The Shelby County Board of Commissioners held its regularly scheduled committee meetings Wednesday which mostly consisted of budget talks.
The 12-hour-long meeting got tense at points between administration officials and the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office, as heads have been butting over the repurposing of funding for 441 SCSO employee positions.
There was not a final vote on the proposed budget Wednesday, and it more than likely will not come on Monday during the full commission meeting. Commissioners throughout the meeting last week said that there should be a special called meeting to talk specifically about the budget before the board passes anything.
According to some members of the Shelby County Board of Commissioners staff, there could be a special called meeting early this week.
Pause in MSCS superintendent plan to cut 1,000 jobs
Early last week, Memphis-Shelby County Schools announced plans to cut 1,100 positions, slightly more than 400 of which are vacant. Impacted employees are being offered other jobs in the district ― but those jobs could come with different titles and salaries.
The announcement came via a school district-wide email from MSCS Superintendent Marie Feagins.
MSCS, she said, was facing severe challenges. In the 2022-23 academic year, 78% of the district’s students weren’t scoring proficiently on the English Language Arts section of the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program tests. Another 83% weren’t scoring proficiently on the math section. The dropout rate was nearly 15%, the truancy rate was 41%, and there were 1,069 total position vacancies ― 552 teacher vacancies and 517 support post vacancies.
The Memphis Shelby County Board of Education expressed frustration about the cuts, as they felt they were not properly informed.
They hadn’t known the email was being sent out last Monday; and during a special-called meeting on Tuesday evening, the MSCS board members passed a resolution asking Feagins to pause any additional staff reductions until she shares a detailed personnel plan with the board and the board approves the proposed fiscal year 2025 budget.
Memphis 7 loses at the Supreme Court
The Supreme Court sided with Starbucks on Thursday in a high-profile labor dispute, issuing a ruling that could set back President Joe Biden’s push to strengthen unions.
The dispute stems from the firing of seven Starbucks workers in 2022 which included nearly the entire union organizing committee, according to a previous report by The Commercial Appeal. The union claimed they were fired for retaliation over their attempt to unionize. Starbucks claimed they violated several workplace rules.
The East Memphis Starbucks location was the first to unionize in Memphis.
The decision is a disappointment for the labor movement at a time when it is winning significant union fights and is benefitting from the Biden administration’s aggressive National Labor Relations Board.
The decision could make it harder to force companies to reinstate workers who were fired for union organizing. The court ruled that judges have to consider more factors before ordering employers to reinstate fired workers.
Catch up on the week
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Week ahead
The Shelby County Board of Commissioners will meet on Monday at 3:00 p.m. Watch the livestream via the website, or attend in person at Vasco A. Smith, Jr. County Administration Building, located at 160 N. Main St. in Memphis.
USA Today contributed to this report.