David Reaves is renewing a proposal that first surfaced more than 35 years ago, and floating a second version in which the six outlying cities join adjacent counties instead. No new county has formed in Tennessee in close to 150 years. There is no filed proposal, and this post does not treat the idea as pending.
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Classes began Monday, August 3, 2026 with a federal judge's pause keeping the state-appointed oversight board from taking control of Tennessee's largest district, and with the litigation unresolved while students are in class.
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Jury selection began August 3 for Stevon Jones and Courtney Parham, each charged with second-degree murder. Both have pleaded not guilty and are presumed innocent. The medical examiner ruled the death a homicide. The case is being prosecuted by a district attorney from Nashville.
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Roughly 700 absentee voters got incomplete ballots in July and were sent supplemental ones. The 300 who voted on one machine at Christian Life Church cannot be identified, because their ballots are secret. Election Day is Thursday.
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Auditors identified email exchanges among board members and the district's legal counsel that they concluded may have influenced district decisions, including superintendent searches and contract negotiations. The finding is a management finding, not a charge.
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The county could not issue its payroll borrowing without an emergency waiver from the Tennessee Comptroller, because its fiscal 2026 budget was never state-approved. The fiscal 2027 budget is due August 31.
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The state-ordered forensic audit found more than $54 million in Memphis-Shelby County Schools spending that auditors identified as potential fraud, waste or abuse. More than $48 million of it traces to one 2022 custodial award to ServiceMaster Clean. The district awarded the company a new yearlong contract effective January 1, 2026.
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Rockez McDaniel, 33, died in custody in July 2025. His family filed suit on July 28, naming Shelby County, jail officers and supervisors, nurses, and the jail's medical contractors. Every claim in the complaint is an allegation. No court has ruled.
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The school board passed its budget in late May. Nearly two months later the Shelby County Commission, which funds the district, has not acted on it. Four days before that, commissioners borrowed $125 million to cover the county's own payroll.
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A federal judge suspended the state oversight board's authority on July 1, the day it was to take control. Four weeks later there is still no preliminary injunction hearing on the calendar. Classes begin August 3 with the governance question open.
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"We would like to see more than four commissioners sitting in the gallery to hear it." The ordinance passed first reading 11 to 0, in a meeting where commissioners also learned they have not received the school district's budget, which state law requires 45 days before adoption.
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The chairwoman called for a second, waited, called again, waited longer, and then ruled the item was not properly before the body. It never got a vote. Twelve other commissioners were in the room.
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No commissioner asked a question at committee. No commissioner pulled it from the consent agenda five days later. The money is fiscal 2026 general funds, and fiscal 2026 ended on June 30.
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A commissioner did the arithmetic out loud on Monday. "It's got to be not even 1%." Commissioners approved the contract anyway, 10 to 1, along with a personnel line the city's library director told them is about $75,000 short.
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The vote was 9 to 3. It is the county's second borrowing to fund operations in under a year, and the first with an outside lender. Finance told commissioners cash on hand will be $50 to $60 million against $155 million in payroll over the first five months of the fiscal year.
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The public works director disclosed the documents Monday while laying out four scenarios ranging from $81 million to $110 million. The $92 million already in the capital plan does not begin releasing until 2028.
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A Shelby County committee voted 4 to 0 on Wednesday to ask Mayor Lee Harris to accelerate funding to replace the 96-year-old juvenile court campus. The vote came a day after a consultant delivered a preliminary summary, and before any commissioner had seen the full report.
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Two commissioners have now written the county mayor asking for a formal study of the Criminal Justice Center. The building has disrupted court operations for most of the past month, and the officials being asked to act are both leaving office within weeks.
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Superintendent Roderick Richmond told board members this week that improvements are coming to internal controls, procurement, human resources and cybersecurity. The district's own rules say the corrective action plan has to be far more specific than that.
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Gerald Thornton takes over as General Sessions Court Clerk Pro Tempore on August 8. His term is not tied to Tami Sawyer's suspension. It runs until her case ends or her term does.
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A federal judge has scheduled a four-day trial for the suspended General Sessions Court Clerk. The judges who suspended her have already named a stand-in whose term is tied to the outcome of her case, not to her suspension.
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Together4Students launched in May, backs the state-appointed oversight board, and is gathering signatures to pressure the district into abandoning its case. Its founder says it has no funding and declines to name the organizations on its strategy team.
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The utility told the City Council the project would push rates down, not up, and would be fully operational by December 2028. The presentation did not include a public price tag.
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The ouster case against the Shelby County Clerk was voluntarily dismissed after the trial landed in the final week of her term. The county's chief litigating attorney says continuing would have cost taxpayers money for a trial that could no longer change anything.
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Early voting is underway for the District 6 and District 8 seats on the Memphis-Shelby County Schools board. Because the state takeover of the district remains tied up in federal court, it is not yet clear how much authority the winners will hold when they take office September 1.
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On July 1, the day a state oversight board was to take control of Memphis-Shelby County Schools, a federal judge ordered everything paused. The district calls the takeover unconstitutional. The state has asked the judge to lift the freeze. The case will decide who runs the district as the school year begins.
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After 14 detainees and five staff were overcome by heat inside the Criminal Justice Center, commissioners are pressing Mayor Lee Harris to order a full assessment of the building. The county has already spent $58 million on emergency repairs, and the Sheriff says the facility is crumbling.
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Outages are falling across Memphis, and that is real. But 17 percent of customers still lose power three or more times a year, and that number is rising. Everyone paid the same rate increase.
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Temperatures hit 92 degrees at 201 Poplar. Fourteen detainees needed medical attention, one was hospitalized, and five kitchen workers overheated. Staff called the conditions "inhumane and cruel."
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A "processing omission" left four of six special judicial races, and a county charter referendum, off ballots already mailed. Replacement ballots are due Wednesday. Check yours.
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The Tennessee Comptroller's four-volume review flagged about $54.2 million in transactions the auditors called consistent with potential fraud, waste, or abuse, most of it in procurement, and made 133 recommendations. It is an accountability review, not a criminal case, and no one has been charged.
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Commissioners delayed final votes on the county's operating and capital budgets to June 29, a meeting that will also decide the property tax rate. One commissioner has proposed raising the rate by 6 cents.
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Memphis-Shelby County Schools, the Shelby County Commission, and all nine elected board members filed a federal lawsuit on June 19 seeking to block the state-appointed oversight board from taking control of the district on July 1.
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As The 901 Report opens its MLGW beat, here is how the city-owned utility is governed, when its board meets in public, and where the rate increase now on every bill is supposed to go.
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The Shelby County Sheriff's Office is one of the largest pieces of the county budget the Commission votes on June 29. Sheriff Floyd Bonner has said the county shortchanged his office, even as the aging jail at 201 Poplar faces serious scrutiny.
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Shelby County General Sessions Court Clerk Tami Sawyer was suspended for 30 days beginning June 17, days after a six-count federal indictment accused her of embezzling about $44,600 in public funds. She has pleaded not guilty.
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Shelby County General Sessions Court Clerk Tami Sawyer surrendered to federal custody Monday morning, according to Action News 5. The indictment is sealed, and the specific charges have not been made public.
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Shelby County DA Steve Mulroy filed an emergency lawsuit today to block two new state laws targeting the county's criminal justice system. The fight now centers on who controls local prosecutions and court oversight in Shelby County.
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Gov. Bill Lee’s Education Freedom Scholarship Act is now a live fight for Memphis families, and the real stakes are who gets paid first when state dollars move. MSCS and Shelby County voters need the receipts, not the slogans.
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Gov. Bill Lee just turned Memphis schools over to a nine-member state board of Republican appointees. That means Shelby County’s largest district is entering a new power structure - and families need to know who will be held accountable when decisions land.
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Gov. Bill Lee’s Education Freedom Scholarship Act is now a live fight for Memphis families, not a talking point. The question for Shelby County is simple: who gets paid first when the state redirects education money?
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MSCS has put a $1.7 billion budget on the table for 2026-27, and the new state-appointed board is walking into the hardest question in city schools: what gets cut, what gets protected, and who owns the fallout?
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Memphis-Shelby County Schools has put forward a $1.7 billion budget for 2026-27 as a new state-appointed board prepares to take over. The proposal puts funding choices, staffing, and school stability back under a microscope.
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