the rate again, to $2.70, up from $2.69, largely to rebuild its reserve fund. Not for the jail. The jail money hasn't even entered the picture yet. That rate fight has already brushed up against the District 99 race: Commissioner Amber Mills, who is challenging Leatherwood in the August 6 Republican primary, was on the losing side of that 8 to 5 vote, pushing instead for discretionary spending cuts that would have driven the rate down to the state-certified $2.66. Whatever one makes of that dispute, it establishes the baseline: the rate is already moving up, and it's moving before anyone has proposed the first dollar for the jail.

So what happens when it does? You don't have to guess. The county's own budget figures answer the question. Each penny on the Shelby County property tax rate generates about $3.3 million per year. The jail's replacement cost has been estimated at up to $1.5 billion. The arithmetic from there is not politics. It is division.

To raise $1.5 billion over the same eight-year window HB 308 would have used, the county would need roughly $190 million a year before interest, and around $240 million a year once bond interest is added. That is a property tax increase of approximately 70 to 74 cents per $100 of assessed value. On the certified rate of $2.66, a 74-cent increase is a 27.8 percent hike. Call it what it is: nearly 30 percent.

Try to do it faster, over five years, and the number climbs past 90 cents. That is a hike of more than one third.

Try to soften the annual blow by stretching the bonds out over 30 years instead, and Shelby County families are still writing checks for this jail when today's kindergartners have kids of their own, with the interest bill piled on top. And by the time that debt is finally retired, a jail built today will be pushing half a century old, right about the age 201 Poplar is now, which is to say it may be time to start the whole cycle over and build the next one.

That is the road Shelby County is on now, and it only has two lanes: fast and brutal, or long and generational. The road that avoided both was HB 308, and it was barricaded on April 8, 2025.

And unlike the sales tax in that bill, a property tax increase carries no sunset. It does not expire when the jail is paid off. It does not expire at all. Property tax revenue also flows into the county's general fund, where nothing in Tennessee law dedicates a dime of it to the jail. The sales tax was legally locked to one purpose. The property tax can be spent on anything by whoever holds the majority that year.

Visitors would have paid a meaningful share of the sales tax. Visitors do not pay Shelby County property taxes. Property owners do, homeowners and businesses alike, and the businesses pass it straight to their customers and tenants. Forever.

So here is the second question: if the jail still has to be built, and the only temporary, voter-approved, visitor-funded tool is dead, who ends up holding the bill? Because somebody will. Thirteen no votes in a Nashville committee room guaranteed it. And one of those votes belonged to the man District 99 sent there to protect them.

Nobody Escapes a Property Tax

The answer is everyone, because "homeowners" undersells what a property tax increase actually does. Under Tennessee law, commercial property is assessed at 40 percent of its value while homes are assessed at 25 percent. That means every business in Shelby County takes the hit at a rate 60 percent harder than a homeowner does, per dollar of property value. And businesses do not absorb costs. They pass them along.

Follow the dollar. The landlord's tax bill goes up, so the rent goes up, which means the tenant who owns nothing still pays the jail tax every month. The grocery store's tax bill goes up, so prices go up, which means the family that rents still pays it again at the register. The employer's tax bill goes up, and the employer starts running the numbers on Mississippi, which is a fifteen-minute drive away and courting Shelby County companies every single day.

Then the cycle feeds itself. Higher costs push families across the county line to DeSoto, Fayette, and Tipton, a migration Shelby County has watched for a generation. Stretched homeowners who sell increasingly sell to out-of-state investment firms, and Memphis has repeatedly ranked among the nation's most heavily targeted markets for institutional buyers converting single-family homes into rentals. Fewer owner-occupied homes, higher rents, a shrinking tax base, and then the rate has to go up again on whoever is left, which pushes the next wave out the door. A county cannot tax its way out of a shrinking base. It can only chase people down the road it put them on.

A one-penny sales tax, paid partly by visitors, capped at eight years, approved or rejected by the voters themselves, risked none of this.

Which raises a question nobody in that committee room appears to have asked, least of all the member from Arlington: did Tom Leatherwood think even one step past his vote? The renters, the shoppers, the employers, the families packing for Fayette County, the investment firms circling the listings. Did he see any of them coming? Or did he stop thinking the moment he had a line for a mailer?

Meanwhile, in Oklahoma City

If the model in HB 308 sounds risky or radical, there's a city about seven hours west of Memphis that has been running it since 1993. Oklahoma City calls it MAPS: a temporary one-cent sales tax, approved by the voters themselves, dedicated to specific public projects, and sunsetted when the job is done. Voters there have renewed it four times. The most recent version, MAPS 4, raises $1.1 billion over eight years, almost the exact size and shape of what HB 308 would have allowed Shelby County voters to consider. It passed in 2019 with nearly 72 percent of the vote. In 2023, Oklahoma City voters approved yet another temporary sales tax, this one to build the arena that now houses the NBA champion Thunder, with 71 percent support.

The mayor who championed MAPS 4 is a Republican, David Holt, governing a politically mixed city. In February of this year, that city reelected him with 86 percent of the vote, the second-highest share in its history. Oklahoma City has used the temporary penny to climb from the nation's 27th largest city to its 20th, land Olympic events for 2028, and keep its property taxes out of the conversation entirely.

So the question is not whether the tool works. Oklahoma City has spent three decades proving it works, under Republican leadership, with landslide voter approval, over and over again.

The question is why Shelby County voters were told they couldn't be trusted with the same choice Oklahoma City voters have made four times. Oklahoma City got a Republican who trusted his voters with a penny, and they reelected him with 86 percent of the vote. District 99 got Tom Leatherwood.

The Vote That Stands Out

What makes Leatherwood's no vote harder to explain is who was on the other side of it. HB 308 was carried by a fellow Shelby County Republican, John Gillespie. Its Senate companion was advanced by the Senate State and Local Government Committee that same session, where Mills, testifying in her capacity as a county commissioner, told senators the county was seeking a sales tax option precisely because it did not want a property tax increase. The county government wanted the option. A Republican from the delegation carried it. And Leatherwood, the man District 99 sent to Nashville, was the one who voted to take the choice off the table.

Third question: when his own county asked for the bill, a fellow Shelby County Republican carried it, and the Senate companion was moving forward, what exactly was Tom Leatherwood standing against?

What the Mailer Won't Tell You

Now, with the Republican primary underway, Leatherwood is telling District 99 voters that he stopped a sales tax increase. As a slogan, it fits on a mailer. As a record, it doesn't survive contact with the bill, because what he actually stopped wasn't a tax. It was your right to choose. HB 308 never raised a rate. It put a question on a ballot and handed the decision to the only people with the standing to make it: the voters of Shelby County. A temporary penny, chained to the jail by the bill's own text, gone in eight years or less, shared with millions of visitors, and it could not have taken effect unless a majority of Shelby County walked into a booth and chose it. Leatherwood didn't kill a sales tax. He killed the voters' right to choose, and then he printed a mailer thanking himself for it.

So when his mailer says "I stopped the sales tax," here are the questions it leaves for someone else to answer before August 6.

Did killing the referendum kill the jail's costs? No. The jail is still deteriorating, still overcrowded, still burning nearly $17 million a year in temporary repairs on a building everyone agrees has to be replaced.

Did killing it protect taxpayers? Or did it simply select which taxpayers pay, taking the only funding option shared with visitors off the table and leaving the homeowners, business owners, renters, and shoppers of Shelby County alone with a permanent bill?

Who does a legislator represent when his own county asked for the bill, a fellow Shelby County Republican carried it, the Senate companion was advancing, and he voted no anyway?

And when that same legislator then mails District 99 touting the vote, is he telling you what he saved you from, or hiding what he signed you up for?

Tom Leatherwood wouldn't let Shelby County vote on a temporary penny. So when his mailer lands in your mailbox this month telling you what he stopped, don't throw it away. Keep it. Tape it to the refrigerator. Because another piece of mail is coming behind it, from the Shelby County Trustee, and that one will come back every year for the rest of your life. It won't be addressed to the tourists. It won't have an expiration date. And when it arrives, you'll know exactly who to thank, because he put it in writing and paid the postage himself.

A note on the numbers: the property tax estimates in this article are derived from Shelby County's own current budget figure of approximately $3.3 million generated per penny of the tax rate, applied to the publicly cited jail replacement estimate of up to $1.5 billion, financed over the same five-to-eight-year window HB 308 provided. Readers can check the division themselves.