In a marathon eight-hour meeting Monday, June 27, Shelby County Commissioners punted how to divvy up $60 million of the county debt capacity over three fiscal years between capital spending for the seven public school districts and Regional One Health Care.

The commission will meet and try again in a special session Wednesday July 6 in what will amount to a start on a detailed discussion about substantially increasing the county’s debt that likely won’t be resolved until the new commission that is elected is August is in office.

The $20 million in unassigned capital funding was approved to go to schools and allocated based on the attendance of each of the county’s seven public school systems at the June 6 commission meeting that lasted until nearly 2 a.m.

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And commissioners weren’t sure three weeks later what they approved in that regard, with commissioner Van Turner proposing to allocate the $20 million each year to Regional One toward a $350 million capital fund ask of the county by the county-owned hospital.

Commissioner Michael Whaley remembered the $20 million planned for fiscal years 2025, 2026 and 2027 was allocated for schools and that’s what was confirmed by a review of the minutes.

The result was what Turner defined as a hard choice and ultimately a discussion about the county taking on more debt and possibly a lower bond rating as a result — both to be discussed in more detail at next week’s special meeting.

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“What I’m hearing is it’s good to pay down debt but should it be at the cost of lives lost?” he said. “There is no appetite to increase taxes — understood. The only avenue we have is to issue new debt.”

Regional One president and CEO Dr. Reginald Coopwood outlined in committee sessions last week a $750 million capital plan to overhaul the campus of the region’s safety-net public hospital including a regional trauma center.

County government would put up the first $350 million, to be followed by a combination of private, state and federal government funding.

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“We need to replace our campus,” he said Monday. “I’m not here to debate whether hospitals are more important than schools.”

The capital plans include seismic retrofitting of many of the buildings that are part of the Regional One campus.

Memphis Shelby County Schools chief of staff Patrice Thomas said the $20 million in the out years of the five-year capital plan amounted to “for the first time in our community an actual school replacement program” in a 200-school system that has 33 schools built before 1950.

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“It would bring a new school online at least every three years,” she said of the funding.

The five-year capital budget isn’t binding in its out years on the new commission that takes office Sept. 1 and changes are often made to those out years.

Turner, who is chairman of the commission’s hospitals and health committee as well as one of six commissioners leaving the body at the end of August, wants a start on Regional One’s funding before he and the others leave.

“For the last eight years … we’ve been pitted between our schools and Regional One,” he said. “You see what we are dealing with. On one end, we’ve got to educate our young people and on the other end we’ve got to save lives. It’s a tough call. The only option I have is to bring forth a resolution to issue more debt.”

With more debt could come lower ratings of the city’s credit by bond rating agencies which means it cost the county more to borrow money in interest rates — apart from increases by the Federal Reserve to battle national inflation.

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“What I’m hearing is it’s good to pay down debt but should it be at the cost of lives lost?” Turner asked. “I don’t want to have lives lost trying to look good on our balance sheet.”

The commission ultimately voted Monday to divide the $20 million in unallocated capital funding in the out years of the five-year plan equally between the schools and Regional One.

Whaley said it may be the last word on the matter from the current commission but is far from a final decision.

“I’m not sure we are going to decide that tonight and I’m not sure we need to,” he said. “We need a larger pot.”