Tennessee planning $6 million audit of Memphis Shelby schools

Tennessee lawmakers are proposing a $6 million audit of Memphis Shelby County Schools.(Photo: Karen Pulfer Focht for Tennessee Lookout)

Tennessee lawmakers could spend $6 million to audit Memphis Shelby County Schools as a potential forerunner to a state “takeover” of the district.

Senate finance committee Chairman Bo Watson confirmed Monday another $3 million for a forensic audit was placed in the Senate’s $59.6 billion budget plan to go with $3 million in Gov. Bill Lee’s supplemental budget amendment.

Senators also placed $4.5 million in the budget plan to expand Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti’s special litigation unit, which previously was tasked with opposing former President Joe Biden’s policies.

When the 2025 session started, Republican lawmakers started discussing appointment of a state management board that would supersede the elected Memphis Shelby County School Board. Memphis residents testified against the bill.

The proposal hasn’t gained a foothold yet, but lawmakers appear bent on auditing the school district even though the Comptroller’s Office conducts school system audits.

Sen. Brent Taylor, a Shelby County Republican, said Monday the audit is needed to start a deeper look at the school district.

“That kind of money spent on that kind of audit, that’s the kind of audit that somebody goes to the pokey over, and this is something that’s been building for decades, and it’s time we finally take the bull by the horns,” Taylor said. He didn’t pinpoint any wrongdoing on the part of Memphis Shelby County Schools officials.

Taylor, who is sponsoring the bill to make major changes in the district, said lawmakers shied away from a takeover because of problems with the Achievement School District, which is being abolished because it failed to make major improvements over a decade in spite of a billion dollars in expenses. The bill’s wording remains in talks, though, and an advisory board could be placed in the measure, he said.

Democratic Sen. Jeff Yarbro of Nashville, a member of the finance committee, called the pending expenditure “ridiculous.”

“The purpose of our school funding is to educate children, not to create ammunition for some garbage political fights,” Yarbro said.

Republican Rep. Mark White of East Memphis has been pushing for change this session to deal with what he calls “a decades-old issue of underperformance.”

His bill contains a provision to put a nine-member management group appointed by the state in charge of operating the school district, giving it authority over the locally-elected school board and administrators. 

Taylor’s version isn’t quite as restrictive but puts the state in charge by allowing Tennessee’s education commissioner, with approval from the Department of Education, to remove the schools director or school board members and allow the county commission to replace them. If a school district goes through three district directors in three years, a county mayor could appoint a new director for a four-year term.

The Senate bill also would lift income caps on the Education Savings Account in effect in Shelby County, the governor’s initial private-school voucher program, and change the process for a public school to become a charter school.