County Commission - Regular Meeting

Good morning. It is Wednesday, April 8th, 2026. I will call to order the Shelby County Commission Committee. Um we're going to start this morning with public works. Uh we're going to take a little diversion off of the agenda here. I see uh former commissioner once a commissioner always commissioner uh Van Turner is with us today uh with regional one and he has the emerging leaders group. So I'll give you three minutes just to tell us about the group and uh what you guys are doing today that type of stuff. Go ahead.

Good morning Vice Chair Bradford and uh Commissioner Mills and the team here. My name is Van Turner. As stated it's a pleasure to always be here with you. I have sitt next to me Mr. DRC Devo and he is the uh leader of the emerging leaders group at region one health. So I'll allow him to give the spill on what the group is doing and and how they're becoming the new leaders at regional one health. Thank you.

Good morning everyone. The emerging leaders group from regional one health is a group of young people well most of them. Yeah. uh who are actually uh was identified by their leader to be a potential leader for the future of regional one health. And so uh the organization has brought them together to train them to push them to understand that they have the potential to be a leader and to kind of carve out those areas that they can build and rebuild themselves.

So it's a pleasure again to be here with you, Mr. Vice Chair. They're going to sit here, I think, through noon time and understand how the commission works. They know the commission is playing a big part of the rebuild process for regional one. So, this was one of the the stops that they needed to make and to understand. So, we appreciate you allowing us this time and it's always good to see y'all in the visit with the Shelby County Commission, Commissioner Sugarman. Thank you very much.

Well, thank you. I think it's great that you all are down here. here. I think one of the problems we have with voting nowadays is nobody understands what the commission does and all these other positions. So you all sitting in here, you'll get a little education. So be sure to share what you learn with your colleagues and everybody else. So all right. Um any commissioners have any follow-up comments on it? I'm not seeing as let's go ahead and read item number one. Thank you.

Item one is a resolution approving a change order with Wagner General Contractors, Inc. in the amount of $361,86.64 for construction of the Green Line extension from the old Cordova train depot to Lenal Road. This item requires an appropriation of federal through state grant funds in the amount of $289,445.31 and roads and bridges matching funds in the amount of $72,361.33 for a total appropriation of $361,86.64 64 cents from the FY 2026 operating budget sponsored by Commissioner David C. Bradford Jr.

Thank you. This item was moved by Commissioner Mills, seconded by Commissioner Sugarman. Good morning. My name is Jim Crook. Can Mr. Cook, can you make sure your mic's on?

Yeah, sorry. Uh my name's uh Jim Crook. I'm project engineer with Roads and Bridges. Uh this item is a final balancing change order for the extension of the Shelby Farms Green Line from the old Cardova train depot to Leno near the TVA substation. It added approximately 2.2 miles of trail and increased the total length of the green line to approximately 13 miles. The line share of this change order is gravel that was needed for leveling and support structural support for the subbase along the alignment. The prime contractor is general Wagner general contractors. This project had a disadvantaged business enterprise goal of 20% and the DB DBE goal is being met by Campbell and Ford construction. Both companies are local. T DOT has approved this change order and are funding 80% of the cost. Administration recommends approval.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Crook. Um I do not see any uh Commissioner Sugarman. Go ahead. Excuse me. Thank you so much, Chair. Uh and so when will this project start and end? What's the timeline on this project? The project started in 2024 and it finished um of September of last year. So it was a year project. Okay. And so then what's the funding going to be used for? It was already completed.

It's for a cost overrun on the the subbase for the asphalt trail. Okay. Um, that's it. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Sugarman. All right, seeing no other commissioners in the queue, let's take this item to a vote. All right, if all commissioners had the opportunity to vote, let's tally the results. We have eye votes from commissioners Sugarman, Mills, and Bradford. We have three I votes.

Thank you. This item will go down with a favorable recommendation. Thank you, Mr. Crook. All right. Uh, next item, if we will read that into the record, please. Item two is a discussion item to last approximately 10 minutes. An update on the UTSU extension service with Dr. Christopher Cooper, county director, presenting UTSU Extension, Shelby County. Thank you, Director Norville. Dr. Cooper, good to see you all this morning. Go ahead,

Cliff Norville public works. Uh, thank you and good morning, commissioners. Uh, I wanted to come up. I'm not going to steal any of Dr. Cooper's thunder. I wanted him to come to you, but I I do want to insert this. Uh the county has relationships with a lot of different entities and uh the the listening public may not know all those relationship all the time. And uh so the UTSU Extension Service is one of those. And I wanted to make sure that we got Dr. Cooper up here and talk to you, let you know what he does, what his services entail, and how they benefit the county. Uh we do uh cooperate with UT and TSU and funding this service for the county. And so, uh, since our budget discussions are going to be coming up here, uh, this later this spring, uh, I want you to understand that, uh, there is their budget from the county's portion is somewhere just over $400,000, but the, uh, UT and TSU fund a large portion of their operation as well. So this is a this is a partnership and in my opinion it is one of the best examples of leveraging local funds to uh reach the greater good. And so with that I'll leave this up to Dr. Cooper and let him explain what his operation does.

Good morning Commissioner Bradford. Appreciate you much. Uh definitely thank uh Director Cliff for the opportunity to be here today and Miss Marie for our my presentation so we can go forward. So, just wanted to tell you a little bit about UTSU Extension or what we call Shelby County Extension. Proud to be the county director for Shelby County Extension. Our mission is to improve the lives of our citizens here in Shelby County through researchbased information in the areas of a and natural resources, family, consumer sciences, community economic development, and lastly, 4 youth development. My mantra is this. So, I tell my staff all the time, we take our programs to the people. We meet the people where they are. Uh, and the public usually lets us know how much they appreciate our programs because they will actually stop by our office and let us know how much uh they appreciate the other agents and the work that they do here in Shelby County. Before you, you will see the A and Natural Resources team. Uh it's an incredible team as you can can imagine today. Uh with spring being sprung uh they're pretty busy. Uh so we've had a lot of activities. We have Joanne Waterman who's with TSU. We have Joseph Sego who's been with us about three years. Uh he's with UT. Jen Orc uh is our horiculture program assistant. She's been with us about three years. Woodro Clark we call Woodro Trey. Uh he's been with us for about a year. He's with TSU. And Jessica Matis, uh we just hired. She started with us in February. So, she is our new A uh program leader with that. So, let me tell you a little bit about what Agon and Natural Resources does. Like I mentioned before, spring is here and as you can imagine, we're getting a lot of phone calls from people who are wanting to start gardens, want to beautify uh their landscapes pretty much throughout Shelby County. So, we're already gearing up for our farm expose.

The master gardeners uh have been having their workshops uh here lately. A couple of weeks ago, we had a Masha Gardener plant sale, folks. We had 1,500 people that came through the doors of Agra Center uh to buy plants, and I I thought we were going to run out of plants, you know, after a while. Uh so, we're definitely proud of that. And of course, the weather and spring being here, you know, really brought the people out. So, we were just just over the moon over the attendance from that. And you see Dr. Gazelle Golf, uh she was on Live at 9 back in February. Uh she's the owner of Sassifrass Farm and during the conversation with Kanji Anthony, she talked about her farm and she thanked Shelby County Extension, the new farmer academy for that farm. Uh she said she learned all that she could about farming. Uh she did go through the new farmer academy class. Uh it is a seven-month class. She got her certification to be a farmer. And again, she was on Live at Nine with Kungie Anthony just last month uh back in February talking about what that class meant to her and the success of the farm uh that she now has and owns in Hardman County. Next, and these are just some of the upcoming events that we have. Uh tomorrow there's a safety and sanitation in the garden presentation that we'll be doing there at the office. There's our new farm academy uh which is run by Joanne Waterman with TSU 7-month certification program. Uh it's designed for those who are interested in agricultural entrepreneurship. So it is a fast growing program. We've been doing that program now for about 5 years and it is one of the top farming programs in West Tennessee and I'm proud to say that we have it right here in Shelby County. And believe it or not, there's a lot of people that have backyard poultry, right? There's a lot of people in Shelby County uh that are raising chickens. So, guess what we have now for them? We have a master poetry program, right? To meet their needs, right? So, they learn all about their

backyard uh wild uh poetry. And of course, we have those who are interested in commercial poetry. So, we met that need as well. Here's our family consumer sciences team. Our Priscilla Short has been with us for about 15 years. She's done an excellent job for us. Cheryl Miller, uh Tamara Cunningham have been with us for about a couple of years. And Shanda Taylor, uh, we just hired back in November. She comes to us from St. Jude. She was a chef at St. Jude. Uh, so she does an amazing job. I was with them recently, a couple of weeks ago when they did a cooking demo just to support their efforts. And I tell you what, uh, they're an awesome team. Uh, and they make good food, too, as well. And here's some of the things that the family consumer sciences team does. How about canning? You know, this is something that's become a lost art, but now coming out of the pandemic, there's a lot of people interested uh in canning. So, they have a lot of canning classes, which fills up pretty fast. The cooking demonstrations are great. Uh again, they do an excellent job with those cooking demonstrations, and we get to sample all of the food, too, at the office, so that's always a plus. Uh our yoga classes that we do at the community centers are wildly popular. Chair yoga is popular, and believe it, chair volleyball is something that they do as well. We've actually done that as a staff and I tell you what, it is fun. It's hard to remain in your seat playing chair volleyball because we get so excited about it. Uh so those are just some of the programs that our family consumer sciences team does. And here are some of the events. Uh tomorrow we'll be doing a cooking demonstration at the Orange Mound Health Fair uh which will be coming up uh this weekend. Uh Priscilla, her canning classes are taking off now and she will have more information about those canning classes. They usually take place late spring into the summer and then again in the fall. And Shandanda will be doing a cooking uh demonstration for the health department as a part of their Earth Day celebration. I will also be there too talking about vegetable gardening uh because that's what they

asked me to do and I'm more than happy to do it. All right, here's our 4H youth development team. Awesome, awesome team. Uh Sydney is with TSU. Sitney's been with us for about a year. Kelly Ravlia has been with us about two years. She's with uh UT. Tim Roberts is our director of education. He's with UT. And Kyla Simpliski uh has been with us for about 2 and a half years and she is with UT. If you know anything about extension, you probably heard of the 4 program, right? The motto is making the best better, learn by doing. Just last year, 20,000 youth stepped foot on the campus of Agra Center. They were educated by our 4H youth team. Have you asked your youth lately where fruits and vegetables come from? If you have asked them, have you heard some of the answers? Walmart, Audi, Kroger, this is what we're here. We have to do a better job educating the youth about agriculture. Right? So that's what I empowered that 4HU team to do and they have done it. So this year, the fall semester into where we are today, 8,000 youth have been on the campus of Agra Center to be educated by our 4 youth team. And you can see the some of the activities before you. The corn crib is something that we do every year. It's a a big-time fundraiser for our 4 youth program uh at the Delta Fair. And I'm one of those. I like to walk the talk. So I volunteer as well. I took off the county director hat. I said, "I'm your volunteer for today." And they put me to work. And I will tell you this, being in the corn career for two weeks during the Delta affair, I didn't eat corn for a month, right? And I smelled like corn for a month, but I did learn how to make sweet tea and Kool-Aid. Uh, which my wife did appreciate. But I had a very good time there, uh, with the youth. The youth, uh, they serve right next to me. Just did an excellent job for us. I'm just

proud of the work that they do. And there are some upcoming events. There's a junior summer camp that'll be held at Lone Oaks and that'll be in May. Uh there's a line and design camp, you know, for those who are, you know, into fashion and that will be at UT Martin July 6th through 8th. And there's a culinary youth camp, right? We're trying to teach the youth how to prepare meals and that will also be at UT Martin. So those are the events that the 4 team has coming up now. So again, life skills, right? And that's what we're trying to pour into the youth to get them to understand a little bit about agriculture and the careers uh that are out there for agg 300 years ago. So we're just trying to do our part again to pour into them um help them develop those life skills that they need, right? And then there are future leaders of tomorrow. You know, some of them can be sitting where you are today. Here's my support team. Uh Dary has been with me for about 16 years on the UT side. Miss Regina is our TSU uh receptionist and administrative aid. She sits at the first desk. Ka Cooper, no relations. Uh she is an awesome 4 administrator. Uh she's the best one in the state. This is the best support team in the state. If you've ever called our office, Miss Regina answered that phone, you will have an experience. Uh usually when the phone calls come to me, the first thing that people say is, "Who is that that answered that phone? Can you give her a raise? Uh, and I try. I definitely do. But this is what I say about Miss Regina and about the team. Miss Regina, and I have no problem saying this, she is the voice and face of Shelby County Extension. And the reason why I say this is when you call our office, you hear her voice, right? When you step into our doors, you see her face, right? So, she does an excellent job for us. I mean, there's other counties that would love to have a

Miss Regina as their receptionist because we all know that your receptionist, right, sets the mood, right, sets the atmosphere, sets the environment for the office. She knows me, she knows my heart, right? And she always does the right thing. So, I just appreciate that staff so much. So, here's our impact as we get down to our last slide. So, take a look at that, y'all. 6.5 million contacts, right? So, a lot of those contacts, of course, include The Family Plot, and The Family Plot is a gardening show that I host on WKO. I've been hosting that show now for about 12 or 13 years. So, some of those numbers are are in there. Our volunteer numbers, those are our master gardener numbers. 24,000 volunteer hours last year. Tremendous amount of hours, right? And look at that economic value. $85,000. We're just proud of the work that all of our volunteers uh do for us. And as you can see there, that's a recent picture of the staff at one of our employee appreciation days what we had at Union University there in Jackson uh Tennessee in the fall. And I will say seven out of my 17 on staff, we were recognized for the work that we do uh with extension. And we were recognized by our peers, you know, for the work that we do. So just so proud uh you know, of the staff and the work that they do. All right. And as I end, here are some of the pictures uh that you have before you of my staff. Uh we just celebrated a month uh for extension. Uh that was last month. We had a good time with that. So I purchased some new shirts uh for them to wear for extension month and a month. Uh and just some other random pictures of the staff. Um so with that, I will end, but I appreciate it much.

Thank you so much. Uh Commissioner Sugarman, go ahead. Thank you, Chair. It's very informative. So, I didn't know this existed. Um, having said that, um, I noticed that you had the the grades and the, um, age, um, for the, uh, camps. Yes, ma'am. What was the cost? I didn't see a cost associated with the camps. So, the junior camp is $350. Okay. Right. And then the culinary U camp is going to be around $300. So, they're roughly between $300 and $350, but I know the camp itself is $350. Okay. And then the other thing you talked about um poultry is getting is a big um thing now I guess because the cost of eggs going up so much. Yes ma'am. Yes ma'am.

So if somebody wanted to um maybe u consider that would you all have like some type of type of program where you all can give them some advice you know before they get you know dive deeper like cost you know things of that nature. um what type you know what areas because I know maybe in c certain areas they aren't allowed to have you know um I don't know yeah roosters roosters and chicken etc um do you have something like that or for example they may want to have raised beds in their backyards so do you have any type of um program or someone can they can call contact for advice

yes ma'am so they can call our office okay uh the number is there 9017521207 we do have the mastery poor program that's happening you know now. Uh and then as far as the raised beds go, I'm the person that you will call. We have some other team members that you can call as well. I'm doing programs now. Uh I will be leaving here today to get to a program. Uh then I have one in Oxford, Mississippi tomorrow, you know, talking about, you know, raise beds and things like that. So we have the staff that's equipped, you know, to answer those questions. Just call our office and we can help you out. And are the programs free or is there a cost? The programs are free except the master poetry program. There's a fee. I think it's I think it's on the page. It might have been $50 and then $100 for those who are interested in commercial um poetry. Okay. Thank you.

But those that information is there. If not, just feel free to give our office a call. We can help you out. Thank you. For sure. Yes, ma'am. Commissioner Mills.

Thank you. Um thank you for being here. Thank you. It it has been an honor to serve on the A Extension Board. I was not originally assigned to it my last year and I'm like, "Oh, no, no, no, no." and commissioner, I think it was Thornton, agreed to swap with me cuz uh UT a extension, y'all, it quietly does the work that strengthens our families, our communities, our youth, and it it it's one of our most underappreciated resources in Shelby County and we really should be doing more to utilize it and leverage. I like the way doc director you use the word leverage with the funding. I know I don't think we funded this until last term we gave funding or more funding.

Um we have Shelby County has been in partnership with the extension service for a long time. Uh we we have had a couple of increases over the past few years. Okay. And do we know if the mayor is going to keep what we have in the proposed budget? Cliff Norville public works. Um the budget for the extension service has been submitted with the budget submission right now review process. Okay. Well, hopefully it you're still in there. Um because the work you all do and I see you in the community. I see you all over I always see you in Rosemark.

Yeah. at the country fair and um and all around and your your energy and your leadership for this organization and and every time I hear these new programs that we're doing, it's like look at what we're doing at the A extension first and we should be building off of what you're doing instead of constantly starting. And I think that's part of the problem with not moving the needle with Shelby County. We're always trying to start these new things instead of looking at what we've got and building off of that. So, thank you for what you do. keep up the good work. Um, and I appreciate you and I appreciate you coming out here today. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Mills. Appreciate you and your support. Thank you, Commissioner. Director Norman,

Commissioner, thank you for just one more minute. I know we've exceeded our time, but if there was I just wanted to summarize this and uh give the doc a chance to give his website information. If there was one thing that was we did learn and uh gain from the uh pandemic that occurred a few years ago is that the extension service started videoing all of their training and presentations. And at their website there's literally access to hundreds if not thousands of videos, educational videos on how to do all aspects of gardening and and what have you. And so, uh, uh, doc, give them your website so the listening public can, uh, have that and access all that information.

Yes, sir. So, I'm ahead of you. I actually, uh, they have that information before them, right? So, our social media handle, everything is there. You can go and check those videos out. They're good videos. Uh, they're pretty short videos, but yeah, you're right. During the pandemic, we pivoted. Yeah. So, we decided to think everything online, right? Social media, and it has been a hit. So between that and then going to the family plot website, there's over a thousand videos, gardening videos specific to every plant, every fruit, tree that's out there, we got it, right? So we try to address the need before it even becomes a need, right? We try to get in front of it right before the public even notices what's going on. And I'm proud to say that we actually do that. So, Director Norville, you stole my thunder because uh I was having some yard issues and whenever you're working in the yard, you you go to YouTube to sit watch the video and start watching the video. And Dr. Cooper was right there in front of me. I said, "I know that guy." And so, uh it was just kind of crazy that the algorithm sent me there, but obviously that means uh a lot of people are watching what you're doing on on the online and on the media. So, um Dr. Cooper, thank you for being here. Thank you for your energy. Um we really appreciate this and uh you guys have a good day. Thank you. All right, this concludes the public works committee and we will call to order committee number five, land use, planning, transportation, and codes. We will read the first item on the agenda.

Item one is a discussion item to last approximately 10 minutes. Follow-up presentation of the Memphis 3.0 comprehensive plan, zoning map, and zoning code update. Memphis and Shelby County Division of Planning and Development. Director Brett Ragdell presenting. Thank you. Good morning, Director Ragsdale. Go ahead with your presentation this morning. Thank you for being here for an update.

Thank you. Uh, excuse me, Brett Ragdale with the Division of Planning Development. Mr. Chairman, commissioners. Um, I have with me this morning, Miss Christina Edinbbor, who is the administrator of our comp planning team. And so, she's here to answer any questions about our Memphis 3.0 updates. And then, Mr. Nicholas Wardrop will actually be giving our presentation. He's managing the coordination of our teams. And so, this morning, he'll do the presentation. We're happy to answer any questions. All right, go ahead.

Good morning, commissioners. Thank you for having us. Um, today we're going to give you a little bit of an update on where we are with the ongoing effort to update both the Unified Development Code and Memphis 3.0 Conference of Planned. Um, this is a modified version of a presentation we gave a couple weeks back to Memphis City Council. Um, which is kind of give you a little more context into some of the decisions we were making when we were making the draft zoning map. Um, couple brief updates. We published on March 27th, so about a week ago now, um a full draft of the code text. Um the headline statistic, the thing we're excited about is it cuts the word count of the UDC by 45%. So that's that's the big thing, that's the uh statistic we're, you know, most happy about, you know, as far as creating a streamlined slim modern code. Um we've been continuing, as you know, to hold small groupoup meetings with neighborhoods. Um, we've got more coming up. I'm going to one tomorrow. So, that's something to be aware of. Um, the big thing here is we will be asking the land use control board for their recommendation at their May meeting, their May 14th meeting. So, that puts us in line to be to you all as well as your counterparts of the Memphis City Council uh for a final vote towards the end of June. Um, next slide, please. Um, so here's the map we published in February. Um, I'm assuming uh we've had sit downs with many commissioners. Um, you've seen it. Um, it cuts the city and the county up into 20 distinct zoning districts. There's 20 unique colors you see on that map. But really, we've gotten the most questions, the line share of our questions about three of those districts. Uh, next slide, please. Um, that is the RN1, residential neighborhood one. Uh, next slide, RN2, and next slide, RN3. So, that's that yellow color and then the two orange colors. Uh, next slide. And here you can see, you know, kind of from RN1 to three, there's sort of a step up in the

amount of flexibility that's allowed. You know, RN1 allowing those, you know, predominantly single family uses onto RN2, which allows duplexes and three forplexes onto RN3, which allows low-rise apartments. So, the single most question we've got throughout this whole process is next slide. Um, why are some neighborhoods RN1? Why whereas others are RN2 or RN3? Um, so that's the table setting. Let's back up. Next slide. Here is a statement that has been uncontroversial throughout this whole process. Folks have told us they want a vibrant, energetic downtown. We've never met anybody who says, "Let's make downtown worse." Right? A similar statement, next slide that we've gotten is folks want to see their nearby commercial areas revitalized, uh, new businesses in their neighborhood. Um, those things have something in common. Next slide. These both require more people living in the vicinity and that's sort of the guiding principle behind a lot of these changes you're seeing on the draft zoning map. Um, so our draft map is proposing housing flexibility. When I say housing flexibility, I mean RN2 or RN3 in areas that um either are A, next slide, feature significant vacancy. B are near a commercial node that folks want to see revitalized or both. And the unfortunate reality is we have a lot of those both situations and we're hoping that this draft map can be a a first step and a solution to that. Um, when I say a nearby commercial node, it's important to know that downtown, of course, is the biggest of those nodes, but there are many throughout the city. And I'm going to give you two examples. Um, so here's downtown. Here in pink, you see roughly downtown proper. Um, on the next slide, you will see um this is a 2m radius right of downtown in the blue. Uh, next slide. So, as we were

looking at this and trying to get more people living in the vicinity downtown, as well as addressing vacancy, and there's um there are areas of significant vacancy on the map there. You'll see that darker orange that RN3, which allows low-rise apartments in a sort of backward Cshape uh in the vicinity of downtown. And that's on the next slide. And so, that's kind of the thinking, right? Let's get more people living in the vicinity of downtown. Next slide. um which of course supports downtown. I think when we talk about downtown a lot, sometimes we fall in the trap of only talking about downtown itself. Um part of supporting downtown is having strong neighborhoods in the vicinity of downtown. Um this makes it easier for MATA to provide a quality service, of course. Um it's a lot easier for them, you know, more cost-effective if they're talking about folks making two-mile commutes versus 15 mile commutes. Um and of course combating vacancy, which I've mentioned. Uh, next slide. We give you two more examples away from downtown. The first is the Rosel Ansdale area. That's the neighborhood near and around the Lamar Theater. Um, as well as the Hide Park area um, shifting north. So, here you see roughly the Rosel Anzel neighborhood and these pink lots you see here, these are vacant lots. So, um, if you show the graphic on the next slide, um, you can see that really there's kind of a cut off where there's vacancy. there's vacancy sort of inside that right angle and not much outside. Right? So that's what we've that informs the decision we made on the map. So the Rozel Anzel neighborhood itself, we've recommended RN2 that allows duplexes that allows three and fourplexes on corner lots. And then outside of that triangle where there's um significant vacancy, we're recommending RN1, which is the predominant zoning for most of the rest of Midtown. Um, and it's not just about combating that vacancy if you

show on the next slide. It's also about revitalizing Lamar. The thing we we've had the most common conversation we've had with neighbors in this area is I remember when there was a hardware store on Lamar. I remember when there were, you know, good businesses on Lamar. Can you bring those back? And the answer to that is it requires more people living in walking distance. And that is what we're trying to create as we look in the 20-year term um with this with this zoning map. Um secondly, I'll show you the Hide Park neighborhood. Um you may or may not be aware, but there is a big effort on the city side to attract a grocery store to that site with the green star. Um that's currently a vacant property. Um Councilwoman Easter Thomas is heading that up. Um they have had a developer and there was a story in the Daily Memphian about this a few months back straight up say we need more heads and beds that was his term in order to make a grocery store work here. So there's two things that are true about this. One is you need more housing, more people to attract this grocery store. But also next slide once that grocery store gets built it's going to increase development pressure in that area. So what are we doing with this draft map? Next slide. We're going to try and concentrate this new development within walking distance, within roughly a half mile of that grocery store site. Both to one, make it easier to track the grocery store in the first place, but two, also react to that development pressure in a positive way, in a way that encourages walkability in the long term once that grocery store gets built. Um, you may be wondering where's the unincorporated county in this? Um, of course that's the the portion that this body typically has uh zoning control over. Um, so I'm going to talk about it briefly. Um, the answer is that there's a few changes we're proposing in the

unincorporated county. Um, we're mostly trying to match the zoning to what is on the ground today. We feel strongly that there is room within our existing municipalities to accommodate growth um, in areas that have existing municipal services. The city of Memphis of course being one of those. Um, and that's what we're trying to do with our map of the unincorporated county is let's, you know, match the zoning, what's on the ground there. We're not trying to create non-conformities and then limit growth to direct it back to our municipalities. Um, so in conclusion, um, revitalizing commercial areas, including downtown, but not limited to downtown, requires increasing the number of people living in the vicinity. So that's what we're really trying to do with this zoning map is let's loosen up. lets create more housing flexibility in the immediate walking distance of these commercial areas that folks want to see revitalized, downtown being one of them. Um, and finally, I I had one conclusion about the unincorporated county, which is just basically that let's match the zoning to what is on the ground today, restrict growth in unincorporated county with the intent of directing it to our municipalities. Um, and with that, I'm available for your questions. All right. Thank you. I'm giving the commissioners an opportunity to jump in the queue. Commissioner Sugarman.

Thank you. And I look forward to our meeting on the 14th. Having said that, um, individuals in my district also like to meet because as I stated before record, there's not been zero meetings in my district, District 12. So, would there have been an opportunity for them to join us on the Zoom? if not is there opportunity for you to come out to our district. The other issue is in my district there is no community center and so you have to pay for some place to you know house something and so we have no spaces but what we do have is plenty of gas stations storage facilities um pay to load the puppy in as well as now another huge complaint is car washes. We have like three car washes on one block and it's ridiculous. And so um a lot of times I don't know the city sides not you know are privy that we're not because I get blamed because they're saying you should have known about these car wash you should known about these gas stations and so again there needs to be more um conversations across you know especially for example with me I live in both unincorporated city of Memphis little bit of Carville and a little bit of Germantown. I get it all from everybody all the time. And so I'm I'm I'm saying that I'm not trying to gripe, but I'm I'm trying to just put it out there in the public that we do need to u voice our concerns and I'm I'm voicing your concern having said that you also need to show up. But to go back to pivot back my first question on the 14th when we meet can is an opportunity for the my constituents to meet because we have no public spaces or can we have an opportunity for you all to come out and if so where would that be? It needs to be in district 12. Then we have no community center. We have no MCA. The only other place I could think of be a library or a church and they charge. The churches do.

Thank you Commissioner Sugar. Brett Ragdale with the Division of Plan Development. So, um Christina Edinburgh is here. So, and she's here to talk about the comprehensive plan that we we did have meetings in the district um for the update the comprehensive plan. As far as our meeting next week, we would love to have any constituents join us there or I think you're right, we can find places that we can come and meet and we've been very creative in finding those spaces in other other districts. So, if we have to pay a little bit, we can also do that, too. So, we're happy to do that. So, um we're if you want us to share the the Zoom link, I think we have a Zoom meeting with you next week.

We can share that with uh with any of your constituents or we can discuss a more personal meeting where we can come out and visit. So, that would maybe be preferable. But,

yeah, that would be preferable. And then real quickly before my time runs out, um the other thing is I know you you mentioned a little bit about unincorporates changing. My question then becomes there's um I don't know if this is if I talk to you all whomever but in my district we have hacks cross and then out where it's not tapped into MLGW and so developers saying it's too expensive for them to try to um build out the infrastructure there and I know there's some um some concerns about that and I was wondering if maybe another meeting or that meeting we could talk about that as well because developers do want to go come in they do want want to build apartment buildings, mixed use, etc., etc. We want them, you know, um, but there's a a barrier and the barrier is infrastructure. And so, again, is that something that we can talk about later or then at the meeting or or whatever?

Uh, Brett Rexdale, division of planning development, that may be the sewer uh discussion, the sewer infrastructure. So, we can talk about it. I think maybe talking about that offline with you directly and then we can have any further discussions with them. Yes. Thank you, Commissioner Sugarman. Commissioner Mills,

thank you. And I'm one of the commissioners. I still have to meet with you all on this. Um, my question is, as far as housing, building housing, um, are there any, uh, I had a builder ask, are there any in incentives or relief of any kind for builders of um, affordable housing? Anything for them? are we to make sure the projects are financially viable for them.

So, to answer your question, not through the zoning code. Um, and we're actually we can't do that. In some states, you can do that through the zoning code, not in Tennessee. Um, the answer is if they're in the city of Memphis, they need to get in touch with city HCD. Um, and then we also have this small mighty team at the county uh department of housing as well, which is in our division. Okay. Could you email me what you just said so I could forward that information along? Thank you. Absolutely. Yes.

All right. Thank you, Commissioner Mills. Um, when we first brought this forward, there were some concerns from constituents that not all the documents were available online. I think from your presentation, everything is there now. So hopefully if folks have concerns and comments, they're downloading it, going through it with a fine tooth comb, and providing you guys comments, right?

Yes, that's the hope. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Excellent. All right. I don't see any further commissioners in the queue. Uh thank you all for coming back with a follow-up. I guess we'll see you in a month or so for one more another round. Excellent. Sounds great. Thank you all so much for being here. Uh that concludes land use planning, transportation, and codes. Okay. Okay, next we're going to open the next meeting. Let's see. General government, we have one item. Um, please read the item to the record. Yes, ma'am. Item one is a resolution approving the election of notaries public for appointment and a reappoint for Shelby County, Tennessee. Sponsored by Henry E. Brooks.

Okay. Thank you. And I don't see any um commissioners in the queue. So, let's take this item down for Oh, it's been moved by Commissioner Mills and second by Commissioner Bradford. Now, I don't see anybody in the queue. Let's take this item down for a vote. May I have a tally? We have eye votes from commissioners Sugarman, Mills, and Bradford. We have three I votes. Thank you. This goes down to favor recommendation. And we do have an add-on. Thank you so much. Uh would you please read it into the record?

I haven't received it just yet. If we could just have a few moments. Oh, I'm sorry. I think there's a third add-on to correct. I got confused. Okay, I think there's another one. Item two is an add-on item. Item two is a resolution initiating a request for qualifications for state government relations consulting services on behalf of the Shelby County Board of Commissioners. Sponsored by Chairwoman Shante Avant. Okay, this item has been moved by myself and seconded by Commissioner Bradford. Um, the sponsor is not here. Would anybody like to discuss this? Commissioner Mills. Thank you. I am really glad to see this item before us. Um, I I I hope we have a lot of people interested because this is hugely important for us. everything at the state. You know, some people say that they just hate Shelby County and whatnot, but there are a lot of little fires that need to be put out before things hit committees in Nashville, and our previous lobbyists did that. Um, I know when I was the chair of the legislative committee, I mean, it was constant things that we were trying to put out before they got passed and then we had to address them. Um, so I'm happy to see this. I hope we get it right this time um for the next uh group of commissioners uh because this is really really important because most of the counties in the state of Tennessee their whole county population is less than one county commission district. So it is very very important that we have someone being the eyes and ears for us up there in Nashville. And um I'm glad to see this. That's all. Thank you. Thank you. See you know other

commissioners in the queue. Let's take this item down for a vote. May I have a tally? We have eye votes from commissioners Sugarman, Mills, Wright, and Bradford. We have four I votes. Thank you. This item goes down the f recommendation and I understand there is another add-on.

We have a second add-on. And um I have a question. Do we need to suspend the rules to when we add add-ons? Okay. Because we didn't I didn't do that last time. Yes. And I'm sorry. I was Okay. No problem. I was doing Okay. Let's read the item into the record and then I'll suspend the rules. And not because of its it's an add-on because it doesn't uh have the required attachments. It doesn't have the um the summary sheet and it doesn't have the document the attachment when it's an add-on the routing sheet. That's why we suspend the rules. When it's an add-on, it's missing those attachments. Okay. So, yes, ma'am. Thank you.

Okay. Item

item three is an add-on item. Item three is a resolution acknowledging a vacancy in the office of judicial commissioner and setting the following dates to fill one vacancy. One, Friday, April 17, 2026 as the application deadline. Two, Wednesday, April 22nd, 2026 as the date for interviewing candidates. And three, Monday, April 27th, 2026 as the date for appointments. Sponsored by Shante Avant. Thank you. Um, this item has been moved by myself and seconded by Commissioner Mills and I move to suspend the rules. Thank you. I see no commissioners in the queue. Objection. Thank you. All righty then. Let's take this item down for vote. Okay, no problem.

Can I tell We have I votes from commissioners Sugarman, Mills, Wright, and Bradford. We have four I votes. Thank you. This item goes down with a favorable recommendation. And this concludes, right, no more add-ons? Okay. General government. Thank you. Let's open it up. Um, core city neighborhoods and housing parliamentarian. Please I read item number one into the record. Item one is a resolution approving the sale of 31 county owned delinquent tax parcels acquired by Shelby County from various Shelby County tax sales to identified purchasers at various prices collectively totaling 117,318.75 pursuant to Tennessee code annotated section 67-5-2507 and authorizing the Shelby County Mayor to execute with claim deeds. Sponsored by Commissioner Henry E. Brooks.

Thank you. This item has been moved by myself and seconded by Commissioner Mills. We have our speaker. Good morning.

Good morning. Esther Sykeswood, Land Bank Administrator. Um the total back taxes um for this were $269,84643. The total asking price was $116,93.75. The total sales price was just over asking at $325. Just over $325. and we had a negative back tax collection of $152,52768. 26 of these 31 properties were sold for less than back taxes. There were five out of town purchasers and they purchased 11 of the properties.

Thank you so much. I see no commission in the queue. Let's take this item down for a vote. We have a tally. We have eye votes from commissioners Sugarman, Mills, Wright, and Bradford. We have four I votes. Thank you. This item goes down with a favor recommendation. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Es. I just may have a a point of privilege here. I do just want to highlight that the land bank is having a flash sale 25% off right now. Um it will end I believe on the 16th and then again highlight the um mandatory nonprofit uh NCC workshop. So if you know of any nonprofits that might want to get an NCC from the land bank, they must attend our workshop coming up on the 17th. We do intend to have some in the future, but we've got I think over 300 registrations currently. Yes. So um we're excited about that and uh please let me know if y'all have any questions and visit the land bank website for more information on either one of those. So, are you going to have another flash sale anytime in the future?

We are monitoring how this one is going and um I think we got over 40 applications over the weekend. So, that was good. Things had really slowed down. I mean, obviously the market's not the best right now. Uh but this it was in direct response to that and uh we we saw a nice little uptick. It's good. Commissioner Mills is in this queue. Thank you. 300 nonprofits have already signed up for the Esther Sykeswood Bank. We have 300 individuals signed up. So there might be multiple individuals with a nonprofit. Um but yes, and was that just with an online notice they sign up or did you mail out notifications to nonprofits?

We have done social posts and we uh we have not put out our um notice to to the media yet. Press release. Thank you. We have not put out a press release for this one yet, but we intend to. So I think we will get Is there is there a capacity? No, it's well a thousand. Or is it online? It's online. Yes. So, yes, that's that was the funding amount the Lamp Inc. had to host. It was an online. Okay. I'm I'm blown away at the number you've got already. I've got more questions. I'll follow up online on that. Thank you. Thank you so much. This concludes um Cororus City.

All right. I'll call to order committee number four, law enforcement, corrections, and courts. Madame Parliamentarian, would you read item one? Item one is a resolution to approve the purchase of Winchester ammunition from Precision Delta Corporation on behalf of the Shelby County Sheriff's Office. This item requires expenditure of fiscal year 2026 general funds in the amount not to exceed $166,744.39. Sponsored by Commissioner Mc Wright.

All right. Thank you. Uh looks like My screen is a little off, but it looks like this been moved by Commissioner Mills, second by Commissioner Bradford. Is that correct? Commissioners. Okay. Um, good morning, Chief Lindsay. You have the floor.

Good morning, Chairman Wright, Board of Commissioners. Alicia Lindseay, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. This resolution approves the purchase of Winchester duty and training ammunition for the Shelby County Sheriff's Office training academy for operational readiness. There's a need um that we must meet mandatory deputy training, firearm qualifications, and for duty use. And this ensures that we are in compliance with law enforcement standards and officer safety. The total cost of this purchase is $166,744.39 and funds are available in the Shelby County Sheriff's Office general fund budget. We are procuring this purchase via a sole source vendor precision precision data corporation and they are the regional vendor approved by the state of Tennessee. It has a state contract and the pricing is based upon that state contract. There is no impact to operations I mean personnel contracts or any subawwards. And if this purchase is not approved, then it will disrupt our training operations and our inability to meet certification standards. Uh the Shelby County Sher Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot to uh introduce you all to Lieutenant Hillyard. He's with our Shelby County Sheriff's Office training academy. So, if there are any technical questions, he can help help us with that. And so, the Shelby County Sheriff's Office recommends approval of this item, and we're happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Chief. Thank you, Lieutenant, for being with us. I don't have any or I don't see anyone in the queue. Um, and if that's the case, let's take this to a vote. We have eye votes from commissioners Sugarman, Mills, Wright, and Bradford. We have four I votes.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. That will move down with a favorable recommendation. Read uh can we read item two, please? Item two is a resolution approving a contract between Shelby County government and Landmark Construction and Emergency Services for the emergency installation of fencing at the Millington Annex facility at 6696 Navy Road on behalf of the Shelby County Sheriff's Office in the amount not to exceed $59,956.30. This item requires the expenditure of fiscal year 2026 general funds in the amount not to exceed $59,956.30. 30 cents sponsored by Commissioner Mc Wright.

Thank you so much. I have uh this has been moved by Commissioner Mills, seconded by Commissioner Sugarman. Chief Lindseay.

Thank you, Chairman Wright. Alicia Lindseay, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. The purpose of this resolution is to ratify an emergency purchase for the installation of security fencing at the FCI Millington annex. Uh there's an immediate need um due to safety and security concerns to install 8ft fencing around this building. At some point the Shelby County Sheriff's Office will move uh some detainees into that facility. So an emergency justification was approved by the purchasing department on December 4th, 2025 and a purchase order was issued on December 8th. And this is in cons this is consistent with the purchasing regulation RR200 which allows for the emergency purchases um for safety and security concerns. The scope of work includes installing two sets of 8ft fencing and the vendor selected is Landmark Construction. They were selected due to their capacity to respond immediately and to perform the work. The total cost to this project is 59,956.30. As I stated earlier, the purchase order has already been issued. The contract will run through June 30th, 2026. And again, this item formally approves and ratifies the emergency purchase. There is no impact to personnel, subawwards, or any equipment beyond defense and installation. The Shelby County Sheriff's Office um oh failure to approve this item could result in unressed security vulnerabilities. The Shelby County Sheriff's Office recommends a favorable approval of this item and we're happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you, Chief Lindsay, for that explanation. I don't have anyone in the queue on my screen. If no one seeking to be recognized, let's take this to a vote, please. We have eye votes from commissioners Sugarman, Mills, Wright, and Bradford. We have four I votes.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. That will go down with a favorable recommendation. Item three, u, could we read item three, please? Item three is a resolution approving a contract between Shelby County government and Benchmark Electric LLC for the emergency installation of emergency standby generators at 989 Dovecrest and 993 Dove Crest on behalf of the Shelby County Sheriff's Office in the amount not to exceed $343,614. This item requires expenditure of fiscal year 2026 general funds in the amount not to exceed $343,614. sponsored by Commissioner Mc Wright.

Thank you, Madame Parliamentarian. This item has been moved by Commissioner Mills, second by Commissioner Sugarman. Commissioners, I know we had uh actually we have a related budget item that I think would be required before we get to this. Um and so in that case, I'm going to move for this to be moved out to our April 22nd committee meeting.

Second. Um, so motion by me to move it to April 22nd, seconded by Commissioner Sugarman. Can we do that without objection hearing? None. So moved. So that item will be heard on April 22nd. All right, let's move on to item four, please. Item four is a resolution approving a contract between Shelby County government and ITW Food Equipment LLC DBA Hobart Services for the emergency repair and maintenance of dishwashing machines, ovens, warmers, and coolers in the jail kitchen of the main jail located at 2011 Popppler on behalf of the Shelby County Sheriff's Office in the amount not to exceed $54,87.30. This item requires the expenditure of fisc year 2026 general funds in the amount not to exceed $54,97.30. Sponsored by Commissioner Mc Wright.

All right. Thank you. This item has been moved by Commissioner Sugarman, second by Commissioner Mills. Chief Lindsay.

Thank you, Chairman Wright. Board of Commissioners, Alicia Lindseay, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. This resolution ratifies an emergency contract for repairs and maintenance of critical jail kitchen equipment at 2011 popular. Repairs are required for the dishwashers, ovens, warmers, and coolers, which are essential to daily food service operations for detainees. And failure of this equipment will create a risk to health, safety, and jail operations. An emergency justification was approved by the purchasing department on November 6, 2025. The purchase order was issued on November 19th, 2025 in accordance with rules and regulations 200 of purchasing policies um that allow for purchasing regulations when there is a a threat to safety. The selected vendor is ITW doing business is Hobart Services. The cost is $54,87.30. Funds are available in the Shelby County Sheriff's Office general fund budget. The contract will um the contract terms are through June 30th, 2026. And again, this formally ratifies the approval of the emergency procurement contract. There are no additional impacts to this contract. No personnel or subawwards and this supports the continuity of essential jail operations. The risk uh if not approved will be potential disruption to meal services for detainees and increased health and sanitation risk. The Shelby County Sheriff's Office recommends favorable approval of this item. And I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.

Thank you, Chief Lindsay. I put myself in the queue just because I noticed it looks like there might be a discrepancy in the caption between the two figures. Is that right? I'm seeing a 97 and an 87.

That's correct. Not sure which one is right. Alicia Lindseay, chief administrative officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. The correct amount is the $54,87.90. 30. Thank you. Okay. So the f save $10. So the fir that first figure is correct and the Okay, I'm going to make a motion that we amend the caption. Um second by Commissioner Mills. Can we do that without objection? Hearing none, so moved. So that caption should read the same in both instances and throughout the document or do I need to do that separately?

Yes, sir. And I'll just note for the record that we would just consider this a scrivener's error. So, this will still be on the consent agenda. We won't pull it off for that. Oh, great. Okay. Okay. Thank you.

All right. Commissioner, seeing no one else in the queue, let's take this to about unless Chief, are you good? All right. Let's take this to about We have eye votes from commissioners meals, right, and Bradford. We have three I votes.

Thank you, madam clerk. That will go down with a favorable recommendation. Can we read item five? Item five is a resolution from the Shelby County Board of Commissioners requesting the issuance of a study on the Justice Center ad hoc committee findings sponsored by Commissioner David C. Bradford Jr. and chairwoman Shante K. A van. Thank you. This item has been moved by Vice Chair Bradford, seconded by me. I will recognize Vice Chair Bradford.

Thank you. Uh commissioners, as you all are aware, uh this fall we had several meetings to discuss um uh the jail and a study done to um possibly relocate it. Um and so we put together the results of our finding and so this is just requesting that a uh RFQ be issued to start that process. Um we anticipate that study will take uh 12 months uh at least. Um and so the sooner we can get uh folks on board to do this uh the sooner we can get the results. Obviously, this current commission would not have the benefits of that study. Um, but the next commission would. Again, the intent of this is just to give that next body some idea of how how big of a facility is needed. Um, how much the construction of a new facility would be, uh, possible locations for the new facility. A lot of stuff we've already been discussing. This would hire a third party consultant to come in and do that. Um, I think there's, uh, uh, probably some, uh, political back and forth that we're going to get on this, uh, as to who funds this study. Is it the, uh, administration? Is it the sheriff? Is it the commission? Um, and so I think we're still trying to hash a little bit of that out. U,, but this was trying to get something in front of us uh, so that we could move this project forward and when we were out uh, lobbying for funding, we would actually have a uh, highle plan in place uh, to show folks what we're uh, looking for. So, I'm open to any additional questions.

Thank you, M. Uh, Vice Chair Bradford. Commissioner Mills, you're in the queue. Thank you. Um, what what is the difference in this and the jail study that was just done?

The jail study that just done, I believe, was done by CATAS. Um, and there's a lot of holes in that. Um, as we were going through on the ad hoc, there was additional questions uh that were not um answered in in that report. Um, one of the things we're asking uh in this RF uh Q to do is to study other similar municipalities uh to provide um information on how those uh municipalities function. Um we've had some discussions of moving the jail out of downtown but possibly leaving the courts here. What does that do to that relationship? Um it gives us a lot more detail and um the study should give us a lot more detail than what CASS provided us. Would CASS be willing to do that? um

plug the holes that we had questions on. That is a good question. Um I don't know that we have asked CASS for further involvement, but we could certainly reach out before this RFQ gets issued. Okay. I'd like to save money if we can. Agreed. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Commissioner Mills. My I had the same question, Mr. Vice Chair. I think um is now is this RFQ is it specifically just to that issue of location or is there is there more to it?

Um CASS provided a number of beds in the report and from the panel in the ad hoc there's a lot of questions um as to that seemed like it was too many and then other people on the ad hoc said we need a lot more. Um and so this was kind of a part of this study would help determine that. Um part of it would make recommendations for location um which I think was a big uh concern. Um and the ult ultimate uh result of this would be kind of a conceptual plan uh for the facility and I think the conceptual plan is something that CASS doesn't typically provide. Um so this would kind of give us an idea of spaces, square footages, that type of stuff and that would allow us to put a stronger budget together.

I had one more question but now it's escaping me. Oh, did we did did this body did we already accept and receive the ad hocs findings? Uh, that is a good question. I thought we had done that back in January. U, but if not, I'll pull it back up and make sure that gets in front of us as well. But this comes out of that ad hoc work. Yes. Yeah. Okay.

All right. Thank you. I see no one else in the queue. Let's go ahead and take this to a vote, please. We have eye votes from commissioners why Wright and Bradford. Commissioner Mills has abstained. We have three eyes, one abstained.

Thank you. That item will move down with a favorable recommendation. And that concludes committee number four.

All right. Good morning everyone. We'll call to order committee number one, budget and finance. If we can read item number one. Item one is a resolution amending the FY2026 Shelby County Health Department grant fund operating budget in the amount of $125,000 for the purposes of supporting the American Public Health Association, APHA, for the Injury and Violence Prevention Prevention Data Science Demonstration Project for the period beginning December 1st, 2025 through June 30th, 2026. This item requires the appropriation and expenditure of federal through private donor grants in an amount not to exceed $125,000. Sponsored by Commissioner Ms Clay Bibs.

All right. Item one moved by Commissioner Bradford, seconded by Commissioner Mills. All right. Morning report on this item.

Good morning, county commissioners. Casey Smith Alexander, deputy director of the Shelby County Health Department. The American Public Health Association has awarded Shelby County government $125,000 to support the Health's Department's Epidemiology Program Injury and Violence Prevention Data Science Demonstration Project, which began December 1st, 2025 through July 31st, 2026. This project will strengthen Shelby County's capacity to identify injury and violence through modernized data systems and represents a meaningful step towards enhancing both the efficacy and also the impact of our violence prevention work. The purpose furthermore for this project is to build the modern data in infra infrastructure and centralize, standardize and automate our injury and violence data set workflows, including the development of a public-f facing data dashboard to support community partners in prevention and intervention efforts. Funding this award will strengthen our data processing abilities. We are looking at buying and purchasing a PC capable of handling large data sets in the amount of $40,000 where it will do advanced analytics including natural language processing and machine learning. This computer will be built to be scalable file team's current machine learning data handling and analysis. We will also be looking for technical guidance from an experienced informatic scientist to ensure the best practices in data modernization including assessment of the current data infrastructure and recommendation for changes needed to support modernized data handling and analytics. Also, we will be looking for technical guidance on using natural language processing and machine learning methods. This process would help us with

the automation so that PDFs can be transformed and pulled so that gathered data can be gathered. Continuing education and professional development would also go a long way to sustained long-term knowledge and system maintenance efforts. The initial dashboard for this project will include near realtime death data relating to homicides and suicides as well as emergency department data rel relating to firearm injury, youth violence and intimate partner violence. Currently, there is a significant challenge which is the limited export functionality of the current data system that houses homicide and suicide data sets from the forensic center which results in our staff having to manually extract this data which is time-conuming process that increases the likelihood of potential human error. These delays directly affect our ability to provide real time responses to emerging violent trends. Automating the data extraction for homicide cases will reduce processing time from several minutes per case to just seconds. This system will help us rapidly detect emerging patterns and offer near realtime view as to who's impacted where the impact is most. When these incidents occur, this would be the most needed urgent needs within Shelby County. We ask that you respectfully approve this resolution so we may fully implement these improvements and advance Shelby County capacity to prevent injury and violence through timely highquality data. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Director Alexander, for that thorough report. Um do do we know who the is there is is APHA using a subcontractor or a vendor for this you know for the machine learning and or they doing it internally. Casey Smith Alexander we will be working with our IT here to actually purchase the equipment with them so that is compatible with our system.

Okay great. Okay. All right. I see no one else on the screen. Um we can prepare this item for a vote. Okay, we can close the screen and record uh the vote. Good morning. We have eye votes from commissioners Quley, Mills, Wright, and Bradford. We have four I votes.

Okay. Thank you. Item one will go down with a favorable recommendation. Item number two. We can do item two. Item two is a resolution amending the FY2026 Shelby County Health Department grant fund operating budget and accepting the full grant award in the amount of $2,999,921 including $261,527 for fiscal year 2026 for the purposes of supporting the Tennessee Opioid Abatement Council OAC Community Grant Program for opioid abatement and remediation activities for the period beginning January 1, 2020. 26 through December 31st, 2028. This item requires the appropriation and expenditure of state grant funds in an amount not to exceed $261,527. Sponsored by Commissioner Msklay Bibs.

All right. Thank you. Item two moved by Commissioner Wright, seconded by Commissioner Mills. All right. Good morning on the report.

Good morning, commissioners. Deputy Director of Division of Health Services, Lori Brooks. Uh this resolution is to amend the fiscical year 26 Tennessee Department of Health opioid abatement grant budget for the period of January 1 26 through June 30th 26 in the amount of 261,527 for a total grant award of 2.9 million. There is no local matching funds that are required as a condition of acceptance of this grant. Uh, this grant will add one full-time employee, which will be an epidemiology position. It will add one vending machine for a total of three vending machines for the grant and four total vending machines throughout Shelby County. The vending machines will be placed outdoors, allowing 247 access to free Nlloxxone and Fibinal strips. locations will include the downtown area, medical district, White Haven, as well as our current location that is in the East Memphis area. The grant will also cover the supplies for the vending machine. All Shelby County residents uh within these zip codes and throughout Shelby County will be covered by this grant. We ask that the commission approved this item. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you very much. Um, I see no one on the screen for this item. So, we can prepare the screen to vote on item number two. All right, we can close the screen and record the vote. We have eye votes from commissioners why Mills and Wright. We have three I votes.

All right. Item two will go down with a favorable recommendation. Uh item number three. Item three is a resolution amending the FY2026 Shelby County Health Department grant fund operating budget in the amount of $80,000 for the purpose of supporting the electronic order and lab result interface project funded by the Tennessee Department of Health for the period beginning May 1st, 2025 through June 30th, 2026. This item requires the appropriation and expenditure of FY2026 federal through state of Tennessee grant funds in the amount not to exceed $80,000. Sponsored by Commissioner Mslay Bibs.

All right. Thank you. Item three, moved by Commissioner Thornton, seconded by Commissioner Mills. All right. Uh Chief Randolph.

Good morning. Dr. Bruce Randall, interim director, Shva County Health Department. And so this is a resolution um seeking to add uh $80,000 to the budget. This allows us to um connect with the Tennessee State Lab and our lab in terms of being able to order and receive results from laboratory uh results from the lab. And so this is uh funds provided by the Tennessee Department of Health so that there's an interface between their electronic medical record system and our electronic medical record system. So there's direct communication. So we're asking that the commission approve this resolution. Okay. All right. Thank you, Dr. Randolph. Uh, I don't see anyone on the screen for item three. So, we can prepare the screen to vote. We can close the screen and record the vote. We have eye votes from commissioners why Mills right and Thornton. We have four I votes.

All right. Thank you. Item three will go down with a favorable recommendation. Item number four. Item four is a resolution amending the FY2026 capital improvement plan budget to reallocate and appropriate $350,000 originally approved for the firearms training unit burm reclamation project to the procurement and installation of emergency backup generators at 989 Dove Crest and 993 Dove Crest. This item requires the reallocation and appropriation of fiscal year 2026 capital improvement plan funds in total not to exceed $350,000 sponsored by Commissioner Mc Wright. This item was referred back to committee in March 30th, 2026 commission meeting.

All right. Thank you. Item four moved by Commissioner Mills, seconded by Commissioner Wright. Chief Lindsay.

Thank you, Chairman. Why Alicia Lindseay, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. The resolution before you seeks to amend or repurpose the fiscal year 2026 CIP plan and appropriate $350,000 from the burn project to emergency generators. This resolution does not request new money. It simply reallocates $350,000 existing in the CIP project from the firearm training unit BRM reclamation project to purchase and install emergency backup generators at 989 Duffrest and 993 Dove Crest. The need is driven by ongoing and repeated power outages affecting those two facilities. The outages have exposed the sheriff's office to operational disruptions impacting 247 law enforcement operations, emergency response coordination, officer training, officer readiness, and public safety. In short, this is just a practical reallocation or repurposing of existing funds. The Shelby County Sheriff's Office uh recommends favor favorable approval of this item, and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Chief Lindsay. Um, and I know we had on the next item, we had a few questions in commission, and I think it'd be helpful just to reiterate that the the BURM the BURM project is proposed to be funded by the next item, right? So, that is not being cut. It's just being funded by the next item. And then the item that is being reallocated from and the next one is still in the budget. So, I want to make sure that we have time to address that. But on item four, uh, this project is still proposed to be funded, but you're just reallocating from the burn unit, BERM project to these backup generators and then trying to refund that project in the next item. Is that correct?

Alicia Lindsay, chief administrative officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. Chairman Whe Okay, great. Thank you. All right, Commissioner Thornton. Thank you, Chair. Um, Chief Lindsay, so I see that this 989 Dove crest and 993 Dove Crest has been on the agenda for multiple items. You said that this is the training facility. Alicia Lindseay, chief administrative officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. One location is the training academy and the other location is the emergency services address. And so can you just give me a refresher of the the condition of these facilities?

Alicia Lindsay, chief administrative officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. Um, specifically to the generators, because that's what this item is about. There's a need to have generators for standby electricity in case of power outages. Okay, so the question was about the status of the facility. So what is the condition of these facilities?

Alicia Lindsay, chief administrative officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. Um, Commissioner Thordan, could you provide more context in your question like how old the facility is or because this is a need for Yeah. Could you provide more context to your question, please? Just are these age facilities? Are we um what's the condition of these facilities? Alicia Lindsay, chief administrative officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. May I get back to you via email and then perhaps at the Monday meeting with more detailed information on the age of the facilities. Okay, for sure. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Commissioner Thornton. Uh all right, Madam Clerk, I think we can prepare the screen to vote on item four. Okay, we can close the screen and record the vote. We have eye votes from commissioners why Mills Wright and Thornton. We have four I votes.

All right. Item four will go down with a favorable recommendation. Item number five. Item five is a resolution amending the FY2026 capital improvement plan budget to reallocate and appropriate $1,775,000 originally approved for the 2011 Popppler jail shower renovation project to the firearms training unit BM reclamation project. This item requires the reallocation and appropriation of fiscal year 2026 capital improvement plan funds in total not to exceed $1,775,000 sponsored by Commissioner Mc Wright. This item was referred back to committee in March 30th, 2026 commission meeting.

All right. Thank you. Item five moved by Commissioner Wright, seconded by Commissioner Thornton. Chief Lindsay.

Thank you, Chairman. Why Alicia Lindseay, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. The resolution before you seeks to amend or repurpose the fiscical year 26 capital improvement plan project uh for the jail showers to the firearms training unit burn reclamation project. That's a total of 1,775,000 that we're moving from one project to another project. The shower renovation project cannot be completed in fiscal year 2026 because the required architecture and design work must be completed before the project can go out for bid. And we've had challenges this year trying to get an architecture. We finally received that approval from purchasing and we're moving forward with the architectural plans for the jail shower. The jail showers will be in the fisc year 27 CIP project. So, we're not eliminating the jail shower project. We're just pushing it to fiscal year 2027 due to um the inability to obtain a vendor for the the design. And as it relates to the BM reclamation, which was the previous uh project that we were asking to repurpose to the generators, the cost is now about a 1,69,000 instead of 350,000. So that's why we're needing also to repurpose this 1,775,000, although we're not going to use all of it. Um, the Shelby County Sheriff's Office respectfully requests your favorable approval of this item and we're happy to answer any questions you may have.

Okay. Thank you very much. Um, can you just uh explain the quite significant cost difference between the 350,000 and over a million? Alicia Lindseay, chief administrative officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. So the BRM reclamation project was initially included I want to say in the fiscal year 24 or 25 CIP plan and now we're in fiscal year 2026 and just the cost of business inflation and all have increased the cost to do the burn project now.

So what was the delay? What was the the reason for the for the delay? So it was in the fiscal year 24 25 CIP plan, but it was for fiscal year 26. So even though it was in the fiscal year 24 25 CIP plan, it was for year 26. Sure. Okay. So that that's it was in the 5-year plan. Correct. Yep. Okay. All right. Commissioner Thornton. So thank you, Chair. So from fiscal year 24 or 25 when it was put into the CIP plan, um has the scope of the service changed at all?

Alicia Lindseay, chief administrative officer of Shelby County Sheriff's Office. No, Commissioner Thornton, the scope of the project has not changed.

And so with that being said, we're saying that it initially was put into the CIP budget for how much? Alicia Lindseay, chief administrative officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. $350,000 was the amount put into the CIP project in fiscal year 2025. 2425 for fiscal year 2026. It wasn't based upon, I would say, a hard estimate or quote from the vendor. It was just an estimate from our department. And so that figure 350,000 has now increased to a $1.7 million price tag.

Alicia Lindsay, chief administrative officer of Shelby County Sheriff's Office is actually about 1,68,000. I forget the rest, but less than 1,70,000, not 1,7. So my question is to legal because I just to see projections be put into the CIP budget and just be so off. Um that's a concern for me for how we're moving forward with budgeting our CIP budget. Um, so just to legal, is there anything that um I guess necessitates the the drafters of the request for the CIP plan that they actually get actual quotes or what are we how are they coming up with the budgets? It's just from the department heads to be able to decide what they request. Jordan Galelli, County Attorney's Office. If you give me one second, I'll have you an answer.

Okay. All right. Uh, Chief, I mean, this I think also might be a question for finance, but um because we obvious but Chief Lindsay, you can answer that, please. Alicia Lindsay, chief administrative officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. So, with the CIP project and budgeting now, we are providing quotes. So, for fiscal year 26, fiscal year 27, we did provide quotes. I don't know what happened in 2025. That's just based upon information provided to me.

Okay. Okay. Great. Yeah. And Chief Typton, if you would mind, I think it may bring up questions of other divisions just to as we're getting into the CIP process. I know there was a question on Monday around um you know, really trying to true up CIP spend, you know, as we get toward the end of the year. If we don't if we don't spend those, it goes back and there could be potentially projects that are more shovel ready that we could reallocate throughout the year. So I do think that that's a another issue, but just wondering if that is consistent across all divisions around being more accurate in our CIP projections.

Absolutely. Good morning, Audrey Tipton, director of administration and finance. Uh just to give you a little background on the CIP process, uh we do have a CIP uh committee that reviews all of the projects that are submitted to the 5-year plan and uh we allow you know the departments or electives to come and to uh express the need for that project. Uh as you know uh we have a limit or a cap on our CIP budget for each fiscal year and we try to include in the current fiscal year the things that are uh current that that are ready shovel ready ready to go and have to be done. the urgency. Uh uh CEO Lindsay is correct in that she submitted uh her project and they do an estimate because they have to come to us with all of those details explaining what the project is about and then we make the determination on what year it should come up. So she is correct in saying that she submitted her request in 24 I think and it it was for an out year. So it that's the way it moves up. And to address uh Commissioner Why um at the end of the current fiscal year, if you have a project uh you being direct uh the departments or elected officials, if you have a project that is within that current fiscal year and you do not fulfill that project or uh come to the commission and get a resolution to appropriate it, it does fall back and you lose that project. It goes back to the back of the five-year plan.

Yeah. Okay. I mean, I think uh there may and and we may need another item on this, but just uh potentially look at the process within the year since we're in the last quarter, you know, if we can get a snapshot across the board of all CIP projects and where they are relative to the budget. Uh because, you know, there may be an opportunity to more actively manage some of that before the year closes. um potentially if there are projects that are more along um rather than having to wait till the start of the new year. Uh it doesn't mean that that project gets cut. It just means that it clearly wasn't ready yet and will be pushed into the next year. But at least that way we're not leaving um investment on the table per se that could be reallocated uh in the similar way that we're seeing today from Chief Lindsay from other projects that are that are even larger than than these. So, just something to consider and there may be some language we need to put into the process around because we are in the last quarter. This would probably be the time to do it. Um, but I don't want to belabor that on this item, but just something Chief Tipton to be aware of. I think that would I think the this body would be interested in seeing that.

Thank you. Audrey Typton, director of administration and finance. Uh currently we do present on the quarterly report uh all of the projects and the status of them and um we hope to have that ready for you very soon so you can see all of the projects that are in play right now and where we are uh with those projects and we do depend uh we contact our departments and electives and let them know that their project is there and that they should do some movement on it as well. Okay, perfect. Great. Thank you. All right, Commissioner Thornon.

Thank you, Chair. Um, so when it comes to this 350,000 that has turned into 1.6 million, is there one particular vendor that you've sourced that has given you the quote increase? Alicia Lindsay, chief administrative officer. Yes. And so, do we have the vendor already selected or is this going to go out for bid for this particular project? Alicia Lindsay, chief administrative officer of Shelby County Sheriff's Office. We're going to uh procure it through emergency justification. So through emergency justifications means that you get to select the vendor.

Alicia Lindseay, chief administrative officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. Yes. Um and are we able today to say who that vendor is?

Alicia Lindsay, chief administrative officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. I believe the vendor is Metal Technologies. They've done similar work for us before at the training academy. And I want to just know more of what the justification is from Metal Technologies that is saying that this increase is warranted. I mean, this is times over an increase. And um I'm just fascinated by the inflation rate for this particular service and what they would say would be the justification for that. Um and so that that just as an aside, I'm going to make a motion to send this down without recommendation for additional discussion on Monday. But I would like to know um exactly who the vendor is and what is their rationale for the increase. And then when you talked about the architecture, um the inability to find a vendor for the design, can you just say more of why that was? Alicia Lindseay, chief administrative officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. Basically, it was cost prohibitive.

Okay, break that down for the public that's listening in. Like when we say that this particular because the public has come out to say that the showers are of concern that the condition of the showers is an immediate impressing concern and we are saying that we're going to push this off yet another budget cycle. So help us understand why a pressing concern cannot be a priority now because you're saying an inability for us to find a vendor that can complete the design. So cost prohibitive. What does that mean?

Alicia Lindseay, chief administrative officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. First, I want to make sure that we're um on the same page with the item before us. So the item before us is to reallocate or repurpose a current CIP project from the jail showers to the BM training reclamation project. That's the first thing. The second thing is I'll be more than happy to share with you the information, the quote that we received from the vendor regarding the $1,69,000. I'm not sure if they can tell you how it went from 350 to1,69,000 because I'm, as I stated before, it was a departmental estimate, but the the breakdown that we have of the 1,69,000 details everything that the project encompasses. And then thirdly, regarding the architecture and the cost being prohibitive, I'll be happy to share with you all the emails that we've gone back and forth with on vendors that we've tried to get get the architectural work um and engagement for that. First of all, please note that this 1,77 1,775,000 was for the entire jail shower project, right? So when you you thinking the shower installation and all that that that work and renovation, all of that has to be under the 1,775,000. But when we got quotes back on the architecture, it was a lot more. So that meant we weren't going to be able to do it anyway because the cost would have exceeded the 1,775,000.

Okay. All right. Thank you, Chief Lindsay. So there was a a motion to send it down without recommendation. Is there a second? Okay, I'll second it. Um, Chief Chief Lindsay, I think what would be helpful from what I'm hearing for Monday, uh, would be I think one to clarify that this was a department estimate, not a vendor estimate, and and that you've, um, change the process has changed going forward to ensure we're more accurate with department forecasts of actual costs. um because you know it's impossible to know what the vendor would have quoted back then and it likely would have been higher um than than what we internally estimated. So I think that's the estimation being clear about that. Um and then I think it also I think we I think we also want to see what your projection is for the the jail shower renovation project. Um, so what the plan is and how you plan to incorporate that within uh the FY27 budget so that we can get a sense of what the department estimate is for the total cost and the commitment to that project. Um because I think we we certainly seems as if we want to commit to that project. Um and we it would be good to see what we anticipate the actual cost to be. Okay. All right. So it's been moved and seconded to go down without recommendation. Can we do that without objection? Okay. Okay, hearing on item five will go down without recommendation. Thank you, Chief Lindsay. All right, this will conclude budget and finance. Uh we can open committee number 13, audit. And when we are ready, read item number one. Item one is a resolution receiving and filing Shelby County government annual comprehensive financial report for the fiscal year ending June 30th, 2025. Sponsored by Commissioner Michael Why.

All right. Item one moved by Commissioner Mills, seconded by Commissioner Wright. Okay. Um, all right. Good morning, Director Sham.

Uh, good morning. Daniel Sham, deputy director administration and finance. Uh, we have with us today Daniel Gogerty from Cherry Beckert and Christopher Hearn from Banks Finley and White to present our FY25 uh, audit report. Uh, before they start, I want to recognize our accounting team who is here with us today. As you all know, this is always lots and lots and lots of work over many, many, many months. Uh this year was no different. Uh we always have a goal of finishing by December. Uh we will have that goal again this year and hopefully we'll achieve the goal this uh for FY26. But uh I really uh especially want to uh call out Candace Wright who is our accounting manager without whom this would not be possible. she leads her entire team, but she really uh works tireless number of hours to make sure that we we get to the uh the end point. Um and so I just really want to thank everybody for that. Our controller uh Greg Cobbage is not uh in the room this morning. Uh over the last couple of years, he has really been very much leading on our system conversion. So Candace has had to step up even more. And so I just want to thank both of them for the work that they're doing on behalf of the county. With that, I will turn it over to Daniel.

Thank you very much for having me here today. I really appreciate the opportunity to speak to you all and and talk through this process of the audit and give you the final results. Do you have the Will you just state your name and title for the record, please?

Daniel Gogerty, a partner with Cherry Becker. And so if you have in front of you is a binded um presentation as it relates to the executive summary. Skip ahead to uh slide three and that has to do with our client service team. I'd like to always just recognize the team that served in the county's uh financial audit. Myself as the engagement partner on this engagement. Uh Lauren Stro as a second reviewer, Richard Hart was the senior manager. And then we had Chandler Ward and Nicholas Anastasia as the senior and associate. On page four we have here is we perform our audit in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards. Uh we also perform our audit in accordance with government auditing standards. That's all in which to form an opinion and provide assurance reasonable assurance that the financial statements are free from material misstatement. In terms of our audit, we had provided a uh unmodified opinion, also known as a clean opinion. Uh as it relates to the primary county as a whole, uh the only component unit that we were not able to opine on is related to your discreetly presented component units. The school board, which is audited by other auditors, had issued a disclaimer of opinion on the school board and so we could not form an opinion on that audit. But from the county standpoint, we have a audited and uh provided you with a clean opinion for all other activities of the county excluding the school board. Slide five is a long way of just saying that while as part of our audit, we will look at internal controls and we may comment on internal controls from time to time, we do not provide our opinion on the effectiveness of those internal controls. Slide six here talks about uh different control findings that we may have uh as it breaks to our audit. So this is just

moreformational to let you know when we say the term material weakness what we mean is a material error could go undetected or has gone undetected as a result of our audit. And uh there's a reasonable possibility that a material error could u exist. A significant deficiency is defined as one less than a material weakness but still important for us to make you aware of. And on the next few slides we'll talk about is a material weakness and significant deficiency that we had reported. So slide seven talks about the material weakness. What we found here is that we had uh multiple corrected and uncorrected adjustments which I'll go over in the next few slides. From those adjustments, we identified that while the county does have control process in place, it has reconciliation process in place. Those uh reconciliations could be improved upon to find these errors more timely. And so we just noted that because of the size of the errors, we determined that there was a material weakness uh related to this. I will say that from what we found, every error that was material was corrected in the financial statements that you see here today. And slide eight has to do with the significant deficiency. There were other reconcilations we also found areas for improvement in. Um but from these positions, these items that we found that we deemed to be a significant deficiency was not considered material but still important for us to make you aware of. The next two pages uh nine and 10 have four entries on it that relate to corrected adjustments. Under our auditing standards, we're required to communicate to you all the corrected adjustments that we had with the impact and what what funds are impacted and the the size of the adjustment. I won't read through each of these adjustments unless you have any specific questions. I can I'm happy to answer. Um but I will just say these were entries that we posted and uh uh proposed to management that they they determined was uh needed to be

corrected to determine the financial statements were uh materially correct. Skipping to slide 11, we have about seven or eight uh entries on the next three slides. Uncorrected adjustments. So uncorrected adjustments are things that we found as part of our audit that management did not correct in the current year because from a standpoint they were not considered overall material materiality for our audit. Uh I will say also a lot of these findings were found kind of later in the process through our audit work and not to delay the issuance of the financial statements any further were decided to just be passed on and and proposed and and posted and corrected in next year's financial statements. Skipping to slide 14. Uh the next few slides I will go through these fairly quickly. These are just required communications that we have to do on a yearly basis as it relates to our audit. Uh sometimes you will see this in the letter format. Uh we provide this in the presentation format to make sure these communications have been um communicated with you all. Note one is where your accounting policies lie. You did adopt a new accounting policy this year related to compensated absences. Compensated absence is your sick leave um and time off vacation acrruels. uh the the Gazsby decided that not only those that are settled in cash payments should be acred but also those that are more likely or not to be used over the term ofa of employment should be calculated. Uh based on the county's estimate there was no adjustments to the financial statements that required any restatement. Um and this has been effectively uh implemented. Slide 15 talks about related parties. Uh from a related party standpoint, uh we noted no issues with related parties. Uh we noted no related parties that were not already made aware to us by management and uh nothing to report there. 16 has about significant or unusual transactions. So unusual being kind of

outside the normal course of business of the county. If we come upon any of these items, we need to make you aware of it. And we noted no such items as part of this audit. Estimates are a critical part of our engagement. A lot of the financial statement numbers within the annual comprehensive financial report related to your pension, related to your capital assets, uh related to your other post-employment benefits deal with estimates uh provided by management. Uh we know to no management bias with any of those estimates or any inconsistencies with previous years. Financial statements disclosures are consistent, clear, and neutral. Uh we noted uh no issues with any disclosures. We just wanted to bring attention to the one disclosure that deals with the restatement that we applied. This is one of the corrected entries that we uh proposed and was posted by management and has to just do with the allocation of your internal service fund activity between your business type and your government type activities. Not a test being a test being audit. So no non- audit services were provided by our firm. Uh we are independent of the county. in fact an appearance and uh we noted no issues with any uh related independence issues. We had no difficulties encountered as part of our audit. We had no disagreements with management as part of our audit. There were no contentious uh items that needed to be consulted upon with other auditors within our office. We received the manager representation letter dated April 2nd um which the date of the financial statements were ready to be issued. Manage there were no management consultations. So no shopping for an opinion with other auditors. There are no other findings or issues noted. No fraud or illegal acts noted to us other than what was made aware to us by the state. And no going no issues uh with the county's ability to continue as a going concern. On page 72 just here it just talks about the information within the annual

comprehensive financial report. We provide opinions on your financial statements and on the notes of the financial statements. Everything else uh before and after that we do not provide uh an opinion on or we provide an in relation to opinion that they are in relation to the financial statements materially correct. New standards to be uh issued and and and and implemented by the county in the coming year is Gazsby 103 and 104. 105 will be in two years from now. Uh the biggest one will be 103 where just we'll talk a little bit more about changes in the management discussion analysis and your budgets will move from the front statements to your required supplement information and there will be more uh commentary on original to final budget amendments that are significant to the county and also final to actual results that are significant to the county will need to be discussed in that section. So with that, I just want to also just uh express my gratitude to the county to let us uh work as the external audit this past year learning the county and and working with uh everyone within finance. I do want to thank Director Typton uh deputy director Shauna Bomb um and then the finance team as a whole, but we worked really primarily with um Candace Wright and really worked really well with them in terms of being able to get the information we needed to get this completed. Um, not only is an audit a hard part, a hard thing to to to encounter and work through, but changing auditors and then also um working through an ERP implementation does create challenges. And so we do thank them for all their time and uh helping us through all the questions that we've had throughout the process. All right,

with that we'll turn it over to Chris to who uh banks Finley and White uh audited the uh custodial funds with the exception of the trustee.

Good morning. Um Chris Hearn partner with Banks Philly and White CPAs. The scope of our audit was the um county charter offices without the trustees office. Um the audit period was for FY um 2025. The audit was conducted in accordance with government auditing standards. We were able to issue a clean unmodified opinion on the financial statements which means the financial statements present fairly in all material respects the fiduciary position and changes in fiduciary net position of the county charter offices. On this next slide is just a snapshot of the total assets, liabilities, and net assets for each of the um charter offices. One important thing to note here is that um all of these are restricted funds, which means that these funds are not u for general use and county operations, but they're funds held for individuals or other government organizations. On the next slide, um internal control and compliance. Again, um we do issue a letter on internal controls during the audit. Our opinion on the audit is not meant to be an opinion on internal controls. However, we do consider internal controls and if we see um issues throughout the course of the audit, we uh mention them in our internal control letter. Um, as a result of the audit, there were three material weaknesses identified um, as internal control weaknesses. Of those three, two two of those findings were also reported as compliance findings. All of these findings are related to the um, county clerk's office. And the next page just gives a summary of our findings. On the first finding, we cited there was a um just a lack of control environment, meaning there's um lack of oversight

form lack of formal control policies and a deficient tone at the top. This finding is really directly related to the next two findings. And the next finding is that the um clerk's office was not a unable to provide bank reconciliations for the year. And then the next finding is that um the the clerk's office was unable to provide an annual financial report. So in order to get us to the point where we can get a clean unmodified opinion, we had to perform alternative audit procedures and use information um from the trustes office to reconstruct records for the um clerk's office to get us to a point where we can um feel comfortable issuing a clean unmodified opinion. So these are the three findings. Again, we did give an unmodified opinion. Um, these findings do not affect the opinion, do not affect our opinion, but um, if you look at the actual report, we give some pretty detailed recommendations on what we think needs to happen to fix these issues in the office. The next um, page is just highlights from the governance letter. Again, no new accounting policies were issued. Um the financial statements do contain estimates. The most sign um sensitive estimate in the financial statements here would be um related to investment values. Um note one discloses the significant accounting policies and um there were no disagreements with management or cons consultations with other independent accountants that were reported and difficulties um encountered during the audit. did incur some difficulties um getting this audit done just based on um the county clerk's inability or refusal to provide certain audit information. Um and that's my presentation.

Okay. Thank you very much. Uh before I go to the screen, just want to go back um to the overall county audit. Can can you what what was the I guess the overall change in the net position as a result of the the restatements? I mean I follow some of this. Can you just give us like the so we understand what was the overall change?

Sure. It was an improvement of deposition for the business type activities and a lessening of the net position for the government activities. But I do want to just stress here this is an allocation of just your internal service funds. So that count, those central services, the litigation, all tor liability, everything related to that where you had maybe an operating loss or an operating income that gets allocated at the front statements. It doesn't affect your net position as it relates to um your actual just enterprise funds individually. Okay, great. Just wanted to clarify that. All right, thank you. All right, Commissioner Wright.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, um, want to ask about the custodial funds report and, um, I I know this body took the extraordinary steps of of passing a resolution asking the county clerk's office to work with you to obtain the materials that you required to complete the audit. Was that um, did that resolve positively? Were Were you able to receive it? It sounds like from from the findings here that um alternative measures had to be taken. Um which to me suggests that that you you did not obtain um the materials you had requested. Is that is that an accurate

that that's accurate? Um she just didn't have them. But after um the resolution was passed, we did um receive more cooperation from our office because even with performing the alternative audit procedures, we still needed cooperation from that office and we did get it after that resolution was passed. Can you help us understand what exactly the breakdown was with that? I know that the the management response here is now everything's good. Um, but you know, all due respect, I we've heard this before, right?

So, are these things um is this anything out of the ordinary that you're asking for? Because that that's what it sounded like in the commentary in our committee related to this. Um that that somehow the clerk's office was taken by surprise what with what you were asking for. But to me, this reads like very standard practice.

Yes, it's very standard practice. Nothing out of the ordinary. What we ask for basically um basic bank reconciliations and then just your annual financial um information reported as if the year in. and the U bank reconciliations, the finding on bank reconciliations and the finding on not being able to provide the annual financial report are also cited as compliance issues because the there's um specific um state statutes that require reconcil reconciling bank accounts for that office and providing annual financial reports. Is there any degree to which your firm or this audit um provides a reflection on the management response or is that sort of the final word is you you just incorporate what the manager response is or do you appine on that further?

We do not opine on the management response and um in our internal control letter um I think it's probably that last paragraph and that internal control letter actually states that we don't audit or appine on any of management's findings. Well, um, come September, we'll have a new county clerk. Uh, perhaps one that will, um, work better with this body, uh, with administration. I look forward to that. Thank you, Mr. Chair. All right. Thank you, Commissioner Wright. Uh, Commissioner Mills.

Thank you. U, my first question, um, it came up, um, why were the multi-million dollar errors not caught internally before the audit? on the big numbers.

Uh Danielle Shanbomb, deputy director administration and finance. Um there's a a lot of moving numbers. The the county is very decentralized. We we do have as uh Mr. Gogerty said a variety of review processes. Obviously uh we are working to strengthen those review processes not to have such errors going forward but being in the middle of a system conversion. Our level of review was uh not as strong as we would hope it would have been. Um so uh you know we just made some errors. Okay. And um on the ones that were labeled I think they were called im immaterial. Um at what point do they become concerning or material?

Yeah. So when when you have those kind of errors, they could lead to like while they're a small amount today, it could lead to a material misstatement if they're not corrected on a timely basis. We felt that based on the work we did and what we looked at really it did not spread across anything else. So that's why we felt like it did not go material. But yes, if if unchecked and uncorrected for multiple years, that that balance could result in a material error over time um if not uh reconciled, but we're making sure that it's not going to come to that.

Yes, let me say we we take all findings very seriously. Um you know, we are never happy to have findings. Um we are working to strengthen our controls again to have additional reviews um to make sure that when we are working with other departments in the county that that refu review of their work is thorough enough um yes we are working to doing towards doing better. Thank you. Thank you Commissioner Mills. Commissioner Thornon.

Thank you chair. So, I do want to get a firm understanding of um I guess the county clerk's reception of these particular findings. So, we've sat down with her and her team and she has acknowledged the issues. Correct. As you said, has she acknowledged the issues? Yeah. In the past, we've heard from the clerk that there was a lack of communication noticing her of um I guess certain things that have been implemented by the county commission. And so I'm just curious with the three findings that are stemming from her office,

has she acknowledged that um these particular findings were the the summit of reports from the audit? Uh yes, she's acknowledged because she provided um response to each of the findings. Okay. And so in her responses, do we have anything that corrects the three material weaknesses that were reported? Um, just from looking at the findings, um, I'm not sure I really see anything concrete in here, but again, the findings, we don't audit the findings. Um, we just incorporate them as a part of our audit report. um since we give a finding we do give them the opportunity to respond but um we don't opine on anything that they say

you know the concern is just the magnitude of just the amount of collections coming through this office and so to have um the only findings in the report come from one particular office um I would want that reassurance that moving forward that something would be corrective and so what is your professional opinion because we are at a crucial point to be able to elect the new Shelby County clerk. And so what would you um I guess advise to whoever is going to be the successor to the current clo um to the current clerk um to be able to reconcile the issues reported.

I would say um just looking at the um first finding number one the control environment internal controls um starts with the tone at the top. So, the next person in our office needs to be sure that they have a serious attitude about um internal controls and their financial responsibilities related to that office.

And it's been brought to my attention um this was early on when I first started my term that clerk Halbert requested a comprehensive forensic audit that she says she was never given. Do you believe that that is a necessary step to be able to reset this office? Um I don't know if a forensic audit would be the um right thing to do. I think it would just be um taking a deep dive looking at the processes in place, policies and procedures and um you know financial um closing reporting process and making sure that you know people are assigned to the um duties that they have the competencies to um do

and chair I'm going to get back in queue just for a couple more questions. Okay. All right. Commissioner Thornne. Thank you. So the whole can you just because we have a professional in front of us. I'm going to take liberties here. Um we've talked about audits as a body in the past. So when a comprehensive forensic audit is requested, what does it give back to the county? If we want to just have a firm understanding of where all the gaps are in any particular office, what type of audit should be requested from the start of a new term or just administration?

Say what I Well, I would say um I wouldn't say a forensic audit because to me a forensic audit means that you're um looking for theft or looking for something wrong. Um I would think um for that office it would more um a um internal control review. I think that would be more helpful than anything because when you think about the um the process and way the way these offices work um they have bank accounts but those accounts are swept every night into the trustees office. So cash coming in um is swept every night and accounted for by the trustee. And so we we were able to get real comfortable with cash because we knew that as soon as that cash comes in, it goes right to the trustes office and we can um account for it there in the trustees records. But I think the issues here just relate more around um controls, internal controls and policies. And does the county clerk currently have any systems in place to know how much cash is flowing through the office into the trustes office?

Well, that would be the bank reconciliations and preparing the financial reports. Those are the systems that are put in place that should um that should be used to do that. And you said that those were missing. That yes, they were missing. So currently the answer to that question would be no, right? And to resolve that issue, that would just be incumbent upon the leader over the county clerk's office. Yes. To start preparing um monthly bank reconciliations and monthly financial reports, annual financial reports.

Thank you. I'm just going to ask to the clerk um the our current county clerk and her team on Monday. If someone could be present, then that would just be helpful for us to hear um why we are not preparing these documents to the extent that they need to be. um definitely not so there can be findings in these particular conversations. Um we need to there's so much money that's involved in this particular office and it is very very um crucial that we have top tier financial reporting. So thank you for being here and for answering these questions. You're welcome. All right. Thank you uh Commissioner Wright.

Thank you. Uh thank you Mr. Chair. I did want to um follow up on something my colleague said a moment ago because I I think there is when you have a new um set of electeds over many of these departments and we're expecting you know a lot of turnover in as of September 1. Um I guess my question be and then thank you Mr. Chair just for the opportunity to bring this to the to discussion but would be for Mr. Trromb I I guess to her question about an audit or anything. Um I I'll just put it this way. I have seen at least one candidate, there's probably multiple candidates who are recommending that some sort of special audit be performed uh either on the concluding end of of the last term of office or to kind of set them uh fresh going forward. Um, I will say before you answer that, this clerk did receive a forensic audit in 2019 and we do have access to that also happened again in 2024. So, we we have addressed this office multiple times. But um just going forward, is there anything that we can be doing maybe this budget year to prepare for any kind of uh special audits or special um reviews?

Danielle Shamb, deputy director of administration and finance. It I I believe it's really up to the elected official to request such as when they come into the office to if they want to request to have a forensic audit. Um as uh Mr. Hearn said uh to me what would be more meaningful is to understand what the state regulations are. Uh you know the state CASS does provide training for new elected officials and to understand what those responsibilities are and uh to make sure the internal controls and policies and procedures are in place to um to properly manage the office.

Yeah. going back um I've had some trouble re um with some of the documents not coming up from past years whether it be the agenda itself or particular resolutions but I know enough to to to have seen that commissioners in the in the recent past have requested some sort of audit um to to happen alongside a a new person taking office in a lot of these clerk's roles And that's something we have done, but I I've not been able to get to um what the cost of that were or exactly how they were formulated. But I would just yeah, I guess I would just leave that with you. I think multiple commissioners would like to see us at least thinking through that and and setting aside funds with in this budget if some of those electeds do wish to move forward with with a special audit.

All right. Uh, thank you so much. Uh, thank you all. Thank you commissioners. I think madam clerk, please prepare the screen to vote on item number one.

Okay, we can close the screen and record the vote. Thank you also uh to the entire finance team. Uh just want to echo that. Uh incredible job this year especially. So thank you for all of your work. Uh and we can record we can call the call the vote. We have I votes from commissioners why Mills, Wright, Thornton, and Bradford. We have five I votes.

All right. Uh item one will go down with a favorable recommendation and this will conclude committee number 13. I don't believe uh Commissioner Lowry is here or have not seen Commissioner Caswell. So, I'll go ahead and call to order committee number seven, economic development, tourism. Item one is a discussion item to last approximately 15 minutes. Hip hop museum updates. Michael Ford and John Mitchell presenting.

Thank you. It's my understanding from staff that uh Commissioner Lowry uh is going to ask to defer this to April 22nd meeting. So, I'll make a motion to defer this to April 22nd. Got a second from Commissioner Thornton. Any objections? All right. Hearing none, this item will be heard on the 22nd.

Commissioners, we got one more committee. I have to go. Can I have a volunteer to chair this one? Yeah, I can. I can take it. Thank you. All right. Uh, let's call order committee number three, hospitals and health. Item number one.

Item one is a resolution approving the purchase of one new and unused 2025 Ford E450 customized mobile van from Quality Vans and Specialty Vehicles in an amount not to exceed $216,000 for the Shelby County Division of Health Services for the Community Health Services Bureau located at 814 Jefferson Avenue. This item requires the expenditure of 2026 grant funds for a total amount not to exceed $216,000. Sponsored by Commissioner Miss Clay Bibs. Okay. Thank you. Item one moved by Commissioner Thornton. I will second the item. Okay. All right. Good morning.

Good morning, Commissioners. Again, Lori Brooks, Deputy Division Director Health Services. This resolution approves the purchase of one new 2025 Ford E450 customized mobile van with a cost not to exceed $216,000 for the Shelby County Division of Health Services. An emergency justification was requested and approved by purchasing in July 2025 to purchase the mobile van due to the funding availability in fiscal year 2025. The finding was acred The funding was acred in fiscal year 25 and will be expended in fiscal year 26. The Shelby County Health Department mobile health clinic will provide STI and HIV prevention services, testing, diagnosis and treatment along with uh ending HIV epidemic services such as nlloxxone and fitnel strips. The Shelby County Health Department aims to improve health outcomes by making health care accessible to those infected and affected by STI and HIV and underserved populations, reducing barriers like transportation and availability of services. The mobile clinic will travel throughout Shelby County, but will specifically target high-risisk populations that experience a high incidence of STI and HIV. Thank you for your consideration. All right. Thank you so much, Director Brooks. Uh, I see no one else on the screen. Commissioner Thornne, go ahead.

Thank you, Chair. So, I wanted to look at the vendor data. And so, we had 20 direct solicitations for this, five local, eight non-local, and a total of six vendor submitted bids. This particular item was awarded to a non-local vendor, correct? because all of the six vendors who uh bid on this were classified as non-local. So, I really just want to push um the county to really start to look to see some of the reasons why um our local vendors are not able to successfully submit bids. Um and I'm just curious in this particular item because there were five local um direct solicitations, what would be the the narrative around this? So is someone from purchase uh well really from EOC here just to talk about what we might be able to understand about this particular item. James Glocks, administrator the person. So, I would have to follow up because this request is actually an emergency and we need to I'll follow up and actually see what happened with the seal bid cuz this request in front of us is what the first one

that's an emergency request. That's what that'll be. Okay. So, let's make it plain for the public. So when you're saying that this is a request for an emergency, that means that the department has the discretion to pick their vendor. Correct. So I need to get more information cuz I think initially we did put out a seal bid. I don't know what happened transaction would happen, but this in front of us is an emergency be I mean emergency uh justification from the department. Okay. So, just for the sake of clarity, I'm going to make a motion to send I see Commissioner Mills is in Q. Um, chair, afterwards, I'll make a motion to send this down without recommendation.

Okay, great. All right, Commissioner Mills. I'll second that when it comes time. Um, my question, these are grant funds and they're an emergency. Deputy Division Director. Deputy Division Director Lorie Brooks. Yes. So, the Shelby County Health Department received grant funds from the Tennessee Department of Health uh during fiscal year 2025. Uh these funds were requested to uh to utilize for a mobile clinic and so from there we look to get a seal bid for a mobile van.

Okay. But it's it's an emergency. Did were the grant funds requested and on an emergency basis and this snowballed from that or time was running out time sensitivity it's an emergency or the issue it's trying to address is the emergency. So the Shelby County Health Department received these emergency funds at the end of last fiscal year. So we received uh the funds from the Tennessee Department of Health at the end of February. We were trying to expense the funds for a mobile clinic before the end of June 30th. So, we requested the bids in uh the first part of March so that we could expense those funds throughout uh for the end of that fiscal year. If we had not expensed those funds, we would not have received the mobile unit for the Shelby County Health Area.

Okay. So, it was a time thing. Yes. Okay. Thank Thank you. All right. Thank you, Commissioner Mills. Mr. Coswell

and appreciate and again I'll second I'll be with the motion when it come but I just wanted to get I know we had items like this before when you talk about specialty vehicles and the fact that many times uh I was in the car business for many years and I understand that I wouldn't buy certain vehicles because of a one-time use of a vehicle right so it maybe to purchase and then director you might can look into this uh to see if it was no one local because we just wouldn't carry one vehicle that something like this that would have been for a one-time county use, right? Or something like that. And I say that because commissioners, I just left I was spending the day with CAPS yesterday and looking at their mobile unit. They're getting ready to buy a bigger mobile unit to go and to do some of this type of work, HIV work. They are also doing some mental health coming to our neighborhoods with that unit, but they had to order it from outside because it was no one doing a 40ft trailer specialy vehicle for that. So, I just I know that was something that came up yesterday when we was looking at the vehicle they do have that's a shorter version of the one they getting now. So, and I'm not giving y'all the answer to to maybe that being the reason, but I know when we talked about fire trucks and things in the past when it comes to specialty vehicles, no one local was just going to hold that for a one-time government type of thinking about doing this type of deal, right? So, I just wanted to put that there. But I'm open to letting y'all get whatever information you need to to second what Commissioner Thornton put forth to get more information. Thank you, Chair.

All right. Thank you, Commissioner Caswell. So, there was a motion by Commissioner Thorne, seconded by Commissioner Mills to send this down without recommendation. Can we do that without objection? Okay. Hearing none, it one will go down without recommendation. Item number two.

Item two is a resolution approving seven subreient contracts. AIDS Healthcare Foundation, $200,000. Friends for Life, DBA, Friends for All, $300,000. Hope House, Inc., $400,000. Memphis Health Center Outreach, Wait a minute, excuse me. Memphis Health Center, $200,000. Methodist Laboner Community Outreach, $200,000. Positively Living DBA Choice Health Network, $200,000. and Tri-State Community Health Center, $200,000 for the purpose of administering core medical and supportive services to individuals living with HIV under the ending the HIV epidemic grant effective upon the date of the last signature of the parties through February 28th, 2027 with the option to renew for two additional one-year periods. This item requires the expenditure of FY2026 federal grant funds not to exceed total amounts of $1,700,000. Sponsored by Commissioner Msa Clay Bibs.

All right. Thank you. Item two moved by Commissioner Thornton, seconded by Commissioner Caswell. Uh Deputy Director Brooks.

Commissioners, uh, this resolution approves state your name one more time and title. Thank you. Lori Brooks, Deputy Director, Division of Health Services. Uh, commissioners, this uh, resolution approves seven new Ryan White subreient contracts for the period of March 1st, 2026 through February the 28th, 2027 with an option of two one-year renewals utilizing federal grant funds from the fiscal year 26 grant operating budget. The Shelby County Health Department Ryan White program is the recipient of federal funding for the ending the HIV epidemic initiative through the uh human health resources and services administration. These programs support a comprehens comprehensive system of care for people with HIV in the Memphis transitional grant area. The Memphis transitional grant area includes Shelby County, Typton and Fet, Critan, Arkansas, and Dotto, Marshall, Tate, and Tuna, Mississippi. The purpose of the Ryan White funding is to provide core medical services, HIV related medications, and essential support services to lowincome people living with HIV and AIDS who have no other means to pay for their care. Ending the HIV epidemic initiative complements the Ryan White program by providing additional support focused on reducing new HIV infections and addressing gaps in care and treatment. The ending HIV epidemic funded services are designed to reach priority populations including those who are newly diagnosed, out of care or not ver uh virally suppressed and to address barriers such as stigma, housing instability and mental health needs. These innovative community focused interventions help advance the federal

goal of ending the HIV epidemic in the United States and the Memphis TGA. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much for the presentation, Commissioner Thornton.

Thank you, Chair. Um, I've asked questions about your subreients in the past. So, are these the same subreients that you've worked with or are any of these new Lori Brooks, deputy division director, Shelby County Health Department? Uh, yes, we do have two new subreients. We have the AIDS Healthc Care Foundation as well as Tri-State Community Health Center. The other subreients are prior recipients. You said the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and who was the second one? Tri-State Community Health Center.

And so when we think about where each of these subre recipients are headquartered, is there a way that you can get that information by Monday to show us just some type of um mapping of where each of these are? because it would be interesting to me if where there are priority zip codes for the HIV epidemic if none of the subreients are headquartered in those same zip codes. So in essence, I'm just trying to ask do you can you create for this commission some type of um geolocating of where are the priority zip codes? I'm sure there's some way for us to be able to determine what would be a priority zip code and then where are these actual subreients um headquartered and I just ask just because we know that the transit system has a lot of gaps in it and I believe that they're still offering free rides but once that subsides then we'll go back to the norm of people not being able to actually have access to care just because of the lack of transportation. So, um, you know, if we are funding organizations that are not approximate to where the needs are, then I would want us to address that gap. Lori Brooks, deputy director, division of health services. So, Commissioner Thordon, yes, we can provide that information, but as it relates to the Ry White program, they actually provide services based upon the program and the priority areas. And when you look at those priority areas, we then can provide you information as it relates to the zip codes and where those services are being provided based upon those priority areas.

So if I hear you correctly, Ryan White gives you certain targeted areas that you have to um serve. So the planning council for the Ryan White program provides priority list of services that should be provided within the Memphis TGA. So then when you look at those specific priority areas, then we can map out where those services are being provided based upon zip codes. So the Ron White planning council will decide uh how much money is going to be spent on medical case management, how much money is going to be spent on food pantry or what those related services are. So then once we look at those core services, we then can map out where those services are being provided based upon the people that actually receive services for Ryan White program.

All right, Commissioner Thornne, you're back in the queue. Thank you, chair. And um can that information be provided by Monday? Yes, Commissioner. I'm sorry, Lori Brooks, deputy division director for health services. Yes, we can get that information provided to you.

Okay, awesome. um you can send it to the entire body and I'll just I mean I know that this is going um where it needs to but meaning that these particular entities are doing the work. I don't doubt that. My question is it's just about accessibility and so I would like for that just to be made plain and I'll look for that email and if there are any additional questions then I'll pull this item on Monday. The only last question that I have is just about awareness. So do y'all do any marketing? um in tandem with allocating these resources to the subreients so that the public can be aware that the AIDS healthcare foundation and friends for life that these are recipients of funding and that these are the places that people should refer people to receive additional supports. Lori Brooks, deputy director, division of health services. So the Ryan White program does not provide for marketing of Ryan White program, but we do have a website that will provide a listing of all of our subreients as well as the services that are provided by those subreients. So I'll direct this to um you know, our director chief and hopefully you'll continue on as this administration shifts. Um we have to close that gap. So when we come when it comes to just a public health priority, I would think that the crisis surrounding this epidemic would warrant additional dollars to be able to educate the public both about preventative measures and I would think about any type of um interventions that would exist, but just really just about where resources are headquartered. We cannot assume with the challenges that we're facing in education and what that means in terms of just life decisions that people are just going to casually go to one website and just look to see where information is. That's just not how it happens. So when we think about, you know, how generations um our younger

generations under 40 are receiving information, the Tik Toks, the Facebooks, the Instagrams, doing these boosted ads and being able to reach them um would be a wise decision particularly because what has been the most concern to me is how low the numbers are of when we think of exposure rates and just spikes. these age ranges are getting into the teenage ranges and we know that there's something that prevents us from being able to just rush into our schools to educate. So, they have to get this information outside of their schools and if we're not doing any type of marketing, I don't understand how we expect for them to actually um be made aware of better decisions that they can make. So, I just want to hear more in these conversations. Even if that's some of the plans from the subreients, I would like to see a concerted effort across all of the subreients so that they can commit to one shared marketing and outreach campaign so that we can know that this investment is going to have an amplified impact because we are doing additional investments into marketing. Does that does that make sense? And can you just speak to how viable of a request that is?

Lori Brooks, deputy director, division of health services. So, let me clarify, Commissioner Thordon. We do do outreach as it relates to social media, our websites, Tik Tok, and all of those different components. However, Ryan White does not pay for print ads such as marketing on television, those type of things. However, we do uh provide services with our community advocates as well as our hospital entities, all of our community partners. there is an effort to meet with them as well as them being a part of our planning council component. So we do do social media marketing, we do market with our community partners. However, we do not uh have funds to actually do TV marketing component. And just as a point of privilege chair, I'm just specifically asking those on this $ 1.7 million slate to include them in the outreach. make sure by organization and um just by organization that the public knows that these are supported organizations through funding coming through the federal government. Thank you.

All right. Thank you so much. Um madam clerk, we can prepare the screen to vote on item number two. And we can close the screen and record the vote. We have eye votes from commissioners why Caswell, Mills, Wright, and Thornton. We have five eye votes.

All right. Thank you. Item two, we'll go down with a favorable recommendation. Item number three.

Item three is a resolution approving 13 subreient contracts. Hope House $800,000. Shelby County Healthcare Corporation DBA Regional One Health. I believe that's $2 million. Mental and emotional resource center, $250,000. East Arkansas Family Health Center, $300,000. Methodist Laboner Community Outreach, $75,000. Christ Community Health Services, $1,100,000. Sacred Hearts Southern Mission, $200,000. The Mobile Ministry of Dentistry, $400,000. AIDS Healthc Care Foundation, $315,000. Navigating Courage Counseling, $142,72. Serenity Recovery Centers, $120,000. Positively Living, Inc. DBA Choice Health Network, $200,000. and Friends for Life, $1 million for the purpose of administering core medical and supportive services to individuals living with HIV under the Ryan White Part A MAI grant March 1st, 2026 through February 28th, 2027 with the option to renew for two additional one-year periods. This item requires expenditure of FY2026 federal grant funds not to exceed a total amount of $6,92,72. sponsored by Commissioner Msklay Bibs.

All right. Thank you. Item three moved by Commissioner Thornton, seconded by Commissioner Caswell. Uh Deputy Director Brooks,

Lori Brooks, Deputy Division Director, Shelby County Health Department. Uh, commissioners, this resolution approves 13 new Ron White subreient contracts for the period of March 1, 2026 through February the 28th, 2027 with an option of two one-year renewals utilizing federal grant funds from the fiscal year 26 grant operating budget. Shby County government through the division of health services is the recipient of the part A MAI grant federal funds through the health resources and services administration and is responsible for providing planning and programmatic oversight for the HIV AIDS core medical and supportive services to be delivered by nonprofit organizations in the Memphis transitional grant area. The purpose of the Ryan White Part A MAI funding is to provide these services uh as it relates to HIV related medication and essential support services to lowincome people living with HIV AIDS who have no other means to pay for their care. The Shelby County Division of Health Services uh respectfully uh requests your approval on this Ryan White program subreients.

Okay, thank you. Uh before I go to the screen, uh we just need to clarify the amount that's allocated toward regional one. Um there's an error in the caption. So just it's either 200,000 or it's 2 million. So we just need to make sure we have it right. Lori Brooks, deputy division director of health services. It is $2 million. Okay. So I'm going to make a motion just to clarify that that number is 2 million to regional one. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Seconded by Commissioner Thornton. Without objection, we'll make that change. Thank you. All right, Commissioner Thornon.

Thank you, Chair. Okay, so we have roughly $9 million going towards the HIV epidemic. Um now my it's more than curiosity for me. It's a matter of just um really just desperation. Where are these organizations headquartered? So, um I'm going to pull this item on Monday. So, if someone could come back to be able to publicly present this information, we this is such a sizable investment and I would hate for it to not um actually make the impact that it needs to make because we haven't discussed this conclusion that the majority of the monies are not actually proximate to the issue. I cannot stress that enough. We have to be able to make these the same way that Memphis 3.0 know has changed streetscapes to be able to make streets walkable and increase accessibility. It's the same thing with our resources. $9 million and I'm preaching to the choir here, but I have to preach has to be walkable in these communities where we know the issue is. And so I want to see that on paper. I want to make sure on Monday that the public understands again that we have an HIV ep epidemic that Memphis actually and I'm I'm pulling Memphis out of Shelby County because it's my understanding that the the epidemic is um more of a pressing um issue within the Memphis municipality um that we need to be able to create a plan here. Our children are being exposed um just through a lack of basic understanding and education. And so because we are not legislatively able to do certain things or legally able to do certain things, that means we have to be proactive in terms of just how we get these resources to the households, the families, the atrisisk youth that need this information. So, I want to make sure that the strategy that we're implementing that it's solid and that we have community-based partners that are affiliated with these subcontractors because I've had a number of organizations within my district that

are not listed here. And so, I just want to know that where the money is going that they can actually get to it and that they actually are aware of who's receiving the monies. And so, maybe this would warrant a larger conversation with you um Dr. Um, it's Randolph.

Dr. Randolph. Um, just so we can just make sure that this $9 million is getting somewhere. Y'all, I can't stress enough. Um, these are lifealtering diagnosis and we need to make sure that we're doing everything we can with this $9 million to make it deeply, deeply impactful. So, to the public, tune in on Monday cuz we're going to need everyone to be able to get this information where it needs to be in our communities. and we are clearly making a sizable investment of $9 million into this issue and I wanted to see it work. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Commissioner Caswell.

Thank you, Chair. I first I want to take a point of privilege. I just want to recognize Miss Campbell. I believe it is one of my mentors uh when I grew up in the Dixon Home Project. I can say I'm sitting here today because she put up with me as a child growing up. So, thank her and and you're in the right program as a leader and what you're doing. Thank you all for being here. But secondly, I I speak to and I hear my colleagueuh sentiments on this. I I know again meeting with CAP. I know they got a long-term HIV program. I was just wondering how do how was these uh is it an RFP that was put out that they had the opportunity to apply for this.

Lori Brooks, deputy division director health services. So yes, an RFP did go out uh to all subreients as well as any individual or entity within Shelby County or the Memphis DGA that provides HIV AIDS related services, mental health counseling. Based upon that RFP, we then looked at the services that were dedicated regarding the planning health council, the amount of money that was dedicated for those particular services. And after that, we actually went through and looked at was it a current subreient or if it was a new subreient. We did an audit to see what was their threshold of the number of people that they could service within Shelby County and the Memphis TGA based upon that information. Uh dedicated numbers or dollars were uh provided for that institution based upon the RFP process.

Thank you. And I know I see here with a mobile unit. I know the mobile ministry dentist is one of them and and I know that their uh mobile unit goes out into the community to provide some of these services as well. I know that they were how the one that they purchased um was funded by opera dollars previously. So I just want to make sure so I can tell them that they can be looking for this. So how often do these grants come out for this opportunity? So, the RFP went out, but it's actually for three years, and then there are renewal processes thereafter. All right. Thank you. Thank you, chair.

All right. Thank you, Commissioner Caswell. Uh, thank you very much, Madam Clerk. Will you please prepare the screen to vote on item number three? Okay, we can close the screen and record the vote. More days like this.

So, we need commissioners. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Watch I was watching that. We have I votes from commissioners why Caswell Mills and Thorn. I'm sorry. Why Caswell Mills and Wright? We have four I votes. Okay. Thank you. Item three will go down with a favor recommendation. Uh we do have an add-on add on item number four. Uh, if you've got that, we can read that one into the record, please.

Yes, sir. Item four is an add-on item, and I want to add that all of the proper documents have been attached, so there's no need to suspend the rules. Item four is a resolution approving a service provider contract between Shelby County government on behalf of the Shelby County Health Department Air Quality Improvement Branch and E Holdings LLC DBA commute with Enterprise for the provision of transportation services for the Memphis Area Ride Share Vanpool Program MARS for the period beginning July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2026 with the option to renew for an additional one-year period. This resolution authorizes the expenditure of FY2026 federal through state grant funds in an amount not to exceed $400,000 sponsored by Commissioner Miss Clay Bibs.

All right. Thank you. Item four moved by Commissioner Thornton and I will second it. Uh, all right. Director Smith Alexander.

Good morning, county commissioners. Casey Smith Alexander, deputy director, Shelby County Health Department. We are here today to request your approval of the contract resolution for the Memphis area ride share van poolool program. A program that has served Shelby County residents for decades by helping hundreds of people get to work each day while supporting our air quality and public health goals. The Memphis area ride share program has served the Shelby County residents since the early 1980s and has been a long-standing transportation and air quality initiative. The program growth. The program has experienced significant and sustained growth in recent years. The 202122 program operated approximately 66 van pools. The program has now since grown to approximately 85 to 89 van pools operating per month year to date. Approximately 586 participants currently use this program commuting daily to major employment centers across Shelby County. The VA medical center is currently the largest participant with 66 van pools along with other major employment partners including the f the federal correctional institution with 14 and the internal revenue service with one, Shelby County Drug Court two, and the Federal Drug Administration in Memphis 2. The Memphis area ride share program directly contributes to improved air quality and reduced traffic congestion by reducing single occupancy vehicles that are on the road. In 2024 alone, the program achieved 134,874 trips that were actually eliminated, 387,535 vehicle miles eliminated, 121,556 gallons of fuel saved, 2,352,969

pounds of carbon monoxide emissions reduced. These outcomes directly support Shelby County's efforts to improve air quality and reduce ground level ozone, a critical public health priority for our region. Approving this resolution shows the Memphis area allows the Memphis area ride share program to continue delivering these proven results for Shelby County residents. The contract is with EN Holdings LLC commute with Enterprise for the continued provision of qualified transportation vanpool services to Shelby County residents. The contract amount is not to exceed 400,000 for FY26. The service areas that are impacted include Shelby County, Tennessee, Krennon County, Arkansas, and Dotto County, Mississippi. Terms are July 1st through 2025 through June 2026 with one-year renewal option. The Memphis area ride share van poolool program has served Shelby County residents for decades, helping hundreds of residents commute to work while supporting our air quality goals. This program has grown and we respectively ask your approval for this contract resolution so that this long-standing and impactful program can can continue serving Shelby County residents. Thank you.

All right. Thank you very much, Commissioner Thornton. Thank you, Chair. Did I hear you say that the program has existed since the 1980s? Casey Smith Alexander, deputy director. Yes.

All righty. So, with that in mind, so I'm just writing your name down. Um, do you have anything that shows the ride wrership over time? just how that has um whenever you started tracking I'm assuming in the 80s we wouldn't have data for that but whenever we started to track the amount of riders using the van poolool how far back can we go Casey Smith Alexander deputy director I will have to get that information for you commissioner Thornton I do not know at this point in time exactly when we started tracking that information but I can have that to you

so this is an interesting program to me because it's almost like any you know participants use vampool we count it as a success but I'm curious doctor like what are the indicators or the benchmarks of deep impact so when we think about you know 586 participants is that significant or is that what will we compare that to is it other vamp programs across um the US or where are we getting our our metrics of success

Dr. Bruce Randolum, director, Chevy County Health Department and Health Officer. So, an assumption is made that if you decrease the number of vehicles that's being used to go back and forth and to work, you are decreasing the amount of pollution, carbon monoxide, etc. in the atmosphere which therefore translates to better quality of air. So if we look here, we can see data that's reported uh in 2024 that we eliminated 134,874 trips which uh we also uh eliminate uh saved should I say 121,500 gallons of fuel. Um and we reduced uh the carbon monoxide emission 2352 million uh 969 pounds. So the assumption is that that reduction at least has decreased the amount of carbon dioxide in the air uh and hopefully contributed to improvement. Now, the actual measurement of that.

Okay, I'm going to pause just one second. Doctor, um I'm going to get back in queue for some more questions to pick up from there. Why is this an add-on today? You said why is this why are you presenting it as an add-on? Because we actually need the uh funds to be approved and uh adopted into the budget because the contract has ended. end June 30th. It will end June 30th. I'm sorry. So, we're approaching a deadline. Okay. All right. Sorry. Commissioner Thornne, did you want to get back in? Okay. All right.

All right. So, um, just going back to I've not heard anything about the van poolool program or heard any constituents talk about participating in it. So, how how does this work? How many vans do you have a part of the van pool? How do people access it? Like I heard you say that the majority are VA participants. Where is this open to the public? Is it open to select partners? How does this work? Casey Smith Alexander, deputy director. So yes, this is open to the public. We do approach uh businesses that have multiple individuals um working for them. It does not have a minimum number that needs to be participant. However, we do look at B businesses. The reason the VA medical center is a large partner with this is that they do receive additional federal subsidies as well to encourage their employees to participate in the van program. But this program is open to everyone.

And what exactly does the program do? So, so um Casey Smith Alexander, deputy director. So the program gives you a van that you are going to meet at a certain location with some of your co-workers. They will drive to work and then afterwards they'll drive back home leaving their vehicles parked at a central location of their choosing that is convenient for them. So we all meet we we go to a location where the van is and then that gets us to our destination. One person is responsible for the van. So that means that person would be driving from their home to that central location to pick everyone up and then drop everyone back off as well.

Should they keep the van? they have access to it Monday through Friday, but it's for work purposes. We are we are calculating mileage.

So, when it comes down to the capacity for this program to add additional participants, um are we at capacity? Cuz this isn't a sizable amount, the 400,000. Where are we at in terms of adding new participants to the program? Casey Smith Alexander, deputy director. Um the issue right now is that we're waiting on the federal government to see if they will continue with this program. To answer your question, Commissioner Thoron, um we really don't know where we are as far as continuing funding for the program. And to answer your additional question, are we at capacity? We are nearing it with this $400,000. Yes.

Okay. So, if people are interested, what do we tell them? Where do they go to get more information? to contact the Shelby County Health Department and we will let them know the next steps and availability of additional vans when and hopefully we do receive funding. Is there a 222 number that we use here for the health department? There is um that number is 2229000. Let me get back to you on that number that you need to call for the van.

Okay, this is a point that I want to make to the everyone in this room and watching. when we say just do this, we have to understand people don't even know what that means. Contact the health department. What does that mean? So, it's like let's always be ready to be able to get people connected. So, um yeah, just let us know what that number is so we can tell the public. Thank you. And it is available just as point of reference also on our website is Shelby County TN Health. So, if they want to go on there to receive more information and to uh file request or anything, it is on our website. just don't have the number to the direct contact at this point. Okay. All right. Thank you. Uh all right. Let's prepare the screen to vote on item number four.

Oh, thank you. That was the right number. Yes. I'm sorry. I was just told that is the correct number. Great. Okay. We uh we can close the screen and record the vote on item number four. We have eye votes from commissioners why Mills Wright and Thornton. We have four I votes.

Okay. Item four four will go down with a favorable recommendation. Uh this will conclude hospitals and health and this will wrap us up for committee today. Thank you everyone.