- (female announcer) Production funding for Behind the Headlines is made possible in part by the WKNO Production Fund, the WKNO Endowment Fund, and by viewers like you, thank you.

- The County Commission on schools, the criminal justice system, and much more, tonight, on Behind the Headlines.

[intense orchestral music] I'm Eric Barnes with The Daily Memphian.

Thanks for joining us.

I am joined tonight by Miska Clay Bibbs, chair, outgoing chair, I should say, of the County Commission.

Thank you for being here.

- Thank you for having me.

- Along with Michael Whaley, who is the incoming, as of September 1st, new chair of the County Commission.

Thank you for being here.

- Yeah, sure, thanks for having me as well.

- Along with Bill Dries, reporter with The Daily Memphian.

I wanted to start, we'll talk about a lot of things, a lot of things you guys are directly involved in in terms of funding or in terms of setting policy, other things that are kind of countywide issues that the County Commission might be, and maybe to the surprise of some folks, somewhat tangentially involved with.

But I did wanna start with the school system.

Specifically, we can talk about the suburban schools, which are partly funded obviously by the County Commission, but there's so much change and so much going on at Memphis-Shelby County Schools.

And both of you have education backgrounds.

Miska, you were what, eight years on the board?

- Eight years on the board, worked 10 years for Memphis City Schools in the director level.

- Yeah, and two years as board chair, am I right about that?

- Mm, two years as board chair.

- As board chair.

And you were Teach for America, you were a teacher, work in education policy now, in your day job, when you're not at County Commission, I think I got that right.

- Yeah, right, I also was a school founder, so I did that for a while as well.

So I've always been involved in education.

- So when you look at what's going on with Memphis-Shelby County Schools, and this is maybe more, I don't mean it's a personal take, but it is hard sometimes to watch what's happening and wonder is it that there is something chaotic and disorganized and kind of troubling happening 'cause there's so much change going on, or is this the messy reality of making change in a system that is big and complicated and many argue needs change, that has financial constraints?

I'll go to you, the former board chair of the school system and obviously the County Commission is a huge funder of the school system.

Your take on what's happening right now at the schools?

- So I'll say it first from a board chair perspective of having served on that board and also understanding that a lot of where they are means that the board members have to kind of dig in and do a lot more work.

I think they're in transition too, so it'll be interesting to see what this new incoming board does around what this work looks like.

I think the outgoing, there's several outgoing board members.

I think this is an opportunity from kind of pass the mantle in a way in which it makes sense because really it's up to the board.

Yes, the superintendent is there doing a lot of changes, but the board has to say yes to those changes and the board has to be all-in around what those changes look like.

And as long as those two entities are not on the same page, chaos is gonna happen.

So I think this is an opportunity for people to figure out the direction they wanna go in because the board has to have the vision and the superintendent is there to execute their vision.

- And then if you switch to your current role, again, outgoing board chair of the County Commission, but you're still on the County Commission, big funder, big part of the budget of the county, do you think it's chaotic or do you think it's going in a good direction?

- I would say, as a funding perspective, we did our maintenance of effort, and I hope that they use their maintenance-of-effort dollars in the best way possible.

As you know that I champion also for additional CIP dollars because I think it's-- - Which is capital improvement, buildings.

No, that's okay.

- Buildings, yeah, don't wanna get into lingo that I assume people know.

But capital improvement dollars.

And for me, in order for us to continue to spend that money, I have to see where it's going.

I am getting the complaints around HVAC systems.

I am getting the complaints around where are we on the funding of the two new schools?

I am getting complaints on where is the actual tenure plan that we were promised in order for us to think about how we're going to fund the changes in Memphis-Shelby County Schools?

That to me is really important because I believe in better buildings for our students.

- Yeah, same questions to you.

Your take on what's going on with the schools?

- Well, I mean, I think the first thing I'd say is that leadership matters.

That that's really the most important thing.

So not just the leadership of the district and the superintendent, but the leadership of the board.

To Chairwoman Clay Bibbs' point, that the board really needs to show strong governance.

And then I think we have to make sure we don't forget about the leadership within the schools, within the school district.

And the most important thing to outcomes for students is gonna be the teacher in the classroom.

So how are we ensuring that we're supporting all the people that are involved every step of the way so that we're attracting, developing, retaining high-quality talent.

I think this is often one of the biggest challenges in general, but certainly in the school district.

And at the end of the day, that starts with the leadership at the top.

- Do you have confidence in the leadership at the top?

- Well, I will say, I'm not involved obviously in the day-to-day.

As the funder, we don't have any sort of veto power per se over how the district spends the funds.

But what I will say is that it's important that we make decisions.

I think one of the challenges of the district in the past brought up facilities is the lack of decision making around making tough choices around the footprint of the district, the number of underutilized facilities.

And so far, it seems like the new superintendent's willing to make decisions.

I don't have any judgment on whether they're good or bad, but I think making decisions is an important part of leadership.

- And we do have, before I go to Bill, the new superintendent coming on the show in a couple of weeks, so we'll look forward to talking to her about some of these things, as well as we're trying to get some of the new board members on in, I think, two weeks or so.

But go ahead, Bill.

- So the two new schools, plans for a school in Frayser, plans for another high school in the Cordova area.

It's called East Regional is the formal name that the planners are using for it.

So do you all wait for what is expected to be a budget amendment from the mayor to come in November or December, or are you already trying to parse out which one of these goes first?

How close does one follow the other?

- Excellent question.

I think there's a little bit of everything happening around that.

The mayor has been working on proposal happening, he's been working with MSCS on what the numbers are.

But I think, on the Commission side, we've also been pushing back around what the costs are really, does this make sense?

And I think it's up to us at this point when it comes back to us to figure out how we're gonna move.

I know in the capital improvement plan that was presented to us, you have to have Regional One, you have to have the schools.

So in that 10-year plan, numbers were put, but ultimately we have to figure out, are the dollars going in the best place?

I don't want the conversation to ever be that the schools don't happen.

I think it's a matter of how much they cost.

- Yeah, I mean I would add that I think we're committed to doing those schools and ultimately it's on the County Commission to do those amendments and fund those projects.

And certainly we wanna get the administration's support on that.

But we've committed to those two schools.

I do think there are conversations that are happening now, I'm involved in them, around how do we ensure that we can bring down the costs such that we can actually complete them?

But what can't be lost in this is the longer plan beyond these two schools because there are many more things that need to happen, and we need to get those decisions on the table now because it's gonna cost more the longer we wait.

So we've heard the superintendent's committed to bringing a plan early next year.

I expect that we'll see that because that'll help us figure out what is the long-term vision for how we consolidate school buildings, utilize old facilities, invest in new infrastructure beyond these two schools that we've already committed to.

- Right, because the students who are now at MLK Prep, in Frayser, the high school there, which is to be the site of the new Frayser High School, I believe they start moving out or have already moved out to other schools while their new school is under construction at that site, right?

- So this is part of the challenge because the longer it takes, the harder it is for families to have confidence in where their children are gonna go to school.

So we've gotta start making decisions and get these projects going such that the students are coming back to those new schools that are built.

But the longer it takes, the more difficult it is to maintain that enrollment in those neighborhoods.

- Right.

- I just wanna add to chair elect's point is that the reality of it is, the plans were already made, we've put things in motion, and if we wait too long, then again costs will go up, but then more importantly, the shift in that community will happen all over again, because as people get landed in new homes, and I say new homes as far as school homes, then when you build the building, then the alums of both schools, Trezevant and MLK Prep, are also heavily involved in these conversations.

So we want people to believe in the fact that we are going to do this, we've committed to it, so it has to happen.

So I don't want the adults to mess it up for the kids.

- You touched on funding for Regional One Health.

This budget season saw a big shift in terms of the county's commitment to this.

It went from $350 million to $500 million over 10 years.

In essence, the county is funding the whole first phase of this project that could hit a billion dollars very easily overall, how hard a decision was that to make during this budget season?

- Well, just to clarify actually, that long-term plan was part of a 10-year budget that did not pass.

So all that was passed was this current fiscal year's budget that we're in now, which included about a little more than $30 million for the Regional One rebuild.

Now, again, about that same amount was included last year.

It wasn't spent yet because they hadn't really moved forward on the project.

Our expectation is that that project will move forward this year and that they'll draw down those funds.

The Commission did approve a commitment of $350 million.

What's in that longer-term plan is more than that.

And so again, I think this comes back to the Commission's gonna have to decide do we want to commit to what the mayor proposed around a larger allocation to Regional One or do we wanna stick to our original commitment, get the state involved, and then finish our commitment to the schools, which is very reasonable and possible to do.

- I was one of those people who did not vote for that plan.

And I say that as someone who champions for Regional One.

So for me, it was important that we have a reality, or just a reality check around how much all of these things cost.

I have a commitment both to Regional One and the schools, and that plan didn't really reflect that.

But at the same time, I also voted yes for Regional One because of the work that we were gonna do at the state level.

And I needed to see the state and UT put some skin in the game as well.

- So the state legislature dealt with an excise tax fade out or a phase out, which used up a lot of the capital that might have been committed to the state's part of the Regional One Health Center rebuild.

So if the state comes back in this upcoming session and finds the money for that commitment, does that mean that you recalculate the county's funding on this?

- I think the conversation opens back up again.

I think myself and a few other colleagues really wanted to see the state make a commitment, and quite honestly, in the advocacy that did at the state level, a lot of them were saying, "Next session, next session," based upon what you just mentioned.

So I think I'm very hopeful, I think is the best way to say it, very hopeful that we'll see something different.

- We'll shift here midway through the show, and I always wanna try to remember when we have County Commission and City Council and so on, you Miska Clay Bibbs, District 11 is what you represent.

That covers parts of the airport area, Fox Meadows, Parkway Village, Hickory Hill and southeast Shelby County?

I think I got that right.

- Mm-hmm.

- And Michael, your District 13 covers Midtown and parts of east Memphis?

I think I got that right.

- Yeah, that's right.

- As we shift to a conversation about criminal justice, one sort of civics lesson, for lack of a better word, I think sometimes people don't understand all that the County Commission has under it and doesn't.

And county government is so interesting in that the schools are, as you guys articulated, you're a funder, but they're very separate.

The DA's Office, very separate.

The judges are all very separate, not just from the DA, but in many ways, from each other.

The Shelby County clerk, independent, the assessor, trustee, and you can go on and on.

You all do fund parts and pieces of various things I just mentioned.

So let's talk criminal justice.

It's heavy on everyone's mind.

Crime stats show crime falling, but that's against a really almost historic high.

And there is tremendous pressure on right now, talk of even the state legislature, [clears throat] excuse me, trying to remove Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy.

You all don't have necessarily a dog in whether or not he gets removed, but you all fund prosecutors, you fund a lot in his office.

I'll start with you, Michael, your take on what's going on specifically with the DA, and then maybe more broadly, the County Commission's role in public safety and criminal justice.

- Yeah, sure, I mean, I think, for me, the most important opportunity in all of this is agencies and entities working collaboratively.

Like you mentioned, county government is in many ways very siloed, and even in our role where we're a funding body, but in very rare conditions do we have the ability to dictate how these independent organizations spend those funds.

And so it's really important that these agencies are working together.

So that includes the district attorney working with the Memphis Police Department, working with the Shelby County Sheriff, working with the judicial commissioners, the General Sessions judges, all of that is really critical.

And when they're not, that is where things fall through the cracks and that's unacceptable.

And so what I've heard, I mean, I'm encouraged by hearing and seeing more collaboration.

We're seeing in some of the proposals that we're getting where these are joint proposals between the sheriff and the DA.

That I think is what we need to see.

And then we need to ensure that everything that's happening is transparent to the public so that they can really see who is working together, who is not, and who has the ability to make it better.

But at the end of the day, for me, it comes down to are we working collaboratively around a shared goal or are we not?

And if we're not, we're not gonna get the job done.

- And to the question of the legislature, I mean, now the lieutenant governor, head of the Senate, the majority leader in the Senate, others, Brent Taylor, who represents parts of Shelby County, very much saying that Steve Mulroy should be recalled, removed.

Do you have an opinion on that?

Do you get in the middle of that fight?

- We haven't gotten in the middle of that.

I don't think that he should be recalled.

I mean, I think that bar should be quite high, for a reason, but no, I would not.

- Same questions to you.

Again, as the outgoing chair however many years, you were elected in 2022, what is the big role around public safety and criminal justice?

And then we can talk a little bit about DA Mulroy.

- I definitely agree what chair elect said, that it's more about collaboration, and we have the power, I think, not necessarily to push people to talk, but we also bring it to the table.

What I have noticed about us as a body is that whenever we have these issues come up, there are a lot of questions around like, "Are you working together?

Who are you working with?"

So, to me, collaboration is where we come into play.

The other aspect I think is interesting around public safety is on the County Commission side, we do a lot of work with community agencies and sometimes that part is left out of the conversation around definitely we think of the policing part, we think of prosecution part, all of those things, but how do you help the citizens once they've gone through something?

So on the County Commission side, I see a lot of our work around supporting community agencies, not only just through our departments in county government, but also local nonprofits who support families.

- Is that things like housing, reentry?

I mean, is that, when you say "agencies"?

- Housing, reentry, I think about like Child Advocacy Center, community agencies such as that.

A lot of times when you think of like homelessness, all of the things that I think that contribute to public safety issues, we support those agencies.

So, to me, I think that's a part of our work.

- And before I go to Bill, do you have a dog in the fight about DA Mulroy or an opinion on that?

- I don't.

I think the voters have spoken, that's who won the race.

And again, it has to be a super-high bar when you talk about removing, so.

- Okay, all right.

Bill?

- And talk about cooperation within the criminal justice system, the larger criminal justice system, there is this difference of opinion, difference in who's gonna do what about a juvenile detention center.

Sheriff Floyd Bonner says he's got enough to handle with the Shelby County Jail.

And so he's going to back out of running the juvenile detention center.

Is the County Commission going to get involved in this or have you all heard that the sheriff and the Juvenile Court Judge Tarik Sugarmon are talking where they maybe haven't been able to reach an agreement before?

- Well, I mean, this is a great example of what I was just talking about, that we've gotta be willing to work together.

And I mean, I feel very strongly about that.

So what I'd wanna see is something worked out between them.

We should not play mediator between other elected officials.

That is unacceptable.

That, as adults, you should work this out for the benefit of children in this case.

And that's what I would expect to see happen.

- Absolutely, and I was smiling is because here's another situation where we are having to intervene between two electeds and two adults who really are not really thinking about the children.

I have received a couple phone calls regarding what's happening at the detention center.

Some have been positive, some have been negative, but I know it's a lot of great work happening there.

I just don't want the children to get lost in this conversation.

These two electeds should be able to come together and come to some type of agreement.

- Mm-hmm, and just to be clear, let's say the County Commission does get involved in trying to bring these two together in some informal way, these are both elected officials, they are not part of the county administration.

You approve their budget, but again, you don't have line item control over their budget.

They have a certain amount of independence as officials who are elected countywide, right?

- Correct.

- Yeah.

- Who, and I'll go back to Bill, but is there just a piece of law that?

I mean, you're talking about people getting together and trying to make an agreement, but in the end, does it fall back to county government if the sheriff walks away, if the Juvenile Court says, "We're not gonna take it?"

I mean, does the center close?

I mean, do you all have a sense legally where does responsibility fall if these two entities can't agree?

And Bill may know.

I mean, where does that fall?

[Eric laughing] I wanna be... [laughing] - Bill doesn't know.

- Bill doesn't know.

Okay, Bill does not know, we will go to the elected officials.

- Right, I'll be honest and say [Eric laughing] To chair elect's point, the hope has been that they work this out.

I think the battle has been back and forth on budget items, budget lines, those are transferable things.

- Okay, all right, more on that.

Back to you, Bill.

- Right, so let's talk a little bit about the special meeting you all had this week.

The Commission debated pretty thoroughly, I think, the idea of the County Commission having its own independent attorney.

You already have a legal counsel who works with you on drafting ordinances and resolutions.

So what happens with that going forward?

Janika White, who's also on the Memphis City Council, is your legal counsel at this point, You also have Marcy Ingram, who's with the Shelby County Attorney's Office.

Is this a done issue?

- I'm going to repeat what chair elect said.

I think it's an opportunity for people to clearly understand what their job descriptions are.

I think it's an opportunity for people to clearly understand how they can use someone such as Attorney White, and at the same time, how they would use Ms. Ingram and how they will use the county attorneys.

I, again, remain hopeful, even though when something is a contentious item, I will say that I still remain hopeful in how we get to places.

I think in this case, the opportunity is going back and really reading job descriptions and really reading the resolution and the ordinance that was originally done to create Ms. White.

- Right, and Mr.

Chair Elect, that was your specific point on this, was you wanted to have a discussion about this before you went through the process of putting this on the ballot in November and voters deciding what is a pretty confusing question on its face.

- Right, I mean, I think we need to be clear about what we have and what we want first, and so my intention is to seek that clarity around the positions that we already have.

I think there's a lot of opportunity to help the full Commission and the public understand how these individuals work with us.

So that's what I hope to see.

- Just a couple minutes left here.

We talked about the pressure on DA Mulroy, but there's also tremendous pressure on the Shelby County Clerk, Wanda Halbert, who was elected and reelected.

The County Commission, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, has put some pressure on there in terms of wanting accountability about where money is, where money is going.

There's a lot of money that passes through the County Clerk's Office, then to, in my layman's terms, to the County Commission and funds other parts of the government.

I guess I'll start with you, the incoming chair.

What do you wanna see from the Clerk's Office?

- Well, I mean, I think we just wanna see it function properly and be able to meet the expectations of the office.

Certainly, to your point, to help us do our job of appropriating funding, much of which comes through the Clerk's Office.

And if we don't have that on a timely basis, it makes it very difficult to do so.

- You were chair for a year.

I mean, a lot of people, I think we hear, as readers of The Daily Memphian, I hear in my life just an utter exasperation that these what feel like basic bread-and-butter, licensing-type issues are done so poorly.

Offices are closed and reopening and long lines.

Where is your patience with the county clerk?

- I will say this, because I was getting those calls from people, not only from family members, but also from my constituents and also from just people in general if you're just walking in the grocery store, it's definitely about the reporting of the dollars, but it's also service.

I think citizens are expecting a level of service when they go into a government office.

And if that's not being received, that's a problem.

We intervened several levels in helping the County Clerk's Office from a local advisor.

And then also, "Hey, here's some other goals that we want you to meet."

I think, as the County Commission, we did everything possible in writing and as a body that we could in order for the county clerk to step up.

- Would you support her removal?

I mean, there's a new case that's going through.

Do you have a public take you wanna say that you would support her being removed at this point?

You all can't remove her, but she could be removed in this court.

- Well, I mean, I think I've been clear in the past about my frustrations with it, so I would have, I would, yeah.

[everybody laughing] I'll just say that.

- Yeah, I mean... [laughing] Clay Bibbs?

[laughing] - I am just waiting to see what happens with this case.

- Okay.

Last one, and apologies to Bill here, but we're almost outta time.

Just the other big capital project that I don't think we touched on, apologies if we did, is there talk of, in the criminal justice public safety realm, talk of a new jail?

I mean, people have said it's gonna be a billion dollars.

The state allocated I think $50 million.

Where are you?

I guess I'll start with you 'cause you're gonna get pressure on this.

There's people who want a new jail.

There's huge problems, capital, I mean, maintenance and just the facility is apparently very much deteriorating.

There are all kinds of issues with the jail.

Should that be a priority for County Commission?

- There are similar issues between what's happening there and with the schools in terms of the infrastructure.

And this is something that, we can't keep kicking the can down the road on either of these things, 'cause what we're doing and what we'll continue to see in the short term are more requests for, like, repairs, deferred maintenance.

And yes, we've gotta at some point look at the schedule, what it looks like, to do something new.

- Briefly, agree?

- Very briefly, I agree.

That's why we passed the feasibility study.

Happened under my watch.

Now, he's gonna get the results of it.

[everybody laughing] - You were a very happy outgoing chair by the way.

You've been very happy from before the show.

Thank you both for being here, we're outta time.

We really appreciate it.

Thank you, Bill.

As I mentioned, we've got upcoming Marie Feagins, the school superintendent's coming up, as are a couple of the new board members.

Doug McGowen I think is on next week from MLGW, as well as Paul Young in a few weeks, maybe a month, coming on soon.

If you missed any of this show or past shows, you can get the full episodes online at wkno.org, or go to YouTube or The Daily Memphian and search for "Behind the Headlines".

Thanks very much, and we'll see you next week.

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