Since 2010, deficient employment growth has grown to be a $5B Shelby County problem. That is $5 billion in annual deficient wages vs other TN municipalities, resulting in $150M in local public revenue shortfalls. Deficient efforts to connect workers to jobs, education and training through public workforce development can only equal deficient employment growth. The former is the Shelby County reality.

Public workforce development checks and balances are non-existent in Shelby County, with the County Commission workforce development committee hardly ever convening. This lack of committee convening involving a $5 billion dollar problem, results in an operating public conspiracy that now involves the Greater Memphis Chamber. The Chamber players and affiliates are Ted Townsend, Amity Schuyler, Ben Adams and Meka Egwuekwe who serves as Chair of the Greater Memphis Workforce Development Board (GMWDB).

As the new County Commission workforce development committee chair, will Commissioner Erika Sugarmon implement checks and balances to confront the County/Chamber public workforce development conspiracy?

Sugarmon, a high school U.S. Government teacher, should implement checks and balances through, at a minimum, scheduling Commission workforce development committee meetings. And in this case of an operating County/Chamber conspiracy, perhaps an ad hoc committee is needed.

Besides, it's unclear given the lack of scheduled workforce development committee meetings if the Commission as a body even knows what workforce development or the federally funded Workforce Investment Opportunity Act (WIOA) is. And then there is the question under what authority was the County Mayoral assignment of the Chamber as WIOA fiscal agent even made? It did not come before the County Commission or City Council. And who recommended and appointed the GMWDB board members? It was not the County Commission.

Prior to Sugarmon's workforce development committee meeting convening on 10/23/24, I can only find a convening of the workforce development committee, under Commissioner Brandon Morrison to have occurred on 1/18/23. That's almost 2 yrs ago. Morrison said in Commission on 11/18 that getting the workforce development committee off the ground has been a long hard road. How can that be? The committee has hardly ever met!

Former Commission Chair Miska Clay Bibbs succeeded Morrison as workforce development committee chair but there are no records that I can find where Bibbs ever convened the committee. This is a public conspiracy waged against taxpayers and employers in Shelby County, Tennessee! Hopefully, the new chair of the Commission workforce development committee will confront this public conspiracy.

The Greater Memphis Chamber has been in close proximity to a number of workforce development botches, going back years, to include WIN, GMACW, UpSkil901, Workforce Mid-South and now the Greater Memphis Workforce Development Board (GMWDB). Excluding the exclusvive Chamber Upskill901 initiative, the public has never recieved a readout on what happened with all of the other publicly funded workforce botches. Again, deficient employment growth has grown to become a $5 billion recurring annual problem in Shelby County.

The Chamber now serves as the WIOA fiscal agent for GMWDB. How a chamber business association was authorized to be the fiscal agent of a public workforce development board without local legislative authority, who knows? But taxpayers need to know. After all, the Chamber is a business association that deficienctly serves a majority of its members through corporate public policy, with core competency in staging ceremonies, luncheons, and ribbon cuttings. What the Chamber is not is a public workforce or economic development agency.

With respect to workforce development, Chamber botches continue with the recent bully termination of GMWDB Executive Director Amber Covington, and a Chamber touted Accelerated Skills Center on Jackson Avenue far behind schedule. Contributing to the botch is a lack of local public oversight that should have occurred through the regular convening of the Commission workforce development committee.

Commission workforce committee work would have included testimony or documentation from the State of why WIOA funds have historically been restricted from Shelby County to prevent future pitfalls, Chamber/GMWDB to provide the public with an overview of WIOA, Accelerated Skills Center plans, public introduction of the GMWDB Executive Director, GMWDB bylaws, rules of procedure, meeting dates and budget. Recurring Commission workforce committee meetings would have further helped to ensure those plans and proceedures plans are executed. But the former did not happen, which is the Shelby County reality.

Do Shelby County taxpayers deserve public checks and balances? A high school U.S. Government teacher will decide. Meanwhile, the Greater Memphis Chamber is a public botcher that wants higher taxes for full taxpaying small businesses and residents. Keep in mind the Chamber is a business association poorly representing its overall membership. Why? The Chamber’s policy stack serves mostly major corporations and developers, not their small business majority membership.

As far as the Chamber's $300K ask of the County Commission to support WIOA administrative costs, that is likely settlement funding for Amber Covington. Covington was somehow terminated as Executive Director of GMWDB, with only 6 votes by a GMWDB board with 24 members. Public information requests have been sent to GMWDB's current chair, Meka Egwuekwe, requesting monthly financials and GMWDB's rules of procedure. We will see if the Chamber/GMWDB can move at the speed of business in turning that public information request around, like they have not with the Accelerated Skills Center.

Needless to say, the Chamber should not be rewarded with a $300K grant for public debauchery, should not be the WIOA fiscal agent, and the Commission needs to take immediate steps to get the Chamber as far away from public workforce development as possible…