Subcommittee advances bill creating oversight board for Memphis‑Shelby County Schools

Chairman White, presiding over the House Finance Ways and Means Subcommittee, won subcommittee approval Thursday to advance House Bill 662, as amended, to the full Finance Committee. The measure would create an oversight board to work with the locally elected Memphis‑Shelby County Board of Education and would give the oversight board review authority over the district’s budget, contracts and some charter decisions.

The oversight board provision, adopted as amendment drafting code 7487, would place nine members on the panel appointed by the governor and the two legislative speakers; the panel would be composed of appointees drawn from the Memphis‑Shelby County district and serve an initial three‑year term with an optional three‑year extension. "It's an oversight board," Chairman White said, adding the amendment was intended to "work with the current board, but [have] authority" to request changes. "It's not a state takeover, by the way," he…