There are 806 article(s) tagged Shelby County Commission:
County commissioners vote Monday on a waiver of the county's hiring and pay freeze, and nearly 100 more waivers requested by officials are waiting in the wings. Commissioners say they need a budget book with specific line items and dollar figures to know whether the waivers would put the county in the red.
It's been a month since a county government budget was approved for the fiscal year that began July 1. But until that detailed budget is printed in black and white, there is still some wrangling underway, some distrust and the hiring freeze the county imposed may be melting.
Taking a question about past criminal convictions off the county's job application involves a set of complex rules for hiring those with a criminal past. The new ordinance pushes the consideration to later in the hiring process.
Also on the agenda for Monday, July 27, is a vote on creating a county health board that commission Chairman Mark Billingsley is seeking to delay. And the commission elects a new chair for the next year as it nears the two-year mark of its current four-year term.
On The Daily Memphian Politics Podcast, the County Commission chairman says the differences between the two don't appear to extend to the rest of the commission. Mark Billingsley also said he hopes to move to lift the county hiring budget freeze once there is a reconciliation of the budget approved by the commission last month after rejecting Mayor Lee Harris's original proposal.
So far, the return by voters of the unusually high number of the mail-in ballots hasn't shown up in the early voting turnout figures. Shelby County Elections Administrator Linda Phillips told county commissioners Wednesday, July 22, that some absentee voters may not complete their ballots because they are expecting to see the presidential general election that is on the November ballot.
Though it’s expected to be amended, Shelby County Commissioners approved Monday, July 13, a ban on alcoholic beverages being served at county facilities.
The Shelby County Commission approved John Porter's controversial Quinn Ridge proposal outside Collierville in southeast Shelby County.
The proposal comes as County Mayor Lee Harris has 46 requests from other countywide elected officials to add positions two weeks into the new fiscal year. Harris also served notice Monday that next budget season he will be back with some kind of proposal to raise revenues to avoid layoffs and cuts in services that are a real possibility this fiscal year.
Some significant amendments to apply the program to private contractors pushed a final vote to July 21.
The proposal would remove from county government employment applications the check box or question that asks whether the applicant has been convicted of a criminal offense.
The Wednesday committee sessions drew most of the 13 commissioners, with the remainder attending online. Also debuting was a partitioned commission chambers with glass barriers between the elected officials and masks worn in the booths created for them.
The county mayor also said in a "Behind The Headlines" interview that he has no regrets about his budget proposal that the commission rejected, which included a wheel tax hike with some budget cuts and an ambitious five-year plan to fund new school construction.
The Shelby County Commission is planning to install plexiglass barriers when it returns to its chambers next month. The Memphis City Council is making arrangements to find a new temporary meeting place. Its City Hall chambers are still undergoing a renovation that began before the pandemic.
The nonbinding resolutions approved by the Shelby County Commission call for adoption of “8 Can’t Wait” use of force measures for law enforcement and call racism a pandemic with associated health issues for people of color.
What was already a challenging budget year was complicated in county government by the pandemic's economic damage and a decision by the County Commission to reject the budget proposal by County Mayor Lee Harris. The commission rejected a proposed 8-cent property tax rate hike.
The commission takes up the budget again Monday, June 22, at its regular meeting, a week after voting to use $16.5 million in the county reserves to balance expenditures and revenues. But since then, questions have emerged about the changes the commission made.
Internal emails show disagreements between the county administration and some of the countywide elected officials outside the administration of Mayor Lee Harris about budget cuts and other changes to the consolidated county budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1.
The six-hour special meeting Monday sets the stage for a final budget vote in a week. But there are questions about the dollar figures approved by the Commission and how much red ink there is to be dealt with after the moves. Two social media posts during the meeting by County Mayor Lee Harris also complained that there would be layoffs and cutbacks in critical county programs.
Alisa Haushalter provided guidelines for residents to follow that will help move the county toward Phase 3. Additionally, she addressed Shelby County Commission's decision to provide additional funding for hiring 141 new positions.
The sheriff's appearance comes a week after a clash on the commission over two attempts to cut funding in his budget and reallocate it. The commission appears to be about $5 million away from balancing the budget. But there are lots of questions about whether the movement of line items can be applied to the red ink.
What makes these protests different for me is that I’ve seen how they can influence conversation and bring about change – in both Minneapolis and Memphis.
The plan to balance the county budget came apart when the commission put too much weight on the idea that federal reimbursements for county dollars spent on the pandemic freed up about $4.8 million. It didn't. Then a move to cut the sheriff's department budget brought two weeks of protest over the George Floyd incident into the discussion.