County Commission - Regular Meeting

yesterday. Yes.

All right. Good morning. It is Wednesday, May 13th. I apologize for the technology delays, but it wouldn't be a commission meeting without technology delays down nowadays, it seems. Um, I'll call to order committee number two, public works. Um, if we could read the first item. Item one, a resolution reading, approving a change order to the contract with Nixon General Contractors Incorporated for a no cost extension for the Big Creek Park phase 1C amenities package as part of the National Disaster Rel resilience competition grant. This item does not require the exponential or fund sponsored by Commissioner David C. Bradford, Jr.

Thank you. That item has been moved by Commissioner Wright. I have seconded the item. Mr. Sanders with the report. Good morning. Yes, sir. Good morning. Thank you, sir. Darren Sanders, county engineer. So, this item is part of the National Disaster Resilience Competition Grant and it's the Big Creek area improvements. Um due to this particular item, there were some bridges that were delayed in receiving. So we're extending in there's no additional cost to this item. We've actually also extended the grant. The grant was going to end in September. We've extended it to the end of the year. So we're going to run this item concurrent with the with the grant which ends at December 31st. Thank you. All right. Thank you. So that's no cost, just added time to the contract.

Correct. Excellent. All right. Uh seeing no commissioners in the queue, let's take this item to a vote. All right. If all commissioners had the opportunity to vote, let's tally the results. We have eye votes from commissioners right and Bradford. We have two I votes.

Thank you. That item will go down with a favorable recommendation. Let's read item number two. Item two is a resolution approving a change order to the contract with Nixon General Contractors Incorporated for a no cost time extension for the Big Creek Park phase 2B Jones board trial project as part of the National Disaster Resilience Competition Grant. This item does not require the expenditure of funds sponsored by Commissioner David C. Bradford Jr. Thank you. This item I have moved this item. It was second by Commissioner Wright. Uh, Mr. Sanders, looks like this is a wash and repeat on another phase. Go ahead.

Good morning. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Darren Sanders, county engineer. This is pretty much a ditto. Um, this was due to some playground equipment that was, you know, long lead times on there several things that, you know, still even though that the supply chain's gotten better, there's still items that have long lead times, but we're doing the same thing here. We're extending this particular contract to the end of the year to to run concurrently with the grant, and there's no additional cost. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you. All right. Seeing no commissioners in the queue, let's take this item to a vote as well. All right. Looks like both of us have voted. So, if we can tally the results.

We have I votes from commissioners right and Bradford. We have two I votes.

Thank you. That item will go down with a favorable recommendation. If we could read item number three. Item three, a resolution approving the purchase of employee uniforms and accessories for the Shelby County Fire Department from Midsaff Solutions at a cost not to exceed $169,290 for the period of award through June 30th, 2026. This item requires the expedenture of FY2026 fire enterprise funds in an amount not to exceed 169,290 sponsored by Commissioner David C. Bradford Jr. This item was referred back to committee in April 20 on the April 27, 2026 commission meeting.

Thank you. I have moved this item as second by Commissioner Wright, deputy chief. Go ahead. Good morning, Commissioner. Uh Eric Jackson, Deputy Chief, Shelby County Fire Department. This item before you is for the purchase of our annual uh uniform aotment for our firefighters. We do this annually through theou negotiated contract. And we heard this last committee and it went down. Do you remember why we sent it back up here? Were there additional questions that some commissioners had that we needed answers to? Yes, sir. Have we answered all of those? Uh there weren't there were no questions from the fire department that needed answering. I just meant I think commissioners had questions. I don't see many commissioners in the room now that had some of those questions. I didn't know if you had received emails or something between now and the last meeting.

I have not.

Okay. All right. Um thank you sir. Uh I do have a comment card on this u from Miss uh Brenda Bazar. Um so Miss Bazar, you can come to the microphone. Um press the button on the right which will turn it on. Just give your name, your zip code. I believe you have a presentation or slideshow as well that you have brought. Um, Miss Thomas, if we could bring that up and I will give you 3 minutes to run through this. I don't know how long it is, so you may have to zip through it. Go ahead. Uh, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Brenda Salamito, uh, Alpha 1 Apparel, 5896 Garden Ridge Cove, Memphis, Tennessee. Um, I am the owner of Alpha 1 Apparel. We are the we were the current contract holder for the Shelby County Fire Department's uniforms. We were awarded that contract February 2024 with two time extensions. If you see the first page of the presentation there, you can see it was it was permitted to have two time extensions, but instead it was chosen to rebid. Second page, you can see that is the letter of extension for our first extension. um November 2025 the contract was rebid and per the terms and conditions and the bid specifications it is mandatory and this is by both ordinance and policy and we're here stating that there was a violation of both ordinance and policy and the award of this bid. It is required that the biders clearly provide information about substitute items and if substitute items are not provided then it is Shelby County Purchasings Department role to assume that they are bidding the specified item. Also in terms of conditions which thankfully they are basically the same. It says under 34.1 wherever conflicts exist between these terms and conditions the

bid document provisions shall prevail. So luckily they are they're pretty close but both documents state that everything must be filled out correctly per the bid directives and that they also are to provide the substitutions and identify those substitutions in the bid documents. It is also per the criteria the conditions of a ward and this is mainly the reason why we are here today. We're contesting this ward. Even though the director of purchasing has the right, it does not give him the right to violate ordinance or policy. If you look probably on the page that says Shelby County bid opening 11:2526, it was a video bid opening which I attended. These were the totals of every vendor. There were five vendors that submitted bids. The first one, their EFC expired, the number expired, so they were disqualified. The second 284,000 and and change. I didn't quite hear that, but we have everybody's bids there except for the final bid, which was Midsouth Solutions, and they bid considerably lower. So, this is a red flag that there's clearly something wrong with their bid submitt for it to be hundreds of thousands of dollars lower than all the other professional biders, professional companies that qualified for this bid. If you go to the next page there, you'll see this is um the document of record. This is Midsouth Solutions bid submitt and clearly states on the bid specifications what is to be done. And you can see that there was no unit price

provided. There was just a total price provided for individual line items. They did not extrapolate out for the total contract price. Thus, that's why their bid was only $2,000. And there's a copy of their itemized list. Again, no substitutions are provided. So, it it's highly unlikely that this bid, which has been is here today to be awarded, conforms to the ordinance. On the next page, you'll see we had a letter of protest that was physically handed in in person uh by my husband, Steve Baser, who is the CFO of Alpha 1 Apparel. Um I'm sorry he couldn't be here today. He'll be here later today. Um he's been recently diagnosed with uh non-hodkins lymphoma, so we're starting treatment for that next week. Then on the next page you'll see um Alpha One Apparel's bid and you can see how we completed the bid. We extrapolated all the totals then thus brought us to our total final page section 20.0 Shelby County government LOSB program. It says, "This project is subject to the Shelby County government's locallyowned small business program ordinances, and Alpha 1 Apparel is a certified locallyowned small business here. And like I said, we were the contract holder until the bid, the decision to to rebid um came up. It's my understanding the decision to rebid was because the allotments went up, which, um, historically through either Shelby

County Sheriff's Department or other agencies, that has not been a mandatory reason to rebid. So, um, any questions that you may have, just let me know. Okay. I do have one commissioner in the queue. Um, Commissioner, I don't know if you have a question for Miss Basar or for Chief Deputy, but I'll let you ask it and then we'll find the right response.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And first of all, um certainly my sympathy goes out to you and to former commissioner Bazar. Um I'll be amending my prayer list for sure and certainly understand. Um but puts puts regular business in perspective. I I suppose um thank you for bringing this presentation and for sharing what what the um what the concerns that you have. I understand that that you're representing the incumbent that this went out to rebid while we were in the in a period in which the administration could have opted to renew. I guess my my questions, Mr. Chair, might be for Mr. Gloucester or for um Mr. Deputy Chief if if you gentlemen wouldn't mind coming back up just so I can make sure I understand what happened in this case. Um because I think first I have a I have a question about what appears to be the total bid that um this new resolution would approve a uh an award to Midsouth Solutions. Um, is this accurate that the bid was 2,000 some because it looks like copies of the the bid? It's it's unclear to me if there's a digit before that numeral 2. Um, is that their bid? Is it 2,000 something or was it in the tens of thousands? James Gloss administrator the person I I couldn't see that and I don't have all the details from the bid. Uh even know what was up there. Would you like to look at my copy? All right. We're going to bring you a copy of that so you can take a look at that. C can um Mr. Deputy Chief, can you from the department's perspective share why

the administration chose to take this back out for a new round of of bids rather than continue the existing?

Uh yes, sir. Eric Jackson, deputy chief uh Shelby County Fire Department. Uh during the time of the uh the the uh award to Alpha 1, there was a uh negotiated contract with theou for the union and there was an item that was on there was the uniforms and there was an increase in the amount that each person would receive. It went from $400 to $600 which is about $54,000. Well, the current bid was 119,000. Had we renewed that, we wouldn't have had enough money on the PO for everyone to purchase their uniforms. So, we had to put it out for a rebid because the old bid was no good at that time. So, we had to increase what we needed. So, we needed about $170,000 is what we needed. And did we end up going with just the lowest bid that was submitted or was this scored in some other way?

Uh, we went with the recommendation from purchasing which was the lowest bidder.

And my time has expired, Mr. Chair, but can we go back to my first question to Mr. Gloucester about that bid number? Is it what was the bid that Midsouth solutions submitted? James Gloss administrator per I don't have the details to exec my compliance manager does this and works for the department so I don't have all the details in front of me but this was not their final bid uh for everything that that's definitely not it that number it's not the final bid number okay I still might have some questions about this my you know my concern has always been that when something like this comes from the administration Mr. Mr. Chair, I almost virtually 99.9% of the time vote yes just to keep business going, to get people their uniforms, to to get business, you know, keep to keep business flowing. I'm just there's enough of a question in my mind with this and there's a there's been a a basically a contest so to speak. Um, I know she's also spoken about the way that uh a contest was delivered or handd delivered or whatever. There's just enough of a question that I have that Mr. Chair, I would move to send this down without a recommendation.

We've got a motion to move this down without recommendation. I'm going to second that. Um, so this will be heard on Monday on the regular agenda. Mr. Gloucester, if you would just do a little research for us cuz we know this is going to be discussed uh on Monday and so if you could just have a little bit more information. I certainly understand what Deputy Chief uh Jackson here is telling us and that we had renegotiation which required to re send out a new um RFP for the uh um uniforms and stuff. So I certainly understand that aspect of it. I just want to make sure we've shored everything up on the purchasing side to make sure we understand why they were selected background and that kind of stuff. So if you can just provide a little bit of that information on Monday, Mr. Glouester, I think we can move forward with this item. Go ahead, Mr. Cluster.

James Cluster Minister has purchased. So if we want to speak to why they were selected, they went through the seal bid process, which is based on the lowest and the best price. They bid, we got the numbers in, reviewed it. They were the lowest and best bid based on the time and purchasing does not have anything to do with the renewals. There based on the department if they want to renew or not. And based on the pricing that was submitted, we did have the bid opening meeting and we open it and say the scores and the prices before all the vendors that's willing to get on the call and participate the actual numbers that each vendor submitted. So once we did the recommendation of award, they were lowest, the department agreed and they were awarded. So that's the process that we went through lowest and best. Okay. Between now and Monday, could you email us the two bids that you base the decisions off of? because it looks like the information that Mrs. Basar sent u may not be the final information based off of what you said. So, if you could just send that to us between now and Monday, then we'll have all the documentation to back up the decision. That work? All right. Thank you. All right. Uh seeing no other commissioners in the queue on this item and no other items before us on public works, I will close that committee. And it is after 8:45, so we can open up committee number five, land use, planning, transportation, and codes. If we could read that discussion item and then I'll let uh the group present.

Item one is a discussion which lasts 10 minutes followup presentation of the comp plan zoning map and zoning code updates. Brett Ragsdale, presenter. Good morning, Mr. Ragdale and team. I will turn the floor over to you guys. Uh we've got this scheduled for 10 minutes. We are already running behind by about 10 minutes, but um I think you guys will be swift, so go ahead. Uh thank you, Mr. Chairman. Brett Ragdale with the Division of Planning Development. I'll turn it over to Mr. Wardrop to start the presentation, and we will try to be as brief as possible. So, thank you.

Uh good morning, commissioners. Uh Nichols Ward, Division of Planning and Development. We have a new face with us today. We wanted to come here today and give you an opportunity to meet our consultant who's been working with us on this project for two years. They're with Camaros. This is Christian Net here with me today. Um before I let him speak, um I want to give you uh one quick thing. Um next slide. Okay, perfect. Um I want to give you a quick update on our timeline for this. Um we previously said we were going to be asking the land use control board for their recommendation at this uh Thursday's meeting. We are going to be requesting a one-mon hold on that. um on Thursday. Um we're continuing to have great conversations with stakeholders of all varieties and we think another month to continue having those conversations will be really beneficial. That being said, uh our staff plus Camios will still give their plan detailed presentation um which will be a lengthy presentation um that will go into the nitty-gritty on the code. It'll be available via the division's YouTube. So, we really think it's going to be a great resource for folks, you know, to answer their questions. Um, so be on the lookout for that. Um, finally, I want to let you know that we did publish an amended draft of the full code text on Friday. So that's one thing to be aware of. Next slide, please. Before I let Chris talk, I'm going to speak a little bit about why you bring in a third party to begin with. Um, when you're doing this sort of work, um, first and foremost is just the sheer volume of work. It takes a a lot of a lot of hours to, you know, pull apart your zoning code and put it back together in a way that makes sense. So that's what they've been helping us on. Of course, the organization and graphics. It's um often good to get an outside sort of eye on that. Um pull that together as well as having the capacity to do professional graphics which are really really helpful, you know, in the 10ear time span as we're trying to enforce this thing. Um getting fresh eyes on our current code. Director Ragdale and I read our current code every day for a living. Um but getting

new eyes on that is obviously really great. Um seeing people who read other C's codes a lot. Um, finally, and this is mostly what Chris will talk about, is joining that local knowledge with their national experience, which um, both are essential to having a a great code. So, with that, I will turn it over to Christian with Camaros. Skip this line. All right. Uh, you can advance a couple slides. Yep. Keep going. Uh, okay. Here we go. Title slide. Um, so my name is Chris Janette uh, with Camos. really happy to be here for the first time in front of you all to talk a little bit about what we've done with the unified development code. Next slide, please. Um, so as you all probably know, uh, both the UDC and the zoning map are two of the key implementation tools for the vision established in Memphis 3.0, which is, uh, the city and countyy's comprehensive plan. Next slide, please. Um, the work on the UDC really kind of strives to take those the vision and the goals from the comprehensive plan and translate into a concrete set of regulations. So helping that vision essentially come down and touch the ground uh in the county and the city. Um we do believe as Nicholas said that the the best outcomes in these types of processes really result from genuine collaboration. So while we are uh you know national consultants, we have broad experience with best practices in a range of communities around the country. Um we know what we don't know and we know that staff knows Memphis and Shelby County better than we do. So um you know staff has that deep local knowledge. They know where all the bodies are buried so to speak. Um, and we need that perspective as we move forward with the code because ultimately we don't want to import a code from somewhere else and just assume that it's going to work here. Um, but we're here rather to work with staff to work with the community and build something from the ground up that's going to work uh in Shelby County and Memphis. Um, so you're seeing my face for the first time today, but we didn't do this overnight. Uh, we've actually been working together for about the past 2 years. We started with a

really intensive research review and analysis phase. Uh moving past that phase, we brought forth a drafting directions report about a year ago in April 2025 that laid out some of the key issues and our approaches to moving forward into drafting the code. Um since that time we have actually drafted a staff draft and we've been working with staff approximately four hours a week uh for the last six months uh every Wednesday and Friday uh to review refine and iterate on what's in there literally going line by line making sure that everyone is comfortable uh with the approaches with the specific regulations and making sure that they are grounded and going to work uh in Memphis and Shelby County. Next slide please. Um so the draft UDC uh really emphasizes clarity and predictability. We want to make sure that we're streamlining the organization and the code structure to help make it more usable and accessible for both members of the community and staff. Um we have moved to uh really using uh consistent terminology and set of definitions. So the language that the code runs on has been revised and clarified. Um and we've paired that with a series of objective standards to really make interpretation a thing of the past in most cases. We want to kind of get out of the game of constantly interpreting what the code says because the code should say things clearly. um and that could enable uh more efficient review processes. Uh we have also brought in a set of illustrations. You can see some of those here. Nicholas spoke to this a little bit. Everything from clear sight triangles to height transition uh regulations to design standards to where I can put my garage uh as as much as can be illustrated in the ordinance uh has been illustrated at this point. Next slide, please. Um, so we have also uh reorganized the way that uses are handled and updated the series of uses addressed throughout the code really to simplify those and make sure that they work for the way that Memphis and Shelby County uh work today. So that's included new options for housing kind of neighborhood scale uh retail or mixeduse options. And we've updated use standards to address impacts for specific uses where those are anticipated. Um we've

also updated the zoning district structure overall. So looking to uh consolidate districts that were perhaps redundant or unused or underutilized. Um refining all of the dimensional standards to make sure that what the code requires actually matches kind of on the ground developed conditions throughout the county and the city. Uh and we've added simple objective design standards to really get at that idea of we want new development to be highquality and contextsensitive. Um, we've also looked and spent a lot of time at kind of right sizing the administration portions of the code with the main idea here being that if an application comes in, it meets all the standards of the code. It's something that the city and the county would typically like to see developed. We don't want to push people through multiple special approval processes. We just want to streamline that process to the extent possible. We've also updated the SUP approval process, kind of collapsing that down with the parallel uh conditional use permit and significant neighborhood structure conditional use permit processes into a single kind of streamlined uh process. And we've updated the ability for the zoning administrator uh to make administrative modifications if they fall below the threshold. So just minor modifications. Finally, uh we've taken a close look at all of the site development standards within the code. So everything that happens that's not districts or uses. Uh and that includes things like accessory structures and uses, exterior lighting, permitted encroachments, so balconies, bay windows, things that uh encroach into setbacks, all the way down to signs, uh and a set of standards for the public realm. Um so just to kind of wrap things up, uh this is really the result of two years of close collaboration between our team at Camios and and the DPD team, uh as well as consideration of numerous comments that have been received throughout the process. We think that it's a clear kind of more consistent and predictable framework for approving development applications in the city and the county. Um, and it's a strong foundation for moving forward through the adoption process. So, with that, uh, that was pretty quick. Thank you all. I don't have any commissioners in the queue.

Amazing. Um, all right. I want to thank you all for the presentation. Um, I will say, um, our email inboxes have been filled up on maps and all kinds of stuff. Uh, and this is one of the items we've seen a lot of emails on. Uh, the most repeated comment is, "This is too quick. We don't have enough time to review it." So, I do appreciate you guys moving this back by a month. Um, I hope those that we've been receiving comments for are spending this time to add in some more public comments. Um, I think you guys presented to us uh a little over a month ago. You guys have been meeting with public since then. Can you just give us any updates on how many meetings you had, how many engagements you've had, that kind of thing. Just so we I just want to make sure we are doing all we can to get the public engaged.

Yes. Brett Ragdale with the division of plan development. Uh we continue to have meetings weekly with various stakeholders. And so I would say you know between our comp plan team who is uh meeting also you know we've probably had um you know uh four meetings a week with various stakeholders and we continue to do that as well as just some you know email correspondence and um you know just uh various conversations. So we're definitely continuing that engagement. We're looking forward to more. You know we we want to make sure we're getting this right. And as Nicholas said, we've had some really good conversations with some key stakeholders recently that, you know, we uh decided that we needed a little bit more time to do this. So, yeah, we'll continue to do that. We look forward to more. So, please if uh if you're hearing this, reach out to us.

Excellent. Um and then I think you said so the idea is to go to land use control board in about a month and so then would it follow on our agendas? Is that mid to late June? Brett Rex, the division of land development. That would be correct. So the soonest we could get to you is the second meeting in June, I think. And so we'll see, you know, that that would be our plan, though. And so it's a joint ordinance, so it would also go to the city council. So we're trying to kind of manage that schedule. And but that would be the the goal. So Okay. So it would fall probably right at the same time. We're having intense budget discussions. So if it slides off a week or two, I don't think you'll get any uh complaints from anybody up here as well.

Sure. And and it is an ordinance, of course, it requires three readings. So there are some time to have those conversations and um have some additional uh amendments if we need to. So um you know that that would be a thing we would work through with with you obviously. So

excellent. All right. All right. Uh see another commissioners in the queue. No questions. Um we will close out the land use planning transportation and codes committee. Gentlemen, thank you all for your presentation this morning. Mr. Chair, if you are concluded with that committee, then I will open up committee number four, law enforcement, correction, and courts. Madame Parliamentarian, can you read item one? Item one is a resolution approving a contract between Chevy County Government and Metals Treatment Technologies LLC for the Emergency Repair and Reconstruction of Range 2 Burm on behalf of the Chevy County Sheriff's Office and the amount not to exceed $1,68,500. This item requires expenditure of fiscal year 2026 capital improvement plan budget funds and amount not to exceed 1 million68,500 sponsored by Commissioner Mc Wright.

Thank you so much. This item has been moved by Commissioner Bradford and seconded by Commissioner Shalai. Good morning, Mr. Deathridge. You have the floor.

Good morning, commissioners. Uh Mike Deathridge, administrator of planning for the sheriff. Uh this resolution is simply to ratify the emergency contract with MT2 Technologies uh for the remediation and reconstruction of our range to burm at the sheriff's uh firing range. Um this project is necessary due to the ongoing erosion problems that we're having. Um we've got um we've had to close the burm. It's just it's unsafe to use. So, uh, these repairs will fix that and, uh, put that burn back in service and, uh, put us back on course. MTD, MT2 is, uh, they're an expert in this particular field. Uh, they've done work for us for many years and we've been satisfied with their work. So, we recommend approval of this item. Thank you so much. Uh, I know we've dealt with a BRM resolution or two. Is this a different phase or different area of the same uh range or

uh Yes sir. This is the same range. We we reallocated some uh CIP funds uh to fund it. So that's the same project. Yes, sir. Okay. Gotcha. All right. Commissioner Sugarman. Thank you, Chair. And so you said that you um reallocate CRP funding. Uh exactly what CIP funding? We reallocated some funding for the jail shower project to fund this project. However, the jail shower project will be coming up in the new budget here in the next couple months.

And how long have we um been addressing the um situation with the jail shower? Cuz I mean, seems like it's been over several months now. Yes, ma'am. I I can't speak to specifics on the timeline. um as I'm not over the jail portion, but uh I do know that it's coming up here in the next couple of months. Mhm. And so who do I need to reach out to about a timeline? We can get that information to you. I appreciate that. Yes, ma'am. Oh, comes my backup.

She's always prepared. Good morning, commissioners. Alicia Lindseay, chief administrative officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. Commissioner Sugarman. Um the reclass of the CIP or the reallocation and reappropriation of the CIP budget that occurred I want to say on the April 13th commission meeting. And there was an email sent to the body on April 10th, 2026 that outlined uh everything concerning the shower. We've gone through Yeah. like on page eight of that email that was sent on April 10th, we explained that we went through several architectural firms in order to get quotes and we were able unable to get quotes until uh I want to say it was March of 2026. It was related to uh the cost and so the cost was exorbitant and we found we had a quote for $22,350 and we're going to move forward. However, uh the delay in receiving an architectural firm prevented us from trying to move forward with that project this year. Therefore, we came to the commission and reallocated those funds. It was approved by the board of commissioners and uh this the CIP project for the showers will be included in the fiscal year 2027 um CIP budget. But there is a timeline listing every date that we went to um got quotes from different vendors and the assistance from purchasing etc. So all of that's laid out and

I do recall all that. The question then becomes okay at this point in time what is the timeline? So so Alicia Lindsay chief administrative officer Shelby County Sheriff's Office. So the work for the architectural is in progress now and so and when will that be completed? I don't have that information with me. I can try to find out. But the plan is to solicit bids at the beginning of the year to to actually do the construction work for the renovation of the showers. The beginning of the fiscal year or the beginning of the fiscal year. Okay. So that's in August. July.

July. Right. So So how long will that take once all RFP and all that? What is the process as far as long? How long will it take? I understand I know the process, but how long do you summize that it's going to take? because we're still getting complaints and so again um I understand there are architectural issues you came before the commission I I recall all that and we reallocated the CIP funds having said that from the time that the um RFP since you all got an architecture firm right or you're in the process of getting one what do you summize it will be once that's done will that take another year Alicia Lindsay chief administrative officer Shelby County Sheriff's Office because we don't have a vendor in place that will do the renovation. That question I'm unable to answer because it's all going to depend on the bids, the cost, etc., but we would expect that it would be completed before the end of fiscal year 2027.

Thank you. You're welcome. All right. Thank you, Commissioner Sugarman. Back to Mr. Deathridge. This um I want to say because what Chief Lindsay said, um it looked like April 13th is when we amended the budget. So now we're just expending what we've amended. Is that is that right? Yes, sir. That's correct. So this is already in the budget. Now we're just executing the ratifying putting the dollars down. But this is all just one. Have we had any other expenditures related to the bur or is it just this one? No. Well, we've had other BMS. We've had those maintained by the same company, but that was last year. It's not a part of the CIP project. Okay. This would be the first one this year.

Yes, sir.

Okay. All right. I see no other commissioners in the queue. Let's go ahead and take this to a vote. If all commissioners have voted, could we report the tally, please? We have eye votes from commissioners Mills, Shalai, Wright, and Bradford. Commissioner Sugarman has abstained. We have four eyes and one abstained.

Thank you so much. that item will move down with a favorable recommendation. Can we read item two, please?

Item two is a resolution approving a contract between Shelby County government on behalf of Juvenile Court of Memphis and Shelby County, Tennessee, and Soft Tech Incorporated in amount of $175,000 with the option to renew for two additional one-year periods. said contract shall commence upon execution through June 30th, 2026 with the option to renew for two additional one-year periods. Sponsored by Commissioner Mc Wright. Thank you so much. This item has not yet been moved. Has been moved by Commissioner Bradford, second by Commissioner Shalai. Good morning, lady and gentlemen. Uh, Miss Folsam, floor is yours.

Thank you so much. Karan Folsome, Chief Administrative Officer for Juvenile Court. Um, here with us today is our chief technology officer, Mr. Frederick Hunt, and also our finance administrator, Mr. Michael Thompson. And today we have before you, we've provided you with copies of the resolution. Um, this particular contract is will assist with our case management system for the court um through the vendor soft. This is a legacy system that we are hoping to soon um I hate to say dispose of but essentially uh remove from our infrastructure at the court. Um however during the process that we will um engage with the state of Tennessee, we still have to maintain our current case management system. Um so we are asking uh your uh diligence in approving our item for today.

All right. Thank thanks Miss Wilson. I have a commissioner in the queue, Commissioner Sugarman. Thank you, Chair. And so, although I do have the right to vote on this, however, since my brother is Judge Tar Sugarman, um people have asked me to abstain, so I will follow the directives. I'll abstain from the voting on this. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Commissioner Sugarman. I have no one else in the queue. Does that conclude your comments today? Yes.

All right. Let's go ahead and take this to a vote. budget. Mhm. We have eye votes from commissioners Mills, July, Wright, and Bradford. Commissioner Sugarman has abstained. We have four eyes, one abstained.

Thank you, madame minutes clerk. That item will go down with a favorable recommendation and I guess we'll see some of you in budget committee. Thank you all so much. All right. Can we read item three, please? Item three, resolution to approve a contract between Shelby County government and David Jackson doing business as Jackson Forensic Consulting and amount not to exceed $70,000 for professional service to establish an actionable plan for the implementation and governance of countywide digital forensics and rapid DNA capacity in fiscal year 2026 and continuing through November 30th, 2026. 6 in fiscal year 2027 with the option to renew. This item requires appropriation and expenditure of fiscal year 2026 general funds not to exceed the amount of 70,000. Sponsored by Commissioner Mc Wright.

Thank you so much. This item has been moved by Commissioner Shalai, seconded by Commissioner Sugarman. Good morning.

Good morning. Dana Wilson, Deputy Chief of Staff for the Office of Mayor Harris. Firstly, I just want to thank um Commissioner Wright for your support of this resolution and um your leadership in this committee, your commitment to um public safety. Uh come on up. And I am joined today by Dr. Canard Brown um who maybe doesn't need a introduction, but he is a local leader has who has been serving as an adviser and a consultant on this initiative over the past year. Um, we're here today to request your approval for a resolution to engage a lead consultant in the implementation of countywide services, a services initiative focused on rapid DNA and forensics, digital forensics. Um, today rapid DNA and digital forensics capacities are fragmented across law enforcement agencies in Shelby County. There are backlogs. Um digital evidence demands are ever increasing and currently there's no coordinated structure to support the capacity across our multiple agencies. Um the result is slower investigations and inconsistent processing of evidence. So this effort directly does is designed to address those issues. As you know, this commission already approved funding to begin this effort um to build crime lab capacity, and we're bringing this forward as the logical next step moving into execution with a divine scope and a structured plan. The work will follow a 90day process. So, this is a focused intense moving towards action program. Um this effort does not simply coordinate what already exists. It will expand and establish new dedicated forensics capacities built around modern technologies and personnel specifically trained to use them. This will allow all agencies across Shelby County to process and deliver evidence at a higher um level of speed, consistency, and technical performance than in our currently decentralized approach. We are also coordinating with um

municipal leadership to ensure alignment and participation from the outset of this project. So what will be built will be responsive to how law enforcement agencies are operating in the field today. Um to move forward with this project, we're proposing that we engage a national expert. His name is David Jackson. Um, he has hands-on experience leading crime labs and supporting various municipalities across the country to develop high quality forensics operations. Mr. Jackson is a certified forensics manager and an FBI quality assurance auditor. I want to be clear that this is not a study. This is an execution focused effort designed to produce a working model that our municipal law enforcement agencies can engage in directly. And at the conclusion of this 90-day effort, Shelby County will have a clear operational model for these two critical areas of forensics investigation and a defined path to begin the implementation. We are requesting your approval to proceed with this engagement and move this initiative into execution immediately. And do you have anything to add, Dr. Brown?

No. All right. Thank you, Miss Wilson. And you are um is this your first time appearing before us in commission? Um in this role? Yes, I have been here in other roles before. Okay. Okay. But you are now the deputy chief of staff. Is that right? That is correct. Okay. All right. I do have a commissioner in the queue. Commissioner Sugarman. Thank you. And you mentioned a backlog of um DNA testing. Would this resolve that issue or is something else needed to asssure that we don't have continue to have this backlog?

Dana Wilson, deputy chief of staff for Mayor Harris. I'm I'm going to let um Dr. Brown speak to this as well. Um yeah, go ahead, Dr. Brown.

Uh Kim Brown, consultant for Shelby County government. Uh, Commissioner Sugerman, this is a Commissioner Sugarman, this is a little bit different than uh addressing the rape kit backlog. This is uh rapid DNA. So, we're talking about using rapid DNA in the context of booking. Uh so every arrest, every individual that comes into the criminal justice system at 2011 would have um preliminary rapid DNA testing done and their DNA information put in a system called KODS. That means uh we're trying to preliminarily match DNA for any other cases that may very well be out there. Um uh if if you if I may use an example of the u Miss Fletcher case, the individual in that particular case um had DNA in the system. He um as I understand it had been uh arrested or came in contact with the law enforcement system and had ultimately been released. Uh, I think that is probably the case with a number of individuals where their DNA is in the system. They come in contact with the criminal justice system. Without that rapid DNA analysis being done, they're ultimately released for the new charge. uh when if in fact we had done the rapid DNA, we found we would have found out that this person may very well have been wanted for a multitude of other things uh in their DNA actually in the COTUS national system um as an individual that was involved in another crime. So, the objective of the rapid DNA is to hopefully prevent uh letting individuals back out uh that we have records of their DNA being

involved in other crimes. Thank you for the explanation. Um yes, you want to say I had a question. Um so, you said rapid DNA. So, how rapid is rapid? Is it like a 24-hour, 40? What's the timeline?

Uh rapid DNA is a relatively quick turnaround. uh you know less than 24 hours almost instantaneously. Confirmatory DNA has to be done subsequent to rapid DNA but at least rapid DNA gives us a preliminary match on an individual's DNA. Certainly the district attorney's office, the investigators involved in the cases that are outstanding have to do followup and do confirmatory DNA with uh TBI or the FBI through COTUS uh to ultimately bring a case like that to prosecution, but rapid DNA is really an investigative tool uh that the investigators are using real time.

Can I speak to Dana Wilson, Deputy Chief of Staff? Um also I mean the rapid DNA it's a machine that uh someone can be trained someone in the department on in the floor can be trained to take the sample implemented into the machine and within 90 minutes to 2 hours there can be results being processed um and so it is extremely quick and I think there are other case um uses for this that are um invaluable to the community worth mentioning. So, um, not only can it be used in booking, just like was described, um, it can also be used as an a a quick, um, investigative tool to rule out potential suspects. So, you can narrow your investigation. So, this is like efficiency and being able to close cases and move things along. And then the third case use, um, which is sad to acknowledge, but important is, um, rapid DNA can be used in mass casualty events to help really identify people. So, it's a it is a it's a capacity that a county like Shelby should probably have in place.

Just real quick to that to that point, uh, Commissioner Sugarman, rapid DNA was used in the case that we just had in Middle Tennessee where there was an explosion and a number of individuals were in that facility when it exploded. So getting DNA samples from uh family members of the individuals that were involved in the explosion to be able to match via rapid DNA to individuals that were uh unfortunately involved in the explosion to get preliminary identification.

All right. Thank you, Commissioner Sugarman. Commissioner Bradford, Dr. Brown, so good to see you this morning. Um, I'm glad that uh we have you involved in this cuz from working with you in the past, I know you do a lot of research on these type of topics. So, having your uh name behind this means a lot. Um, this is something I know the Cville police uh were very um supportive of uh when we started talking about having local DNA testing. So, I just see this as the next step in order to get that uh process established so that uh we can start using this. So, um I'm fully supportive of this and Dr. Brown, wonderful to see you this morning. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

All right. Thank you, Commissioner Bradford. I'm seeing no one else in the queue. Did you have anything else, Miss Wilson or Dr. Brown? Final chance. Okay. All right. Thank you so much. Let's go uh take this to a vote, please. We have eye votes from commissioners Sugarman, Mills, Shalai, Wright, and Bradford. We have five I votes.

Thank you so much. Uh that item moves down with a favorable recommendation. And that concludes committee number four. Go ahead and open up committee 15, facilities, real property, and capital improvements. Can we read item one? Item one, a resolution to grant a permanent utility easement, 30 foot wide water easement and 10- foot wide electric easement and size over across and upon a track of land owned by the city of Memphis and county of Shelby located on the northwesterly side of Summer Avenue approximately 1,750 ft southwestwardly from the center line of Shelby Oaks Drive to the city of Memphis for the use and benefit of the Memphis Light Gas and Water Division for nominal consideration for his provision of utility service and maintenance thereof. Sponsored by Commissioner Mcright.

Thank you so much. This item has been moved by Commissioner Bradford, seconded by Commissioner Shalai. Miss Sykeswood, you have the floor. Thank you, Esther Sykeswood, Landic Administrator. This is the second of three easements that will come before you. Uh it's the same project that we had last uh commission meeting.

All right. Very good. Seeing no commissioner seeking to be recognized, we can take this to a vote. Commissioners, please cast your votes. All commissioners have voted. Let's close the screen. Report the tally. We have eye votes from commissioners Sugarman, Mills, Shalai, Wright, and Bradford. We have five I votes.

Thank you so much. That item moves down with a favorable recommendation. Item two, please. Item two, resolution approving a lease agreement between the county of Shelby and the city of Memphis for approximately 17,16 square ft of office space located at 2011 Popular Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee 38103 for a term commencing upon execution through June 30th, 2026 with a monthly rent amount of $25,659 with the option to extend the lease on a month-to-month basis. for up to additional 3 months after expiration of term. This item does not require the expenditure of county funds, county operating funds sponsored by Commissioner Mc Wright.

Thank you. This item has been moved by Commissioner Bradford, seconded by Commissioner Sugarman. Miss Sykeswood, you have the floor.

Thank you, Esther Sykeswood, Lampic Administrator. Um, currently Memphis is into one several courtrooms and there has never been a written agreement. The CMF has requested a writt formalized agreement for purchasing purposes. Um this is that agreement. It expires uh on June 30th. It has um a provision for monthtomonth for 3 months at the same rate and then after that an escalation clause escalation clause of 125%. Um excluding the 12th floor which is where the police dispatch is that will only be subject to an annual 3% increase. All right, you've heard the presentation. Seeing no commissioners wishing to be recognized, let's take this to a vote. We have I votes from commissioners Sugarman, Mills, Shalai, Wright, and Bradford. We have five I votes.

That item moves down with a f favorable recommendation. And that concludes committee 15. Thank you. Let's open up committee 10, general government parliamentarian. Please read item number one into the record. Item one, a resolution approving the election of notaries public for employment and or reappointment for Sham County, Tennessee, sponsored by Commissioner Harry E. Brooks. Okay, seeing no commission, let's take this item down for a vote. Oh, I mean, okay, I don't see anything on my screen. Okay, can I get a a motion?

Okay, seconded. So, it's been moved by Commissioner Wright and seconded by myself. Let's take this item down for a vote. Our screens are frozen. So, let's do a roll call vote. Okay. Oh, there we go. Nope. Still frozen. Commissioner. Commissioner Sugarman. I Mills. I July. I Wright. I Bradford. I

qu I have a tally. I'm sorry. Can I have a tally? We have I votes from commissioners why Sugarman Mills July Wright and Bradford. We have six I votes. Thank you. This item goes down for recommendation and this concludes committee number 10.

All right. Good morning. We'll call to order committee number one, budget and finance. Uh if we can read item number one. Item one, resolution receiving and filing the January 2026 monthly comprehensive financial update reports entitled Shelby County Government Monthly Commission Division Reports for the year ending June 30th, 2026. Sponsored by Commissioner Michael Why.

All right. Thank you. I had one moved by Commissioner Sugarman, seconded by Commissioner Wright. Uh good morning, Deputy Director Shan Bomb. Good morning. Uh Danielle Shawnbone, deputy director administration and finance. Uh I believe Miss Thomas has copies and uh is passing those out. Uh so you'll have before you the January report. We know we are in May and so we are doing our best to catch up. uh a little behind due to our system conversion, but uh as I said, doing our best to catch up. So, uh as of the end of January, total revenue was got a typo there. Um was up 27.8 million and stands at 272.7 million. Um this is the as we know the part of the uh year thank you the the part of the year when the uh property tax is coming in uh the which is uh the bulk of our revenue uh as of the end of January property tax revenue was at 196.1 million or 50.3% of budget as compared to 179 million or 53% of the budget in the prior year. Uh a higher percentage of the p penny was allocated to the general fund in FY26. So although we are lagging uh prior year as a percentage budget, we have collected more in actual dollars. Um even though I'm not presenting today, uh I will let you know that as of the end of February, uh property tax revenues were at 368.6

million or 94.6 6% of uh the budget. Um other local taxes, state revenue and f federal local taxes are not materially changed from last year. Uh we are seeing a business tax increase a little bit. Um the other changes are just due to timing. Uh fines and fees are at 36.2 million versus 31.7 million in FY25. Uh the bulk of this increase is due to the general uh general sessions cleanup from FY25 that we received in FY26. Uh we are seeing slight increases in revenue across the board in uh fines and fees. So uh so that's why it's up generally. Uh we did see an increase in the register's office of approximately 700,000. uh beyond uh property taxes, fines and fees are the next largest uh portion of revenue. So at the end of February, that stands at 48.1 million. Um personnel expenditures are up 20.6 million or 10.6% due to increasing personnel cost. Uh, as we know, we've had over the last couple of years, we've had uh countywide salary increases. Additionally, we have seen over topime cost contributing uh to personnel expenditures uh being up. They are up $3 million over FY25 as of January. Uh ON&M expenditures are at 51.5 or 33.8% of the budget, down from 60.6 6 million in FY25. Um, we have had increases in software

acquisition and food service costs. We've had decreasing expenses in some items like inmate medical and building grounds maintenance, but I would not assume that those are going to continue throughout the year. That is more an issue of timing. Additionally, I think you all know that we had early on in our consu conversion some delays in uh our accounts payable process. So that results in expenses being lower in January. Do not assume that expenses will be lower for the year. That will catch up as as we go through the through the year. Um with that, I will open it up for questions. All right. Thank you so much, Commissioner Wright.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Quick question on the fees and fines. Are we getting monthly reports from the county clerk's office? We are. Excellent. Thank you, Mr. Chair. All right. Thank you, Commissioner Sugarman. Thank you, um, Chair. And so, you mentioned about the, um, payables, and I was just wondering, are you caught up yet or is still ongoing issue? No, we're we're we're caught up.

Okay, good. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for the report. Uh madam clerk, we can prepare the screen to vote on item number one. We can close the screen and record the vote. We have I votes from commissioners why Sugarman Mills Shaly. We have five I votes.

All right. Thank you. Item one will go down with a favorable recommendation. Item number two. Item two, resolution approving acceptance of a donation from the 100 Club of Memphis in the amount of $1,367 on behalf of the Shelby County Sheriff's Office and amending the FY 2026 general fund operating budget. This item requires the appropriation and expenditure of FY2026 general funds in amount of $1,367 sponsored by Commissioner Mick Wright. Right. Item two, moved by Commissioner Wright, seconded by Commissioner Mills. Uh, good morning, Chief Lindsay.

Good morning, Commissioner Wley, Board of Commissioners. Alicia Lindseay, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. The Shelby County Sheriff's Office received a donation from the 100 Club of Memphis for $1,367. The purpose of the donation is to purchase one drone charger. This will allow officers in the field uh to use the charger and not have to go back to the substation to charge a drone if necessary. So, we're respectfully asking um for your approval of this item and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Okay. Thank you for the report. Uh I don't see anyone on the screen. So, madam clerk, we can prepare the screen to vote on item two. All right. I don't think all the screens are coming up, but I'm an I. And there anyone else that wants to vote? All right. I think we can close it and record the vote. We have I votes from commissioners Quley, Mills, Shalai, and Wright. We have four I votes.

All right. Thank you. Item two, we'll go now with a favor recommendation. Item number three. Item three, resolution approving a three-month contract extension with Aramar Correctional Services LLC and the amount not to exceed 2,83,388.50 for food service management for the Chevy County Sheriff's Office. This item requires an expenditure of fiscal year 2027 general funds sponsored by Commissioner Mc Wright. All right. Thank you. Item three, moved by Commissioner Mills, seconded by Commissioner Wright. Chief Lindsay.

Thank you, Chairman. Why Alicia Lindseay, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. Um, the current contract that we have with Airark Food Services ends June 30th, 2026. We have issued an RF, well, the purchasing department has issued an RFP for new services effective July 1st, 2026. We're in the process now of scoring um the vendors and we hope to have a contract in place by July 1st, but just in case we're not able to have that contract in place, out of the abundance of caution, we're bringing this item before you to extend uh the current contract with Airart Food Services for 3 months. And I happy to answer any questions you may have.

Okay. Um thank you. I think one may be so this is uh this is obviously going to be contingent upon the FY27 budget because you're trying to expend 27 funds. Alicia Lindsay, chief administrative officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. Yes, Commissioner Why? And we have that language in the resolution that this is subject to the adoption of the fiscal year 2027 budget.

Okay. Okay. So, do you anticipate um bringing the contract in June? Alicia Lindsay, chief administrative officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. That would be our hope, but as I stated earlier, we're not 100% sure that that will happen. So, to ensure that we're able to deliver meals to our detainees, uh we wanted to make sure that we have some type of contract in place. And if we are able once we score the items, negotiate a contract with the vendor, then we're we will do our best to get this item to you before the end of the fiscal year. If not, it'll be sometime in July. Yep. Okay. All right. Uh I don't see anyone on the screen. Uh so madam clerk, we can prepare item three for a vote. And you can put me down as an I. Uh Chief Chief Lindsay, I'm going to I'm actually going to try to get through all of your items first before we move on so that way you can knock that out. Thank you. Yep. Um, so I think we're ready to to report the vote. We have I votes from commissioners Whailing, Sugarman, Mills, July, and Wright. We have five I votes.

Okay. Item three will go down with a favorable recommendation. Let's call up item five. Item five, resolution creating a special revenue fund and appropriating funds for the sexual offender registry created pursuant to Tennessee code annotated 40-39-201. This item requires moving previously existing, budgeted, and actual funds from the general fund account number 1000031-20102-4664 to the Chevy County Sheriff's Office special revenue fund account number 200053-6212-4664 and amending the FY26 expenditure budget of Shelby County Sheriff's Office special revenue fund account number 200053-62102-6026 to include the amount of 15,000 to be used for expenditures sponsored by Commissioner Mick Wright.

All right, thank you. Item five moved by Commissioner Sugarman, seconded by Commissioner Shalai. Um Chief Lindsay,

thank you Chairman Wy. Board of Commissioners, Alicia Lindseay, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. The purpose of this resolution is to properly account for special revenue funds uh received by sexual offenders to properly account for that in a special revenue fund rather than in a general fund where in the past it has always been accounted for. And the purpose of that is to ensure that we have dollars set aside to spend for the specific purpose that the that the state law allows us to fund. I mean to use expenditures for. So that's the only thing. It's basically a cleanup to make sure that we have the budget where it needs to be in a special revenue fund. And I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Okay. Thank you, uh, Commissioner Wright. Thank you, Mr. Chair. We do have, um, our finance chief here with us. I just want to make sure that this is um is this something that's just happening within the sheriff's office department alone or is this something that finance needs to set up uh and execute that? So just if you could speak to that please.

Audrey Typton, director of administration and finance. Uh this is for the sheriff's department. It is a special revenue fund and we have reviewed it and approved it. Okay. All right. Thank you, Commissioner Wright. Um, I don't see anyone else on the screen, so Madam Clerk, please prepare the screen to vote on item five. You come here as an I move over here. Did you sign out and sign back? We have eye votes from commissioners why Sugarman Mills July and Wright. We have five I votes.

All right. Thank you. Item five will go down with a favorable recommendation. Um let's call up item number nine. Item nine, resolution amending the fiscal year 2026 operating budget to reallocate the appropriate $18,15,000 from the general fund unassigned fund balance to fund public safety expenses including overtime payments, operational materials, and unanticipated food service costs. This item requires the reallocation appropriation of general fund unassigned fund balance in the amount of $18 million $15,000 sponsored by Commissioner Mc Wright and Commissioner Amber Mills. Item does not meet requirements of permanent rules.

Okay. Sorry, before we deal with this item, you weren't going to speak on six, were you? I don't believe so. Okay. Um All right. Item nine is me and All right. Moved by Commissioner Wright, second by Commissioner Mills. Uh we're going to need a motion to suspend the rule on this item before we can hear it. So moved. All right. Commission Commissioner Wright's making the motion to suspend the rule to hear the item. Seconded by Commissioner Mills. Without objection, item nine uh is properly before us. All right, Chief Lindsay.

Thank you, Chairman. Why board of commissioners Alicia Lindseay, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. Commissioners, at this time we're still trying to work out some things with legal. Uh we want to keep this item, you know, before you. We're asking that you send it down without recommendation and we'll have more updates for you on Monday.

All right, easy enough. Um I'll make moved by Commissioner Wright to send down without recommendation. Seconded by Commissioner Mills without objection. Item nine will go down without recommendation. All right. Thank you all so much. Let's go back to item number four. Item four, a resolution requesting the chair of the board of Shelby County Commissioners initiate the request for qualifications or single source procurement process to engage an outside consultant to perform a comprehensive process audit for the Shelby County Commission's operation. ation in the county commission men department and office of equal opportunity compliance. This item requires the expenditure not to exceed 50,000 from the general fund county commission's consulting service account sponsored by Eric Commissioner Erica Sugarman.

All right. Thank you. Item four moved by Commissioner Sugarman, seconded by Commissioner Wrights. Commissioner Sugarman.

Thank you um Chair. I just want to remind the um commissioners that we did approve this a couple years ago. However, for whatever reason um our office did not um send off an RFP as well as um secure someone cuz as you know we need a process audit because there's so many inefficiencies in our office. Um this will make ensure that there's a process in place especially since we're having new commissioners coming on board. They don't need to start from ground zero. They at least know you know um how things are done. For example, many times myself what I want to know where is the where is in the process are um for example um contracts you know it's here it's there it's everywhere and so just make sure that things are done more efficiently so that um the public is served with the highest quality that we can afford. And again, I urged my commissioners once again to um not only to make sure that it is um passed and funded um but also to remind the these uh commissioners that it wasn't even carried forward, which should have been the funds. So again, I urge um passage. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Um seeing no one else on the screen, I think we can take item four to a vote. All right, you can mark me as an I and um close the screen and record the vote. We have eye votes from commissioners why Sugarman Mills and right we have four I votes.

All right. Item four will go down with a favorable recommendation. Item number six. Item six, resolution to amend the FY2027 grant operating budget and to appropriate federal grant funds in amount of 1,455,278.74 and state grant funds in amount of $749,6895 for a total of 2,249. 967 wait 2,24,967.79 from the department of human service for the title 4D child support magistrate services. This item requires the appropriation expenditure of FY2027 federal grant funds in an amount of 2,24,9679. Sponsored by Commissioner Mick Wright.

All right. Uh, this item is moved by Commissioner Sugarman, seconded by Commissioner Wright. All right. Miss Folsome, good to see you.

Good to see you. Thank you so much. Karan Folsson, chief administrative officer for juvenile court. And today, this is a fiscal year 2027 item. Um, we're bringing it at this time because we have to get signatures here at the county and then um forward it back to the state in order for them to get their appropriate signatures at the state level. Um, this contract with the the Tennessee Department of Human Services provides critical state funding to operate the Title 4D child support magistrate program within Memphis and Shelby County Juvenile Court. The Title D um the Title 4D child support magistrate program is essentially um how we are able to provide child support services um by way of the court. It helps to provide um cover the cost of five um child support magistrates for the court in addition to our principal court clerks um that assist the magistrates with their responsibilities and um it also provides dollars um for our operating and maintenance um of the child support division for the court. Um and we are excited to have the opportunity to add um an additional um magistrate for this particular fiscal year. We had coverage for four magistrates last over the last five years. So we're very pleased to add a new complement to the court. Um we have over um 30 dockets that support our child support um magistrates at the court. So, we're asking for your approval of this item today.

Okay. All right. Thank you. Uh, do you think we have someone in the queue, Commissioner Sugarman? Thank you, Chair. And so, once again, um, I urge my colleague to support this. And because my brother is juvenile court judge Tar Sugarman, um, I will, even though I can, um, there's no conflict of interest, I will be, um, standing for voting. Thank you.

All right. Um, thank you so much. See no one else on the screen for item six. We can prepare this uh for a vote. All right, we can close the screen and record the vote. We have eye votes from commissioners why Mills Shalai and Wright. Commissioner Sugarman has abstained. We have four eyes, one abstained.

All right. Item six uh will go down with a favorable recommendation. Item number seven. Item seven of discussion which will last 15 minutes. Pre preliminary FY27 M Memphis City School budget presentation. Tito Langston presenting.

Okay. Um Memphis Shelby County Schools. Yeah. Uh all right. Uh Superintendent Richmond, uh Chief Langston, thank you both for being here. Uh we've got we've got a hard copy here also of your presentation. Uh we'll have um the clerk put put a timer on for 15 minutes uh for the presentation. Then we want to make sure we have time for commissioners to ask questions after that. So uh with that uh Dr. Richmond, turn it over to you.

Yes. Uh thank you, Commissioner Wley. Uh good morning to all other commissioners. Uh I'm Superintendent Dr. Roderick Richmond. I want to thank you all for allowing Mr. Langston and I uh to come to present to you all our draft budget. First slide. Do we have the slide presentation?

Yes, ma'am. Okay. Next slide is the agenda and we'll touch on our pathway to greatness budget overview fiscal year 2026 27 investments. fiscal year 2026 27 capital investments and path to fiscal year 27 approved budget. Next slide. What you all see here is our pathway to greatness. And as the superintendent, everything we do is grounded uh in our pathway to greatness. Uh it's built on our five A's, academics, attendance, attitude, athletics, and the arts. This framework guides everything that we do with our students from birth through post-secary. It also ensures intentional supports at every stage of their journey from kindergarten readiness to college, career and life readiness. Uh I provided for you all a index card. On that index card you can go on the front. It'll take you to our main page. The main page will cover what we're doing around the forensic audit along with other areas. On the back of it, you'll see uh the pathway to greatness. It goes more in depth. You'll also see our facilities plan that we've been working on and you'll see a landing page for myself which tracks uh what I do each and every day for our district. Next slide. At this point, I'll turn it over to Mr. Langston who will present uh our budget overview uh for fiscal year 2627. Mr. Langston, Tier Langston, MH County Schools. Um before we start our budget process um our board has approved that we um spend every penny through these four priorities. First priority one is to improve academic growth, achievement and literacy levels for all students. Priority two is to recruit and increase the retention of the most effective district leaders and teachers um around the nation. Priority three um pres

prepare our students for the global workforce through rigorous coursework certifications and supportive highquality facilities and learning environments. And then this year we added priority four which is to strengthen operational excellence, transparency and financial accountability across the district by investing in modern systems um strong internal controls, effective governance to ensure resources are managed responsibly in the service of students. Next slide. So, next slide. So, going into our budget overview, when we start our budget process, our goal is to engage everybody that's in the um county of Shelby. First, we start with the community. So, we've done community engagement and hosted a number of forums to get um feedback from the community of what they want to see in the Memphis Shelby County Schools budget. Then, we did we do student engagements. As you can see here in these pictures, we engaged our students via survey and and in persons asking them what they're seeing the budget. Also, we sent surveys out to our teachers and engage them to ask them what they want to see in in the budget. We do the same for our principles, our school board members, and our employees. And this year, one one of the things we added is to do 88.5 in social media, taking questions from um constituents, asking them what they want to see in the budget. Next slide. And here's the result of basically what we heard quickly summarized. Our students say they want to see quality nutrition, mental health supports, um, and then CCTE. Our employees want to see teacher pay um, and retention. CCTE, ACT prep, literacy supports, um, facilities, um, improvements is a um, common theme around everybody. Our parents want to continue to see uh, classroom support for teachers, um, academic enrichment opportunities, and again, facility improvements. and our board members have said they wanted us continue investing our 5A um exceptional children uh supports as well as enrollment in attendance. Next slide. Um breaking down and getting into the numbers first

starting with our general fund. Currently right now we're proposing a 1 $1.2 billion general fund budget. First looking at our revenue starting with the city of Memphis. Next year will be year um 12 of the settlement for the city of Memphis. It's about $1.3 million that we're projecting to come in. When we look at our federal funds, this $1.1 million is for indirect cost. It's the uh management fee that we charge for u man um managing our federal grants for title one, title two, title three, title four. Our other local funds is a little over $19 million. There's investment income that we're investing our cash with the trustees as well as uh seller properties and some other things for our other local funds. looking at the $512 million for Shelby County. That's the education fund which makes up about 76% for Memphis Shelby County Schools as well as sales tax. Lastly, our state funds. We're um projecting a revenue of $673 million and that is basically TISA and how we allocate funds for enrollment of our students. Next slide. This slide uh dovetales into our all funds budget. Um currently right now we're proposing a 1 bill694,782,573 um billion budget. Um of that budget um 1.1 a little over $1.1 billion is what we call fixed and mandated costs. That means things that we absolutely have to do. Um if you'll see this uh graphic here um of those fixed and mandated costs, 600 a little over 684 billion dollars goes directly into schools. That's how we pay our teachers. That's how we get get different supports directly into the classroom. Then we have our building and transportation. Um we're spending about um 20 a little over $27 million. That's us spending about a little over $35 million to keep the lights on. That's us doing transportation and the like. Nutrition is about $96 million. This is

essentially how we feed our um students and how we pay for the staff that support those students. Our special education maintenance of effort is a fixed and mandated cost. Uh what the state of Tennessee essentially says is that in our general fund, we have to spend $94 million before we can unlock any federal funds that we get for our students with disabilities. these salaries and benefits that you see that's a little shy of $5 million on this slide is essentially um um that we have to pay um again fixed and mandated cost for our uh superintendent as well as we have to do some um additional stipens like national school board stipens um for our uh teachers. Um next you'll see retirey benefits and commissions. That's how we support our retirees and that's how we pay um for um the trustee to hold our funds at the um with with regions. And then lastly, the Tissa on behalf payments. Of that $1.6 million, again, $1.1 billion is fixed in mandated costs, things that we have to do and can cut from. And that leaves about uh $552 million um balance left of things that we we call um um other costs that we have we get the opportunity to make decisions on. Next slide. Breaking down that $552 million. Um this is a quick graphic of what that entails. I won't go through all of these, but um the larger portion is 12% is makes up federal grants. Again, that's our title one, which makes up about $99 million of the budget. Title two, title three, title four. Um then you can see um next uh schoolbased supports. We'll talk about it a little bit as we get through the deck. That's how we do mental health supports and and the like for our students. And then lastly, I want to point out here, our central office support only makes up about 3% of our budget. Um, so that $47 million is how we pay the other departments that support schools, but again, it only makes up about 3% of our budget. Next slide.

This next slide again is our all fund budget. Again, as I mentioned before, we're proposing a $1.6 billion budget. Um, I went over in detail the general fund, $1.2 $2 billion. Next, next column you'll see our capital improvement budget. Um it is $107 million. Um that essentially is um the carryover funds that we're spending from the $5 million that we got from the commission on this year as well as the continuation of um investing in those two new high schools. Um then if you look over at our special revenue um non-federal budget, it's about $69 million. Um um what makes up that budget is our early childhood supports for first date and the like as well as we still have about $26 million for our ISM grant for CCTE that we're supporting um high schools and middle schools. I spoke on nutrition um funds nutrition is about $96 million and that's the money that we get directly from USDA to feed and support all of our students. Federal programs again I mentioned about that again it's title one, title two, title three and title four. it is a little over $200 million. And then finally, our internal service fund is a little over $2 million. That's our printing fund and our warehouse fund that we keep in house. Next slide. Next slide is a kind of interactive slide, Miss Thomas, if you can just click through it, but these are the investments that we're making in our 5A. Um, first in academics, um, we are, um, putting a little over $433 million directly into academic instruction. Um, advanced programs is how we do AP courses and the like. It's about makes up about $8.6 million of this budget. Alternative education is a little over $17 million. Um, a continuing theme um is we want to build the capacity of our teachers and leaders. We're investing in a little over $1 million in doing so. Um, college and career readiness CCTE is uh close to $48 million in this budget.

Exceptional children or or um our students with disabilities. You'll see that I mentioned that $94 million. In addition to that, we get IDA supports and federal funds. That makes up about $104 million for our students with disabilities. We still have our literacy supports. Um we're still investing in our um K through three strategy for our specialized educational assistants. So, that is continued to be in this budget. And then our population for our students, uh multilingual learner students are continuing to um increase. So, we continue to support um this budget in about um $34 million. Next slide. Next slide dubtales in our next uh a and it's attendance. Um we're investing um continue to invest in our attendance liaison for about $4.2 million. Um Dr. Richmond and and um team we're continuing receive the data um every day for attendance. Um what we've noticed um in the last few weeks is that our chronic absenteeism has continued to decrease. Um from what I remember that yesterday was about 3.5%. Then we're also continuing to um increase our attendance rate. So investing in attendance and enrollments um is something that you'll continue to see us do because we want to ensure that students um come to school, enroll, and then come to school each and every day. Um so you'll see the these supports here. And then finally, transportation makes up about $42 million in the budget. Next slide. When we look at attitude, attitude directly um is what we do tail in mental health supports. As you saw on one of the slides, our students have been asking for mental health supports um pretty they've always done so, but it's been pretty prevalent postco. So, um our budget has always um had a lot of mental health supports. So, the first thing you see here is about $6 million. We have three um on-site mental health clinics

uh for our students. We're continuing to invest in those. Safety and security is about $26.4 million. Our social, emotional, learning, behavior supports. Um we're a little over 12 million. This year, we introduced RTI square B supports um for our students to be able to help with any kind of behavior issues. Next slide. Next slide is our investments in our arts and athletics. um bands and strings. Um it's $2.2 million of an investment. We're continuing to invest in our Discovery Memphis. It's about $2 million. Discovery Memphis is an opportunity that we give every school and every student to kind of discover Memphis via field trips that parents don't have to pay for. We're putting it in our budget to do so. Um extracurricular uh stipens is how we pay our coaches and staff to support our students. Music and arts is 17.3. That's where our bands um and choirs and things of that nature is paid for. And then finally, physical education is a little more than $11 million in this budget. Next slide. These next couple slides will talk about how we're supporting um teachers. Um as early as last month, our board um approved theou with our teachers association where we've added an additional um 2% to our salary schedule for teachers. Um in addition to that, um we're investing in practice support. Um we're supporting our new teachers in years 0ero through five um with a new teacher mentorship program. We want to do grow your own uh pathways particularly for our special educational assistants or our special specialized educational assistants. We have about 602 of those and building a pathway for them to become um teachers. And then finally um Reach University that I'll quickly go through on the next slide. So, we're partnering with Reach University particularly for our specialized educational assistants. Those are those assistants that are in our K through three um classrooms. Um

most of them um are working on their degrees to become teachers. Um what Reese is is allowing them to do is uh in our partnership with them in as little as $75 a month is going to help those teachers um become um get their bachelor's degrees as well as support them in passing the practice so they could become certified teachers. Next slide. Um in addition to that in this budget um one of the things um um Dr. Richmond brought to us in the finance team is working on the stabilization bonus for our teachers. um and it's rooted around having our teachers stay in the school that they're at currently at. So what research shows that um when schools um and teachers stay and build relationships um with students as well as principles then um um student outcomes can increase. So one one of the things that we're doing and while we're working on the transfer periods is encouraging our uh teachers to stay in the schools that they're at. So, we're offering a $1,000 bonus if the teachers stay at the current school that they're at. In addition to that, what we know is that we have hard staff areas, particularly around special education, as well as some of our end of course um subjects, and we're offering a $2,500 bonus for PE to recruit teachers to support that um additional work. Next slide. Um and I'll get through these quickly. I know time is up. Um, in addition to that, um, we're offering a retention bonus for those teachers who go and do the work in those CI CSI and priority schools. Um, we want them to sign on with us for 2500 and stay as well as for 2500 to um, be in those um, particularly hard to staff uh, classrooms. Next slide. And then um in addition to signing on and staying with us again in those hard to staff areas particularly in those CSI schools we want um to offer also a performance bonus for those teachers. So right now if teachers who are in that work have a LOE of level of effectiveness of 3, four and five. We're

offering an additional performance bonus for those stu uh teachers that are in um particularly those CSI and priority schools. Next slide. Um we made a historical investment in teacher compensation over the past uh five to six years since since we've u got TISA dollars. Um we've invested over $100 million in our teacher salary schedule over the past 5 years and this year was no different. This current budget authorizes a proposed proposal of $25.7 million that we're directly putting into the teacher salary schedule. Next slide. Then lastly, our facility roadmap. um recommendation summary. Um I believe about a few months ago we came and presented our facility plan. Um that plan again has our two new high schools. It has eight privately funded school renovations for our north northwest and our southwest regions. Um we have 5 years of continued capital maintenance system upgrades here and we are continuing to modernize and upgrades all all of our schools as funding become available. We're also looking at athletic facility upgrades with the 13 facilities that we have. And then we're taking an innovative approach to look at the feeder pattern to modernize all of our school buildings. Next slide. Um continue with the facilities. Um our goal is to maintain safe, modern, energy efficient buildings. We want highquality learning spaces for arts, athletics as well as STEM. Um our facility conditions are aligned with our 5A. And then um we want our classroom to be tech technology ready classrooms as well as collaborative spaces. Next slide. Um again this is talks about our emerging consolidation and investments that we made. Um if you've been keeping up with the themes um we've merged and consolidated uh schools this year by board approval. Um what we've looked at

is um merging underenrolled and underutilized schools when appropriate. um consolidating buildings with high FCI scores and investing in those savings and new high um quality new facilities. Um we want to ensure the community input uh with their recommendations and then we want to maintain transportation equity, neighborhood access as well as again strong feeder patterns. Next slide. Um and then finally for our facilities roadmap updates. Uh we've um finalized sales of of property and land and we brought in over close to $17 million of our own. We have pending sales of about $917,000. Um we have four schools that are pro approved this for the upcoming year to merge um effective again in FY27. Um we have one um school consolidation that was that would be effective in FY27. And then finally, we're investing in those schools that are receiving the students of the schools that were closed. We're investing a little over u $8 million in those schools. And lastly, commissioners, um you have in your deck um by commissioner district, the um capital acts that we're proposing. Um I won't go through it in detail. You have it before you, but it's a little less than $200 million after we finished our facilities uh plan. Um, and I believe this it.

All right. Thank you very much. Uh, we'll go to the screen. Uh, Commissioner Sugarman.

Thank you. And, uh, I have a whole bunch of questions. And as you know, I'm a classroom teacher, 12th grade, taught over 8,000 students. Everywhere I went, I see students I've, um, taught. Um, but I wanted teachers as well as myself. I want to thank you all for the retention. I will stay another year, okay, at my school. Um, but I have a list of questions. First of all, you did indicate that you're going to increase mental health because I know teaching Jen Z's they're telling me that's a huge issue with them and that because of COVID impact they said they have social skills um that are lacking um and they you know they I call them my tech babies because that's how they're going to do stay on the phone and stay on the devices and they have mental health issues and they are aware of that. Um the other thing is uh you mentioned trade is extremely important. Um, as we become more AI savvy, if you will, um, tra trades like electrical, HVAC, etc., they're going to be in demand, especially since baby boomers are rolling off. Um, in fact, according to some research I've seen, so electricians by 2030 be making over 100,000. Uh, and so I just want to know what does that look like? And also, I talked before about maybe like for example, we have dual enrollment for academics. can have dual enrollment as well for trade like um partnering with TCAT, you know, um More Techch, etc. Um that is something I would love to see. And I think I talked to um superintendent about starting the middle school and you said you would expand the program. What does that expansion look like? And one more thing before I go into now I'll get back in the queue. Absenteeism is huge. So, I don't know where you get the data from, but I had 24 seniors who fail, but because they tell me I don't have to come to school. I don't have to come to class because the district's going to pass me anyway, which is true. All 24, I'm sure, graduating cuz it's a zero

failure basically. And so, what are you doing as far as getting those kids to come to school, come to class, cuz they don't have to come and they tell you that I don't have to come to school, I don't have to come to class. And so, it's a huge issue. kids that did fail, they're the ones who had 20 to 40 60% absenteeism. So, those three things and I'll get back in the queue. Thank you.

Yes. Thank you, Commissioner Sugarman. Uh to answer your question about CTE, we've uh expanded our offerings even in middle schools. Uh last night at our uh business systems review, uh we had a presentation from our CTE program. uh as of this year we have 4,900 uh dual enrollment credits that students are accumulating through CTE. So our students are accumulating we have a great deal of our students who uh attend Kingsbury CTE program from White Station. So you all at White Station have many students who are uh participating in CTE education along with the programs that you may have uh at your school. As it relates to chronic absenteeism, uh as Mr. Langston was sharing with you as early as yesterday when I looked at the data, uh we were down by 3.7%. That data is fluid. Uh we'll continue to have to scrub and clean the data. Uh but looking at the data, it looks like we're having an impact and making an impact around attendance and reducing chronic absenteeism as it relates to passing students who haven't satisfied credits. The excuse me, the district doesn't do that. That's a sitebased decision. Uh so uh if that's happening at your school, that shouldn't be occurring. But the district doesn't pass students. Uh I don't give any students any grades. Uh, no one at central office gives students any grades. Uh, so that's something that we may need to take a look at at White Station High School.

Can I quickly? Sure. Okay. Because you didn't mention talk about mental health. That was the other question.

Yes. Mental health. Great question. So, with mental health, uh, if you visit our site, uh, I met with the student congress and I asked students, I said, "How would you all like to receive information around uh, mental health?" because I talked to them about how the counselor should be supporting what you call tier one instruction around mental health and social emotional learning uh and implementing our seven mindsets curriculum. Uh I told them at a tier 2 level you should have either behavior specialists, RTI specialists or we have social workers and psychologists uh who attend and who are assigned those schools. In some instances, in order for psychologists and social workers to work with students, they have to have parent consent. But I told them the person who should be talking to them about mental health and those supports are counselors. When I started speaking with them, they said, "Well, Dr. Richmond, sometimes students don't listen. What students do do is look at social media, and we would appreciate if you all would do some shorts, uh, some 60-second videos about mental health and mental health support. uh if you go and visit uh our website uh we did those small vignettes uh and small videos for students to look at uh so that we could better explain to them uh how mental health supports work uh in a school environment. I think sometimes students as well as adults are misinformed when it comes to how these things work um in relationship to schools. Uh social workers and psychologists for example cannot just sit down and speak to students without having uh consent. So we're having to do a lot of educating around what those mental health supports look like for both students, parents uh as well as other adults in the building.

Okay. Thank you very much, Commissioner Wright. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for the presentation this morning. Um, Commissioner Sugarman was was getting into the attendance question. You had mentioned that in the presentation as one of the 4A, I believe you said attendance is one. Um, this was something that came up in a recent meeting of the crime commission board. Um, there was discussion about what the definition of chronically absent is. Can you all speak one of one or both of you all speak to what is the definition of of a chronically absent student? Um start start with that. What what is the definition?

Yeah, chronically absent um is when a student misses 10% or more of the school year for whatever reason. So it could be I'm going to the doctor. I could have some type of underlining condition. So when a student misses 18 or more days, uh that is what is called chronically absent. Uh and as we know in our school system we have many students who have uh underlying conditions. Uh there's a difference in chronic absenteeism versus truency. Uh truency is defined as students just being uh out of school and not attending school because of uh reasons that would be uh seen as an excused uh absence. But chronic absenteeism is defined as a student missing 10% or more of the school year. And so there was this thank you for that. There was discussion in in again in this meeting about the definition and this so you mentioned the 10% and you mentioned the 18 days. I'm guessing it's 18 days over an entire school calendar year. But there was there was a mention or or concern that that perhaps it um that you could be a student could be labeled chronically absent early in the year if they've only missed 10% at to date at that point. Yes, sir.

And then once they're tagged that they're that they are that for the entire school year. Is that the correct way to see it or no?

No, sir. You you may have a student who's uh deemed at risk. So let's say at the beginning of the year the first 45 days the first 45 days let's say you miss 5 days of the for first 45 days uh you would be on track to being chronically absent but if you don't reach the 18 cumulative days you wouldn't be deemed as chronically absent. So we try to track it periodically. Uh I ask my team to look at data in real time each and every day. That's why I can say uh as of yesterday we were at 3.7% uh right at 3.7 3.5 but if the numerator or the denominator changes your attendance rate as well as your chronic absenteeism rate will change. Sometimes we have to go back and scrub data where we may have uh Mick Mick has missed uh over 45 days but we may find that Mick was registered uh at Millington's uh school district. So then Mick would come off of uh our attendance and enrollment roster and that would possibly change all of our attendance because now we know that Mick wasn't one of our chronically absent students. So it's it's extremely complicated uh and complex uh when you start to think about the algorithm. Uh but again that's how uh chronic absenteeism uh works and how it's evaluated and assessed.

Okay. All right. Thank you. We'll go back uh for a second round. Commissioner Sugarman. Thank you, Chair. And so I'm going back real quickly. Okay. You mentioned Kingsberry. Does Kingsberry offer um hard skill sets such as HVAC, electrical, things of that nature? I would have to go and look, but I know Kings Bear has welding, they have auto mechanics, they have cosmetology, they have barbering, uh they have teaching as a profession. I want to say they may have construction, but I would have to go and look specifically. I'll send you that data. uh in regards to Kingsberry, but I know several of your students attend Kingsberry CTE program and then the TCAT also. Um do you have any students going there as well as more tech?

Yes, ma'am. Well, I can't speak to more tech, but some of our students do participate uh in TCAT. And the thing about TCAT is some of our schools offer TCAT support in partnership, but in some instances, students travel to TCAT as well. It depends on each individual school. with us having right at 30 high schools. Uh I don't have the information in front of me to tell you what each high school offers and which can give me that information of that. Okay. Not just my school but schools in high schools because I am the chair of the workforce development. I've been charged with um increasing um when kids graduate high school they need skill sets because a lot of them cannot afford to go to college and things of that nature. And so the thing is I just as a teacher I want to make sure that they do have some skill sets they can become um independent young people. I'm gonna move on to something else. So drivers education. Yes ma'am. Okay. That's a huge issue. Um as you know we do not have a mass transit and it's a barrier. People are stuck in poverty. And so I understand I've been talking to people they saying even though we don't have all the um the physical things we can also prepare the kids. And I was wondering if that is something that the district has thought about or is considering because that's a huge issue.

Yes, ma'am. Thank you for that question, Commissioner Sugarman. We have had conversations about drivers edacy Memphis City Schools, we had driver's ed, but driver's ed was one of those things under student support services when we went through our structural deficit uh that we had to cut because it wasn't sustainable. So, what I've had to uh have conversations with the board about as well as my team is when we start to implement things, we've got to look at are those things going to be sustainable long-term. Uh as we look at our budget, uh my responsibility along with the board and my team is to be fiscally responsible. So, if we were to bring back driver's ed, uh, we would have to look at the sustainability of it and could we afford it, uh, in relationship to other things that we know as a school district we need to and have to provide for our students.

Yes. But we can also just look how prepare the kids to study so that they can pass. I've had students, for example, who failed the class over and over again. So, even though have the cars, the simulations, things like that, we can still prepare which is not very costly. Yes, I'm going to get back in the queue. Thank you. All right, that was your second time, Commissioner Sugarman. We'll go to Commissioner Wright. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, I want to continue on this um inquiry into the chronically absent um that discussion. How many high school and just talking about high school age um in the district about how many students are meet that definition of chronically absent?

Again, that's a great question. we've started to really take a hard look at our uh high school students and chronic absenteeism. Uh I'll be the first to admit when we look at our uh prek through 12 uh continuum uh where we have the most students who probably would be deemed as chronically absent, it would be our high school students. So we've started to take a a hard look at that. Uh I think cumulatively we're probably somewhere between 35 and 45% when we think about the number of high school students that would possibly be deemed as chronically absent. You said 35 to 45%

some somewhere in between. I don't want to say exactly. If you give me a minute I can text um the person who heads up our attendance and discipline department. I never like to expouse data uh that doesn't have fidelity uh and is not trustworthy uh but it's normally within that uh percentage and and I appreciate that. I'm I'm not trying to do a gotcha or anything like that. I'm just trying to understand. Yes, sir. Is that number how does the district see that number? Is it are you concerned? Is it or is it level or

I'm extremely concerned, but I will tell you I recently went to the council of great city schools and uh the Portland superintendent was there and I asked the Portland superintendent about uh houselessness because I know Portland is struggling with uh houselessness as a problem. I also asked them about recreational uh drug use. Just things that I know are trends throughout the country. and I asked them about their attendance rate and chronic absenteeism rate and Portland shared that their attendance rate was about 68%. So, uh sometimes we uh don't appreciate uh some of the positive data uh that we have. Uh is our attendance rate and chronic absenteeism rate where we want it to be and where it should be? No. Uh should we continue to aspire uh for our attendance and chronic absenteeism rate to increase and decrease? Yes, we should. Normally, when I'm looking at a high school, I'm hoping that a high school's attendance rate is above 90%. And the majority of our high school's attendance rates are above 90%. But some of them fall between the 85 and 89% range when we look at them. Some of our schools, but we also have to look at Mr. right, Commissioner Wright. Uh the type of students students that we serve. And so I'll pivot back to your question about chronic absenteeism. When you're thinking of a a student, many of our students uh have high BMIs. Many of our students are asthmetic asthmatic. Uh many of our students are are are homeless. When you start thinking about those things and you think about 18 days and me missing 18 days, but looking at some of the conditions that our students are growing up in and some of the challenges that they have, uh I think our students do a great job just to get up and come to school uh each and every

day and to meet that 80% or more attendance rate. Uh when you look throughout the country postcoid uh even in Knox County, Knox County's uh chronic absenteeism rate I think was 31 or 32 uh% and Knox County is much more affluent than Memphis, Memphis City Schools and Memphis proper. So when you look at chronic absenteeism, when you look at attendance rates throughout the country, throughout the country, this is an issue. But I think right here in Memphis, Shelby County Schools, if you compared us to other urban districts, not suburban, if you compared us to urban urban other urban districts, I think we can be proud of what we're doing right here in Shelby County Schools. Are we where we want to be? No. But we're going to continue to get better. Uh, as I can attest to our chronic absenteeism, hopefully being below 30% for the first time in probably at least four or five years.

All right. Uh, Mr. Can I do one quick followup because that was a long long This will be my last last question is just uh can you can you expand on what the district is doing about that issue?

Yes, great question. Uh as Mr. Langston shared this year uh we have what's called attendance liaison. Uh those attendance liaison we're vesting about 4.2 million. uh what I've told the team is any uh material or human resource that we're investing in, we're going to be looking at what is the return on the investment. And so I've personally spoken to those attendance liaison and talked to them about if we're spending $4.2 $2 million. We need to see where this role uh that we're investing in, how it's benefiting our district to curve uh truency, chronic absenteeism, and increasing our attendance rates. And I think we can see that. But as they uh gather uh quantitative and qualitative data, they are starting to ask some of the questions around why are students not coming to school? And some of the reasons are students being houseless. Uh parents losing jobs and being in between jobs and homes. Uh parents andor students not uh having the proper things to show up uh day one at school. But we as a team, myself, my leadership team along with uh our attendance leaison, we are canvasing neighborhoods, knocking on doors, uh asking what's going on, asking how we can support uh families. What we believe in Memphis Shelby County Schools is we can't just focus on students. We have to do a better job of focusing on uh entire families. Uh so our family and community engagement department along with other departments, we're doing everything we can to focus on helping to improve uh life outcomes, not just for our students, uh but supporting our families in every way we can.

All right. Uh thank you, Dr. Richmond. Commissioner Sugarman, we'll do two minutes for this round and then we're going to we need to get to the um the mayor's budget presentation. Okay. Thank you, Chair. Council move to suspend the rules. So you save from doing that. So, I just want you um if you don't mind sending me a report um Southwind Elementary through the feeder schools are steam and so what programs have been added? What I'm laughing I'll tell you why when you finish.

Okay. I would like to know what has changed as far as the steam um and the three questions that I have. I don't know if um Lexi wants to answer these or not dealing with the vouchers. Um number one, um what accountability measures exist to ensure private schools receiving vouchure funds are held to the same academic, financial, and transparency standards as public schools? Number two, how will the district protect public school students from losing resources if state funding is redirected toward voucher programs? And then number the next one, number three. What outreach efforts are being made to educate parents and communities about the differences between public schools accountability standards and private voucher school requirements?

All right. Real quick before you answer that, Madam Clerk, if we can just make sure we've got the two minutes on the clock because we want to try to keep it to that so we can get to the to our budget presentation. Okay. All right. On my way here, I tal called my chief academic officer and told her, "Hey, are we doing what we need to do in order for that feeder pattern to be a steam feeder pattern?" Also, in the budget, South Wayne High School will be receiving a turf field and White Station High School will be receiving a new HVAC system. So, the one thing I wanted to do was to address the things that you, Commissioner Sugarman, has act have asked me before. Uh so on my way here I made sure to be able to answer those questions.

Can you send me can you send me the um list of programs additional programs because they're singing programs and then if you could answer the questions regarding um vouchers I appreciate it. Thank you.

Tito Langston Memphis Shep County Schools um your three-part questions around vouchers. Essentially this is how I summarize them. One um we continue to look at it every day. Currently right now um we're and I didn't show it here but um year-over-year our enrollment we've seen that it is um essentially down about close to 2500 students. Um it's not primarily vouchers. One of the things that you'll see that we're experienc as as well as a suburb suburban district is that um particularly in this year the birth rates 5 years ago was different than it was now. So what I mean by that is that um people are having less kids 5 years ago which means that in our upcoming year um our enrollment for kindergartens are less than it had been um with with our outgoing um seniors. So um we're seeing um nationwide that decrease. But again, as it comes to vouchers, um we're putting on a legislative agenda every year, how we can um get our legislative bodies to hold private schools accountable. One of the things that you see in this budget is us doing recruitment efforts to be able to tell parents and students that what we can offer at MIT for Memphis Sha County Schools being obviously the largest public school district um in the county um and how we can recruit kids to stay in within our district. Um, I'm out of time, but I'm happy to talk with you offline about uh that as well.

All right. Uh, before we Thank you, Chief Linkson. Before we close this item out, I just want to get back to the budget request here so we're clear. The the number I've got here for the capital is 198 million. Can you just clarify if that's inclusive of existing projects or is this in addition to existing projects?

T L Me Memphis Sherby County Schools. This is in addition to existing projects. If you remember when we bought our facility plan, now that we've done assessments of all of our buildings, we now know the use of useful life of all of the components of our um building. So, this $198 million gets us to a first start of addressing the useful life of all those components. We're currently doing a lot of life safety projects um already with the $5 million that we got this year and some additional fund balance assignments that we've done as a district. But this is in addition to All deferred maintenance. Yes, sir.

Okay. All right. Uh well, I know we'll see you all again soon. Thank you very much. Um and then we are now ready to call up item number eight. Item eight is a discussion which lasts 15 minutes. Chevy County Mayor's FY27 proposed budget presentation. Mayor Lee Harris presenting. Okay. All right. Uh good morning, Mayor Harris. We'll do the same thing with the clock. We'll put 15 minutes on uh and then make sure we have time for commissioners to be able to answer ask questions uh about your proposal. Okay, Mayor Harris.

All right. Thank you, U Budget Chairman. Why, members of the commission, and I'll do my best to help get you guys back on schedule, try to keep it as brief as possible. Uh, commissioners, this is my eighth budget and uh, as with prior years, I want to begin the presentation by recognizing the folks who really put in countless hours uh, to bring this $1.6 billion budget together and manage county finances every day. They not only navigate the numbers, but they also must navigate the politics, my politics, other local elected officials, and state politics. It's a really tough tough job. It's a massive undertaking and I want to thank this team of professionals Delay Delia Steel, Danica Pharma and Satika Bonner. They've earned a they've carried a significant load as we prepare uh to transition from from this administration to the next. And I want to especially thank uh Director Audrey Typton who has done it again. She's uh navigated a difficult complex financial terrain and responded to the various needs that often crisscross in every direction. I want to thank her for her service to this county and to this administration where she's been part of the day-to-day of the administration for eight years and she has 20 years in Shelby County government. So, thank you very much, Director Typton, for your service. Um, Mr. Chairman and members, last year we brought the tax rate down to under $3, and this was the first time that the property tax rate had been under $3 in years. We kept the tax rate low again this year, as we have in previous years, as low as humanly possible for every year that I've been in office. Now, this has been a particularly difficult budget to put together, and we anticipate that the budget process will be more trying this year than in the past. As you know

and have felt, the pressure on Shelby County government to make grants to nonprofit organizations has grown each year tremendously, likely reaching a boil at some point uh during this year's process. We've tried to manage grant expenditures as judiciously as possible, and we plan to do the same during this process. However, we will need to work together to face this problem head on as it has increasingly become one of Shelby County's biggest financial concerns. If we do not recognize this trend, the pressure to make grants to outside agencies on future commissions and the next mayor will only grow. That is, we can expect new nonprofit organizations and larger acts to emerge this year. We must all work together to prioritize. We cannot spend on everything and we must ensure first and foremost that the responsibilities that legally belong to Shelby County government are addressed. That said, the total consolidated budget is approximately $1.6 billion. For the eighth year in a row, my budget contains no property tax increase. Again, like every year before, I present to you a budget with no property tax increase. I'm the only Shelby County mayor, Democrat or Republican, in decades, to have never proposed a property tax increase. And while it seems like every city in Shelby County over the last 8 years has raised taxes, I'm proposing that Shelby County continue to manage its finances the same way households do. We don't spend more than what we receive. And unless it's vitally important, we don't buy it. We don't spend it. The current property tax rate for FY26, which is the previous year, is $269. I'm proposing that the county adopt a property tax rate for FY27 of $266, a 3ense decrease. The 3cent reduction

may not sound like a lot, but it sends an important signal that in Shelby County, we are serious about keeping our financial house in order. Yet, even with the very low property tax rate I have proposed, I'm also proposing strategic investments, including a plan to build a new school in Northeast Memphis. Yes, I said it. Another new school this time in Highland Heights Summer Avenue. Let me set the table by saying if this budget is approved, Mr. Mr. chairman and commissioners, we can continue to provide significant capital for schools, build a new school in Northeast Memphis, continue our plans to rebuild Regional One, our only public hospital, expand our commitment to indigent care, and give our employees another raise, and expand health insurance to our temp employees. So, let me briefly discuss some of the key priorities this year. I think every year I've done this presentation, I've started out with our pension fund. That's because, you know, even though our pension fund doesn't grab a lot of headlines, it's one of the most important responsibilities that the Shelby County uh mayor has, putting together the pension team and leading the pension efforts. It is a sacred duty to ensure the stability of our pension fund. We have done that and more. Under our leadership, the pension fund is now si now sits at $1.8 billion in assets and is one of the top performing public pension funds in the country. Through years of hard work, we have gotten rid of bad investments from previous years and have been working to set up our pension fund for success and growth in years to come. That process is still ongoing because of poor results in some of those previous years and our annual required contribution um uh to the to to the pension fund had previously been going up. For example, in FY26, we contributed approximately $82.9 million to the pension fund. However, because of our growth and the changes that we have s put together over the previous years

in FY27, for the first time that I can remember, our contribution to the pension fund is actually going down. It's going down to $82.1 million, saving the county close to $800,000. This is still a very important investment because it helps smooth out some of the underperformance of years prior to 2018 and it signifies our commitment to our retirees. At this time, let me turn to public safety. As you know, we have made historic investments in the sheriff sheriff's office. For instance, when we presented our first budget to the commission in FY19, we proposed $179.9 million for the sheriff's office and 2,118 positions. Today, in FY27, I am proposing $27 million to the sheriff's office with 2,244 positions. Thus, an increase of of an increase of millions of dollars and 127 new positions over the course of the last 8 years. We're also proposing in this budget increase training for the sheriff's office to the tune of $110,000. These increases in funding for the sheriff's office demonstrate our unwavering commitment to public safety. Our administration has put our money where our mouth is with respect to crime abatement and public safety. And it's not just the landmark investments in the sheriff's office. Remember, we are also investing in a mental health facility as a place to divert jail detainees who are already arrested and but clearly in mental health crisis or the throws of substance abuse. These investments stand right alongside our administration's investment in the youth detention facility, which had to take over management from the sheriff and the new youth and family resource center. At this time, I'd like to uh shout out Director Alexander and those that have been leading the youth detention center.

Because of their work, these kids are we have returned transportation so that those kids can get to their hearings. We have returned in-person visitation so that they can meet with their loved ones. We have ended solitary confinement and we have opened up the center to more frequent open houses to promote community engagement. Furthermore, members of the commission, this year's proposed budget continues our commitment to ensuring that healthc care is available to everyone regardless of where you live or how much you have in your pocket. Thus, we are continuing the investment to rebuild Regional One, but we're also upping our investment in indigent care. Right now, our investment in indigent care, which uh is a transfer to regional one, comes in at $24 million. This year, we're proposing that our investment in indigent care goes up to $29.4 million, up $5.4 million. In total, across my eight budgets, I have proposed over $237 million for indigent care. But of course, that's not all when it comes to healthcare access. We also continue expanding Shelby Cares, our wildly successful program that brings healthc care access into neighborhoods across Memphis and Shelby County. In a few weeks, we'll see the opening of the Raleigh uh access point. And so, we're very pleased with that. And I want to send another special shout out to the state of Tennessee for investing in a statewide program called Tennessee Cares, which replicates and expands on what we've been doing in Shelby County with UT Health Science Center over the years. Finally, this year, we're proposing expanding benefits for our temporary employees. Specifically, this year's budget includes a proposal to fund basic health insurance for those employees who don't currently get it. We have designated this new program as temp care. The real civil rights struggle,

commissioners, is the struggle for a healthy, long life. We want our people to live longer, healthier lives. We want Shelby County to be one of the healthiest places in the United States of America. The budget holds steady on our historic commitment to Memphis and Shelby County schools so they can begin construction on two new high schools. um some of the first uh projects along those lines in the history of that school system. In addition, the budget uh contains $427 million and operational investment to the school systems, which is our usual amount. And as mentioned, the budget proposes for the first time that Shelby County invest in a in building a new school in the heart of the Highland Heights community. The current facility there, Treadwell K through8, is one of the oldest and the most need of replacement in the Memphis Shelby County school system. When I visited uh Treadwell, I saw classrooms that are divided divided into multiple classes. That is to say, there are multiple teachers conducting class in one room. I saw a music class that is taking place in a re repurposed locker room and exposed HVAC. We can do something to solve that problem. Commissioners, the current budget proposes an initial investment of $11.9 million to begin the phase construction project. And although we are committed to the two new high schools, uh um um still these projects are multi-million dollar commitments that take years to design, construct, complete, and occupy. We can't take our foot off the gas while we wait for the two projects to finish. While construction in Frraasier is finishing up and the new east region continues to progress, we need to continue to work with our partners at Memphis Shelby County Schools and address the needs of their dire infrastructure. Building a new Treadwell is one of the ways we can do that. On top of that, investing millions of

dollars in new school construction helps our suburban municipalities. My administration has always believed that every student, regardless of where they reside, deserves uh a great learning environment. And so, as we invest millions to build Treadwell, that will translate into additional investment in our other municipalities. Finally, and as always, we continue to make strides in taking care of our employees as they confront the high gas prices and the affordability crisis that has hit here and across the United States. As you know, my administration has proposed in previous budget cycles the largest wage increases in Shelby County history. And working with Commissioner Sugarman, our government was the first local government to propose a $40,000 minimum wage for our employees. And then we funded it. This year, we continue those efforts. I'm proposing yet another raise for uh these employees. The proposal is to give them a 1% across the board raise, building on our prior increases. But this is just the current proposal on this topic. Our team is more than willing uh to work with you uh Mr. Chairman and members of the commission on ways we can lead by example and to invest uh as much as you want uh in these employees. The point is this. If Shelby County is going to be the greatest county in America, then Shelby County government has got to be one of the best places to work in America. Commissioners and uh chairman and commissioners, this budget continues a conservative approach to to spending while ensuring we make maximum impact. In other words, this budget is lean and mean. I'm looking forward to working with all of you through this process and making sure we continue our momentum. With that, I defer to you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Okay. All right. Thank you very much, uh, Commissioner Sugarman. Thank you, Chair. And so, I just have a quick question. What is the, um, the situation or timeline with the mental health safety and justice center? Um, I think that you mentioned before that we should be finished construction by the end of the year. Is that correct? is are we on target? Yes, we are on target. We will finish construction before the end of the year. Yes. Thank you. Okay. All right. Um, Commissioner Wright.

Thank Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Mayor, for the presentation. Um, my question was on um on the budget submission process. That's something that we've been dinged about, I think, collectively as a county. Um, and there I I I would say there's a lot of um the criticism that we received has not necessarily been accurate as as far as what exactly has transpired in that process. I've seen it said that we haven't approved a an acceptable budget in 5 years or something of that nature. Uh I don't believe that that's true. I don't think that this board has has uh fallen down on the job, so to speak, on that, but there there have been issues as far as submitting the budget. Can you speak to anything that the administration is doing to ensure that that process could go a little smoother this year?

So, I'm not sure of the criticism, so we might have to talk a little bit more. Um but as you say, I believe we have uh worked through the budget process over the last several years and and delivered on a lot of our collective commitments. Um I think that um I I stand um ready to work with the chairman on any reforms that the chairman might have. I know in the past there have been ideas around collaborative budgeting and taking some of the budget process out into the public and we've been more than willing to support those efforts. And so if there additional if I could just to clarify I'm sorry to interrupt you. The the question is more about it being accepted by the state or the comproller. Is there anything more we can do to make sure that that process goes smoothly?

Okay. Thank you m Thank you Mr. Commission. Now I understand. Thank you commissioner. Right. Uh so I think that this commission probably has passed some recommendations about trying to make sure that we work uh do a better job of working with the state with respect to the budget approval process. I think part of that is making sure that we turn in the line item um um representation of our budget uh earlier to the state and make it available for feedback. And so that process is ongoing. As you know that there was some negative feedback from the state with respect to the last budget submission. We have taken um u um significant action uh in response to that and to create accountability around what transpired with respect to the state's feedback. Obviously, some of that feedback is probably through a political lens. There's no doubt about that. Uh and overall, the process for feedback from the state around um budget is something that you can see across counties. I've said that before. that remains that remains true. Uh I think that um obviously we were uh one of the only counties to receive the non-acceptance uh uh this year and there were some things we could have done better. We we we've addressed those and taken real um disciplinary action as a result of those things. Um, but there there is there is politics in in some of this. And as I say, if you look across the letters from the state across many, many years, almost every county with the exception of a handful receive a letter every single year.

All right. Uh, thank you, uh, Commissioner Wright. And yes, we did pass in the budget resolution this year that there would be a draft submission to the state to ensure that the form is correct even prior to the final adoption of the budget which was a big part of the issue was just the line item piece of it, the form of it. So that's certainly something we expect to happen. Uh before I go to Commissioner Mills, Mayor, will you will you please uh clarify us for because obviously the the biggest thing we need here is the actual budget itself. So when we will will we receive uh in hard copy and digitally this proposal.

Oops. Good morning. Thank you. Audrey Typton, director of administration and finance. Uh we are planning to have the budget, the proposed budget online by Thursday morning and we will have a hard copy book ready for you by Friday. Okay, great. Thank you. All right, Commissioner Mills.

Thank you. That was one of my questions. I don't I still to this day do not understand why we don't have a hard copy when when you propose your budget to us. Um but this is the last year I'm out the door. So um hopefully the new mayor and new commissioner will um have a different setup. Um as far as the certified tax rate, is that because of the reassessments that we're down to 266 from 269? Well, as you know, U Commissioner, this commission is in charge of the tax rate and has full discretion. I know, but is is your number down because of the reassessments or is it literally a 3 cent? The homeowners are going to fill the 3cent tax cut.

Well, as you know, Commissioner, the mayor is entitled to propose the budget at whatever tax rate the mayor sees fit. And so I've decided on 266. The certified rate, if that's the question, I believe the certified rate is $2.66 and three hundreds of a cent. Okay. So it's a 300th of a cent decrease.

The tax rate that I proposed in FY26 was 269. This year I am fully authorized to propose any tax rate and I have decided to propose 266 that is a 3cent tax cut. The certif of the tax rate the certified process is a process so both you and the community can know how the tax rate compares revenue-wise to the previous year. That process exists on its own but does not change any the does not change the discretion of this commission to choose any tax rate. I hope that was helpful.

Okay. I will just twiddle my thumbs until we get um the budget in front of us to do my work then. Thank you, Chair. Why?

Okay. Um just to quickly clarify that point. I mean this will obviously be a big point of discussion as we go forward but my understanding is that the it's the recapture rate um and that rate would be 2.663814 66 3814. Um the the the the assessed value hasn't changed. The assessed values will only change every four years. Um so as I understand it, people are the the tax rate at 269 is what is being taxed at today's assessed value, which was the same as the reappraisal last year. So that reappraisal is not going to happen for another 3 years. So that if the rate set at 2.66 3814 does lower uh what an individual may pay unless they've appealed their assessed value. Um can you just clarify that point because this is different than this is different than the reappraisal year where we have to reset the rate, right? This happens always the year after that because of a lower number of appeals that happened. So the county collected more revenue than it should have last this year to be revenue neutral, but by resetting the rate down to 2.663814, um that in effect would be a decrease in the amount that an individual homeowner pays, assuming that they are assessed at the same value as the reappraisal.

Uh um Chairman Why, everything you said is is correct. That's that's absolutely correct. So yeah, um so I mean this commission can do whatever it wants to do. If if it's important for this commission to be revenue neutral, then the revenue neutral rate or the recapture rate, I may have said certified rate, but recapture rate is probably more appropriate. Then the recapture rate as you say is 2.663. Yeah. So forth and so on. Um but this commission can decide to not be revenue neutral or not. And revenue neutral is not a thing. It only exists as a thing in this law, but it's it's not a real thing.

Right. Okay. Uh I do. So, one thing we're also going to need to clarify is, you know, we've been in this long process of trying to um add the number of decimals uh to the trustees collection software. So, we need to clarify that because we got a lot of decimals in in what I think the state is telling us we need to set. Uh so, that's one thing we need to be clear about uh before we do anything with the actual rate from there. But, we do have to accept the actual rate itself. And if we want to lower it by the you know by the 0.003814 that can be done uh and it could be done up down from there that would be up to us. We first need to accept uh the recapture rate. Okay. All right. Right. Yeah.

Oh yeah. Uh so Mr. Chairman, that's exactly right that that there is a notice process that's required under state law, but it is it is merely a notice process so that you and the public would understand which rate it is equal to revenue neutral, right? Not that revenue neutral is a thing, but there is a notice requirement. Yeah, I know. Before we get to that, I'm saying there's a technical piece of this of we have to accept the state recapture rate and we have to clarify that we have the ability to do all these decimal points.

That Yes, sir. That is correct. The notice requirement requires a specific process to make sure the public knows where revenue neutral neutrality sits. And that notice process does involve you accepting the rate as you receive it and making certain votes to acknowledge that you've received it. So it's a notice process only but this this h has nothing to do with the decision you make around how much revenue you would like to derive from the process. If I can say one more thing the decimal and you you've said this as well so I may may be duplicative here. What we're proposing is 266 and so we're not proposing go all the way down through those decimals. So that's not part of my budget. It will be 266 in my proposed budget if that makes sense.

Okay. All right. Commissioner Wright.

Uh, thank you, Mr. Chair. So, I think we've been joined by a group of folks who are with the leadership Memphis Area Association of Realators. I hope I have that right. Would you stand or raise an arm just so we can uh recognize you? Welcome. Good to have you all. You have impeccable timing. Um, so I know as realtors and real estate people, you came in right as the mayor was presenting his budget for the next fiscal year and we're getting to celebrate what sounds like a 3 cent uh reduction on the property tax rate. So, I know that'll be a selling point for you as you go out and sell some homes. So, uh, thank you for joining us. Mayor, I did have one more question for you at this stage, which is uh I think probably a pretty big one, which is we had another item on the committee agenda today about concerning the sheriff's office. Uh I know you probably don't want to go deeply into that question, but could could you just simply speak to whether we're factoring that in for the next fiscal year? What they're asking for this fiscal year? Is is that being factored into next year as well into the budget proposal?

So, I'm not sure what the sheriff's request is. I would have to study it uh to find out what this request is. Um so, I'm I I don't I don't know the details of what the sheriff is bringing. So, we had an item on the agenda today, item number nine, that deals with an $18 million reallocation. Again, I have no idea what that is about. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

All right. Uh, Commissioner Caswell. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, mayor, for your proposal. I was listening in as I was coming in from a another meeting. I appreciate you uh the presentation that you gave. I was listening also to the school board presentation and and and my question is I just, you know, as last year, I felt like we felt short. You know, I I tr I tried really hard to get some pennies in there because one thing we talk about I heard you talk about Treadwell School. We got many other schools. We inherit it over and over again. Some of our schools 60 and 70 years old, right? And we're not investing there. One thing I I just left a meeting with the kids at Central High mental health that how much these babies keep hauling that they need more mental health services and support. But yet we are and and and then on top of that when I look at the fact that uh the the surge that came in with the Smith Memphis Safe Task Force in October right after the budget and so many people that went into the jail system and getting back out going right back to those same communities that's disinvested and you know I really wanted to hear like what was that what was your vision on seeing all of these things happen and on top of hearing the school takeover that may be taking place how we're going to do something different to be uh really innovative. I I you know, I hate to hear that, you know, you went to 266 and we wouldn't stand at 269 and and really at 275. If we're going to talk about really a real investment into changing the narrative and the direction of where this county is headed, we if we're talking about moving forward, we got XAI in our backyard. We got artificial intelligence taking jobs. I'm I'm in Nike. I had 700 some people call me. Many of them who I helped get jobs 15 years ago, their jobs gone now. They're automating these jobs. And we are not saying as a county, how do we help those families with certification programs, training, something to change the trajectory? Because I think where we're headed right now, this is going to take

overtake us as a as a community. And families are going to be able to pay for living in that community of Fraser that used to be $700 a month. that's now $1,400 a month and and they don't have the jobs no more at Nike. So, it it just, you know, I I would like to see and I know as a body what we really going to do to really address that because I feel like we're going to be leaving our county short where we were last year. We went into November needing to get 40ome million dollars from the reserve to pay. We know we short, but we come down here and we say, let's stay the same route. We're going to be short again in November. We're going to be having the same news story we had last year because we are not putting no new revenue in the budget and we're not doing anything different to move Shelby County forward. That's that's just my concern mirror and I I just you know I don't know what you all got out of the last year or so we had had with the safe task force and all that's been taking place there and the fact that many of those people that are being arrested in these communities whether they were second offenders or uh past offender who couldn't get certification jobs or anything else it's going to be the same cycle all over again. And so mayor, if you can just help me just understand what's the thinking around the future for us as a county with this budget.

Um, so thank you um, Commissioner for that and I'll try to be as brief as possible. I think the the short of it is is is what Commissioner Mill says is that unfortunately these positions are temporary and so some of the work which is longstanding work will have to be addressed by the next group of commissioners and the next uh mayor. Uh and so they will have to sit in these chairs and make decisions about the jail. Obviously, you've heard my position on the jail that I'd like to see us reform our management practices, which um um has been done, and we want to see that work continue to um accumulate um before we invest in a new facility. They'll have to decide hopefully based on the footprint that footprint that we have set around investments in schools because we need to do even more and get in the habit of building more schools because that's the only way to address the 500 million or a billion dollars in deferred maintenance. So, some of that work will be ongoing. Uh, and lastly, I would just say to you that they're also going to have to face the takeover uh of the school system because obviously one of our biggest clients in our budget is the Memphis Shelby County School System. And so if the takeover proceeds, which it appears that it will, the next administration and the next commission will have to come up with a budget process that is very different, I suspect, than the budget process we have now and try to figure out a way to liazison with the um um members of the oversight board. And so those are problems that are that are coming. Uh we have tried to do as best we can here uh to set up the next commission and the next mayor for success. Keep the budget as light as possible. Try to cut as as much as we can out of the budget. Uh and then let

the next commission next mayor decide where to invest additional resources and how to grow the budget. But we didn't want to hand a budget that had ballooned to the next person. I think that happened a little bit when I came in and I didn't necessarily want to do that when but when I came in the CIP budget had ballooned to you know two or three times what it was the previous year uh and there were additional expense. We wanted to keep things as lean as possible and then let the next mayor add uh to the to the budget as the next mayor and the next commission sets their own priorities. I hope that was helpful. Okay. All right. Thank you. Um Commissioner Mills.

Thank you. I do have a question. And I don't remember if you mentioned this in your presentation or not. Um I know last year you were advocating with DA Mroy for a crime lab. Was that mentioned in this budget?

Um there should have been a presentation around the crime lab and an update today. Maybe that was on the agenda. So the crime lab, the progress is still moving forward and so we continue to remain committed to the crime lab and that's something that will be part of our transition documents um to the next administration. Exactly. and funding. Um it it's I'm just curious because I I I had I know the state had offered to work with you. Um let them know what you need. Uh I believe it was Senator Taylor that made that offering and I didn't know if there was if you'd connected with him to move that option forward.

So I've not talked to uh Senator Taylor. we're happy to talk to him about ways to move it forward and continue that work. Um, but there are lots of folks at the table and you know the work is difficult but we're moving it forward. If if there's if there's a way to collaborate with the state, we definitely want to do that. So I'll have to check on what the specific number is for the budget though to your to your question. I'd have to check. Thank you.

Okay. That's um I just I know it was offered and I didn't want to miss the opportunity. Um if they're offering to help and and you not follow up on that, that would be a huge missed opportunity. Um, I'm also concerned about what Commissioner Wright said, and you're not aware of the $18 million with the sheriff. Um, that's very concerning. I would get with maybe Attorney Iverson or something um on that one cuz that's um that's going to be that's huge. Um, but you signed on it, I saw. So, um, I'll be interested that maybe Attorney Iverson can help you with that quickly. Thank you. I don't I don't know that I signed off on anything. I'd have to I don't know what that means, but I you you'd have to share that with me. Uh but I just said I I don't I don't know anything about it. Uh I have I have seen the document. I don't understand or have any knowledge about the document and I'm not in a position to give you any information about the document.

All right. Uh Commissioner Coswell.

Thank you, Chair and Mayor. I just had to jump back in because I I I too hear you say, you know, the next commission and the next mirror I have to say right now I stand unimposed unless somebody want to write in a whole bunch of names, they're welcome to do whatever they have to do to that point because I'm concerned with our future. I'm concerned as sitting on that next commission with that next mural and things like I heard my colleague Commissioner Sugarman speak about the mental health jail. One of it is good is going to be built but then we got to talk about how we going to fund it. What do that funding look like? Right? If we're not talking about it in this budget, it's going to be built next year and then we're going to have to be talking about how we going to found money to fund it, right? We're going to be behind the eightball on something that is seriously impacting, I think, public safety is because we got so many of these people sitting in 2011 pop up with mental illness that need to be getting real help. Right. I appreciate our support of Alliance and those type of organizations that's doing what they doing, but as a county, I think we're falling short and we're we're talking about 60 beds with the mental health. It's 700 some people sitting in 2011 popular with these type of issues, right? That they numbers that that have been given to us. So, so that that is my real concern. I I appreciate you thinking about not putting more on, but I think we already packed it on, right? We we talking about two new schools that's needing to be built and we still I don't think where we at with Cardova uh and and and where that's coming in at yet, but I know it's going to be done. But my concern is where we going to be with the mental health of our children. Where we going to be at with the mental health of those who are incarcerated? Where we going to be at as a community that's investing into job training opportunities for people that have now found themselves in this system of 7,000 some people that's been arrested since October uh in the in the system trying to figure their way back out of how we get them back on track. I mean, again, I I appreciate the fact that we're seeing a decrease in crime, those things, those numbers, but we're not going to be able to sustain it if we're not talking today about what we're going to do tomorrow. And that's my only concern, M. I appreciate you. You know, you're

thinking about not putting more on the future, but we have to think about that now because we know we were short last year. And then we know these other things are coming because we are invested already put our money where our mouth is to build that new facility. But I don't think we put money to run it. And we found ourselves that even with the juvenile court, the sheriff when he pulled out, money went with him. And that may need to be a conversation that still be had it about things that was taken out of that that youth facility that this body had to put money there to put back into their stoves and all of these other things that was taken. So, it's just it's a lot uh mirror that I think we're not thinking about and sadly many of my colleagues are going to be gone next year. Uh but some of us may be here and when in being here we're going to have to deal with this uh ball that's being kicked down the road. So, thank you.

All right, Mayor Harris. Oh, well, just real quick, we we do have some placeholder operational money in the budget which the team will be able to discuss around the Mil facility. I think the placeholder amount is currently $2 million because obviously the facility would be finished this year, but probably wouldn't open uh until sometime after that. So, there's there's placeholder money for that and for and hiring some of the first team members that will be associated with that facility. So, they'll they can talk about that during the budget process, but even after the budget process, we're going to bring proposals uh to you around how the mental health facility will look as we hand it off to that to the next administration. So, just wanted to comment on that small point.

Okay. Um, Mayor Harris, does this uh does your proposal have any cont like a contribution to the unrestricted fund balance? No, no, no. Okay. All right. Just uh Yeah. All right. Commissioner Caswell, briefly. Yeah. Yeah. Just one and I appreciate the chairman for letting me back in. I just want to ask about the wealth path. I know that there was talks that they may be leaving. uh are are we having conversation with someone else coming into that and what do that look like uh there at the jail?

So you you're right. Well path is the vendor to deliver healthcare services across our detention facilities. They've elected not to participate u going forward uh in that in in the RFP process. And so we have that process which is ongoing and we will uh work that process and bring something forward if it's ready before my administration departs. If not, we're going to be working with Well Path to make sure that we have something in place for the next administration.

Okay. All right. Thank you. Um before we close this item out and obviously we we look forward to receiving the the actual document to be able to get into it, but um just so that we understand uh some of the numbers here because as we mentioned at the budget retreat, understanding the revenue is particularly important this year. Not just because of the recapture rate, but because you know, you've got to start with revenue, right? Before you start spending it, you got to know what you have. Um, so just to understand those numbers again. So the the the recapture rate looks like it's going to be 2.66 3814. The updated penny value is 3,314,54. So that's the new value per penny. Um, and right now we're at 269. Uh but because it's a recapture that any decrease from 269 we do have to we do have to adopt the 2.663814 but any decrease from 269 has the effect of decreasing the tax rate that someone pays assuming they did not appeal their assessed value. Okay, just so we're all clear about that. Next week uh on Wednesday we're going to have a budget hearing. This is for the other countywide elected officials to be able to present any potential change or request that they may have to us. Um and uh and at that point we'll likely probably also have some more information because we'll have the the budget proposal. Um but just so that everyone is aware of that that is happening. Okay. All right. With that, thank you uh Mayor Harris for the presentation. We look forward to working with you to get this done um and make sure that we've got a strong budget. Thank you. All right. Uh, I don't believe we have any other items. Oh, yeah. Great. Okay. Uh, commissioners, we do have to add on this uh tax rate ordinance. This will

just make sure that we're moving through appropriately with a buffer meeting. Uh, so I'm going to move that we add on uh the ordinance fixing the tax rate. Uh sec seconded by Commissioner Wright. Uh can we do that without objection? Okay. Hearing none. Uh we do have the tax rate ordinance in front of us. Remember that this has to be read three times. Um this will ensure that if we need to bring it a fourth time. Uh we'll have a meeting at the end of June uh to be able to do that. Uh so the plan is not to fix the numbers in here yet because we first have to adopt uh the recapture rate. Commissioner Mills,

I was just going to move to send this down without recommendation. Okay. Uh, Commissioner Mills moved to send it down without recommendation. Is there a second? Second by Commissioner Sugarman. Without objection, uh, we'll send uh, this item down without recommendation. Okay. Thank you all very much. This will conclude budget and finance. Uh, I'm going to also call to order committee 6 because I've got the item in this committee. Uh, item Oh, sorry. We didn't even read it. I'm going too fast. Yeah, we need to read it. Read the you read it into the record, please.

Item 10 is a add-on. Uh item 10 is an ordinance number blank. Ordinance fixing the tax rate for Shelby County at blank for the tax year 2027 sponsored by Commissioner Michael. Why?

All right. So, uh, I had, uh, moved it and Commissioner Wright had seconded it and there was a motion by Commissioner Mills to send it down without a recommendation, which was seconded by Commissioner Sugarman. Uh, so without objection, uh, this add-on item, item 10, uh, will go down without recommendation. All right. Do we have anything further? All right. Uh, with that, this will conclude committee number one. Uh, I'll call to order committee number six, education. If we can read item number one. Item one is a joint resolution of the Memphis City Council and the Shelby County Board of Commissioners. A resolution to encourage alignment of fall and spring breaks across all school districts and school types in Memphis and Shelby County. Sponsored by Commissioner Michael Why. This item was deferred in April 22nd, 2026 committee meeting.

All right. Uh item one, uh I will move it seconded by Commissioner Wrights. Uh this we're still working with the city on this and also with the University of Memphis. So I'm going to move to defer this one more time to May 27th. All right. Seconded by Commissioner Wright. Can we do that without objection? All right. Hearing none. Item one will be deferred and this will conclude committee number six. Anyone else would like uh would be great if someone else would like committee number three. Don't all speak at once. Oh, go ahead.

Okay. Thank you. I'll be happy to. Uh, Madame Parliamentarian, a call to order committee number three, hospitals and health. Madame Parliamentarian, would you please read our one and only item? Item one is a resolution approving a consulting contract between Shelby County government on behalf of Shelby County Health Service and Jeff Mary's Programming Shop Incorporated doing business as JP OG for continuation of the development of the software known as Ryan White Careware Careware Scalable Software for managing and monitoring HIV clinical and supportive care and for producing complete completed Ryan White HIV AIDS service reports for the period of March 1st, 2026 through February 28, 2027 with the option to renew for two additional one-year periods for a total amount not to see $61,320 sponsored by Commissioner Misa Clay Bibs.

Thank you. This item has been moved by Commissioner Wright and seconded by Commissioner Sugarman. And I was just told that it has been requested that this item be withdrawn. With no objection. Seconded. No objection. This item will be withdrawn. And that will conclude committee number three, hospitals and health. Okay. I guess I Yeah. Yeah. All right. I guess we'll call uh economic de development committee number seven. Not item number one. I don't know if it's

item one is a discussion which will last 15 minutes. Hip hop museum updates. Michael Ford and John Mitchell presenters. This item was deferred in April the 22nd, 2026 committee meeting. Uh are they here? We may have to defer it again. Let's let's put it at the heel because I know Commissioner Lyra was coming. Let's put it at the heel if we can. Mr. Chair, I'm hearing from staff that they are not present today. So, we may need to defer this. Defer this to the next committee. So, I'll make that motion.

All right. That motion was made by Commissioner uh Wright to second move it to the next committee meeting. Second by Commissioner Sugarman. All right. Without objection. All right. Item number two. Item two is a discussion which will last 10 minutes. City of Memphis and Chevy County Community Redevelopment Agency CR update President Andrew Mary presenting.

All right, you all can come. Just name state your name and zip code for the record. And we have a 10-minute discussion here item. Let's see. Uh we're passing out a PowerPoint now. We PowerPoint is on the screen.

All right. You can get going when you're ready. All right.

This All right. Awesome. Well, good morning, commissioners. It's so great to see you all. It's uh it's a little dubious following the budget, but uh I wanted to get a chance to give an update. I've had several commissioners ask for this, and uh we are very excited to go ahead and uh present to you a short update about what we do. We'd love to come back and give you some more detail on the full extent of our programs. Uh, but I'll be brief because I know you all went through two long budget presentations and so I'm available. Our staff is available as well. Um, we've got several staff here um that I'll introduce. Um, so uh Sharia Jackson who leads our uh essential housing program is here. Um, Vivian Extramm as well. Um, she lead she's our director of planning community development and Mice Hegler general counsel. um and uh all around incredible help to our agency. And then Lisa Ivy, our director of home repair is also going to be here too. So um want to uh go ahead and jump in and there's a presentation that's been passed around as well as some information on our annual report and also our essential housing program. So, all right. So, for those of you who aren't familiar of with our organization, we are a joint city county agency. Uh we're one of the alphabet uh soup that that y'all uh oversee and we partner with the city and the county and we uh we do two things. One is to eliminate blight conditions and the other is to up uh provide affordable housing. Um and so our vision is to really try to address every neighborhood in the county um uh with good quality of life. So really brief overview, we were created essentially as a paper agency in 2001. Um fast forward to 2017, we uh

Rosyn Willis, my predecessor, came on. Um she and I were both brought down from St. Louis. Um neither of us were from from St. Louis, but we were both brought we were there at the time. and she was from here and I'm from all over and we were brought in to set up this agency, hired staff, got an office. Uh we took what had been a a master developerdriven model and we turned it into a communitydriven model. Um we're really really proud of that that we did that in Uptown extended to Bingampton and then as you can see on these milestones we've also had other tiff districts that have gotten approved but don't have any funding in them. So you can go to the next slide. Um, I wanted to highlight a recent program that some of you all may or may not be familiar with. Um, so Sharia Jackson leads our our essential housing program. This is a really exciting program. I will say for the first uh few years that we existed, our focus was really on blight. So, it was on uh clearing land, getting land um from the land bank or from tax sale or from speculators, getting into good hands, uh cleaning it up, uh dealing with uh environmental contamination, all kinds of things like that. Really, we've moved into the second phase of things. We're not neglecting that part of our work, but we're focusing more on creation of housing because y'all, we are in a affordable housing crisis currently. We have 40,000 units we need to create yesterday and um we are working really hard to be part of that uh and also to support uh Mayor Young's push to get uh the first 10,000 out. So we've got we've got 1500 units in the pipeline and um uh we're really excited about that. So the fire that that we passed out um please take a look at that. If there is anybody that you know who is interested in building a house in Uptown, which is

seven different neighborhoods in Northwest Memphis, um from New Chicago all the way to the pinch or Bing Hampton, uh and hopefully extending it to future tiff districts, please have them talk to Sharia. We have a really easy process. A lot of folks have been through um several training through ULI um through uh Rashidita um uh Jones's great program. They've come through that program. These pictures here, if you go to the next slide, these are these are groundbreings. These are real houses that are getting built currently in North Memphis. Um Sharia has 73 units that have already been approved. Uh eight with 18 developers. These are essentially emerging developers and people from you know who are comfortable building one to 10 houses. Um they quite a few of them are under construction and um we're really really excited about that. There's a mixture too. There's uh duplexes, there's quadlexes, there's some accessory dwelling units as well. Um and these are scattered throughout uh northwest Memphis essentially and Bingampton where we have the tiff funds. So this is the most important slide. um wanted to talk about what we are and what we're not. Um because I get a lot of these questions from you all and from I'm sure your com your constituents also get get these questions. So I wanted to make sure you have this. Um call me anytime. I love to talk to you all. I know some of you do. Um just my contact information is on our website or come come talk to me anytime or any of our staff. Uh but what we do, we administer community-based tax increment financing districts. So, these are community-ledd districts that have an advisory committee that helps guide how these funds are spent. All right. Uh, the second thing we do, we administer a home repair program. We've done 300 homes. Um, this is uh 65,000 and up um uh dollars per house. Um, this is a really successful program. Lisa Ivy and her

crew lead that program. It has been transformational for a lot of our typically seniors who are in homes that are falling apart and be able to turn that uh liability into an asset. And so that's what we do there. Um we're preserving generational wealth. Um sec third thing we use 70 80% of all of our spending is through locallyowned small businesses. Um uh we used to say something else but now we're saying that. And so um that is uh that is what we do. This is keeping um our wealth uh that we are investing in the neighborhood local. Um last thing we administer two large federal grants plus we've gotten some other federal funds through the EPA. Um one is the Brownfield Coalition that we just staff that but that is essentially a bunch of CDC's and other organizations that run that organization. Um that's a whole another presentation. and I'd be happy to come back or have um Vivian Extrammar or or Emma come back and talk to you all about that. And then we also have a DOT grant from the federal government that has finally gotten started dealing with I40 and the connections over and under that. Okay. What we don't do um we don't receive any general funds from the city or the county. So your budget process that you that the mayor just presented, we are not part of that. We don't receive any funding from you all through that. Um I'm not saying that we're against receiving that money. I'm just letting you all know that we we are not part of that process. Um so our funds are either um either federal grant money or the tiff fund funds and those are geographically limited. We don't give out tax abatements, not at all. We are not a tax abatement agency. We don't give out pilots. We have nothing to do with pilots. Um and we don't oversee um other tiff districts. Edge oversees some tiffs districts including Graceland, Raleigh, uh Highland Road Strip, and

Popular Corridor. Those are not ours. So, um those are more economic focused. Ours are more uh community development and housing focused. All right, next slide. Okay, I don't have time to go into what TIFF is, but check this out. It's basically the increase in tax value in the district. So, for example, our most successful tiff district, which is almost at the end of its 30-year, it's got five years left on a 30-year tiff, is Uptown. The money from Harbortown, a portion of the increase, not all the increase, but a portion of the increase after we subtract out debt service to help make the school district and police and fire whole. That money goes into a fund and that is what you is used to fight blight and provide affordable housing. Okay, next next slide. Um, once again, I'm not going to go through this, but this is our current fiscal year budget for Uptown. Um, you can see that, uh, home repair, building rehab, block maintenance, uh, uh, lot maintenance, block crews, block maintenance or yeah, block uh, crews and lot maintenance. Those are local contractors, um, small business owners, many of them from the neighborhood that pick up trash, deal with the dumping situation, um, cut our lots. If you drive through New Chicago and you see a well-maintained lot, it's probably ours. Um, and so that's where all that money goes and that's kept local. Um, next slide. Bing Bing Hampton, same thing. We have a lot less money in Bingampton. That's a newer tiff, but we have a lot of home repair. About a million that we're spending in home repair each year there. We've started the block crew program this year. Bingham Development Corporation is leading that and they're also hiring local. Um, last slide. Um, we have some other tiffs and I don't have time to go into all of the details on these. Um, but Soulsville, Klondike, and Cleveland corridor have all been approved by this body and the city

council. Um, there is not any significant funding in any three of those. However, how we get funding there is by creating taxpaying projects in those districts. And so, um, we're working really hard with the community to try to have that happen. And once that happens, we'll be able to hopefully have some funds to do some exciting things there. So, I think I'm within my time. Um, I don't know, Monice, if there's anything you want to add. I'll just add that Monise Haggler, general counsel for U CRA, and I've been before you as we've gone through the process of getting the tiffs done and so I'm just available for questions before the commission and without the commission anytime.

Thank Thank you all for that presentation. I see we got Commissioner Sugarman.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chair. And so I love this. I mean, we are do have a deficit of housing. Um, and does your program also include, for example, home ownership, education, as well as, you know, getting individuals prepared to buy homes financially, you know, straighten out their credit, those kinds of things. And then, um, the next question is about tiffs because in my district, we love to have a tiff. And so, could you all, you know, support and walk my my community through the process of getting a tiff? I don't know if you just locked into those three or you willing to expand out and then also I've been working with um Oshita Jones um with in a district I'm sure you probably talked to about it in district six and so I think a tip would be perfect for that as well. So again, round the tips and then also last you talked about if we know people who are interested in purchasing a house and so I'll be reaching out to both of you all because I do have some individuals who are interested and do have to be firsttime homeowners or home buyers. Thank you.

Okay, I'll start with the last one. Um yes, have folks reach out to um Sharia Jackson. Can you wave her hand? Um, Sharia, I I know that Commissioner Caswell knows her and she's been working in the housing space for uh about 20 years in Frraasier. Um, and she has really gotten this program up and running. Um, in terms of homeownership, I would say about half, a little over half of those units that are coming online are available for home ownership. We would like all of them to be available for home ownership. Um, but we know in some of the places that we're working, um, we need to get people ready to to purchase houses. And so, we've said yes to all of the above in terms of, um, being able to, um, get people into homes. And so, um, we don't do like the credit counseling, the mortgage counseling ourselves. Our office is used um has been used regularly by United Housing um to do their programs. Um uh Amy Schlaflin is on our board, so is Rashidita Jones. And so um those are good partnerships where we feel like uh you know, Rashidita is helping getting people ready uh to build homes and Amy is helping getting people ready to purchase homes. So we're working really tightly with Convergence Memphis. We had the annual land land expo. We're providing the lots uh and we're providing $20,000 in reimburseable costs per unit um in these in these two districts. Uh and we would love um to have more money to be able to do that throughout the county um to expand this to other neighborhoods, but currently we're limited to those northwest Memphis neighborhoods and to Bing Hampton. um South Memphis TIFF um or just TIFFs in

general. So, the challenge with TIFFs is we need um we need taxpaying projects and we need about $10 million worth of projects to really make it worthwhile to create a TIFF. Um and so those can't be projects that are, you know, owned by the housing authority or um a church. they have to be taxpaying projects. And so, um, yes, we would love to take that tool and use it all across, uh, Memphis. The challenge is, you know, making sure that we've got people who are willing to invest that 10 million plus dollars in projects that will turn around and generate increment that that we can tap, you know, uh, take and then put back into the community. So once you get the engine turned over, you know, it's like the old cars like once you get the engine turned over, you can go. But we we need that spark, we need that starter to to get us turned over. And so that's what we're working on in the three that we have that don't have a lot of increment. And any future tiffs, we would want to talk through um uh how that process might work and meet with the community to give them realistic expectations of what's needed. Um, but you know, I came from the private sector. I never want to turn people away and say, "Well, we don't do that." I would much rather have a conversation with folks and say, "Okay, here's the steps that I think that you need to go through to get you ready to make this ask." Um, and that's what we do in our essential housing program. So, when we have essential uh housing developers come in, Sharia meets with them, she she sits down with them, they just have a conversation. um they don't have to turn in a a giant stack of papers. She just meets with them. What are you trying to do? What's your experience? She gets a flavor for where they're at. And then we try to get them ready. Maybe they need to go take the developer developer program with Rashidita Jones. Maybe they

need to go get their general contractor's license. Um we don't know, but uh we're happy to walk with people and provide technical assistance to get them there. And I'll just add that the houses that are being built are affordable houses. has to be 80% or less medium income. Yeah.

Thank you. Thank you. And and and to that point, I I I just like to add because I I listen to the mayor of state of the the city address and his ambitious goal to get to those 30,000 houses. And and and my concern is for Rita know this is a conversation we always had for years when we were out there in Frraasia with the FAR CDC is that the city never really put money in it. like you just said it come from the federal some a lot of things about to change at the federal level especially for us here in the state of Tennessee right and one I will ask you how much advocating do our congressman help with that as from the federal level to get those dollars to you all to do that work one two why haven't you all asked the city in the county when it comes to doing this because I I'm concerned when you talk about for example a lot of developers I talked to in the Frasier area say hey we trying to build a three-bedroom, one and a half bath is costing us about $150,000. Well, we can't sell it for that,

right?

So, it's not going to happen, right? So, that community is stuck with these vacant lots that we can't do nothing with, right? Community value keep going down and they come over to Raleigh. I appreciate it cuz they they do it in Raleigh. We seeing it go for 250 300,000. I appreciate that, but we hurting on our Frasier side and other communities like that. To that point, I think even more need to be given to developers to do those type of investments. I know with the CDC, they are able to go out to some other grants, the state grants and those other things to kind of help them with that, but that's the only way that's all boats going to rise, right? So, if you can just answer the question about the federal advocacy piece, how much support do you get from our current congressman to help make that happen? Or do you not need that because you got other avenues to get there? or in why haven't you really put in the ass to the city of the county so that we can reach that goal cuz we I've been hearing 20 30,000 houses for a while now and it's in the way we going we're not going to get there. How we how do we get there?

Yeah. Well, I think I think Memphis needs all of the above when it comes to funding sources. We are just chronically underfunded at every level. I mean, I just sat through the best budget presentation. So any ask that we can get from you know our our current congress two folks now now we're getting three. Um I think that is critical that we uh bend the ear of all of them. Um you know um the region has been able to get some funding when we've all worked together to go after the funding. And so

um you know we've had good conversations with MDD and and McQuiston. Um we we we're more of a a bureaucratic, you know, agency, but we're very uh excited and willing to participate in any of those advocacy efforts and provide real data and also provide program proof of concept where we can say, "Hey, if we put in 20,000 or 30,000 per unit, you know, we can get it sold and we can get this family in it because we've got this list of people who are ready to buy houses and we've got this list of developers who are ready to build them and we've available land. And so I think that um you you know I would just say we're very uh welcome to come back and and talk with you all about you know what a county um investment would look like um or going after with the city and the county or other agencies other funding sources. So um I'm working in the coming year to free up more of my time um to be able to do some of those asks. Um, a lot of what we've been doing the last few years has been, um, setting up the agency. I think we're running really well now. We've got a really great staff. They're very extremely competent and running really good programs. I think we do well with the taxpayer dollar. Um, but it's still not enough dollars. Um, you know, and like HCD needs a lot more money as well.

Yeah. Um, I I don't know if that answers your question.

No, it does. It does. I I would just ask this of your body since you all you have the experts on your team to when we talk about the physical impact of that, right? Return on investment to the taxpayers when we talk about all boats rising. I watched it. I watched it when Sharita was with Fraser CDC right there behind Union Grove Church when y'all built those new houses there. This community wasn't bringing in no tax dollars really. It was terrible. But they built a few houses back there. It shifted that whole community. All of it. Now we see houses that was4 and $50,000 in Fraser going for $150,000. We seen all of these new development out there that's happening. The boats are rising, but it was small investments that was given to do that work, right? And so it was one of the biggest dimension communities in our county, which can bring in a lot more revenue and tax dollars if we're able to make that real ass, show this body in the city council body what that real return on investment look like. And and to the point that you made about the 80% below poverty level, we got to get there because these people cannot afford to pay what they're paying. I'm moving two people out now because they've been struggling and trying to pay 3 months behind every time. There's no catching up.

And and and so if we don't get to that 80% below poverty, we're going to fail our county. We're going to be looking like LA where people going to be living on the side of the street because they cannot stay in these communities. And and and my last thing question I would just ask you with your expertise is what do the historical factor of red lining of those communities that you are in right now have on these families that lost all of that value intentionally and and not able to invest back in their community.

So that that is a loaded question. I could I could give a sermon on that last uh that last question, but short answer is redlinining still is a problem. Um we I will just say our local banks um are a challenge and some of the investment that some of our emerging developers including our agency we've gotten funding from banks typically those banks are not Memphis banks bank of fet banks from the delta guarantee bank is one of the our best partners a lot of these are rural banks that know how to work in challenging situations and are willing to work in diverse and challenging um economically complicated situations and and need those CRA credits, right? And so um my challenge to our banking community, and I've said this to all them already, is hey, we need you all to step up and believe in Memphis. And then our agency and others need to provide those opportunities and get developers ready to be able to be able to receive those uh those loans. Um and one thing I just to answer your previous question is um you know a lot of the budget issues that we have at the city and the county are because we don't have new housing coming in. We have population loss. We have aging housing stock. And so while I know that investing in housing at the city and the county level is expensive and um we have all these other needs that are pressing police and fire and garbage pickup and everything. Um the way we get out of our financial condition is by having generational wealth, home ownership and new housing and u and new business owners. And so that's where our focus is. We're we're not taking our eye off the ball. We know

we've got emergency things happening right now, but we've got to commissioner to your point at in the budget presentation, we need to focus on 10, 20, 30 years in the future so that we won't look back at ourselves and say we missed the opportunity. So, um, yeah. Thank you. One, one last. I know Commissioner Sugarman has some commission.

Oh, okay. You Thank you. really quickly. And so, um, I'm going to get with all three of you all offline, but I just have a quick question about down payment assistance. Um, do you all offer that or is that's something that we can look towards because that's a huge obstacle for people who want to purchase whether it's for investment or, you know, the home ownership, etc. And then the other thing, um, I know attorney Haggler and I know my, um, stepsister Rosen Willis. So, I know this is a great program because I know you know these individuals personally um and so I just want to hope that you can expand u what you're doing. I know you're saying that these are three tips, but just keep that in mind. And also I would like for you to walk through the process because that's something that for example in district six it has the most um landbank parcels than any other district and the area needs to be activated. And so we me you all mentioned that and so we do need to activate that and so however I can assist and work with you um I will do so. So is there any type of down payment assistant program or anything like that?

The short answer is we don't. Uh the city does have a down payment assistance program. Um and that's something maybe the county can look into. Yes. Um to your point um commissioner um I've talked to that to um the mayor about that and so maybe we can bring that forward in this budget so that we we have people who can you know purchase the house they can have some assistance. Yeah, just a correction. I think uh you said district six. I think you meant district eight. The South Memphis project. Uh Commissioner Lowry's district. Yeah, District 8. District eight. I'm sorry. I apologize. District Lowry's. Thank you. All right. And seeing no others in the queue, thank you all for your presentation and uh I'm sure it' be some followup. Thank you for having us. Yeah.

Uh let's call item number three. Item three is a discussion which will last 15 minutes. Results of the enhancing business ownership EVBO program. Joseelle Booker and Natalie Robinson, presenters. The Midsouth business continuum. All right. Give a minute. Let Sister Marie get set up there. I know you have a presentation. Uh do you have any Pat, you pass something out? Okay. Okay.

All right. Miss Booker, if you can just say your name and zip code for the record.

Okay. Joseelle Booker, um 38103, uh located in downtown Memphis at 200 Jefferson, uh president and CEO of the Midsouth Business Continuum. Well, first of all, I want to say uh good about approach the afternoon uh to you all and we're pleased to provide this update today uh on this work that was funded by the administration and this commission uh as an investment in individuals interested in entrepreneurship and those that were currently uh in business. This presentation is an evidence-based analysis of program participants representing entrepreneurs and business owners at every stage of development through growth drawn from all 13 Shelby County Commission districts. The journey that brought us here today started over two years ago. Um and since that period of time, our organization has launched a repositioning and name change. In February, uh the MM the MMBC continuum became the Midsouth Business Continuum positioned to expand access for all small businesses to public and private corporations, powering progress uh for the development, advancement, and the economic integration of economic development in Shelby County. And our mission is to connect B2B businesses to procurement and contract opportunities. I'm going I'll probably go over that time. I was had I had 15 minutes I thought and so I'm prepared to

Okay. All right. Thank you.

All right. Uh our sister organization, our 501c3 uh became the TADP, Inc. and its programmatic infrastructure is designed to address documented structural barriers that present prevent qualified small businesses from accepting from assess assessing procurement markets, capital and sustained business growth. And we pres provide these services to both businesses that are doing business with other businesses as well as those businesses that are doing direct business with consumers in the BTOC market. And so through our sister organization uh the TADP which was the fund recipient of the dollars that were provided to us, we're advancing entrepreneurs and growing communities. Uh I delivered uh to you all some time ago a very um thick packet of information. It was really almost a data dump. So I do apologize for that, but it was information that I thought would be very beneficial to you and understanding the current environment here as we look at our small businesses across the region. And so just quickly, a part of that was an economic development dashboard that covers four years of our work uh cumulatively looking at areas from services that we've provided to small businesses uh all across the community. Uh capturing jobs that were created and the job growth uh of the businesses that we serve. Uh looking at contract awards. Many times people are not really aware of the abilities of our small businesses in our communities and therefore the contract awards that they were able to secure. Also revenue uh for that the revenue covered um a 4-year period and it was $2.63 billion uh for uh the revenue for those businesses. want to keep intact. Bye. All right. So, our organization, moving on. Our organization participated uh as a member of the originally formed ad hoc

committee. Uh our committee has since been renamed to the economic mobility and social transformation ad hoc. Uh the work of that committee included attending several public meetings across the uh county in multiple districts. There were a series of meetings held in this chamber and our organization was invited to provide a proposal to provide a solution to the economic development pillar of that work and it focused on enhancing business opportunities as well as looking at um career opportunities in in the workforce. The program included three um components uh enhancing business ownership, business readiness and an ecosystem workforce mapping initiative. So the first component that we'll talk about today is the enhancing business ownership. The enhancing business ownership program was launched in 2025. It was implemented from February to October. So it was a very aggressive schedule of us going into each district across the uh county. Uh the program was designed to equip participants with ex with essential business information to strengthen, manage and grow their businesses by providing free advisory consultancy and resources. The program was designed to aid individuals aspiring to be entrepreneurs as well as existing entrepreneurs. The intent uh of the program was not to pilot it in any one district but to deliver this work in all 13 districts. And so in order to do that within the condensed period of time that we had, we created a four meeting model of delivery. And uh with that also to ensure fairness um and um the ability to measure outcomes, the eligibility requirements were established that set forth the process and how business owners would be able to engage in that model. And so I

want to thank all of the commissioners that attended the kickoff meetings uh in their districts and sharing their commitments to the economic growth and viability of their districts. several commissioners had an opportunity uh to attend several meetings uh within their districts and I'm very pleased to say and so are the residents across the county that 100% uh of all of the meetings we had representation either by the commissioner or by someone from the commission office and so I think it was very important for them to hear firsthand not only from the commissioners but also from their staff. So we traveled from White Haven to Hickory Hill to Frasier to Bartlett to Collierville to Arlington to Orange Mound to Cordova to East Memphis to Raleigh and then South Memphis. We travel across all 13 districts and also to accommodate the individuals that were participating in the program. We held our our sessions and our meetings with the business owners from Monday through Saturday. Um and we had we meet had meetings either in the morning or in the afternoon. And it was really designed that it allowed participants if they were working you know in a in a primary job or they had other responsibilities that they could participate in the program. Uh we promoted uh the event through television advertising targeted social media outreach partnerships with community organizations and we were able to attract participants from every commission district uh from ideiation stage entrepreneurs to established business owners with multiple employees. Uh I also want to thank the commissioners who were able as I said before to attend their kickoff meetings. Uh at each kickoff meetings attendees had an opportunity to introduce themselves uh where they discovered connections for business networking and continuing further discussion as it related to their uh businesses. We engaged hundreds of individuals across the county um to come together that were interested in this program. uh

they learned a lot and we learned a lot from them based on where they were uh in their business life cycle. Um we brought uh professionals and consultants to each district to share business development, infrastructure, organizational support and the overwhelming majority of the participating individuals were first generation business owners which is really aligns with as we think about the business owners that are in business today, many of them are first generation business owners. And so these are individuals that had not previously had access to professional consultants or adviserss and in some cases didn't know where to go to receive the kind of information and consultancy that this program provided. Uh the time spent with the consultants uh was priceless and many of our um consultants several of our consultants and professional adviserss are here today as we celebrate that work and they are seated behind me. So, raise your hand if you are a consultant, an adviser, a business owner or a banker. Um, one-on-one private conversations and consultancy allowed business owners and aspiring business owners to ask questions specific to their businesses or their interest in starting a business. When we look at what the program served, who the program served, our capital readiness assessment revealed a cohort of extraordinary human capital and a specific addressable set of structural barriers. So when you think about the business owners that participated in this program, what was really interesting is that 32% of them were aged 50 to 60. So these are individuals that had professional skills. uh they worked in many cases in private America and now they're ready to hang out their own shingle and bet on themselves and start a business. That's also evidenced by 29.7% of them held master's degrees and 27.7 held bachelor's degrees. So we have a mature group of business owners that were

individuals that were interested in starting business and they are highly educated individuals. Also when we looked at that data 30% of the participants had been in business less than a year and on the other side the next largest group uh 20% had been in business 7 years or more. So we had from one end of the spectrum ideation all the way to uh growth stage businesses. Access to capital is one of the barriers reported most by small businesses whether they're in this program or if you're just engaging with small businesses and what their issues are. And so we were happy to have Pathway Lending uh and our banking partners. We had banking partners from First Horizon, Paragon, Renaissance, Pinnacle, Patriot, Regions, and Truest Banks traveling along with us on this journey uh helping business owners really understand the value uh of that relationship and uh understanding uh capital and how to access it. So 87% of the participants stated that access to capital was one of their most urgent needs. The capital needs that they reported were concentrated in uh covering operational categories like working capital, equipment, payroll and inventory. And what this confirmed is that these are active businesses with real operational demands and not speculative ventures. Uh through the 52 meetings that we had across the county, over 600 people registered to participate in the program. Uh, the program provided at least 2 hours of one-on-one consultancy with each eligible individual and there was a total of 860 hours of professional consultancy that these business owners received and that's everything from attorneys to CPAs to financial advisors to um marketing and positioning uh instit organizations uh business

websites and business email. A lot of small business owners don't understand that when you're doing business in the public and private sector in order to be taken seriously. Sometimes they're not taken seriously if they don't have a business domain name. So if they have an email at Yahoo or Gmail, uh that procurement manager is very likely to think that they're not a viable business. So that was one of the first things that we wanted to make sure that they understood how to position their business and how they should be presented uh in the marketplace. over 250 individuals completed all aspects of the program uh from the from the very beginning completed all the assignments and took full benefit of the program. The second component of our work uh was um the business readiness program. This was a 12week cohort program independent of the uh meetings that we had all across the community uh in the districts. uh it was four sessions for 3 months. So for three months, one day a week, uh they came to our office to specifically uh understand and be informed and educated to ready themselves to compete for contracts and purchases with Shelby County government. Uh the very first uh session that we had with the business owners uh was was a presentation uh led by um the purchasing administrator, the LO uh LOSBC LOSB department. Uh they were on site. They explained the process and the procedures to the business owners. They registered them there on site online to become a vendor for uh Shelby County government. Um the and what we did at that point it ended with we had all of the classes that covered every aspect of being understanding how to be qualified, capable, and competitive to do business with the county, but also as a business owner how to be profitable in that work. And the cohort ended with a demonstration exercise where participants were provided a copy of a

Shelby County government bid. We walked through that bid process so that they could connect all of the training over the 12-week program to how that applied to them being able to understand a bid document and to be able to prepare it and to know what the qualifications were in that actual bid process. Uh for the cohort for the readiness program, we delivered two cohorts. Uh the first cohort was from January to March. We had 14 companies that were interested and participated in that cohort and the larger one was from June to August where we had 22 businesses to participate in that cohort. The last component of the engagement was the workforce ecosystem mapping project. Uh this work began by exploring the challenges to enhancing business uh career opportunities and we focused on various gaps uh in the um out in the marketplace. The project plan for that particular component was a scan of each of the 13 districts where we identified workforce programs uh and resources. We created maps for each district. I hope you have a chance to look through it's pretty uh big document uh that final report. So I hope you have an opportunity to look through at the findings for your individual districts. Uh it identified the resources and services that are available in your district as well as gaps. uh the report closes um and the goal of it was to develop this this map and this ecosystem. We partnered with a firm called third and 10 consulting to execute this work. We mobilized hundreds of voices from youth and job seekers to employers and faith leaders uh to map uh the various gaps. On the screen is one of the pages from that report which shows workforce gaps by districts. Uh some districts don't have any gaps, others they have gaps. And that's the beauty of this report is that you'll be able to see where there are gaps. Um and in your areas, 79

organizations across the county were involved in providing insight and feedback into that map. We don't have time to go into that uh today, but I do want to get to uh the results of this work. Uh there's a you received a white paper on the program. you receive the uh mapping and a economic impact report. Uh please take some time and look at the small business impact report. It includes testimonials and case studies from businesses that participated in the program. I can say all day how good I think the program is, but when you hear from the actual participants and what they got, uh I really encourage you to look at that. Lastly, uh I want to talk about this. The program ended in December and we've surveyed uh businesses since that program ended. And when you think about a short program, just four meetings, they've never met with us before. They received the training, the they also received the consultancy from the business owners. So, of the 56 companies that surveyed, 87% 86% were women, three were veteranowned. But the thing that is really great is that um $345,000 in capital was deployed to the business owners that participated in that project. They work with the bankers that were present. They understood the financial education and uh intelligence that we provided to them and they were able to secure uh funding for their businesses. 17 jobs were added net new jobs. Uh 19 businesses reported increase in revenue. But the the real uh number is the revenue growth. The net increase in revenue of the businesses of just 19 businesses was $ 1.45 million. So businesses that receive the type of training, information, and infrastructure that they need can make a real difference and contribute to our community. And so I just want to say this experience was very fulfilling for me and my team. It allowed us to travel beyond downtown Memphis into the communities across the county to meet

these businesses where they were and to provide them an opportunity to um increase their work. And so, uh, it's a continuing effect, uh, is what we say. And so, at this time, I'm happy to answer, uh, any questions. All right, chair, you're here. If you want to take it over.

All right. Thank you so much. Thank you for the presentation and all the hard work you've done. Uh enjoy going to those meetings and hearing and some of the success stories. You had a um if you go back two slides, you had one that uh one right there I'll try to read. It says for every help me understand what that means. For every 10 million routed through continuing program adds 3.8 permanent regional economic mass. What does that mean?

So that's from our economic impact report. You have an economic dashboard report also in your package and it talked about the work that we've done over the last four years. And so this is looking at procurement through um public and private corporations. And so what that means is when you spend those dollars for every million dollars and you think about taxes that are paid um uh additional spend from individuals and consumers in the marketplace. And so there's you may have received another another document in there that talks about um I gave you several as I said. So one of them the subject is is that Memphis has a wealth exportation problem and it speaks to the recirculation of dollars in the community when money is spent with small businesses. And that basically says 2.6 to 3.7 times a dollar turns in the community. And it also gives the number for example uh for every uh million dollars that's spent here. It talks about the amount of money that's in that document that I gave you that study. The amount of money that stays in Memphis. So for every million dollar that we spend, say as county government or any public or private entity, uh only $140,000 stays if it's spent with a company located outside of Memphis. If we spend that money with Memphis companies, then $560,000 stay in this community for every million dollar spent. But that's on the larger scale. Just really talking about the impact. We heard the budget today uh from the from the county mayor. Um and you think about the budgets of other uh public entities and their spending. So the more money we spend with local small businesses, the more money stays. And so it's a testament to why we need to grow these businesses and why they need to be qualified, capable, and ready to compete. And that's a part of the work

that we do. So not only communic uh competing for public and private work through corporations, but also to be able to have viable businesses within neighborhoods and communities that can help those businesses grow as well. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Sugarman.

Thank you, Chair. And so thank you for the presentation. And I want to thank all the um consultants that came out to the um the areas and communities. Thank you for giving your time and your expertise. We really appreciate it. Um and so um this is one thing that I've been pushing as a commissioner. Local, local, local. We've got to keep local. I mean, we generate so much revenue, but it goes through Memphis and Shelby County. We've got to keep it here. And that's a testament with your presentation that and again we have a small business owner who's going to make a presentation at after 11 and that's you know a testament you know my son's a has owned business both my sons rather

and my daughter's looking into that but I would like to continue this program and so um it's unfortunate that you know some people who wanted to get into the program whatever reasons did not but I think that with this, you know, document and um your presentation I think is a worthwhile program. And so my question for you um is what can we do or what is your ask so that we can continue with this program?

So when this we were funded um $700,000 to put together this program and we did that program where we had additional funds. We had a federal grant at the time we did this work that we were able to supplement the work to fully execute it. Uh it was funding that we had through the US Department of Commerce uh to run our uh minority business development agency business center. So those funds were cut. But this work if we want to create impactful work then it would cost approximately a million dollars for us to do this. So the 700,000 that was provided last time, 300,000 was supplemented through the grant that we had and it just depends on the type of impact that we want to make. So for impactful work, it would take a million dollars. Thank you for that. And then another thing is um you talked about being able to go through the um procuring county contracts and I was wondering if you would also expand the program to include city and school contracts and I understand we've been having issues with you know our purchasing department as far as um helping and supporting small business successfully gain contracts. And so I was wondering if you were interested in expanding to other areas as well, not just the county um aspect. And then also I would love for you to meet with the um since we're in budget season to talk to um our mayor Lee Harris to see if that's something that we can find some funds for and then also maybe we'll reach out to the city side um to see if there's funding there. Um but to to the point of the city contracts and the um school contracts, have you thought about also including that in the next go round? So this work when we talk about readying businesses to do business with the county, it's really public procurement. Um the rules are basically the same. So when you think of public as it relates

to bonding, as it relates to insurance, as it relates to qualifications, as it relates to um how things are done. So it it can really be a government procurement strategy. Um that would cover not only city, county, but it could also include the school board. Um and if you think about people that do work in public procurement, you'll probably hear many of those same contractors awarded contracts at each of the public entities because the rules are basically the same. So yes, this could be a local government business readiness model to where businesses will have opportunities um across all the governmental entities. I'll get back in the queue.

Thank you, Commissioner Caswell.

Thank you. Thank you, Chairman. Uh and and she really lined me up for one one of the things I've been working with. I know I got a meeting tomorrow with Mayor Young and uh Superintendent uh Richmond and some of the board members. I shared with them a an alignment of looking at how would it look if we had 1% alignment of the city count council budget the county commission budget in the school board budget. So collectively that's about $4.7 billion, right? If we took 1% alignment, no new money, and just say how do we how do this look in our nine poor zip codes, right? With investments that's going to be targeted towards strategically working with the families and children and community in that capacity. Right? So out of that one 47 million, that can be an opportunity to talk about what do local business look because I know you coming to our district has some winning capacities, right? I've seen and talked with and met with and been with some of those business owners. Just the part when I was there the night when you had the bankers and the CPAs and all the many people didn't know about all of these units that really makes up their business strength, right? So the education piece because we're coming from communities or generations of not having entrepreneurs and their families. So just doing business educating there was powerful by South. So so we know that that's needed. Now you look at the fact that the that federal government is cutting what you talking about. You can't even call it that,

right? And so we're going to lose their capacity there altogether. So it's an interesting point you made about us when you about this community when you talk about and I I thought about us cuz we often hear it in the black community that the dollar go one time around. Mhm. And if we're 60 70% majority and we wondering why the dollar is gone so quick because we're looking at outside companies, businesses, we're not looking at what we have here, right? And we're not reinvesting it. So how can you hire your family or other people if the if if the money is not staying here? So that's a major point

and I think that that goes right in line with what we talked about with housing because how can you afford to stay if the money ain't staying here to hire the people? So it's so what you did was very powerful important. So what I wanted to ask in that cuz I may have to get back in here is when you look at what the work you all was doing and you've been doing the game is changing with AI many middle management jobs and things are gone right you can do it online they know you can you can use these bots to do a lot of those jobs what have you looked at in working with businesses and doing this work that say to them that cuz it's about the bottom line in business I want to make more money right is they're going to look at that pathway but that means somebody job is gone. What what what recommendations could you give us as a government to look at policy or investments that help us out some kind of way cuz you know I don't know what's coming but it's coming fast and so if you got any ideas around policy or investments or what we look like with the new world that we're entering to in business.

So AI is something that we are seriously looking at. uh we had a consultant come in. We started with our in thinking about our small businesses and how they respond and how they understand that technology. We started with our um procurement and contracting individuals in on the public and private side and saying how they can use AI in their bidding and putting their bid documents together. So, we're now working on a program for our small businesses. Number one, we want them to understand AI to be able to embrace it. And as they look across their their organizations and look at how they operate, we know that there's going to be some displacement uh of people in the in the whole job space. And so, how do they identify what those jobs that may be displaced, but then at the same time, how do you use AI to be more efficient, uh to be more competitive, and to really understand business? So we're doing that from a and on our TADP side, our training side to look at that. Now we also that's one of the major areas of focus where we're bringing in national thought leaders uh to at our economic development forum that we're going to have in August. Uh so we're very close to securing uh some thought leaders to come in that is going to be very important for everybody public uh private policy makers to really understand what that what that looks like and so not our staff we're small and so a lot of the things that we do we're learning how to use AI to help us upskill uh and to help us to be more competitive. So I think from a government perspective or a countywide perspective, the first thing is uh we can't be afraid of it. We can't be afraid of AI. We have to understand what it means, you know, for the county. So even if you talk about from a pol policy

perspective, if you're looking at um I mean I could put some thought and make some recommendations to the things that I think could be done from a policy perspective, but it is very timely to have the conversation because things are happening and they're happening. so fast. Thanks, Chair. Thank you. I think Commissioner Sugarman, are you back in the queue?

Yes. And so I was wondering as far as the city and um school system, the county as far as the um procurement process or making bids, is there any way we can streamline? So, for example, if you um try to get a contract in the city, can we is there any way we can streamline so you don't have to keep, you know, reapplying or re, you know, um going through getting the certifications and things of that nature? Is there any way we can streamline that? I'm just curious about that. So, certification is one thing. Okay. And so if you're saying um there's a unified right or an adopted certification guidelines or criteria then everyone follows that if everyone is certified using that same criteria

then they only need to go through that process one time for all three systems if it's unified. Yeah. each each entity I would say would look at the policy of the other and to see what's common and to see what things align with how what what their strategic priorities are and then there could be you could create a unified or a single certification and once a company has that certification they don't need to be certified again and that saves them time and energy in tracking those various renewal times. Right now we don't have that. Correct. Or do we? No. Okay. Okay. So then the ask would be to reach out to all three entities and see if they're willing to do something like that.

Right. I would say a policy review. The city just passed the third reading yesterday uh on their small business enterprise ordinance. So they now have a new policy as it relates to small business. um some of the others are looking at their policies, but since the policies are being reviewed, I think it's a good time uh to look at them and to see if that's something all the entities have an appetite for. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you, Commissioner Caswell.

Thank Thank you, Chair. I I just say this that uh uh a lot of people not I can tell it's not really a big concern urgency in our community that should be there. I just left a conference, a knob conference with all the black elected officials and the question was asked and we had some experts there of some top people uh when it comes to artificial intelligent and in uh and all of the technology components. One of the question was asked that blew my mind that many in our community didn't know and these are the leaders in their accounting. That question was asked, how many of y'all knew that the SEC just passed where cryptocurrency could be used in the banking capacity? Mhm. Like two of us knew, right?

So sir, so so the game, the dollar has changed, right? And we sitting here where 12 years ago a dime that's now worth $77,000 with Bitcoin is the real money. And we playing like nothing is changing, but they're changing while we are red redistricting and focusing on things that don't have no economic impact. Cuz I can do this in Africa on the beach. Right.

Right. And don't have to deal with the political stuff here. That's But but this is happening in real life and we're focusing on stuff that's going to stress us to hell why they getting rich. because they know this but we don't. And so so my question to this because business should got to be done in a different way. I I I know it. I had this real conversation with my wife. I mean we got a driving school, you know, and I said that baby, three of them jobs can go. I mean real. If we talking about bottom line, we can they can go and we can invest that towards our future. We can invest that towards something. and and and and we have to think that way because when these things are moving so fast that some of us are not going to be and we're not ready for what's about to happen and and it's serious really what's happening and I hope that we as a county can think because some of the question I asked even about how do we invest some of our dollars that we invest with our trustee office now that it's real the banks are getting ready to set up to be able to take this money just like real money right it is real money but we just don't know about it it's digital So, so to that point, when you look at this work, what gaps do you see that you see in this process that we're working with some of these businesses that we just missing and that we need to be focusing on to help them really move the needle and and to go forward? The main recurring issue that we saw was just not understanding the foundational infrastructure that you need to have in place regardless to the kind of business that you have. Um, and so that's really understanding, for example, compliance with taxes and how you can go into the marketplace and start offering a product or service and you're not aware of the tax liabilities

and the rules and you you get saddled with fines because you just didn't know. And you didn't know because you're a first generation person, you know, and we know how every business in this country starts. It starts with the idea of the owner of one person

and they they know what they know. So what we saw is that people just really did not know the the systems and the things that they needed to put in place foundationally so that they would have a solid foundation and they could then start to grow and build their business. Just basic things not understanding um that they should be formally structured, you know, how they should be structured uh as an entity. not understanding that they don't need to co-mingle funds. You know, you you need to have a business bank account. Uh what are the risks associated when you don't have that um you don't know what kinds of things you need to report to the state department of revenue and how that you could get in more trouble by not understanding that than you do of not understanding IRS rules. So just the the basic infrastructure and that was the beauty of this program because it started at that level. And so now we have all these businesses that we've worked with that now have a solid foundation and so now they're in a position to continue to understand how to grow and scale their business and chair I know there's no one in the cur if I could just say summon is up for us with no investments coming from anywhere else federal what do we need to be looking at locally doing with a program like yours We need broad um I was about to say marketing or notification. People need to know that there is an organization regardless of where they are where they at ideation they just thinking about it or they're already in business that there's a place that they can come that can meet them where they are assess what they need and help them create a framework and a road map to go forward.

Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. Thank you so much for all the work that you all do. Thank you.

All right, that concludes uh committee number seven. So this we are now committee number 16. This the last one. Okay, we got something else coming. Uh hold on. our work for. Okay. So, yeah. So, we'll do this kind of quick uh for those who are here. I'mma ask who's here and then those not, then we'll read them all. And to record, unless commissioners, y'all have something that y'all want to pull and add something to, just let me know and we'll pull those items off. Um, we'll go down real quick.

Oh, we got the resolution, too, don't we? So, let's do number one. Hold on.

Let's do number one and then I'll go we'll go down there item number one. Uh oh. Call the order committee number 16. Item one. Item one. Go ahead. Item one is a resolution of the board of commissioners of Shelby County, Tennessee, amending resolution number 18 adopted August the 25th, 2026 to establish additional accountability reporting and eligibility requirements for the community enhancement program C as administered by the Shelby County Board of Commissioners sponsored by Commissioner Erica Sugarman.

All right. This item was moved by Commissioner Sugarman, second by Commissioner Mills. Commissioner Sugarman,

thank you so much. And so, as you all observed, um, over the past several months, um, Rise, for example, came in and, you know, they said they spent what, se what, $600,000 on staff and they're like 14 people. Um, and then the chamber refused to come to tell us what they did with the funding. And so what this is does is gives more accountability and it's a resolution. Having said that, I am working on an ordinance so that for example we can call back or if they refuse to come and to disclose what they've done with the money, the resources, um then it gives us more teeth because just to say they're not coming, they're not giving us the documents um we have to have more transparency and accountability and that's what the public's asking of us and this will be a start. is just a resolution. Um I think attorney Smith said that the ordinance is about ready. So I'll come back with an ordinance and this is just for the commission, but the ordinance will cover both the commission and the administration for accountability purposes. So that there'll be a claw back cuz right now there's nothing to call back and we just got to, you know, we we had good intentions. They had a good spill and a good presentation, but you know, it didn't um fulfill what they said they were going to do. Commissioner Sugarman, uh in the caption it says resolution number 18 adopted August 25th, 2026. We haven't made it there that far yet.

So, right. So, we're so um we haven't gotten that yet. So, we would like to amend that. Yes, ma'am. Y already talked to attorney about that. Okay. So, uh, so move to make that um change. Can I get a second? Second. Thank you. That item to amend moved by, uh, to change the date was by Commissioner Sugarman, a second by myself. Commissioner Wright Unic.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, I'm certainly in support of this resolution. I'm I'm just curious um maybe to the sponsor or to legal. Um, some of this I thought was already in like I thought we I thought we were already required budget. Um, some of this detail reporting annual, you know, annual reporting. Can can you just clarify what what exactly changes with the resolution

through the chair to legal? I'll let you explain. It just makes a little bit, you know, um, enforceable cuz right now we ask, we ask, we ask and they just don't come. But I would like legal to explain the difference. Megan Smith, County Attorney's Office. What this item does is provide guidelines for approval that require a little bit more on the front end in ter in terms of specificity. the budgets it they are now required to be um more detailed in how the money is being spent and not necessarily captured in categories. That's the primary difference between what is now being required with this amendment versus the the budget as required before.

Good, Commissioner. Well, and and I'm I'm good in supporting that that part of it. The the only thing I would say to you commissioner uh who sponsored this is that when I think about the two that you said the um the chamber and the arise neither one of them came through C both of them was through one of them was through the opera the other one was through I guess through the the administration. So I I would I would say that we be intentional to say all when we talking about not just targeting C because neither one of those came through C. That's the only hesitant I got. But I'm okay with the itemization and having more accuracy of that. Yes, ma'am.

That's the ordinance that's coming. Okay. But this is for right now as far as C and the ordinance we um just finished. It will account for all grants, not just the C. Okay. All right. Uh, you're back in the queue, Commissioner. I'm I'm done. All right. Seeing no others in the queue, let's take this item to vote

as amended. All right, let's tally the vote. We have I votes from commissioners Caswell, Sugarman, Mills, Shala, Shalai, I'm sorry. Wright and Lowry. We have six eye votes. All right. That item goes down with a favor recommendation. Uh now we're going to look at who we got here and then we'll go from there. Uh item number two is uh teachers association, retired teacher association. Are y'all here? Okay, they are not here. Um, the I'm sorry, Junior Auiler of Kagville. Are y'all here? They're not here. And item number four is uh Frasier Community PTSA. They're not here. Uh, item number five is the Bartlett Closet. They not here. Uh, number six is the Memphis Child Advocate Center. I see you all here. Number seven is the Frasier Exchange

Club. I don't see Shelley in here. No one here. Number eight is the Vietnamese American Community. All right. They here. Number nine is the New Memphis Institute.

They're here. They're here. Okay. Number 10 is the Memphis Symphathy Orchestra. They're not here. Number 11 is the adult and teen challenge Heartland. Okay. They're not here. And number 12 is uh resolution awarding the city of Bartley Police Department. That's you. Where where my chief at today? All right. Uh and number 123 is um youth engineering success. You all are here. Okay. All right. So what we'll read today uh read off first is number 2 3 4 5 7 10 and 11 unless someone want to add anything.

Uh nine was here. Nine is here. Yes. New Memphis as well as uh 13. Yeah, I didn't call them. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Uh I think you said number five. Okay, hold on. Hold on one minute. Uh anybody else have anything y'all want to amend before we call them? Anything? Okay. So, what we'll be calling is 2 3 4 7 10 and 11. Well, she she's gonna Commissioner Mio is gonna add something to it. Yeah.

Hold on there. 11. Yeah. All right. You good?

Okay. two 2 three 4 7 10 and 11. All right. So, we're going to read all those off first, get a vote on there, and then we're going to come back and read y'all uh and let y'all come up and speak. All right. Item two is a resolution awarding county funds from the FY2026 operating budget in the amount of $2,500 to Memphis Retired Teachers Association, a charitable organization. This item requires an expedential of $2,500 from the Milton Enhancement Program Grant Fund sponsored by Commissioner David C. Bradford Jr. Item three, a resolution awarding county funds from the FY2026 operating budget in amount of 20 2500 to Junior Auxiliary of Carville, a charitable organization. This item requires an expenditure of 2500 from the Milton Community Enhancement Program Grant Fund sponsored by Commissioner David C. Bradford Jr. Item four is a resolution awarding county funds from the FY2026 operating budget in amount of 2500 to the Frasier Community PTSA, a charitable organization. This item requires an expenditure of 2500 from the Milton Community Enhancement Program Grant Fund sponsored by Commissioner Muel Larry. Item seven, a resolution awarding county funds from the FY2026 county from the FY2026 operating budget in the amount of 4,500 to the Frasier Exchange Club Foundation, a charitable organization. This item requires an expenditure of 4,500 from the Milton Community Enhancement Program Grant Fund

sponsored by Commissioner Muel Larry and Commissioner Charlie Caswell Jr. Item 10 is a resolution awarding county funds from the FY2026 operating budget in amount of 5,000 to Memphis Sympathy or Sympathy Orchestra Incorporated, a charitable organization. This item requires an expenditure of 5,000 from the Milton Community Enhancement Program Grant Fund sponsored by Commissioner Mick Wright. Item 11, a resolution awarding county funds from the FY2026 operating budget in amount of 20,000 to adult and teen challenge Heartland Incorporated, a charitable organization. This item requires an expenditure of 20,000 from the Milton Community Enhancement Program Grant Fund sponsored by Commissioner Mick Wright. All right, let's uh that's been moved by Commissioner Wright, second by Commissioner Mills. Let's take those items to vote. All right, let's tally the votes. We have eye votes from commissioners Caswell, Meals, Shalai, right, and Lowry. We have five eye votes.

All right, I'm going to practice

Commissioner S. Uh, shall I? Uh, all right. That those that those items go down with a favorable recommendation. Uh, item number five. Item five is a resolution awarding county funds from the FY2026 operating budget an amount of 10,000 to Bartlett's Closet, a charitable organization. This item requires an expenditure of 10,000 from the Milton Community Enhancement Program grant fund sponsored by Commissioner Mick Wright. So that item uh is moved by Commissioner Mills, second by myself. And I just say first before Commissioner Mills come in that to all your wonderful organizations that are here uh doing great and amazing work. I'm just out of dollars today. So I just wanted to let y'all know that up front. Commissioner Mills.

Thank you. This is the last of mine. I'd like to amend by 2500.

All right. That is a second uh by myself. Moved by Commissioner Mills to add 2500 uh bringing that to 125 uh 12,500. Second by myself. All right. Seeing no others in the queue, let's take that item to vote. All right, let's t the vote. We have eye votes from commissioners

Caswell, Mills, Shal, Shalai, Wright, and Lowry. We have five eye votes. I'm sorry, there's been a mistake. The original vote I had, I put it on a different number and Lowry was in the room then.

Yeah. So for this item we have I votes from Caswell Sugarman Mills Shaly and right and Lowry six I votes. Okay. All right. All right.

Let's I next item item number six. Item six is a resolution awarding county funds from the FY2026 operating budget in the amount of 25,000 to Memphis Child Advocacy Center, a charitable organization. This item requires an expedenture of 25,000 from the Milton Community Enhancement Program Grant Fund sponsored by Commissioner Michael Why.

All right. And uh this item was moved by Commissioner Mills and second by Commissioner Lowry. And I just add this point of privilege, but as you all come May the 22nd, next Friday is the city of Memphis 207 birthday. Many of you all, some of you all may have already signed up. We're going to have about 130 vendors down at Tumbley Park. Uh we talking about 7 to 10,000 people that's going to be a part of that. Love to have you all come. If you want to have a booth there, just let me know. We'll get you all set up to be a vendor there uh at that event as well. Uh we thank to the city of Memphis. is we're going to have 3,000 of the youth who going to be working this summer helping us to facilitate that whole meeting. So, if y'all are looking to reach that population as well, look for y'all to be look forward to y'all being there. All right, Mr. Child Advocate, you just say your name and zip code for the record. Hey, uh Craig Weiss 38103. Um I'm a past chair of the board of directors of the Memphis Child Advocacy Center. I have Lydia Criven here, our deputy director. And um just want to thank you for your previous support. I think everybody here knows what the Memphis Child Advocacy Center does. We handle all cases, all reported cases of severe uh child sexual abuse and severe physical abuse. Um very very tough work. It is a true public private partnership. We house uh Memphis police department police department special victims unit uh district attorney's office department children's services and as you know from your your budget uh today and and in general state and federal and even county and city funding uh is challenging. It is not uh assured and for us it is either flat or diminishing unfortunately. So we do rely unfortunately on philanthropy private and public more and more. Um I assure you we are working every angle possible. We go to the state uh and we were lucky in getting some recurring recurring grants to the state. We were in the uh

uh city mayor's grant proposal last year. Um and we will continue to work all those items because it should be recurring funding. when you hear about the agencies that are all together on a child protective investigation team that are working on these cases for children and families. Um so I I apologize if if we're here every year but um it is critical critical work. You you may know that Shelby County has twice the occurrence of the national average of these incidents. And so it is critical work. It is a true public private partnership and we are relying upon these funds and it is a particularly challenging year. Good afternoon. Lydia Criven, deputy director, Memphis Child Advocacy Center, um 38105. And yes, as um Craig talked about, one of the things um the Memphis Child Advocacy Center is the headquarters of the Shelby County Child Protective Investigation Team, which houses 15 agencies located here in Shelby County that have all agreed to work in the response to severe abuse here in Shelby County. Um I've I love this team. I've been a part of this team for seven years and just the work that we do together to make sure that children are safe is so important and it means a lot to us and to this county and we implore you all and all of our um funders to continue to support and or increase support because this work is important.

Commissioner Lara. All right. No, we're good. We're good now. someone came up. Thank you, chair, and thank you all for the work that you all continue to do. Uh I think I've been supportive every year since I've been on this commission. Uh so want want to do so as well. Uh as again it's coming to the last bit of our budget year. So uh Finn uh funds are are pretty low. I think I need to have some more discussions with the staff in the back and see what I could possibly do on Monday. But for today and if there's opportunity for Monday uh for your organization as well as some other ones that I want to support, we'll do that as well. Uh so for today, I'd like to amend by $5,000.

That item was amended by Commissioner Lowry for 5,000 bringing the total to 30,000 second by Commissioner Sugarman. And again, thank you all for the work. I know y'all been powerful even with my family in the past to help through and I would make sure that we keep you all listed in the future. But I wanted to ask the question when you talk about the 15 agencies, uh what's happening at the state level in support with uh cuz you talking about the other police department municipalities, right? Cuz I was wondering like have y'all went in joint a joint edge with all of those municipalities supporting this work.

So Bartlett, Germantown, Millington, Shelby County Sheriff's Department, uh Memphis Police Department are all working together here in Shelby County. Um with the state, we have a state chapter of ch child advocacy centers. Yeah. And the work that we do on that level does not include like the individual organizations, but like the district attorney general's conference is a part of our chapter. So that's the work that we do statewide, but here in Shelby County, we focus on these local municipalities.

So none of the work that you all do is a funded piece to that because I know y'all do counseling and everything also. Yes, our counseling. So, funding goes all over the place, but um in terms of the police departments, those those uh area police departments are not housed at the CAC, but the Memphis Police Department is. And we went uh to the police department last year for an increase in the rent. Their their funding to us comes as their rent basically for them to uh be in our in our building. And uh unfortunately, we did not we were not successful getting an increase. It has been flat for a number of years.

Yeah. Yeah. And and and to that point, I know you out there a lot a lot with them as well. That's just the money that they get for the nine poor zip code, most violent zip code that deal with children found prevention and intervention. If y'all are not in that discussion, I think that's a good discussion to have y'all in because a lot of those families that's with domestic violence and what have you that see that violence come to you all. And so I think maybe Chief Davis understanding that capacity may can draw a different conversation and and get with uh Colonel Kirkwood. Uh you know Kirkwood. You know Colonel Kirkwood. I'll make sure you get in touch with him. James Kirkwood he's over. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so yeah, he's most definitely the contact to kind of help that conversation get carried.

Right. And we hit every zip code. So every zip code is it we last year we saw over 3,500 allegations of abuse and that includes all sexual abuse and physical abuse. So, it impacts every corner of this county. So, just want to add that.

Thank you. Thank you so much for all that you all do. Bless you. Uh, let's take that item to vote. The votes We have eye votes from commissioners Caswell, Sugarman, Mills, Wright, and Lowry. We have five eye votes. All right,

that that item goes down with favor recommendation. Thank you. Item number eight. Item eight is a resolution awarding county funds from the FY2026 operating budget in an amount of 2500 to VM American Community in West Tennessee, a charitable organization. This item requires an expenditure of $2500 from the Milton Community Enhancement Program Grant Fund sponsored by Commissioner Mccuel Li. All right. This item was moved by Commissioner Sugarman. Second by Commissioner Wright. Uh right. Thank you.

Hello. Yes.

Um yes. Uh first uh thank you for being here. Uh it's an honor to be here. Uh my name is Quint Trang. I am the president of the Vietnamese American community. Uh also a chief director organizing the Asian night market. Today's with me is Mrs. uh Lexi Carter. she is the uh advisor uh for the um for the organization. So I'm here today to request um the um the mutant community enhancement grant to fund the second days of the fourth annual Asian night market. So since it inception since uh of 2023 um it has been um a single day event and uh it's is one of the most recognized cultural events um its earnings features across 12 media outlets um and mayor Paul Young called it an incredible display of community. So the N market functions as a real world small business incubator for Shelby counties. So the vendors that have um joined the Asian night market they since then they launched permanent brick and mortar restaurants such as the Mochi and me uh Mia Maru Henroll and Nam Cafe. uh some of the restaurant they expanded uh to have more uh operations and uh branches in the Shelby County. Um so the second day will double the revenues window for 100 plus small and minority owned businesses. So directly accelerating their path to permanent store funds, job creation and long-term economic contribution to Shelby County. Beyond e

e the economic development um the two days will reduce the pick day crowding. So in the past three years um the one day we have it about 8 hours. The event has taken about eight hours. It's attracted eight more than 8,000 people in one day. So if we have spread it out in two days, um we will create a more comfortable experience for seniors, family with young children and residents with disabilities. Um so the events feature Monty's ethnic performance stage including AfricanAmerican community groups alongside Asian cultural artists. So, um, the mutant grant will support, um, and help us to serve 10 to 20 12,000 Shelby County residents across a two-day familyfriendly public event. It support 100 plus small and minority owned businesses with an expanded revenue opportunity. Um it accelerate the entrepreneurship pipeline building a track records of vendor to restaurant success stories and I think one of the most important thing is every year we have at least 60 plus young volunteers and uh in the past we have uh developed like young uh leadership. So um volunteers that have volunteered to work at the Asian eye market, they have served as the president of the Vietnamese student association at the University of Memphis and the AsianAmerican Association at the UN University of Memphis and they are come back to be a staff of the uh VAC so the

Vietnamese American community. Um we also use uh so this Asian eye market is the fundraiser for the VAC and one of the um activity that we use that fund is to develop the Vietnamese professional networking where we develop young uh professions in their career and leaderships. Thank you. Thank you so much and thank you for the great work that you all do as well. Uh we have Commissioner Sugarman in the queue. Yes. And um I encourage you come back in September and right now I can only spare 2,500.

All right. Uh that's 2,000 by Commissioner Sug by myself. Thank you. That brings the total now to uh 4500. Uh 2,500 500. You already had 25. How much did you just say? 20. 2,500.

Oh, okay. I'm sorry. Five 200 second by So that brings it to 5,000. Okay. I thought I heard 2,000. Thank you. Second by myself. Uh, Commissioner Lowry. Thank you, Chair and Quinn. Uh, Alexa want to say just great job for all the work that you all continue to do. If you all have not gone to the Asian night market, you all need to attend. It is one of the most diverse and a great display of community as as young said as well. My daughters look forward to it now as well. I know you're going to have it another month. It's going to be a little bit cooler outside. So, that's also great. Uh so, I'm happy to be able to sponsor this as well. We'll see what I'm I'm able to do additional on Monday. Uh as we're have some conversations in the back here, but it's towards the end of the budget cycle. So, again, as Commissioner Sugar is saying for next cycle, I won't be in the seat, but you know, come earlier. Uh but look forward to continue to support you any way I can going forward.

Thank you so much and thanks for your support. And can I just add that while we were while we were sitting here, she was getting a pretty good indoctrination of how you work and I would like for her to share what her everyday work title is, what she does because she's a very very interesting person. And as we were going through and they were talking about AI, she did say she has some real good ideas about that. And when you hear about who she is and what she does, you'll probably want to talk to her about that on the side.

So I work at St. Jude and I use um AI uh every day. So I can develop an app in two days with AI help. But we have a plan in mind that how to teach young children to use AI responsibly in their daily life that can help their academic and their career. And so um yes, I'm welcome.

But but Dr. Twin has a she has a title I never heard of before. Tell me what it is. Uh so I am a senior bformatics research scientist at the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital where I uh incorporate machine learning and AI um to categorize different tumor types for better uh therapy and treatment. Yeah. Wow. We we might not let you leave the building.

Oh man, that's powerful. Uh and our youth, our babies need that for moving towards the future. Like I said, the train is moving fast. It's not stopping that one. It's it's matter of how we get ahead, get get on board with what's happening. So, thank you again for the great work that you all doing in the community. Thank you, Miss Colin, for all your years of work. Uh let's take this item to vote. All right. T the vote. We have I votes from commissioners Caswell, Mills, July, Wright, and Lowry. We have five I votes.

That item goes down. The items go down with a favor recommendation. And I know St. Jude is going to be have two booth at the event on Friday. We welcome to see you there. I give you a special booth. Yeah. Thank you all. Thank you very much. Thank you. Uh item number

item nine is a resolution awarding county funds from the FY2026 operating budget in an amount of$10,000 to New Memphis Institute, a charitable organization. This item requires an expenditure of $10,000 from the Milton Community Enhancement Program Grant Fund sponsored by Commissioner Matthew T. Shalai. That item was moved by myself and second by Commissioner Shalai. All right. Uh

talking about the contract Raquel Miranda Kapaka. I'm the vice president of development at New Memphis 38103. And today I'm here seeking support for Accelerate, our program for college students, our local college students that helps them persist to graduation and secure paid employment or an internship here in the region. It's a talent retention strategy because we know that Memphis with our 21,000 or all of Shelby County with our 21,000 college students, those that do persist to graduation, many of them leave the market and those that don't are not. I I actually loved hearing from uh Andrew Murray at the CRA and Miss Booker because when we talk about e economic prosperity, they're a little further down the pipeline. We're trying to catch these kids so that they have the opportunity to build those businesses and buy those houses. And so, um, you guys have all gotten, many of you have supported, you've all gotten emails from me with impact reports and, uh, as you guys talked about the first item of the resolution. I'm happy to always provide additional data for these funds. Um, so rather than hear from me, although you could ask Commissioner Shalai, who is also an alum of the Accelerate program, and we thank him for his support, I'm going to read a couple of testimonials from our recent graduates. This is Brandon Qua. He was a graduate of Accelerate and it just actually last night also graduated from our Embark program. When I reflect on my Accelerate experience, what stands out most isn't that it just prepared me for the workforce. It's that it helped me understand why my presence in Shelby County mattered. Accelerate taught me not only how to be a professional and how to show up in the workplace, but how to communicate effectively. What truly struck me were the connections and the people that I learned alongside. And it wasn't just learning how to work, I was learning who I could learn from. Even though I work in the corporate environment, I'm deeply interested in a broader community impact. Things like improving downtown Memphis and youth mentorship. There's that's another reason programs like Accelerate matter. They don't just develop future

employees. They develop citizens who want to give back to their communities. Sierra Finley said she's a University of Memphis student. She graduated uh on my birthday. Uh I absolutely love the new Memphis Accelerate program. My experience was so impactful and it's helped me grow personally and professionally. I had planned to leave Memphis after graduation, but the program creates a supportive environment where you can build confidence, develop leadership skills, and connect with other motivated individuals. I would highly recommend Accelerate to anyone who wants to invest in themselves and grow. The board of commissioners has supported this work since 2022 and uh I know it's the end of the budget term and don't worry, I will be back in September. But um in that time, more than half of the college students that we support are from Shelby County, many of whom grew up in your districts. So I'm asking for anyone that can to uh amend the resolution sponsored by Commissioner Shalai and enable us to uh scale this work. We only offer one cohort per semester currently. So we are turning dozens of students away. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Uh and I see uh Commissioner Shai in there. I now see where he got all his shaw points. his brother. Y'all helps him out a lot. Brother Shell, go ahead. Thank you.

Thank you, chairman. Uh, I do just want to echo the sentiments that one you provided from former Accelerate graduates, myself as an Accelerate graduate. I believe I was in the founding Accelerate class when I was in undergrad. Um, but just the impact that the program has on students in terms of keeping them retained in both the city of Memphis and Shelby County as a whole. Um, in my Accelerate cohort, I believe the I don't remember everybody specifically, but I know the vast majority of us are still retained in the city of Memphis working jobs here. um whether that's public service, whether that is in corporate life and the program itself made that transition a lot easier through providing um the knowledge base to be able to get an internship, but also bring in people that could uh lead to those internships right there in that moment. Um and so I do just want to just echo those sentiments and and really emphasize the importance of the work that you all are doing through the Accelerate program.

Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. All right, seeing no others in the queue, let's take this item to vote. Thank you for the work that you're doing. All right, let's tally the vote. We have eye votes from commissioners Caswell, Mills, July, Wright, and Lowry. We have five I votes.

All right, that item go that item goes down with a favorable recommendation. Item number 12. Item 12 is a resolution awarding county funds from the FY2026 operating budget in the amount of $100,000 to the city of Barley Police Department, a governmental entity. This item requires an expenditure of $100,000 by the Milton Community Enhancement Program Grant Fund sponsored by Commissioner Mc Wright. All right. That item was moved by myself and second by Commissioner Mills. All right. Uh All right. Chief Lieutenant Chief Major, Chief Inspector.

Chief Inspector. All right.

Okay. Um Yes, sir. So, we submitted for this grant to um what it covers is with the addition of the new 911 call center um at our main complex over offing road, we've had to relocate a bunch of our assets to a uh location offsite which is off Ellis Road um which we had some city property up there. But all of our special operations um equipment such as our mobile command trailers, all of our barricade uh trailers, anything that we would use in a natural disaster uh mass casualty event or even just for a regular event where we uh requested barricades and stuff like that has all been moved off site. And we learned quickly, especially with this uh snowstorm recently, that the base that we had, we had had just a gravel rock base that we thought would be sufficient out there, but once it starts to rain and it is makes it almost impossible to get these items out of that location. Um, so we had engineers come out and we they suggested and I mean it's going to have to happen is that we're going to have to repave that entire area to be able to um reliably get to these items when when needed most. Um, so we're trying to get the funding for that is what is where we're at right now.

All right. And I know your commissioner got he your commissioner may have not asked for a blue light, but when I drive through Bartley, is there any kind of way I can get one in my car? Yeah, I want a blue light. All right. U Commissioner, right, you got anything there? Well, there we go. Thank you, Mr. Chair. No, I just wanted to say thank you to the Bartlett Police uh department for being a good partner. I think they they've joined on a lot of uh various measures with the county commission and and we just we're we're proud to support you. Thank you so much.

Yeah. And I just let the chief know uh again we appreciate him. His heart is amazing. Uh I've been working with y'all with the chief and the mirror with the Joshua project and and just to know how they are giving back to our community. Even though it's not in the Bartlett area, they're coming over into Memphis giving their services. So thank him. Thank you all for participating and supporting that effort. Yes sir. Thank you.

All right. We have I votes from commissioners Caswell, Mills, July, Wright, and Lowry. We have five I votes. All right. That item goes down with a favor recommendation. Thank you, Chief. Thank you.

All right. Item number 13. Item 13 is a resolution awarding county funds from the FY2026 operating budget and an amount of $10,000 to Youth Engineered Success, a charitable organization. This item requires an expenditure of $10,000 from the Milton Community Enhancement Program Grant Fund sponsored by Matthew sponsored by Commissioner Matthew T. Shalai. All right. That item was moved by Commissioner Mills and second by myself. All right.

Well, thank you so much. Uh, Robert Newman is my name and uh, but with the head on.

Is that it? Yes, sir. Yes. I want to thank the county commission. and they've been my best friend. I've been this is my 32nd year doing this and uh I can tell you this is a a great thing we trying to do to save our kids in this in this town. Uh there are some terrible things going on now because I've been around this for 30ome years. I've never seen some of the things I'm seeing now for our children. But I I love our children. And I'm glad y'all do too because y'all my uh my brothers uh uh Willie Brooks and uh what's my other boy name? Uh

Richmond. No, Rod Richmond. And what's what's the other kind of commission? He took care of us the whole while he was here. He uh Mill Hamilton. Uh Eddie Jones.

Eddie Jones. Eddie Jones. But the whole the whole uh county commission have taken care of us. We we're taking care of these kids. We're giving scholarships. We we got 80 teams. We're the best in the country right now in this whole country. Nobody has 80 teams in the MLK tournament with with our organization. We got uh schools from all over the country want to come here and play because they've heard the the good words. And when they come here, we make sure they go to the uh what's the place downtown? The um civil rights

civil rights museum. Everybody come here want to come want want to go. So we make sure they go. But we want to thank uh want to thank everybody here uh for and I this is not second time coming to a meeting. Y'all got a tough job. I I'm really proud of y'all. Y'all got a tough job, but you're doing a great job. And uh that's what we want to do. And uh we going to help. Uh this is Clint Jackson, my friend here. Uh we both went to Le Moine. We both graduated from Le Moine. As you can see, we did something that nobody has done in 100 years except us. We the only national champion in the history. in a 100 years. We were national champs. In 1975, Clint became a principal. I had a chance to become a principal, too. But I was working full-time at FedEx and full-time teaching, full-time coaching. I had five different jobs. But I want all children to know, and that's why we helping them, and I want to thank you for helping them because we want you to have a good education. We want you to be able to do anything that this city needs you to do. And I hear some things today. It's a lot of y'all got a tough job in here. And I I I appreciate you for giving us a chance to uh uh also be supported and especially because I know I know all I know most of the people on the counter commission. I know that young man walking right there, a good friend. Uh, and he's been helping me for years, too. Thank y'all very much. I want Clint go ahead and uh uh Clint Jackson 38125. Uh, as he said, I'm a former principal

in Memphis Shelby County Schools, former coach, and uh, uh, I wanted to say a personal thank you because what we try to do and in in the tournament, we speak to the young people about staying in Memphis in the Shelby County area because uh, they are our valuable resource and we should uh, be doing something to at least for them to hear that at an early age. So when they make their decisions as far as college, they can take these scholarships and at least consider the institutions that are in this area. And we've had support uh we have support from Memphis Shelby County Schools. We have support from the uh sheriff department. We have support from the MPD. And uh uh I just want to personally thank you for that support all of you. Well, let me say one last thing because I I just Okay.

Okay. All right. What I what I want to say is there are so many children in this town. Okay. Turn back on. I I'm 73 years old and I've been around this coaching for 50 years and I just can't let it go because our kids, our future is our children in my opinion that I've learned you have to raise them right, teach them right, and make sure that they can do anything that need to be done. And I'm proud of the city council, the county commission, and and like he said, the the police department, the sheriff department, everybody know this because I've talked with all of them and and they given us good support and and uh good safe uh the police department, the the the board security. I mean, people giving us food, Pepsi Cola giving us anything. all of this town they taking care of these children because these children having a rough time cuz I I grew up 10 minutes from here on Pier Street and uh I grew up at a time when I had 13 brothers and sisters and we were taught we had some good leadership in these schools with the principles and with the students and that's what these kids need now but I'm not seeing it. Maybe y'all seen it, but that's why I'm going to give them my support that God calls me. I'm going to give them my support. And I want to thank y'all and I want to thank everybody who does that for any children and anybody. Thank you. Thank you, coach. And and let me just say, Coach Jackson was my coach in North and he cut me off the team. Me, right? If he didn't cut me off the team, I might be in the NBA right now. Right. So, so I'm going to have grace on you, coach. Uh, uh, Su, uh, Commissioner Sugman,

thank you. And, um, I know if I don't give you anything, you going to be calling me where you are. But I, I did promise when we were in our conversations and I, but Do you remember the amount? Huh? Do you remember the amount I said I pledge? Yes. How much? 5,000. That's right. So, I moved to um give you 5,000. That's bottoming the barrel. So, I just want you to know that. That's good. Saturday morning. Okay. Thank you. But next time, just come early. I come like in September. That's when we have money cuz by this time, you know, the money is spent. It's gone. Oh, yeah. I'm going catch you early. You're right. I know you will. Thank you.

So, uh that's been moved by Commissioner Sugarman to add 5,000. That takes it to 15,000. Second by myself. Uh so, the new total is 15,000. Commissioner Lyra. Yeah. Thank you, Chairman. I just wanted to say first of all uh coach I've seen commissioner Caswell play. I understand why he was cut. But I'm going to be playing too. You know told me he say he coach your brother. He did. Okay. You had a brother who played north side, right? He was he was better than Commissioner Caswell. Okay. But look at him now though.

But just want to say thank you for all the work that you all continue to do. I'm happy to have supported earlier uh in the year with grants as well. And uh being the last time I get to say this, appreciate all the work and appreciate just the lineage that you've all done just from Le Mo or in college and everything else. Uh and I love seeing you wear that shirt cuz that's a oneonone. Can nobody else put that on? National ch national champion. The only team ever win a national champion men's team in the state of Tennessee. That's right. And the only MVP in the state of Tennessee. MVP. That's why I say it's a one-on-one. the lead score. It's the oneonone. That's why I'm going to give you flowers while you're here on the record to say.

So, appreciate all the stuff you do. Appreciate the groundwork you laid and uh happy to continue to support you and be a supporter in whatever way I can going forward. Let me say one last thing. I used to conduct that ball. Now I can't step on cockroach. All right. Uh joking. But no, I want to thank all of y'all. But uh and thank especially you, man, because I'm proud of you where you are now. All right. Thank you very much. Let's take this item to a vote.

Is you voting for him cuz he cut me off the team? Coach, you can come see me play May the 22nd down at the Tumbley Park. I'll be playing. All right, let's tally that vote. We have eye votes from commissioners Caswell, Sugarman, Mills, Shalai, Wright, and Lowry. We have six eye votes. that that item goes down. Favor recommendation.

That brings the end uh committee number 16. Call in. Okay. Commissioner Sugarman, that's your committee. Okay, I'd like to call to order committee number 17, workforce development. We have a discussion for 10 minutes and we have Steve Basar and he's going to um can we read the item into the record?

Item one is a discussion which will last 10 minutes. The importance of supporting local small business. Steve Basar and Courtney Mack. Presenters. Pardon? It's just me. All right. Thanks for There we go. How's that? Tada.

Well, thanks for having me here today. Appreciate it. I'll be brief. I guess I this might be better also as a kind of give and take kind of conversation. Um, you know, having been on the other side where where you guys are sitting and sitting here, it's a little bit a little bit surreal, but uh but I'll I'll make it work. Um, in my time on the commission, there was a lot of talk about economic development and how do we how do we help small businesses? Um, at that time I wasn't a small business guy. I was a big business guy, but now I'm a small business guy or a person. And um got a little bit of I guess insight I guess I share with you all today to say here are some things especially um thinking about the county. What can the county do? Um, I I would say just from my perspective in the role that I have in our business, and I'll just be generic, so I won't get into too much specifics, but um, you know, the the county has lots of opportunities to work with small businesses. from where I sit and from my perspective, there's a lot of opportunities that are being either ignored or just not taken advantage of. Um, part of it, let's say in in, you know, there there's lots of things that the county buys and the county to my knowledge doesn't necessarily go try to develop suppliers. And in my prior life as a business guy, we did a lot of developing suppliers and you built partnerships and you built relationships. That's not happening from the county perspective. And you heard, I guess earlier today, we're going for the lowest cost bidder.

Well, I mean, if you want to get a Ford F-150 truck, here's my best analogy for today, you know, and you put it out to bid, but somebody bids a a Nissan truck. Well, the Nissan truck's going to get it, but you wanted a Ford F-150, but now you're stuck with a Nissan cuz the Nissan was the lowest cost. And if you're trying to develop small businesses, if the small business has, you know, price X and the big business comes along and they're m, you know, they're multi-state, they're like Walmart of of whatever it is they do, well, of course they're going to be able to under bid the small business guy, but they're not going to have people here in Memphis working. I can tell you that straight up. In in my business, there's a competitor that has city contracts. They have two people here. They're just or fulfillment. Their orders get fulfilled out of state. They come here. They they handle, you know, they deliver it to the the people, but that's their fulfillment. We got seven or eight people in our business. And we'd like to have more. And you know, like it it makes a big difference. So, some of the things that you can do as commissioners, I think, is push back a little bit on purchasing. There are other considerations than low cost. Um, obviously quality is one of those and the ability of a business to do something and and to fulfill the orders is another thing. And if you're just going off a low cost, you're missing out on a lot of other opportunities. And again, going back to when I was on the commission, I was pretty vocal about, hey, we there are things that the county spends money on every year. develop local suppliers to supply those things. And that means working with people, partnering with them, and in a

partnership, you don't just drop somebody because, you know, they didn't give you the lowest cost. But there there's other ways that we can talk about pricing and cost structures and things like that. But I'm just saying there are other considerations than just low cost. And if you're trying to develop small businesses, you need to give those other considerations some weight. Um, and then I guess another thing just from a business standpoint, if you've got just for example a million-doll contract for a commodity kind of type of thing and you've got two local suppliers, maybe even say three local suppliers, if you award that entire contract to one supplier, then the other two are going to struggle. But if there's a way to split that contract up so everybody gets a little piece of it, then everybody thrives. And if you want to introduce some level of kind of capitalism and performance structure, then you know you could let people just as a off-the-wall example, but if you're talking about uniforms for let's say the sheriff's department and there are two or three shops in town that can all provide uniforms and they're why not let the sheriff's department deputies choose where they can spend their aotment. or the fire department people choose where they can spend their aotment. We have that with other agencies just as an example. Um, and I hope I'm not getting in trouble here, but but as a small business person, working with the county is very important. You guys spend a lot of money. We appreciate what we get. I would say just again as a point of reference, um, people in purchasing do

not return phone calls. people in purchasing ignore you. Um even if you've got a bid out there and you raise a question and say, "Hey, how about this?" you don't get feedback at all. And then if you do put in a complaint, then you still don't hear anything back. So purchasing I think needs a lot of work in terms of working with small businesses because I don't see it happening. Um trimmers are trying to develop partnerships, but that that is non-existent. And you know, again, there's lots of things the countyy's buying every day that you know, I I'd say as things come to you guys as commissioners, ask the question of could this have gone to a small business? Could we do we need to develop a small business? And then just one last thing from a business again as a business perspective. Um, if there is a like employees is one of our problem areas and I shouldn't say problem areas but it's hard to find good people to work. You've now have all these um a lot of the I'll just throw out an idea but you have a lot of these grant people who are coming here every day like people came here today. if there's a way to develop some sort of database and have, you know, employees kind of pre-qualified by some group and then you can go tap into that as employers, small business people, that would be very helpful as well. Um, and I I'll just use an example. When I was in the Memphis Rotary Club, there was a I'm going to digress here just for a second, but I'll get there. Um, we had a a a part we had a partnership program. Well, I don't was the um the prep program. I don't know if you've heard of it. And I think it still exists in some form, but there was primarily East Coast preparatory schools that had summer programs, summer school, and they were wanting to get like kids from Memphis to go to these summer schools. Well, the

Rotary Club served as the function of going out to the different schools, working with the teachers, working with the counselors to identify students who could be participants in this program. And then the Rotary Club also interviewed the students. And the Rotary Club was kind of the the filter and then offered up a very talented pool of students for this program. It was very successful. I participated in it for a number of years. was great. So, if there's something like that that the county can do with their internship program, I know you have summer internships. I don't think that's very well publicized as far as, you know, like, hey, you know, I I'd love to get one, but you know, nobody's calling me. So, again, your purchasing department's got a database of people who are doing business with the county. You should be calling them up. Hey, summer interns. How many would you like? Um, and then also if you've got people who are, you know, good good for, you know, good quality people and I'm just saying that's a that's an opportunity as well. I don't know that's kind of off the wall, but if if you were to have a way to build that function of being able to qualify people and make sure, yeah, these are the, you know, here's a talent, here's a talented pool of people who we know they're going to show up every day. They're going to work for you. um you know they can walk and chew gum and you know as a small business guy that'd be great if we had that pool to tap into you know just saying and I think a lot of you have contacts with a lot of these other agencies you like again all the people that are getting the Milton grants I'm sure they have lots of kids and the guy that was right before me from um you know with basketball whatever I mean you've got good talented kids all right let's match match them up with small businesses cuz small businesses need good employees.

Anyway, that's all I'll say. I don't know if you have any questions for me, but thanks for your thanks for your time.

Thank you. And you gave us a lot of good insight because we see these huge contracts with commodities and we just simply just rubber stamp rubber stamp as opposed to sending it back out on the street and say, "Let's break it down." Um, an example was the lawn service um business. Okay, we have hundreds of lawn services that are small businesses. uh we could have given it to 10 people, you know, and so I heard that. The other take I heard also was um as far as internships and helping support small businesses. And earlier today um Joselle Booker was mentioning that when you um support small businesses, you support your communities and so the money doesn't go out the door. So I hear you also say that just because it's the lowest bid that's shortterm lowest bid in the in the long term is not necessarily the best thing cuz you think about longterm now you're growing businesses they're hiring people it's get and the people are staying here locally um and so we need to start looking at long term so I think that as far as a scorecard maybe we can look at that and see what we can do for example if you have a small business and it's local can maybe get extra points, you know, so we can make sure it's not just the lowest bed. Lowest bed is not necessarily the the best thing. And there was another thing you stated about, you know, the purchasing department not reaching back out. That is a huge issue. I've had several complaints, but this is not, you know, I that's something needs to be addressed. Um I think that's under the mayor's perview. But having said that, the way that we've been doing um things as far as the divisions, maybe having a conversation with them because I noticed a lot of times they'll keep the same businesses over and over and over again. And so maybe we need to centralize the purchase department so that we can use um the RFP process as opposed to emergency spending and things of that nature. and is there's some more things I'm sure and I've got it recorded so

I'll go back and listen to it so that we can make adjustments and I appreciate you speaking up for small businesses um because you not the only person that I've heard you know concerns about but we do want to support local businesses so thank you thank you commissioner

thank thank you madam chair thank you commissioner for being here I I just you know I listen I and I listen to you. I know there so many things we we have to do as a county and need to do as a county when you talk about helping build building capacity because the game is changing. I said this you you've been here throughout the day and and many of our small businesses are trying to figure out how to survive in this changing world when you talk about automation of so many jobs when you I know she just as Commissioner Sugan just talked about lawn service now you got lawnmowers can cut the grass without a person right it's and and so many other things that's coming one of the things I just want to uh make reference to as as you sit here as a former commissioner and you look at where we are when we talk about the budget and how tight things are in the budget and and and and for me it was frustrating last year not to be able to to increase the tax rate because I see gas going up. All of these other things are going up. School that was going to cost us 90 million end up costing us 140 million but yet revenue don't go nowhere, right? Uh what do you do when you have to look at the lowest bid or you go with the highest bid and then don't have money to do nothing else when you know so much more need to be done. How would you look at that handle that situation being that being a commissioner here sitting here having to make that decision? Um, well, I guess the the from a from a lowest bid standpoint, I guess the one thing I would like to caution everybody is that the lowest bid is def not always the best deal. All right. If you go get your car worked on and you shop it around a couple different mechanics, are you definitely are you going to go with whoever gives it lowest bid or do you want to go to the shop that's going to fix your car and fix it right and get it done? So, I mean, there's lots of things that

you're you're going to get what you pay for eventually. So, you got to kind of look at that a little bit and see, you know, if you're, you know, if you're going to spend $150,000 and that's your budget and, you know, if you've got things that are all within that price range, do you go with the lowest bid or do you look at what who's going to do the best job? It's it's kind of a it's it's it's it takes some insight. You've got to use some critical thinking. Um, but I understand what you're saying. You you've got budget constraints, you know, the the countyy's got a lot of a lot of things going on. So

and I heard and I hear u and I also heard you know earlier from Miss Booker many of and I talked to them cuz we're in the business where me and my wife we have a driving school but we we meet with business people all the time and especially in my community they don't they don't have the basic foundation. So when you talking about even getting in the game you come halfway you're not going to be able to do business at a higher level. So people have to have that education capacity to be able to do it at the higher level to offer that quality that you speak of that we can even consider that conversation there. But but I hear you and I I appreciate you sharing you know the input with us. I I I do want to say though just sitting in this seat when I think about when we don't make no revenue adjustments and we got people at clerk's office making poverty wage. It's sad to me. and and so I mean that's just where I am, Commissioner, but I I appreciate you.

Yes. And I just want to re get ready real quickly before I turn over to Commissioner Mills. I've also seen things done the people who know the system, they'll come in low, but then they'll come back and back again. And I'm not and there's one vendor I'm thinking about in particular, but that's what they do. I mean, it's a game. They'll come in low and they come back again. We need this money for this. And it's really a higher bet in the long run. So, not just because it's a low bed in the beginning doesn't mean it's going to be the low bed in the end. I've seen that since I've been here the past three years, three and a half years. Commissioner Mills, thank you. Um, thank you for speaking us to us today. Um, are you in the process of an appeal now for the uniform contract? Did you appeal?

Are we submitted in a protest to the bid award? Okay. So, you'd appealed. Okay. And are there any other uh I get to the chair. Is this your discussion item? Yes, it is. Okay. Are there any other people to speak on this or anybody? No other. Okay. I was just wondering what I was asked before I started not to talk specifically about that particular contract which is why I didn't address it at all in the comments. Okay. Um well in that I tried not to I wasn't aware of the setup. I will just say thank you for the time. Thank you. I have no comments. Thank you so much. Thank you all for your time.

That concludes this committee. and and the commission committee meeting total totality. I'm trying to get out of here.