County to review suburban relief
Shelby County commissioners will consider distributing $3.4 million for the local suburbs in their meeting Monday.
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Shelby County commissioners will consider distributing $3.4 million for the local suburbs in their meeting Monday.
The proposal would ban the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office from getting camouflage uniforms and bayonets from surplus federal military stocks as well as militarized and weaponized vehicles or aircraft.
The latest edition of our scorecard looks at several moves in the hiring freeze and what the rejection of a convenience store on East Holmes Road could mean for similar businesses in the rest of the county.
Shelby County officials, who last year approved funding for preliminary work to build a new juvenile detention facility, are now exploring alternatives such as renovating a closed youth facility in Southeast Memphis.
Shelby County commissioners approved a waiver to the freeze Monday for county firefighters but put off another waiver for 78 more positions in other departments.
Milton's argument comes as the head of information services for county government says his lean budget could exacerbate problems hiring tech employees. The commission votes Monday on a set of exceptions to the county's hiring freeze totaling 104 positions and nearly $7 million.
Shelby County Commissioners want to try a swap out of federal CARES Act funding similar to one city council members did a week ago. But tensions left over from a rough county budget season that ended in June are hanging around.
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.