Commission waives MCS residency rule

School staff living outside county not required to move due to merger

Out-of-county employees with Memphis City Schools will not have to move once the merger of MCS and Shelby County schools is finalized.

The Shelby County Commis- sion, in an 8-5 vote Monday, approved an ordinance on third and final reading that waives the county’s residency requirements for the more than 1,400 MCS employees who do not live in the county.

The waiver applies only to those employees. New hires and current employees who live Attorney Kathleen Gomes is appointed interim probate judge. 5B inside the county now must comply with the residency rule.

However, an ordinance that would have placed on the 2014 ballot a referendum to amend the county charter and remove the residency requirement failed to gain the nine votes needed for passage.

“We’re extremely thankful that the government process played out in a common-sense manner,” said Brian Davis, a teacher at Whitehaven High School and a resident of DeSoto County. “I love where I’m at.”

City schools did not have residency rules, and 1,413 of its nearly 17,000 employees live outside of the county. Voters in Shelby County approved a residency requirement for county government workers in 1984 that went into effect on Sept. 1, 1986.

Until the ordinance’s third reading on March 18, commissioners had supported a compromise that provided five years to comply with the charter.

However, Commissioner Steve Basar, a resident of East Memphis, switched his position and amended the ordinance so that the rules were waived, pushing the final vote to Monday.

Commissioner Terry Roland, the original ordinance spon-

sor, withdrew on Monday, saying it had been “turned around.”

“This board is saying, ‘I’m going to let certain people be exempt and make other employees fall under another policy,’ ” Roland said. “To me, that’s hypocritical.”

Voting in favor of the waived residency rules were commissioners Basar, Henri Brooks, Melvin Burgess, Sidney Chism, Justin Ford, James Harvey, Steve Mulroy and Mike Ritz.

Voting no were commissioners Walter Bailey, Wyatt Bunker, Chris Thomas, Heidi Shafer and Roland.

Roland also sponsored the referendum ordinance, and again accused the commissioners of being hypocrites if they did not pass it.

And he promised that allies in the Tennessee Legislature would get a statewide ban on residency requirements passed. Shelby County, he said, is the only county to require employees to live inside the county.

“If you voted to give those teachers a right that you don’t give the other employees of Shelby County and now you’re telling the people of Shelby County that they don’t have a right to vote on it, then maybe this commission doesn’t have sense enough to make decisions on its own and we do need the state stepping in,” Ro- land said.

Harvey supported the ordinance but was offended by the characterizations and the ongoing rhetoric on how the state might respond.

“Make your case and close your mouth, and you probably would find yourself in a better position,” Harvey said.

Bailey noted that the residency referendum was not rooted in public outcry, but was the idea of a few commissioners.

Because the referendum was to amend the charter, it needed nine votes to pass.

Voting yes were Brooks, Thomas, Harvey, Mulroy, Bunker, Shafer and Roland. Voting no were Bailey, Burgess, Chism, Ford and Ritz.