Shelby County ad hoc panel seeks unified public-safety agenda, backs school counseling and reentry supports

Commissioner Caswell convened Shelby County's Public Safety Ad Hoc Committee on Aug. 22 and opened the meeting by urging collaboration across agencies and community groups to build a unified legislative agenda for Nashville and beyond. "How do we unify? How do we come together?" he asked, framing the committee's work as a multi-year, cross-sector effort to address violence, youth disengagement and system fragmentation.

The committee heard presentations from school leaders, the district attorney's office, corrections, juvenile court and community organizations. Members agreed by voice to prioritize several items for follow-up: expanding counseling and mental-health supports in schools; strengthening reentry services and automatic expungement procedures; advancing select criminal-justice proposals supported by the District Attorney; and exploring a sales-tax funding option to finance a new jail. Several participants stressed coordination across city and county jurisdictions and with state lawmakers to maximize chances of passage.

"I would ask the committee or at least those who are here to include the consideration for counselors, social workers, school psychologists," said Marie Fagan, superintendent of Memphis Shelby County Schools, urging that non-policing supports be part of any public-safety package. Ernest Brooks of the District Attorney's Office summarized seven legislative proposals his office submitted to the statewide DA conference, including enhanced penalties and bond-setting changes. Lieutenant Joseph Fox described a planned bill to allow a temporary sales-tax increase that, by the Tennessee Department of Revenue's estimate cited at the meeting, could yield roughly $230,633,500 a year and about $1.8 billion over an eight-year sunset period to fund a new jail.

The panel advanced several priorities "without objection," including endorsing counseling and intervention in schools and further work on an incremental automatic-expungement approach, and asked staff and partners to draft specific legislative language and metrics for next steps. The committee requested additional data from the sheriff's office, juvenile courts and district connectors to assess whether current programs are shifting public-safety trends and to prepare materials for Nashville and federal advocacy.

Next steps: staff will collect the requested data, work with the mayor's office and chamber partners on a focused 3'to—2 item unified agenda, and return draft legislative language and cost estimates to the committee for review.