SHELBY COUNTY, Tenn. — The Memphis Shelby County School board has hired an agency to help them with public relations, and many of you are asking what it’s costing taxpayers.

“Who’s paying the fees for outside legal and PR firms? Is it us, taxpayers?” one person asked the MSCS board during public comments at a January meeting.

“Who is paying the services for the Carter Malone PR firm? Are we the taxpayers funding this?” another person asked.

Why has an outside public relations firm, the Carter Malone Group, popped up on the Memphis Shelby County School Board’s press releases when the board began the process of ousting Dr. Marie Feagins as superintendent?

“They are working on other things. Not just the superintendent,” said MSCS Board Chair Joyce Dorse-Coleman. She didn’t elaborate to the media last week.

WREG Investigators submitted an open records request on January 14 to get a copy of the contract.

The district told us “due to the high volume of requests,” they expect the request to be completed “(if applicable) by February 28th, 2025.”

Through someone connected with the district, WREG Investigators finally got a copy. It states the firm will “serve as a public relations agency” for the board.

The firm’s president, Diedre Malone, said a hire like this is common.

“Sometimes the capacity of internal staff is just not there. A board may feel like they need some some support,” Malone said. “So our our firm was brought in to handle that. Then any general communications needs that the board needed. We were we were hired to support them.”

Malone said in December 2023, she signed the first contract to help the school board with communications.

“We were asked for a proposal to work with the board, the Memphis and Shelby County School Board on communications, but also the interim superintendent at the time, on their facilities study. We were brought in to facilitate all of those discussions around the study,” she said. “And then work with the school board on creating social media platforms for them, apart from the districts, so they could have their own.”

In June, board members called her and let her know the contract was cancelled.

“Dr. Feagins shared with the board that she wanted to offer communication support with the internal communication staff,” Malone said. “I said, ‘Well, that’s fine. As long as the internal team is able to take care of you, you shouldn’t worry about it. That’s a good thing.'”

Malone said there was turnover within the internal communications team, so the school board’s general counsel called her back. She signed a new contract. It started November 6 and goes through May 31.

“At that point, no one was really doing any social media for the board. The chair’s report was not being created and the chair chat had ended,” she said. “They had a new board chair at the time, Chair Dorse-Coleman. She wanted us to work closely with her on anything associated with communications. If she needed a news release or if she needed a statement, we were hired to work closely with her on those items.”

Malone said when she signed the contract, she did not know what was about to happen with Dr. Feagins.

“What I understood was even during June and July, if you’re watching the news, you understand that there’s some friction there, right? At no point in November, when we were brought back, was it discussed with me or anybody on my team that anything was going to happen with Dr. Feagins,” Malone said.

She said what happened weeks after she was hired, changed her role.

“You just adjust and adapt, and that’s what we had to do,” she said. “It’s not uncommon. If you’re working with a company or a municipal agency and hired as outside counsel, your role is to work with your client to create whatever communication strategies they need.”

The CMG’s contract states the board will get “invoiced monthly based on the work required on the account that month.”

The work and the price are broken down by hourly rates.

Malone, who’s been seen at the press conference announcing the new interim superintendent and at recent board meetings, listed at $300 an hour. Others in her office are set at lower hourly rates.

The terms and contract were never discussed or voted on publicly. That’s because the work should “not exceed $70,000.”

Board policy states approval is only necessary for professional service contracts above $75,000.

“That is the school board’s policy,” Malone said. “From a transparency standpoint, pretty much those that see my firm’s name know that we’re working with them. It’s not uncommon. There are other firms that worked with the school board as well as the school system.”

The school board has hired outside PR firms in the past to help with communication like when they were searching for a new superintendent. That contract was signed behind the scenes, and cost more than the current one.

“They felt like they needed outside support. They’re comfortable with it, and I’m comfortable with it,” Malone said. “I believe that in the next month or so we’ll be able to transition everything back to internal communications if they get up to capacity with staff.”

Malone doesn’t believe the price for their work will go above $70,000, but if it does, she says she will suggest the board takes it through a RFP process, which means other firms can enter a bid and make the process more public.

The CMG posted on social media that they also represent the former MSCS superintendent Dr. Joris Ray, but Malone stressed there’s no connection or crossover. Ray hired her firm a few weeks before the board did. He wanted help with his new venture.

“Dr. Ray, who resigned and wasn’t fired from the school system two and a half years ago, is out in the public now. There’s no conflict of interest,” she said. “He’s been gone for two and a half years. He’s a private citizen. My firm can represent him.”

She said both clients are handled separately for different matters.

“There’s no crossover. There is no crossover at all. Now, does he have relationships with board members? I’m sure he does,” she said. “Some of them are still there from when he was the superintendent. That doesn’t mean anything. There is no conflict of interest. There’s no crossover. I don’t even understand the logic.”

We want to add, WREG Investigators are also working on your questions surrounding the law firm hired by the board. We submitted open requests to find out who’s paying for all of the attorney fees.