County Commission - Regular Meeting

Please read the rule. Members of the public who desire to address the county commission shall request permission by completing an appearance card which will be given to the chair by a deputy. Members of the public shall be permitted to address the county commission unless ruled out of order by the chair or denied the opportunity to speak by a majority vote of the commissioner's present in voting. Please note that as it pertains to public comment, our rules of order set a limit of no longer than three minutes when recognized by the chair. The chair may set a limit for discussion by the public of less than three minutes for each individual if circumstances require. Finally, to the members of the public, if you would like to address your pleasure or displeasure on a matter before the county commission, please do so by raising your thumb up or pointing it down, as opposed to applause or other expressions of approval or disapproval. Disruptive members of the public are subject to removal from the Commission Chambers by the Deputy Sheriff. Thank you for your attention and in advance for your cooperation today.

Thank you. I'd like to take a moment to recognize the birthdays for the month of June. Commissioner Amber Mills will be having a birthday. June 15th, happy birthday, Commissioner Mills. Carla Couch in our office will be, her birthday is June 22nd, and Commissioner Brittany Thornton will be celebrating her birthday on 6-27th. Happy birthday, Commissioner Thornton. Commissioner Shalott, would you please present the resolution for Pastor Wilson, thanking him for providing invocation today?

Proposing trust and confidence in the fidelity and ability of Pastor Marcus J. Wilson of Mount Olive First Missionary Baptist Church, we do appoint and constitute you chaplain of the Board of Commissioners to serve the 2025-2026 term of the Board of Commissioners at the will and pleasure of the Chairwoman. This is the first day of June 2026.

Thank you again, Pastor, for coming and being with us today. I'd now like to move to special resolutions. Parliamentarian, please read item number two.

Item two is a special resolution honoring United States Congressman Steve Cohen for his decades of public service as a member of the Tennessee State Senate and United States Congress, sponsored by Commissioner Erica Sugarman.

Thank you so much, colleagues and chairwoman. This is a personal privilege of me and my family because Congressman Cohen goes way back. He was a mentor of my father, a mentee of my father, the late Judge Russell Sugarman. And so not only he's a congressman, but he's a family friend. So at this time, I would like to ask my brother, juvenile court Judge Tarek Sugarman, and my sister, Elena Williams, as well as Congressman Cohen and others who came to support the commission in the special resolution honoring United States Congressman Steve Cohen for his decades of public service as a member of the Tennessee State Senate and United States Congress. Whereas the Shelby County Board of Commissioners recognizes and honors public servants whose leadership has strengthened Memphis and Shelby County through sustained advocacy, measurable results, and steadfast commitment to the people. And, whereas the Honorable Steve Cohen is a lifelong Michigan, has served the public with distinction at the local, state, and federal levels, including 24 years in Tennessee Senate and service in the United States House of Representatives, representing Tennessee's ninth congressional district. And whereas, as a Tennessee State Senator, Steve Cohen led the effort to remove Tennessee's constitutional prohibition on lotteries and sponsored key legislation to create and implement the Tennessee Education Lottery, including Senate Bill 1, 2003. expanding scholarship opportunity for Tennessee students and strengthening the state's education pipeline. And whereas as a member of the United States Congress, Congressman Cohen has consistently secured and supported federal investments that strengthen Shelby County's economy, infrastructure, public health capacity, and quality of life such as transportation, infrastructure, support for the Memphis region through U.S. Department of Transportation programs, including $1.15 million for the Memphis-based Mid-South Development District under the Regional Infrastructure Accelerators Program to advance local transportation infrastructure priorities. And whereas Congress COIN announced a U.S. Department of Transportation Port Infrastructure Development Grants of $19,662,581 for the Mid-South Development District to redevelop a dormant facility at the International Port of Memphis into an active material terminal, strengthening freight, mobility, commerce, and jobs. And whereas, Cognizant Corn announced over $20 million in FEMA reimbursement funding for Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare and Shelby County Healthcare Corporation, regional one, related to COVID-19 emergency response costs, supporting critical healthcare capacity for the region. Whereas Congressman Cohen has also pursued and supported federal appropriations and community project funding for Memphis and Shelby County, including multiple community improvement initiatives reinforced in its published updates and funding announcements. Now, therefore, be resolved by the Board of Commissioners of Shelby County, Tennessee, that we do hereby honor and commend United States Congressman Steve Cohen. And Madam Chair, Madam Chair, I'm requesting a moment of personal privilege so that my brother, a juvenile court judge, can have two minutes to speak. And my sister says she's not going to speak, but she also recognizes the accomplishments and the love that our family has for him and his service. So, Judge Sugarman.

Thank you, sis. Listen, as the oldest member, surviving member of the Sugarman family, I want to thank Congressman Cohen first for the friendship he had with our family and our father all of these years, from the days at Bombay Bicycle Club, which we both remember fondly, as well as representing this county and the county commission, and then, of course, as a state senator, and then ultimately a congressman. The work he's done in this community is incalculable. The grant monies he's provided for our county have been incalculable. And just this morning, I was reading that he has gotten grant money for one of our community partners, Pure Academy, $1 million. As you know, Congressman, as an attorney, judges cannot ask for money. So Ms. Folsom, would you give him a call sometime soon and take that request? No, in all candor, he has been invaluable to our community, but more importantly to our family. I thank him for the years of friendship.

good afternoon members of the Commission especially Commissioner Sugarman thank you very much for this honor and recognizing me on this day I did start my first major office that I held was the Shelby County Board of Commissioners and while you may not believe it my picture is right up there Second, next to Carolyn Gates. I was 29 years old and jet lagged. I had just come back from my first trip to Europe and got in at 3 in the morning, got sworn in about 9 in the morning. But we did it. While I was on the commission, I had the great privilege of serving with Vasco Smith and Jesse Turner and Minerva Johnican and Walter Bailey. i was called the fifth black commissioner and we got a lot done one of the things we did was build a med which is now regional one and it needed six votes and we got six votes on the nose it was six five almost gave up on the project because they thought maybe they should just work with the private hospitals and give the patients there but i convinced my four other black commissioners not to go along with that We held out, and we got Charlie Perkins to vote with us, and we passed and built the Med. There were a lot of things I did on this commission, which I was proud of, and I was proud to be in this chamber again today, and I thank the Sugarman family. Always close to Russell. Russell's one of the greatest people in the city that went somewhat unrecognized. He was the second state representative elected in Tennessee, black state representatives since Reconstruction. First person to be elected was A.W. Willis, who was kind of like family to the Sherman's, too. And I was just with Archie in Porter High School, Porter Junior High, which is going to be an early childhood education program that we worked on. But thank you for the resolution. Thank you for the honor. And do good work while you're here, so when you leave, you'll think well of what you did. It's an important position.

Thank you, Congressman Cohen. There's a few commissioners that are in queue. Commissioner Whaley?

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Congressman Cohen, for many decades of service to our community. I think just what was listed out today is just a fraction of what you've somehow been able to accomplish in what's really a relatively short period of time. It goes by fast, I'm sure. There's some days I'm sure you think it doesn't. I moved to Memphis 20 years ago, the same year you ran and won Congress, 2006. I was just out of college. I came to be a teacher. And I fell in love with Memphis in part because it was one of those rare places where you can literally call up your congressman. And I got to know you early on. And just being here a few years, being a teacher, and then going on to become school leader and you were the first to show up at our ribbon-cutting 16 years ago and so it's just moments like that I think really epitomize what public service is all about you know being accessible being in the community and being able to be with the people who want to improve our city in our County And I think that's a special thing because not everyone gets that you know this that there are a lot of Politicians that truly just kind of helicopter in and out and are not really interested in showing up And so I saw early on that you showed up and continue to do that and I know you're not done showing up either So thank you for your service and and for being back here One more time Thank You madam chair Thank You sir Commissioner Caswell

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Congressman. Thank you so much for your service. I tell you, serving on this body in the legislative chair or co-chair capacity, one of the best parts of me going to D.C. was the knowing that I was going to get to come to your office, somebody who was friendly to this county, that we knew we were going to be able to ask to get something done, and you were going to work to get it done. I think about the impact, even on my children's life, that's been able to go to college because of your fight for the lottery with the Hope Scholarships and the things that you have done Your legacy is going to continue to live on great in this county. We thank you for the sacrifices because we know it's been many to be the only blue person in this red state now. We know where that's at. But thank you, man, for all that you've done. Even when I was an advocate activist in Fraysia, you was there with us on the ground. So thank you for the many years of your great work. Thank you.

Commissioner Thornton.

Thank you, Chair. Congressman, you know, behind becoming president of the United States, many kids aspire to become a congressman or congresswoman. So it's just such a benefit to Memphis residents, Shelby County, to be able to know and see a person in that role. So I just thank you for just your legacy. I know we're fighting to be able to keep our representation at the, you know, in this seat coming from Memphis. And so I just appreciate you for just staying active and just supporting us in that fight. And I just thank you for all you've done to be able to position the next generation of leaders as one of the younger leaders now in this body. I just can't thank you enough for just being a part of this new era that we're being ushered into. And I hope that Memphis is able to bring it on home, not in just one congressional district, but three. Thank you so much.

You're welcome. Thank you.

Congressman Cohen, thank you again for your many, many years of service. It has been an honor to know you and to see how you have served this community, and we are forever grateful for all you have done for the 9th Congressional District. Thank you.

Thank each and every one of you. I appreciate it.

We'll now have a few, we have a few public comment cards that we'll do before we move to the consent agenda. Jarrett Logan, if you could come up, say your name and zip code for the record. You'll have three minutes to speak.

Madam Chair, just as a point of privilege, to the staff persons within the Congressman's office, I just want to thank them as well because they've played a very pivotal role. So I know that his staff persons are leaving. I just want to give them some shine as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Thornton.

Mr. Logan good afternoon everyone I'm Terrell Richards co-president W&T contracting corporation good afternoon Wiley Richards co-president W&T contracting corporation glad to be here

excuse me you've got some instructions and I didn't quite hear you can you yes your names of code and you'll have three minutes to speak okay my name is Jared Logan and again I'm Jared Logan with WT contracting corporation I would like to bring forth an issue to the Commission here that we have been dealing with We are here today regarding the Whitehaven Clinic project number SBI00928. WT submitted a bid of approximately $19.6 million and was subsequently deemed non-responsive due to not having submitted a Shelby County business license with our bid and for not meeting the 20% LOSB goal. Note, we are not here asking for any type of special treatment. We are simply asking for a fair and transparent application of the solicitation documents as they were written. First, regarding our Shelby County business license, section two, paragraph 24.1 of the terms of the project state, firms located within the boundaries of Shelby County, Tennessee, are required to have a current Shelby County business license. At the time of bidding, W&T had a current business license and that business license is still active. Additionally, section two, paragraph 24.2, page nine states, successful bidders may be required to furnish a copy of their current Shelby County business license prior to the award of this bid or any part thereof. Now let's talk about the distinctions here. 24.1 requires possession of a business license. while 24.2 discusses furnishing a copy of the business letter later, not with the bid package. Excuse me. If WT possesses a valid Sheppard County business license during the solicitation period, then the position becomes, We were compliant with 24.1 because we did have a valid license. If the county needed a copy of their license, 24.2 expressly states that the successful bidder may be required to furnish that copy prior to award. I'm going to move a little quickly because I know I'm running out of time. Secondly, and more importantly, is the LOSB participation issue. The county determined that WT did not satisfy that 20% goal. However, Form A required that bidders provide a Shelby County BRNL number for the listed trade partners. The problem is that nowhere in the solicitation, addendums, questions and answers, or supporting documents have we been able to find where the county explains that a BRNL designation is equivalent to an LOSB certification or that BRNL status determines whether a subcontractor receives LOSB participation credit? Likewise. We were unable to locate any provision directing bidders on how to verify whether a subcontractor's BRNL status was qualified toward the 20% LOSB goal.

I'm sorry that your three minutes is up. I think there's some information that you passed around that we can make sure gets to each of the commissioners as well.

Yes, yes. So I would ask that each commissioner take a look at that packet that I left each one of you. And I'm going to stare right afterwards to see who will possibly be willing to take up my cause and investigate this just a little bit further.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Richard Massey. I'm sorry, my apologies. There were a few people in the queue. Commissioner Caswell?

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I appreciate the presentation. Yeah, I appreciate the presentation. I would like to say I appreciate you bringing that to us. I know purchasing is here because I know this is another situation I had with another client where you broke it down to me to help me understand why she felt like, business license was not needed in the first place right because it's saying are you a license in here the second day like you said if it was that the license should have been sent that should have been done into 24.1 it shouldn't have been another 24.2 so i i appreciate you bringing that to light because that helped bring some light to another situation that was brought to my attention from another client who was rejected because they didn't submit their license, business license in the first place as well. So I most definitely will be reaching out in there as well, getting with purchasing about why is these two different? If it's, you know what I'm saying, if it disqualified you, why did you have to have a 24.2 if the 24.1 required you to submit with that, with your proposal, the license? And so appreciate you bringing that to attention.

Commissioner Thornton. Thank you, Chair. I just have a question to you, Mr. Logan. So this is a contract, is this a contract that WNT previously held, or was this your first time bidding on it?

So yes, ma'am, this was our first time bidding on it. There was another low bidder that was deemed unresponsive due to another issue, and so the project moved into our position to be awarded.

And then, pardon me for just getting the document, what was the actual bid for?

The Whitehaven Health Department Clinic.

Whitehaven.

Yes, the solicitation number should be in the packet.

And you have already appealed this decision by purchasing? Yes, yes. What was the conclusion?

So all of the appeals are inside of the packet that I gave you all. There was an investigation and they still deemed us as non-responsive.

Okay, so they disregarded your evidence and they've upheld their decision?

Correct.

Okay, and when will this go out for bid again?

It will not go out to bid. It's supposed to be coming up to commission voted at some point to be awarded to a different contract.

Okay, I have two minutes left. Purchasing, can you just help me understand process here? Are you able to answer questions, Director Gloucester? do think as he's coming down we're starting to hear a lot more comments from local businesses that feel like our purchasing process is disfavoring them we're not just creating a competitive and fair process so i'm glad to see you guys come down to advocate for yourself and just to put us on notice um to purchasing so he said that he has appealed your office has upheld its decision where are we at in the process and to anyone on this body that wants to continue to investigate, because that's what he asked us to do. What is the recourse that we have to do that?

good afternoon commissioners right now i do not have all the information in front of me to speak on it wasn't a general item and i wasn't prepared to speak on this i am aware of the situation we didn't disregard anything we just looked into it and investigated came with a decision but based on different things the policies we need to get legally involved to look at certain things that's in the policy and confirm

certain things but right now I can't speak or answer I think I don't have a lot of information okay so hypothetically if is there any way for him to challenge even your decision in the appeal process like just tell the public what is the process so you have a business owner here who has appealed you've upheld your decision that he's non-responsive is there any more recourse that he has that the Commission has like what can happen moving forward

but not far as from james lost administrative person as far as purchasing goes we went through the process when the vendors protest we investigated and we looked into a camera to the conclusion that the bill would still be non-responsive based off the information that we didn't receive so for each of the points that he lifted up in his public comment did your appeal address each of those points Yes, we looked into each point.

But is it in writing that we could go back and find the counter from purchasing of each of the points that he's expressed today?

Well, I sent an email back, responded via email. That was my response to you after we investigated. So I didn't just talk to him and say that. I sent an email with us looking into it.

Thank you.

Commissioner Sugarman. Thank you. And so this is something that's ongoing. I'm hearing complaints. And thank you for having the characters come up because we want more local vendors to be players as far as county contracts are concerned, and so I can do this one or two ways have asked before no responses, I need to know why. And so, again, I could do it in the form of resolution. I love writing resolutions. If we can have, when there's non-responsive, can we have explanations so we can see what is going on so that we can have more local vendors participate If it's something, for example, that's misunderstood, something not to be streamlined, whatever the auditors or processes are that need to be fine-tuned, that we can work together to make sure that we have more local vendors. We had, for example, a couple of local vendors come before you, and they were talking about certain issues, and I asked, you know, I would like to again see why they're not responsive. The explanation you gave today, if you could start having it in writing. So we can see what is that we need to do so more local vendors can get contracts because if something consistently going on, then that is something we can address. If it's something that we need to do as far as the county government, then we can address that as well as far as policies and procedures, okay? And so again, going forward, I could do it either way because I've asked before. When they're non-responsive, I would like a copy of the reason why so we can see what is exactly going on. Thank you.

Commissioner Thornton. Thank you, Chair. Just a part to send, where are we at in the bidding process right now? So it hasn't come before the commission.

James Gloss, administrative person. I would have to look into it, and I'm sure I'm assuming that it's probably been awarded and information given to the department, but it hasn't come before you guys yet.

Will it come before the end of budget season? You don't have it before you.

I don't know when they're going to bring it forth, but it has to come before you guys before it's approved, before it moves forward.

Okay, so just to Mr. Logan, just pay attention to when it comes back. It'll give you more opportunity to speak on this particular item, and hopefully we'll have some type of update. I'm going to ask the participant if you could send to the entire body your responses or whoever responded to him, letting him know that you upheld the non-responsive bid. What was the counter rationale? Because he's saying that he met certain criteria that you are saying that he didn't. I think it's important for us with our local businesses to ensure that they understand exactly where there is misalignment between their understanding and our understanding so that the next time they can be competitive because competition is good for the market so if we just continue to let you know these non-responsive bidders just sit in our pool of you know commodity code businesses, then it doesn't do Shelby County a service. And we're starting to see a lot of non-local contracts where it should just make sense that it's a local contract. And we clearly, before the repeal of MWBE, showed that Shelby County has a disparity issue. that has been proven in the past. We can talk about politics and why we can't talk about that today. But Shelby County knows that this is an issue and we need to continue to press forward and just making sure that local businesses can actually do business with Shelby County. So please get them a point-by-point response that you send to the commission so we can prepare for when this bid comes up in the future and then will you also just via writing let them know if they are eligible according to terms now and if not they just need to know where they're falling out of eligibility for this particular contract i do think that they should be able to get that information from purchasing can you agree to that or is that outside of the scope of purchasing

First, for the record, once we deem a vendor non-responsive, we do send details to the vendor why they were deemed non-responsive. If they want to protest, they can go through their process and protest. Now, if the answer and investigation It's not the one that's satisfactory to the vendor. Then they can do like what they're doing now to keep going. But we followed the process and didn't go through. We did go through the process and let them know exactly why. Now, with this bid not being completely closed in the hands of the departments, there's nothing for purchasing to go back and do. We can send you guys information on some of the emails and things of that nature. But as far as

the bid it's not completely so you can send the information to us is what i'm hearing we can understand exactly um what difference between their interpretation and your interpretation right that's just my request to purchasing to be clear thank you excuse me jared logan wt contract corporates so a lot of the information that you're asking for is inside those packets

um i have a thorough explanation of why the solicitation and a lot of the county's documents have inconsistent information there's a lot of ambiguity between documentation it leaves a lot of room for error mr logan um yes because this is an item on the agenda the public comment for this is over at this small at this point but i think there's follow-up that could be done afterwards thank you thank you mr logan

Mr. Massey, Richard Massey, please state your name and zip code for the record.

Richard Massey, 38111. The city of Memphis and Shelby County at large has had its own congressional district for 100 years, since 1925, which it should. I mean, it's the largest, the second largest city in the state, homed over 600,000 small business owners and church goers and working people who keep this city going each and every day that they wake up and punch a clock. Shelby County is the second largest county economy in the state, yet apparently it doesn't deserve its own voice in the hallways of Congress. Last month, we all watched and observed election norms and institutions crumble beneath the feet of authoritarians as they voted to split Memphis into three congressional districts spanning all the way to Williamson County and the Tennessee-Kentucky border and Pulaski County and all different kinds of places that aren't here. a clear and concise attempt at muzzling the voice of the only majority black district in the entire state. But they didn't stop at drawing districts that put Graceland in a Graceland gift shop in two different districts. They went a step further and also amended the law and eliminated a requirement for county election commissioners to notify folks of where to vote in their new voting district. So no, none of this was done in the name of election security or fairness, as they say. This was intentionally done to confuse voters, undermine their access to the ballot box, and tilt the margins in their favor come November. They can't win on high gas and grocery prices, and they can't win on rural hospital closures in rural counties, so they must resort to this. And why did they resort to this? Because Tennessee is ground zero for our nation's democracy, and they prove that every legislative session. So, Commissioner, I'm asking you, Memphis is asking you, Shelby County is asking you, do the right thing and step up when others refuse to. Notify voters of their polling places, inform them of their new districts, show that the idea of democracy didn't die in Tennessee in May of 2026, but that this body stood up and filled in the gaps. when there was a clear and obvious attempt to silence us for good. We are demanding that you put this effort on the agenda for the next meeting and vote to use the reimbursable funding offered by the state to disseminate crucial voter information to people across Shelby County. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Massey. We have a few more public comment cards. Reverend Milo Lumpkin. You can state your name and zip code for the record. My apologies if I mispronounced your last name.

Good afternoon, Commission. It's Reverend Milo Lumpkin. The I is short. I'm here to read the names of the people we lost inside the Shelby County Jail from 2018 to our present time. Donald Jones, Roy Dunbar, Jerome Givehand, Carl Ewing, Stephen Gomez, Santrez Traylor, Larry Gilliam, Justin Brewer, Jeffrey Farrell, James Owens, Sam Carr, Tommy Young, Michael McCabe, Demarcus Jarrett, Richard Willingham, Joseph Johnson, Bobby Sellers, Charles Johnson, Timothy Black, Christopher Miller, Kenneth Melton, Nicholas Dancy, and Alex Winrich. The World Health Organization Constitution defines health as a state of complete and physical, mental, and social well-being. And the Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirms medical care as essential to human dignity. together establishing mental health care as a fundamental right. This mandate requires this commission to prioritize capable, comprehensive medical providers for our incarcerated population over the lowest cost, ensuring adequate care for both physical and mental health, regardless of preexisting conditions. Thank you.

Our next speaker, Ethel Kilgore Ball. If you could state your name and zip code for the record.

Good afternoon. My name is . 38141, I am Micah's Transformational Justice Co-Chair and Donovan Keogh Gold Russell's mother. I'm here to read the names of the people we lost at Shelby County Jail from 2018 to present. Justin Lee Sherrisson, Sherman Weakley, Darian Nolan, I was Darian's elementary teacher, Darian Crawford, Courtney Berry, Daniel Neal, Rocknaz McDaniel, Dale Tyrone Young, dalton good good antonio first marcel hutton richard higgs raymond mcgee wesley joiner antonio golden robert turner dennis forgot Kevin Wright, Lawrence Sullen, Dionne Bird, Christopher Steele. It is imperative that this commission select the medical providers most capable of delivering adequate care to our incarcerated population, not the cheapest bid. Access to competent medical treatment is a fundamental human right recognized globally by the WHO and Universal Declaration of Human Rights, applicable to every individual regardless of pre-existing condition or incarcerated status. Anything less than this is failure of this commission's legal and moral obligation. As a parent, I stand for you to express my concern, my serious concern, regarding the medical and mental health my son did not receive while incarcerated at Shelby County Jail. As a parent, I believe every individual in custody deserves access to appropriate medical and mental health care, regardless of their circumstance. I respectfully request you not to renew your contract with WellPath. Thank you for your attention to this matter. I'm available for discussion of this matter further. Again, my name is Ethel Kilgore Ball, 901-848-2203. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Coggleball. Next speaker, Susan Neely Barnes. You could state your name and zip code for the record.

Good afternoon. My name is Susan Neely Barnes. My zip code is 38117. I also am a member of the MICA Transformational Justice Committee, and I'm here to read yet another list of names of the people we have lost inside Shelby County jails from 2018 to present. William Trentham, Jonathan Anguiano, Lamont Cummins, George DeClew, Tracy Gill, Martin Perez Estrada, Kimberly Clark, Tiffany Dukes, Malcolm Ford, Tyrez Watkins, James Wilkes, Antonio Davis, Desmond Shipp, Stanley Campbell, Gershon Freeman, Damarian Walker, Leondru Isabel, Klynis Strong, Christopher Pettis, Avon Rollins, Jerome Mines. I would also like to remind the Commission that the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, social or economic condition, as affirmed by the World Health Organization. This mandate requires us to prioritize capable medical providers for our incarcerated population over the lowest costs, ensuring adequate care regardless of pre-existing conditions. Thank you for your time this afternoon.

Our next speaker, Ranier Otho. I'm sorry, I can't read the last name. Alo. Alo, okay. Mr. Alo, if you could say your name and zip code for the record.

Yes, my name is Renier Otto. I'm a permanent resident of the United States, so I'm not a citizen. I've been living here in Memphis for the last 10 years. And I'm with MICA, Transformational Justice also. So I brought here a letter from 201 Poplar. So what he says is the jail is so old that the building is inhumane and very dangerous to house inmates. The new doors they're putting in each pod is all steel with no flaps or are able to have any air circulation in the hot cells. The deputy jailers never make rounds in the pods to make sure we're still alive. The smoke detectors don't work. The sinks, also toilets, are out of order. Black mold is strong. on the shower walls. The pots stay nasty because we're not being issued the proper cleaning supplies. Every time a grievance is written, it takes two to three months before it is answered. Sometimes the grievances are not answered. We're not able to go to the law library to look up case laws. The cells are infested with roaches, Mice run cell to cell. At night, also several fruit flies come out. The floor above floated their pots. Toilet water runs down the walls, also leaks from the ceiling. We never go to the gym. The justice system knows how inhumane and dangerous this jail is. Several people have died and I don't want to be next. Would someone please check into this serious matter? The jailers shall enforce cleanliness in their respective jails. They shall furnish the necessary apparatus for shaving once a week, shall provide bathing facilities separate for males and females. Wow. shall furnish hot and cold water, clean and sufficient bedding and laundering once a week to those prisoners who are not able to provide such for themselves. The jailers shall keep the jail clean and shall remove all filth from each cell once every 24 hours. It says a violation of any of the provisions, whether by the sheriff or by any person selected as jailer or guard by the sheriff, is a Class A misdemeanor. I come from Venezuela, so you know the situation there. So you guys are very close to a crisis over here. And I have survived two. I have covered two jail crises. And recently was another one. And the government is just like, oh, I didn't know that you guys have all these amenities here. So, yes, they need your help. And I think it's about time for you guys to do something. You're looking like my country right now. Thank you.

Next speaker is Laramie Wheeler. Please state your name and zip code for the record.

Hello, my name is Laramie Wheeler, 38107. I am the advocacy manager at Just City. Before I start, I would like to mention that I emailed a couple of commissioners. I know we're not supposed to address you individually, but I emailed two commissioners about a youth that had been pepper sprayed at Hamilton Middle. Unnecessarily, a small fight between the kids and a lot of them got pepper sprayed. He had asthma and had to go receive a breathing treatment in the hospital. And if you got that email from me, I would love a response. I also told Christopher Steele's mother, who is on the list of people who passed away in 2025, that I would tell the room that today is his birthday. I have a grievance here that I was sent from inside the jail. On Friday, 9-27-2024, I was having chest pains. I told Officer Bell, who was assigned to the lower level CPOD of the Shelby County Jail that day during the first shift, I told Officer Bell on the first shift that I had medication to take for my heart and that I had to have a wheelchair. I cannot stand and walk very far. bell became very angry since she had to go find me a wheelchair and started chanting ill-advised remarks saying i bet not another officer with no name tag shown on his shirt finally showed up with a wheelchair officer bell pushed me into a dark abandoned holding tank on the lower level south took a key out of her pocket opened the door pushed me inside of the inside in the wheelchair locked the door a code blue was never pushed by officer bell Officer Bell claimed she was waiting for medical to call her back. Two hours later, Sergeant Swain came by and pushed a code blue. I had to be admitted to the hospital for seven days. Open heart surgery has been scheduled soon, and I was told it would be at Methodist University Hospital. And to this day, I don't believe this person had ever received that surgery under the jail's care. A recent testimony that we received. It seems like every day for the last month on my floor, they've been abusing all the mentally ill people. Pepper gas, spraying them. I'm talking about literally opening up their doors, running in on them. Because, you know, for an inmate being disruptive, he kicks on the doors and beats on the doors. So their way of shutting them up is to go in there and beat them, spray them and beat them. When you pepper spray someone, you're supposed to document it and take them to medical to get checked out, but they don't do that. They let them suffer. I can hear it. The World Health Organization Constitution defines health as a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirms medical care as essential to human dignity. When guards deploy force without documentation, deny post-incident medical care, and target vulnerable mentally ill populations, they violate these fundamental rights and expose this county to severe liability. And I understand that everyone's busy. Respectfully, I hope that you're paying attention. We're asking for accountability. We're asking for a mandatory mental health screening for all affected individuals.

Thank you. Your time is up.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Leona Venezia. My apologies if I'm pronouncing your name. if you could state your name and zip code for the record. That was pretty close, thank you.

My name is Liana Venezia. I live in Shelby County District 8, zip code 38107. I'm a leader with MICA's Immigration and Inclusivity Committee. I'm here because right now thousands of my neighbors here in Shelby County don't know what their new congressional district is. The Tennessee General Assembly redrew our congressional districts and in the same bill eliminated the requirement to mail voters notice of their new district and polling place. I now share a congressional district with people who live near Nashville, but I'm in a different district from people who live less than 10 minutes away from me. When longstanding neighborhoods are divided up this way, confusion is inevitable. I believe that these district changes were designed to reduce Shelby County's voting power. We cannot undo the redistricting today, but we can help mitigate its impact by making sure that voters are informed and prepared. If Shelby County is going to have a strong voice in Congress, our residents need to know where and how to participate in democratic process. Voter participation is essential to ensuring that our community is heard. This commission has the ability to help. The county charter gives you authority to appropriate funds for programs that benefit Shelby County residents. The state has also set aside nearly 1.9 million to reimburse counties that choose to notify voters. There is no reason for Shelby County to leave that money on the table. So I'm asking you to take three steps. First, urge the election commission to mail every affected voter a notice of their district and polling place. Second, provide funding for voter education through libraries, churches, neighborhood organizations, and other nonpartisan community institutions. Third, direct the county mayor to apply for available state reimbursement funds immediately. The August 6th election is only weeks away. We can help to mitigate the effects of this redistricting by ensuring that voters have the information they need before Election Day. Please act now and make this a priority for your next meeting. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Our last public comment speaker is Georgette Brooks. Ms. Brooks, if you could, is it Brooks? Yes, ma'am. Okay, if you could state your name and zip code for the record.

Georgette Elise Brooks, 38116. I'm just coming here to appeal to you all for our nonprofit. I'm the executive director of Mary's Love for Homeless Dogs Foundation and Sanctuary. I hate to say in business, but we've been functioning since 2016 under EIN. We became a 501 in 2018. We are grassroots. We are a sanctuary. A lot of the docs that we have are not adoptable. Right now they are with, we call Forever Fosters, family members. We're requesting funding because we need to make some repairs. We have large vet fields. We need some financial support. We are in good standing. We are affiliated with Best Friends Animal Society. I don't know if y'all are familiar with them. Petco, PetSmart, the state of Tennessee for reimbursement on spay and neuter. I feel like we're doing all the right things. We just need some support, some financial support. i have sent video of what we do a couple of times and um a letter just giving you a background i've got no responses and no sponsors i don't know how much more time i have you have a minute and 33 seconds left i normally can talk more i don't know does anyone have any questions for me or anything We need some money, y'all. We need some money. That's what it comes down to. We need some funding.

So, Ms. Brooks, why don't we have one of the staff members follow up with you? Ryan, if you could follow up just to maybe give some information about the CEP process and the application process for that and maybe other ways that you want to engage about understanding the funding.

Now, I have done all that.

Are you saying I need to do it again? Well, there's a process, and I'll have Ryan to go over that process with you. Okay.

Should I wait, or will she come back?

She's going to come down and speak with you now. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome.

Thank you for your time.

Commissioners, we'll now put three minutes to review the consent agenda. If there are any items that you would like pulled, please do so. Commissioner Caswell.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm pulling item 31.

Commissioner Brooks.

I move to pull items number 15, 27, And that's it. Thank you.

Commentarian, if you could read the consent agenda. I'm sorry.

Apologies, I thought I was in queue. Madam Chair, can you pull items 3 and 7 and 16? Okay.

Commentary, please read the agenda minus items three, seven, 15, 16, 27, and 31. Items four,

And five come from the Budget and Finance Committee, which is chaired by Commissioner Whaley. Item four is a resolution receiving and filing the February 2026 monthly comprehensive financial update reports entitled Shelby County Government Monthly Commission Division Reports for the year ending June 30th, 2026, sponsored by Commissioner Michael Whaley. item five is a resolution approving the appropriation and expenditure of capital improvement project funds for fy 2025 carry forward in the amount of 500 000 and fy 2026 funds in the amount of 297 566.21 and approving a contract with vis digital inc for courtroom technology upgrades in an amount not to exceed 797 five hundred sixty six dollars and twenty one cents commencing upon execution through June 30th 2026 with the option to renew for two additional one-year period sponsored by Commissioner Michael Whaley item six is a resolution approving the purchase of four Chevrolet SUV emergency response vehicles from Wild Rose Chevrolet for the Shelby County Fire Department this item requires the expenditure of FY 2026 fire enterprise funds in an amount not to exceed two hundred thirty eight thousand seven hundred forty two dollars sponsored by commissioner david c bradford junior items eight nine come from the law enforcement corrections and courts committee which is chaired by commissioner wright item eight is a resolution approving a contract between shelby county government and landmark construction general contractors inc for the emergency installation of epoxy flooring for sixteen janitor closets at the main jail located at two oh one poplar on behalf of the shelby county sheriff's office in the amount not to exceed $50,500. This item requires the expenditure of fiscal year 2026 general funds in the amount not to exceed $50,500. Sponsored by Commissioner McWright. Item nine is a resolution to approve the purchase of one illegal substance detector from Tech 84 Inc. in the amount of $146,500 for the operation at the Youth Justice and Education Center. This item requires expenditure and appropriation of FY2026 County General Funds in an amount not to exceed $146,500 sponsored by Commissioner McWright. Items 10 through 12 come from the General Government Committee, which is chaired by Commissioner Brooks. Item 10 is a resolution approving the election of notaries public for appointment and a reappointment for Shelby County, Tennessee, sponsored by Commissioner Henry E. Brooks. item eleven is a resolution approving the city of memphis mayor's nomination of edward stevens the third for appointment to the edge board sponsored by commissioner henry brooks item twelve is a resolution approving the county mayor's nomination of brian boone for appointment to the memphis and shelby county sports authority inc sponsored by commissioner henry brooks ITEMS 13 AND 14 COME FROM THE FACILITIES REAL PROPERTY AND CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS COMMITTEE, WHICH IS SHARED BY COMMISSIONER WRIGHT. ITEM 13 IS A RESOLUTION APPROVING A CONTRACT WITH KONE INC. AND THE ISSUANCE OF AN EMERGENCY PURCHASE ORDER TO KONE INC. TOTALING $62,700.63 FOR THE PROVISION OF A HYDRAULIC PUMP FOR THE SERVICE ELEVATOR LOCATED AT WALTER L. BAILEY JR. CRIMINAL JUSTICE CENTER 201 POBLAR AVENUE, MEMPHIS, TN 38103. This item requires the appropriation and expenditure of FY2026 general funds in an amount not to exceed $62,700.63 sponsored by Commissioner McWright. Item 14 is a resolution approving a one-year renewal of the lease agreement between CCHS Holdings NP Inc. and Shelby County Government on behalf of the Shelby County Mayor's Office of Innovation and Strategic Communications Shelby Cares program for 3,155 square feet of office space located at 3362 South Highway 61, Memphis, Tennessee 38109 for the term beginning August 7, 2025 through July 31, 2026 with a partial payment of $1,882.82 for the month of August 2025 and with equal monthly rent installments of $2,431.98 beginning September 1, 2025 with the right to renew the lease for two one-year periods. This item requires expenditure of FY2026 general funds in the amount of $26,202.62, sponsored by Commissioner McWright, Commissioner Matthew Shalai, and Commissioner Charlie Caswell Jr. Item 17 is a resolution warning, excuse me, Items 17 through 26, and Items 28, through 30 and items 32 through 36 come from the Milton Community Enhancement Grants Committee which is chaired by Commissioner Thornton. Item 17 is a resolution awarding county funds From the FY2026 operating budget in the amount of $2,500 to National Tourism and Heritage Association, a charitable organization. This item requires an expenditure of $2,500 from the Milton Community Enhancement Program Grant Fund, sponsored by Commissioner Mikael Lowry and Commissioner Brittany Thornton. This item was amended in May 27th, 2026 committee meeting. Item 18 is a resolution of warning county funds from the FY2026 operating budget in the amount of $1,000 to Tennessee First Responders Foundation, a charitable organization. This item requires an expenditure of $1,000 from the Milton Community Enhancement Program grant fund sponsored by Commissioner Mikel Lowry. Item 19 is a resolution awarding county funds for the FY2026 operating budget in the amount of $1,500 to code crew a charitable organization. This item requires an expenditure of $1,500 from the Milton Community Enhancement Program grant fund sponsored by Commissioner Mikel Lowry. Item 20 is a resolution awarding county funds from the FY2026 operating budget in the amount of $2,000 to One Accord International, a charitable organization. This item requires an expenditure of $2,000 from the Milton Community Enhancement Program Grant Fund, sponsored by Commissioner Mikel Lowry. Item 21 is a resolution awarding county funds from the FY2026 operating budget in the amount of $2,500 to Show Up Collective, Inc., a charitable organization. This item requires an expenditure of $2,500 from the Milton Community Enhancement Program Grant Fund, sponsored by Commissioner Henry E. Brooks. item 22 is a resolution warning county funds from the fy 2026 operating budget in the amount of ten thousand dollars to edge education and charitable organization this item requires an expenditure of ten thousand dollars from the milton community enhancement program grant fund sponsored by commissioner henry brooks Item 23 is a resolution of warning county funds from the FY2026 operating budget in the amount of $5,000 to Our Youth Memphis, a charitable organization. This item requires an expenditure of $5,000 from the Milton Community Enhancement Program grant fund, sponsored by Commissioner Brittany Thornton. Item 24 is a resolution of warning county funds from the FY2026 operating budget in the amount of $2,500 to New Ballet Ensemble and School, NBES, a charitable organization. This item requires an expenditure of $2,500 from the Milton Community Enhancement Program grant fund sponsored by Commissioner Brittany Thornton. Item 25 is the resolution of awarding county funds from the FY2026 operating budget in the amount of $5,000 to Street Impact, a charitable organization. This item requires an expenditure of $5,000 from the Milton Community Enhancement Program grant fund sponsored by Commissioner Brittany Thornton. Item 26 is the resolution of awarding county funds from the FY2026 operating budget in the amount of $5,000 to in the arms of an angel a charitable organization this item requires an expenditure of five thousand dollars from the milton community enhancement program grant fund sponsored by commissioner henry brooks and commissioner brittany thornton item was amended in may 27 2026 committee meeting item 28 is a resolution warning county funds from the fy 2026 operating budget amount of twenty thousand dollars to april fourth foundation inc a charitable organization this item requires an expenditure of twenty thousand dollars from the milton community enhancement program grant fund sponsored by commissioner matthew t shelley commissioner miska clay bibbs commissioner erica sugarman and commissioner brittany thornton this item was amended in may 27 2026 committee meeting item 29 is a resolution warning county funds from the fy 2026 operating budget the amount of twenty eight thousand five hundred dollars to the Black Pearl Nail Academy, a charitable organization. This item requires an expenditure of $28,500 from the Milton Community Enhancement Program Grant Fund, sponsored by Commissioner Matthew T. Shalai, Commissioner Ms. McClay-Bitts, and Commissioner Brittany Thornton. This item was amended in May 27, 2026 Committee Meeting. item 30 is a resolution warning county funds from the fy 2026 operating budget in the amount of 24 000 to autism advocates a charitable organization this item requires an expenditure of 24 000 now the military community enhancement program fund sponsored by commissioner matthew t shillai commissioner miss clay bibbs and commissioner britney thornton this item was amended in may 27 2026 committee meeting Item 32 is a resolution warning county funds from the FY 2026 operating budget in the amount of $5,000 to Lee Jazz Omega, a charitable organization. This item requires an expenditure of $5,000 from the Milton Community Enhancement Program grant fund sponsored by Chairwoman Shante K. Avam. Item 33 is a resolution warning county funds from the FY 2026 operating budget in the amount of $40,000 to Good Health Organization Inc. A charitable organization. This item requires an expenditure of $40,000 in the Milton Community Enhancement Program Fund, sponsored by Commissioner Henry E. Brooks, Commissioner Miska Clay-Bibbs, and Commissioner Brittany Thornton. This item was amended in the May 27, 2026 committee meeting. Item 34 is the resolution awarding county funds from the FY 2026 operating budget in the amount of $5,000 to Mindful in Memphis, a charitable organization. This item requires an expenditure of $5,000 in the Milton Community Enhancement Program Fund, sponsored by Commissioner David C. Bradford, Jr. Item 35 is a resolution warning county funds from the FY 2026 operating budget in the amount of $50,000 to historic archives of Rose Market and Byron's Hare LLC, a charitable organization. This item requires an expenditure of $50,000 in the Milton Community Enhancement Program grant funds sponsored by Commissioner Amber Mills. Item 36 is a resolution warning county funds from the FY... 2026 operating budget in the amount of $5,500 to Ladies in Need Can Survive Inc., a charitable organization. This item requires an expenditure of $4,500 from the Milton Community Enhancement Program Grant Fund, sponsored by Commissioner Charlie Caswell Jr., Commissioner Brittany Thornton, and Commissioner Henry Brooks. This item was amended in May 27th, 2026 committee meeting. I just want to point out to the chair that there is an inconsistency in item 36, so.

Can that be clarified? Is the amount $5,500 or $4,500? It's $5,500. It's $5,500? Okay. Before we've even gotten a motion. We can do that after.

We can just pull that one. Remove this one. Or we can do an amendment and just fold them all as amended.

Okay, so colleagues, I'm gonna pull number 36 so that we can make an amendment separately and vote on consent agenda as a whole. So this consent agenda minus item 36.

From the items that we read from the consent.

From the items that we read from the consent. Can I get a motion for the consent agenda? Motion by Commissioner Thornton, second by So, Commissioner Thornton, I'm just gonna go to those that were in the queue, if you don't mind. Commissioner Sugarman, moved, and Commissioner Caswell, second. Before we vote on the consent agenda, there is one comment card on an item that was not pulled from the consent agenda, and so I wanted to give Daria Caldwell an opportunity to come and speak on the item. Miss Caldwell, if you could state your name and zip code for the record.

Greetings, my name is Dariah Caldwell, zip code 38116. I'm the founder of the Black Pearl Nell Academy. The Black Pearl Nell Academy is the first full-service manicure school in the state of Tennessee, and currently is the only strictly 501c three non-profit manicure schools in the state. The non-profit structure was intentional. I wanted to build a school that exists to serve the community and not exploit it. Unfortunately, we have all seen schools change outrageous tuition, consume students' federal funding, and leave them with debt instead of direction. The Black Pearl was created to do the opposite. We provide adult learners with specialized training that leads to real careers, entrepreneurship, and economic independence. Our students gain foundational skills, financial literacy, customer service skills, and stackable credentials necessary to become licensed nail techs, advanced medical pedicures, medical pedicures, and certified medical pedicures. But we teach more than nails. We teach professionalism, ownership, and even confidence. We teach our students how to become fiscally responsible entrepreneurs who can successfully create businesses right here in Shelby County. And our numbers speak for themselves because in just eight years, the Black Pearl has helped license more than 250 individuals across Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas. With assistance from this council, we will give young people who are currently learning incorrectly an opportunity to learn professionally and legally. We can guide their entrepreneurial journeys and ensure they are operating legitimate businesses in Shelby County. I want to recognize Commissioner Thornton for making the decision to sponsor two individuals from her district to attend the Black Pearl. Not only does this support our program, it creates direct impact in her community. These are her constituents gaining skills, building careers, and creating economic mobility right in her district. So today, I want to extend the same opportunity to the commissioners for districts one through eight, 12, and 13. This is not about taking resources away from your districts. This is about investing directly into your district. Each council member has the opportunity to sponsor as many constituents as you like. While you remove the financial barriers that cause many to fail, we will train them, support them, and track their progress so you can see the direct return on your investment in the same people that you serve. This creates something powerful, not just funding, but ownership, not just support, but success stories tied directly to your leadership. If you've ever wanted to see workforce development translate into something real, measurable outcomes in your district, this is that opportunity. And because most think that this industry is only for women, I have asked Mr. Mahasin Robinson, who is a graduate of the Black Pearl Mill Academy to come and speak real quickly.

Good afternoon, everybody. Mahasin Robinson, 38109. If I may have just a minute of your ears and eyes for a second. My name is Mahasin Robinson. Like I said, I'm here this afternoon to not just speak on behalf of the Ryan Caldwell and the Black Preliminary Academy. I'm not just asking for your support or you consider supporting us. We're just asking you to support us more. I'm a recent graduate of the institution and currently and waiting to take my state boards. I'm also a lifetime supporter of the establishment and its current and former students. This day, hopefully I will assist those who haven't had an opportunity to support would be more enticed to and assist with garnering more support. Simply put, I'm asking you to believe in the people. I'm asking you to see the mother working two jobs who still dreams of owning something for herself. The struggling father who's placing his health in jeopardy with daily labor and strenuous activity with the only ability to live check to check. The young adult who feels forgotten because college is never financially possible. The person trying to rebuild their life after hardships, searching for one opportunity, just one, to stand on their own two feet. Because that is what a community-based NIL program can do. give you hope, not just beauty, not just nails, hope wrapped in opportunity. Too many people in our communities are filled with talent, creativity, and determination, but they lack access, they lack resources, they lack someone willing to invest in their future, and eventually, people stop dreaming when doors keep closing in their face. But this school can become a door that opens, a place where someone can walk in uncertain, broken, struggling, and walk out licensed, skilled, confident, and employable. a place where a single mom can finally say i can provide for my children a place where someone who has who has been overlooked can finally say i matter a place where entrepreneurship is born where confidence is rebuilt where generational poverty can finally begin to break because when a person learns a trade you are not just teaching them a skill you are restoring dignity you are giving them ownership you are giving them independence you are giving them the ability to create income without having to leave their community behind and let's be honest our community did not suffer from lack of talent they suffer from lack of opportunity this school can change that the support you provide today could become a future salon around anywhere in this county a mentor teaching the next generation a parent no longer choosing between bills and groceries a business bringing money into the county and last but not least a life completely transformed thank you i'm sorry you didn't pull a comment card and her three minutes is up i was trying to give you latitude but i appreciate your comments thank you we have two commissioners in queue commissioner sugarman

thank you chair and so i understand the ask is for additional donations however i'm pledged out but i would like to give a um an opportunity um on wednesday you stated that you had reached out to corrections and i just had an opportunity to speak with um director alexander and so he's in the back and i would like to do for i like to formally introduce individuals so that the people who are incarcerated can get a second third fourth chance i believe in chances nobody's perfect all human beings we all make mistakes well most of us make mistakes and so that should not condemn a person because they lack opportunity as you stated so eloquently And so maybe you all can work it out. I know you stated something about the sharp utensils and things like that. And that was the reason why you rejected. But I would love for you all to work things out so that when people are discharged, they have an opportunity to rebuild their lives. And I think this is one way they can do it through licensure. And so I will formally like to make the introduction. My assistant's gonna give me your email address and I will like to formally introduce you all so we can work it out. And so that you don't have to come back to the commission, you know, year after year, because as you know, we have very, very tight budgets. Our CEP fund is gonna be cut in half. We don't have those resources that people are taxed to death with fines and fees and things of that nature. And so I just want to be a bridge to connect you to. So thank you so much for what you do for our community. Thank you.

Commissioner Thornton.

Thank you, Chair. I just want to echo what Commissioner Sugarman said. Director Alexander, I would love to see this work out. So no pressure, but pressure. And I'll just tell you that we're talking about fiscal year $26. So just pay attention that you should have quick conversations with each of the commissioners to talk about their allocations for fiscal year 27. So that could be an opportunity for you to get more students to come to the school. Thank you.

Madam Clerk, please prepare the screen for a vote. Madam Clerk, please report the vote.

We have aye votes from Commissioners Whaley, Clay Bibbs, Caswell, Sugarman, Mills, Shalai, Wright, Thornton, Morrison, Brooks, and Chairwoman Avant. We have 11 aye votes.

That motion passes. Parliamentarian, please read item three.

item three comes from the budget and finance committee which is chaired by commissioner whaley item three is a resolution appropriating and expanding fiscal year 2026 capital improvement funds for a previously approved contract with axon enterprise inc for the sheriff's office body camera and car video system in an amount not to exceed two million three hundred three thousand twenty fifty seven dollars and five cents this resolution requires the appropriation and expenditure of fiscal year 2026 shelby county capital improvements plan funds in an amount not to exceed $2,303,257.05 sponsored by Commissioner McWright.

There's a motion by Commissioner Sugarman, a second by Commissioner Caswell. Commissioner Whalen, could I have a committee report?

Yes, this item comes down with a favorable recommendation.

Thank you. Is there a presentation or comments from the Sheriff's Office?

I don't have any comments for committee. If you'd like me to redo my committee comments, I would be glad to.

OK. Commissioner Thornton.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you for being ready for this particular item being pulled. So, it just being a $2 million contract, I'd like to have some type of just discussion about those contracts in commission. So, I see that this is a piggyback contract with a non-local vendor. When it comes to the services that we have here being offered, are there any local vendors that are in the commodity codes here locally that could potentially be a vendor? I know we chose the piggyback route, but I'm just curious if there are any local vendors that could provide this same service.

winked down in a chief inspector sheriff's office yes ma'am there are a few local vendors there are hundreds of body camera and in-car video system vendors in the united states some good some bad we're using the current vendor that we use exxon it's a five-year cip project axon has the 200 largest law enforcement agencies in the united states and just for the record we squeaked in there at 199. so sorry it's it's rather difficult i don't know if my colleagues are able to hear the speakers but it's

it's kind of hard to understand what y'all are saying today, and I think this is a lingering issue. So I don't think it's anything that you're doing, but if there's anything that you can do so that we can hear you more clearly. I heard you say that there are local vendors. Do you know offhand how many solicitations would have gone out if this were put out for bid? Is that information that you would know?

Locally, I don't know, I'm sorry, chief down in . So locally, I only know three possible vendors who.

And so with that just being said, why is it the opinion of the sheriff's office to go with the piggyback rather than make this a competitive bid to allow those three local vendors to participate?

we took it a little further first of all is you know we reviewed back when cameras started i've been around for a pretty good while commissioner we reviewed back when cameras started probably a hundred or so vendors looking at different options and stuff available There are so many features that are available now with our technology that we have and this was the top of the line vendor. This is the same vendor that MPD has been using since 2017. The vendor we had originally started with was a wonderful vendor and then they got bought out by a bigger company and then their support and the reason why we had to change companies, they lost over uh they lost first of all they lost all of our video the previous vendor they lost all of our video it took us six months to restore it and then they were told there's still over 20 000 videos they don't know where they're at and they don't know what they are so at that point especially since this being a very transparent thing to the public And it's also an officer accountability thing. And it's an evidentiary thing when you get in courts. We decided it's best to go to EAP. a best of breed vendor and Axon met that requirement. We were looking to quickly get away from this company and so we discussed it among ourselves, discussed it with purchasing and all that and we found a contract that we could piggyback on. This also ties in with the fact that we can operate the same way MPD does. MPD provides their evidentiary videos to the Attorney General's office in a manner where they just had to search it, pull it up. We weren't able to do that. We were having to provide the personnel, which we were extremely short on, of pulling the video, rendering it to a thumb drive or to a DVD or something to get it. So this was actually a cost-saving matter, plus it kind of uniformed the way the criminal justice approach to how video is used in the courts in Shelby County and by the law enforcement.

Thank you.

Commissioner Sugarman.

Thank you, Chair. And so I'm just curious, and this is to the attorneys through the chair. It says a five year contract with Exxon Enterprise Incorporated. I thought we had a policy where we had like a two year max with, you know, one year extension. Is that not the case? This is five year. Contract with Exxon Enterprise.

And I was just curious, why is it five year, not two year? Megan Smith, County Attorney's Office. I can check the permanent rules to see if that's a procedural item. There's no legal barrier to the five year contracting rule, so it is properly before you and available to vote up or vote down.

Okay, and so again, going back to Wink, I'm really having problems with local vendors being overlooked, and we don't know for sure that this is the lowest bid, because we haven't put it out for bid. Piggyback also seems to me a way of put you know getting around that fact if it's not a case of emergency then it's a piggyback close bid and we're just continually to Contract out local vendors and so I'm not gonna approve. I'm not gonna support this and again It's five year not two years. So again, I will not be supporting this.

Thank you Chief down and civic and insurance officer Commissioner I don't know how to say this, but I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings or anything, but we need the best technology available when it comes to doing our job, protecting our officers, protecting the public and all that. There's a lot of fly-by-night vendors. We had a top of the line vendor until they were bought out by a larger company. It went south. We had what I call an expedient need to get rid of that vendor as soon as possible and get this going and so we wouldn't have a lapse or any loss of any more video from this vendor that we were dealing with. We had an on-premise solution. The reason why this solution costs a little bit more is because it's a hosted solution on the cloud. They don't have an on-premise server and storage area. And speaking to this commission, this commission approved a five-year contract by waiving the commission rules and agreed with us at the time and it's a five-year CIP project and the reason why it's a five-year CIP project because this type of technology is so expensive these days that we couldn't come up with general fund or one year just CIP funds to fund it so we convinced the vendor to spread the cost of this equipment out over five years and asked this commission to approve you know spreading the cost out in the cfp project over five years and this body voted in favor of that and since and here we stand today commissioner thornton thank you chair i'm sorry chief do you mind coming to have a seat here to see if maybe um they could hear you a little better from these microphones do you mind thank you

Thank you, Chief, for answering these questions so thoroughly. I'm following the rationale that the sheriff's office has used to select this vendor through the piggyback contract. I just want to bring attention just to the public that we need to scrutinize. This particular item was just gonna pass through the consent agenda with no type of discussion, and the majority of us were not in committee, so I think that But it's kind of presumptuous to think that all of us are keeping up with the amount of non-local spend that is happening on the watch of the Board of Commissioners. So that's the issue here. I hear what you said, y'all have some trauma, it sounds like, with your data that you lost and just how much of a disruption that was. But I do want to also, while we are expending these dollars, lift up an issue that we continue to just overlook, the missed opportunities to build up local vendors so that they can be bigger, more competitive, you know, businesses they should be able to be the non-local vendor in another market but we have our local businesses here unable to really cross over and so when i hear a five-year stipulation i'm assuming to be able to even get to the negotiating table it can be very much so a barrier for local business to meet some of these stiff requirements that the Sheriff's Office continues to put in its contracts. So this is really just, you know, to your exiting leadership, to whoever will be our next sheriff, I really would love for the contracting piece of the Sheriff's Office to get a little bit more scrutiny because what y'all are bringing us often favors non-local vendors. And I do think that we need to push back as a body on the Sheriff's Office to be a little bit more diligent to work well with local vendors and figure out whether it's through breaking down the scope of the contract or just outright giving them the opportunity to show what they can do. If you could just communicate that message to your leadership, that will give me more solace as I'm trying to fight for our local businesses as it relates to what y'all are bringing us from the Sheriff's Office. But thank you for, you know, what you've done to vet this particular item, and I hope to see a local vendor be more competitive in the future. Thank you.

Chief Down in Shelby County Sheriff's Office, if I could just make a clarification. Because we have retailers here in Shelby County that sell body cameras, none of them make them locally. We do have retailers here in Shelby County that can sell these Exxon cameras. that they can't sell them to us at the same price of a state contract or without stepping on them and causing increased cost to this county. It was already expensive enough. You know, we had the option. We could have put it out for bid and a local vendor could have got it. but it would have been cost effective and would have been a good steward of the shares and the county's money if I'd put it out to bid because they were certainly not going to sell it to the same price Axon would. They would have to get a piece of the pie, so to speak. So that's the reason why we opted to go with a piggyback contract.

Commissioner Sugarman.

Thank you, Chair. And so this is $2.3 million. Is that $2.3 million over a five-year period? So is it 2.3 each year? Is that correct?

Correct, Commissioner Sherman. I'm sorry, the first year was not that much because we didn't have that much in the CIP project. You had to get approved five years ahead of time. So then we negotiated it and then we were able to work with finance to get it into a five year CIP project, spread the cost over the five year period. So this is second year and for the third, fourth and fifth year it will be 2.3 million.

Okay, so it's 2.3 million each year for the next five years for probably about $12 million total. Is that correct? Okay, and again, and so you're saying the three local vendors could not offer the things that this particular vendor, Exxon Enterprise, which is out of, is it out of state or out of county? Is it out of state?

The contract?

Yes.

This contract, it was with the state of Nebraska contract, but the state of Tennessee had the very exact same contract, except for it expired before the five-year period.

So we did have a contract with the state of Tennessee? It's hard to hear.

The state of Tennessee contract was one we was gonna originally try to piggyback on, but it expired before the five-year period, so we looked at other state contracts and we found the state of Nebraska had the same contract, but was...

So we're picking back all of the Nebraska contract, is that correct?

Yes.

Wow, so we had to go to another state to get a piggyback. And so these three vendors that you were speaking of, so none of the three vendors could offer the things that you all needed, is that correct?

Yes, they could offer the axon cameras at a marked up price.

Because sometimes I hear what's best, and if you go outside of the county, outside the state, you're not building up the capacity here locally. And so when you don't do that, then you're talking about taxpayers' funding source. that's an issue and so in the long run it's caught more costly as opposed to the short run and so many times we're short-sighted because we're overlooking other people that are vendors are already here and they're having to close down because they are not able to get these contracts So again, you know, I'm hearing over and over it's more cost efficient, but is it? If you only consider the short run and not the long run, because we are losing individuals who are moving outside. We have companies that are leaving, and pretty soon our tax base is going to shrink to the point that we're going to be in dire consequences. So again, I cannot support this. Thank you.

Commissioner Caswell.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I do understand the capacity that what you're saying, because if we're not going to put more money in the budget to be able to expand the capacity for other business and local business to do it with the high being that they got to pay more, you say you're trying to save us money by founding some way. to make sure it can fit, right? Because if not, we got to give more money. If we don't put more money in the budget, then we're going to be saying we got to raise taxes because we're not being competitive to found. Sadly, I know and I hear my colleagues fully understand that we got to do something, but that something is put more money in the budget. and then say, let's give local people the opportunity. But if we're not going to put more money in the budget to give you more money to be able to give local people that opportunity, what are we doing? Because we're going to ask you to go out there and pay more, but then we're going to tell the people we ain't got no money. We broke. Either we got money or we don't. And so I understand 100% what you're doing and why you're doing it. And I appreciate it being done. I hate that our local people are not able to compete, and I want to see that. But how we see that, we put more money in the budget and say, go compete locally. Thank you.

Commissioner Sugarman, this is your third time speaking, so you'll need to make a motion to suspend the roll. Okay, so moved. Thank you. Can we do that without objection? Seeing none, you're recognized.

And I just wanna say, we don't know if this is the lowest and best because it wasn't put out competitively. It was not, it was a piggyback. A piggyback just rides on another contract. And so I just want people in the public to listen. We don't know if this is the lowest best bid because it wasn't sent out. There was no RFP sent out. There's no RFQ sent out. So again, we gotta be careful how we convey to the public We don't know it's a competitive bid because it wasn't sent out. And so again, this is a piggyback, not a competitive bid. And if there was a competitive bid, RP, we would see the scoring card. And therefore, because it was a piggyback, there is no scorecard in the system. So again, this is not a competitive bid, this is a piggyback, which is a difference. Thank you.

Madam Chair, may I speak? uh... wing down in Shelby County Sheriff's Office. Commissioner, I feel at this point it's important for me to tell this body that the last two years I have done good to pay maintenance on my technology projects. Buying anything has been out the door. This year's proposed budget by the administration doesn't look any better. I need more body cameras now, but it doesn't look like I might have the funding opportunity. we have we have been moving monies around this new system it's been a nightmare trying to get monies moved around to pay certain bills and i appreciate what you're saying i am a lifelong mythian i want to do myth business here in shelby county with millions But I also got to be like anyone else and, you know, it's just like the family budget. You're going to try to spend the dollar that you're given most prudently as you can. I would love to have the money to go to a local vendor. But right now, when our first, the first body cameras we bought, I'll just say the name of the company because it's no longer in existence. It's bought by a big company, WatchGuard. It was put out to bid. It was bid on by a local company. who did absolutely nothing but get a check. Everything we did with Watch Guard, we had to do ourself and go through them. They got paid for it, got their little commission off of it, and they were out of the business. Now what kind of good business is that for the Shelby County? That's not good business. And I mean then, excuse me, I apologize. I'm gonna see that happen again.

All right, Chief Lindsey, I'll let you comment, and then we have Commissioner Brooks. Thank you, Chairwoman Avant.

I just want to bring to the Commission's attention that this is year two of a five-year contract. So year one was last year. This is the second year, and there are three more years remaining. So I just wanted to point out that this is a renewal agreement.

Commissioner Brooks? Just a quick question in reference to this piggyback. I heard the state of Nebraska mentioned. Is that where we're piggybacking from, or is that always Arizona? Yes, ma'am. Or is it Nashville?

If you wink down in Shelby County Sheriff's Office, if you're with piggyback contracts, they are managed by different companies. There's only about three different companies that manage these state contracts. This particular contract, and I have to refer back to the original resolution, was managed by Omni Partners.

And what state?

They're just a company that does business with different states in the United States. Where are they headquartered? They manage their state contracts so they don't have to. Pardon?

Where are they headquartered?

I do not know.

Okay, so let me ask you this. I heard you say something. I don't know what's wrong with our system. It's a little muffled. So I'm not getting every word you say, but I think I heard you lambast a company because, a local company, and it seemed like to me you were not going to do business or weren't excited about doing business locally because of this one bad experience with one local company. Did I hear that?

You did hear that, Commissioner, and that's not the first time this happened to us. We have been forced to go with the local vendor.

So what you're going to do is, you're going to, all right, hold on for a minute. So I want to understand. So what you're saying is that with your actions, that because of one bad experience with one local company, you are totally against doing business with any local companies? Is that what you're saying?

No, ma'am.

Okay, so what are you saying? what i'm saying is i'd be glad to do it if the commission would fund it you know me other than that i'm going to be okay i might be good with the dollars i got and spend them wisely let me make sure i understand so did you did you have an opportunity to um find out if thomas consultants could do this work i mean there are several top shelf highly rated locally owned technology companies based right here in Shelby County. And this one just comes to mind, Thomas Consultants. Have you had an opportunity to do business with them?

Yes, and we do quite a bit of business, Thomas Consultants.

Okay, okay. So why did, just help me to understand why we didn't do this business with them.

Commissioner, you have to go back to the first of what I was talking about. The situation was excellent. We had a vendor. It sold out to a larger company. Just lost all of our in-car video, all of our mug camera video. It took us six months to retrieve it. We still had 20,000 videos that are out there in oblivion somewhere. We don't know where they're at. Their support and service had become terrible, and that was for this commission, and the reason why we wanted to quickly as possible, a bid process takes over almost a year with the county bidding process, okay? It takes almost over a year. We had excellent circumstances. We had to move, and we went with what we knew worked. We spent a lot of time in the Memphis Police Department. We talked to Metro Nashville, who's also uses this. We talked to most of the large agencies who use this vendor. and they said they got it all what about this they got this like like the one big thing that none of the locals have or had at that time the ones that were providing those cheaper cameras was what we call pre-record our cameras are always recording even though the red light isn't on depends on the memory on it so if an officer failed to hit the record button or if he maliciously intended not to hit the record button as long as we find that about an event within 24 that maybe 48 hours depending on how much video he's human thank you we can retrieve it thank you chief we're going to now move this item for a vote please prepare the screen

Please report the vote.

We have aye votes from Commissioners Whitely, Clay Bibbs, Caswell, Mills, Shalai, Wright, Morrison, Lowry, and Chairwoman Avent. Commissioners Sugarman, Thornton, and Brooks have voted no. I have nine ayes and three noes.

And motion passes. Commentary, please read item seven.

Item seven comes from the Hospitals and Health Committee, which is chaired by Commissioner Clay Bibbs. Item seven is a resolution approving a contract between Shelby County government on behalf of Shelby County Health Department and Shelby County Healthcare Corporation, DBA, Regional One Health for the provision of professional services for pharmaceutical services and medications for outpatients seen at the Shelby County Health Department for the period beginning July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2026, with an option to renew for two additional one-year periods. This item requires expenditure of FY2026 general funds in an amount not to exceed $168,800, sponsored by Commissioner Misca Clay Bibbs.

We have a motion by Commissioner Whaley, a second by Commissioner Sugarman. Commissioner Clay Bibbs, can I get a committee report?

Yes, Madam chair. This item came down with a favorable recommendation.

Thank you. Commissioner Thornton. You're recognized.

Thank you, chair. Um, always a pleasure to see you. Um, I want to start off with a shout out. Um, Dr. Randolph came to a community meeting. in District 10, so we just thank you for being here and there. And I'm pulling this item just to get a conversation. It's been a minute since we have talked about Regional 1 and their spend with, now we say local businesses, before when I was asking these questions, it was related to the MWBE program that we had. So from a meeting, I learned that there are restricted and unrestricted funds, And so I'm just curious how Regional 1 posts the implementation of the state legislation and the repeal of our MWBE program. How are we doing with our local spend and what are we seeing with the challenges that we had before within Regional 1 with unrestricted funds? It was just a 2% span with minorities when I probed. So now that we have taken away the programming, I need to hear how we're gonna be able to find people that we can't even identify anymore. So just posing that to this particular item as we are passing yet another contract related to regional one.

Dr. Brewster, I'm the Director and Health Officer, Shelby County Health Department. Thank you Commissioner Thornton for that question and I will have to investigate and find more information to specifically answer your question about the spend. This particular resolution deals only with the fact that we have a contract with the regional one to provide a pharmacist and pharmaceutical and medical services under state law in order to operate a pharmacy you have to have a pharmacist we do not have a pharmacist on our staff at the health department we contract with regional one in order to provide that service that's required legally in order for us to order and dispense medication so this particular resolution is for that purpose a contract that's been in place i think since 1990 where we relied on the pharmacists and pharmaceutical department there at Regional 1.

Okay, if you could just give us that information and just send it to the entire body, that would be super helpful. It's something that I want to continue to track as we continue to see Regional 1 come on our agenda. Thank you.

Thank you.

Madam Clerk, please prepare the screen for a vote. Please record the vote.

We have aye votes from Commissioners Whaley, Clay Bibbs, Sugarman, Mills, Shalai, Wright, Thornton, Morrison, Brooks, Lowery, and Chairwoman Avent. I have 11 aye votes.

That motion passes. Commentary and please read item number 15.

Yes, ma'am. Item 15 comes from the Milton Community Enhancement Grants Committee, which is chaired by Commissioner Thornton. Item 15 is resolution amending resolution number 18, adopted on August 25th, 2025, and the Milton Community Enhancement Program guidelines to include a requirement that resolutions approving funding, grants, or other financial support to nonprofit organizations shall include Veterans Services Office's information for all recipients to disseminate. Sponsored by Commissioner Amber Mills.

I have a motion by Commissioner Sugarman, a second by Commissioner Whaley. Commissioner Brooks, you recognize?

Thank you. I pulled this item from the agenda because I have a concern, and this item seems to highlight my concern in reference to compliance with federal laws, particularly federal laws related to nondiscrimination in federal funding. As we all know, any entity that receives federal dollars, indirect or directly, are required to comply with certain federal statutes, and the main one being Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Mind you, we have no mechanism or an entity in place that is capable of monitoring compliance, any kind of compliance at all. So we don't know whether they're in compliance or not. And one of the things that I've heard in my district, other than babies not being able to have enough food, I have a number of veterans who do not get any knowledge, any exposure, or any notification regarding programs for veterans. And most of these programs are funded with public dollars. So I made an effort on Wednesday to try and insert some non-discriminatory language, but it was rejected by the sponsor. So what I want to do, I'm not gonna try to bring that up at this time because the sponsor has shown that she rejects any language that has anything to do with non-discrimination, so that's that, we know that. But I do wanna highlight for the public that it's time for us and my colleagues as well, it's time for us to start thinking about an entity that's going to monitor public money, where it's going, who is it serving. And so many Vietnam veterans in particular, black Vietnam veterans, are being totally, totally neglected when it comes to these kinds of services. And they're not the only ones, but this is what we're dealing with now, funds for veterans. So I think it's just important that we think about an entity that's going to monitor all the money that's going out the window to these various organizations. We need to know whether or not they're legit anyway. We don't have money to just throw away. So we need to find out if the money is hitting the target, if it's intentionally doing something that is not right. or if it's doing something that is actually benefiting our Shelby County government. We do not know that, and we need to have some idea as to how our money is being spent. Thank you.

Madam Clerk, please prepare the screen for a vote. Madam Clerk, please report the vote.

We have aye votes from Commissioners Whaley, Clay Bibbs, Sugarman, Mills, Shalaya, Wright, Thornton, Lowry, and Chairwoman Avent. Commissioner Brooks has abstained. We have nine ayes and one abstain.

That motion passes. Parliamentarian, please read item 16.

Item 16 comes from the Milton Community Enhancement Grants Committee, which is chaired by Commissioner Thornton. Item 16 is a resolution awarding county funds from the FY2026 operating budget in the amount of $6,500 to Urban Promise 901, a charitable organization. This item requires an expenditure of $6,500 from the Milton Community Enhancement Program grant fund, sponsored by Commissioner McKell Lowry and Commissioner Matthew T. Shillai.

I have a motion by Commissioner Sugarman, a second by Commissioner Shala. Commissioner Thornton?

Thank you, Chair. I would like to amend this item by $2,000. Second. Add $2,000.

I have a motion by Commissioner Thornton to amend by $2,000, making this $8,500, a second by Commissioner Sugarman. Can we do that without objection? Seeing none, so moved. Madam Clerk, please prepare the screen for a vote. And this is approving at 8,500. Please report the vote.

We have aye votes from Commissioners Whaley, Clay Bibbs, Sugarman, Mills, Shalai, Wright, Thornton, Brooks, Lowry, and Chairwoman Avent. We have 10 aye votes.

That motion passes. Parliamentarian, please read item 27.

Item 27 comes from the Milton Community Enhancement Grants Committee, which is chaired by Commissioner Thornton. Item 27 is a resolution awarding county funds from the FY 2026 operating budget in the amount $38,000 to Bartlett Chamber Foundation, a charitable organization. This item requires an expenditure of $38,000 from the Milton Community Enhancement Program grant fund, sponsored by Commissioner McWright.

I have a motion by Commissioner Sugarman, a second by Commissioner Thornton. Seeing no commissioners in the queue, please prepare the screen for a vote. Please report the vote.

We have I votes from commissioners Wiley, Clayville, Sugarman, Mills, Shalai, Wright, Thornton, Lowry, and Sherwin-Avon. Commissioner Brooks has abstained. I have nine ayes and one abstain.

That motion passes. Parliamentarian, please read item 31.

Item 31 comes from the Milton Community Enhancement Grants Committee, which is chaired by Commissioner Thornton. Item 31 is a resolution of warning county funds from the FY 2026 operating budget in the amount of $2,000 to I Am She, a charitable organization. This item requires an expenditure of $2,000 from the Milton Community Enhancement Program Grant Fund, sponsored by Commissioner Mikel Lowry.

I have a motion by Commissioner Sugarman, a second by Commissioner Clay Bibbs. Commissioner Caswell?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I pulled this item to recuse myself. This is my sister organization, just letting you know, and I talk with the attorneys. I'm not on the board, none of that. She didn't see a conflict, but just wanted to, out of caution, pull this item to recuse. Thank you.

Madam Clerk, please prepare the screen for a vote. Madam Clerk, please report the vote.

We have aye votes from commissioners Clay Bibbs, Sugarman, Mills, Shalai, Wright, Thornton, Brooks, Lowry, and Chairwoman Avent. Commissioner Caswell has recused. We have nine ayes and one recused.

That motion passes. Parliamentarian, please read item 36.

Item 36 comes from the Milton Community Enhancement Grants Committee, which is chaired by Commissioner Thornton. Item 36 is a resolution awarding county funds from the FY2026 operating budget in the amount of $5,500 to Ladies in Need Can Survive Inc., a charitable organization. This item requires an expenditure of $4,500 from the Milton Community Enhancement Program Grant Fund, sponsored by Commissioner Charlie Caswell, Jr., Commissioner Brittany Thornton, and Commissioner Henry E. Brooks. This item was amended in May 27, 2026, committee meeting.

I have a motion by Commissioner Shalaw, a second by Commissioner Sugarman. This item was pulled so that there could be an amendment that this item does require an expenditure of $5,500. Could I get a motion for that amendment? I have a motion by Commissioner Caswell, a second by Commissioner Sugarman. Can we do that without objection? Could you prepare the screen for a vote for the amended item, which reads $5,500 to ladies in need, can survive ink, and this item does require an expenditure of $5,500. Commissioner Thornton, my apologies. I forgot to call on you for your committee reports. Charge to my head, not my heart. Please report the vote.

Let the record show that I was ready.

Okay. Thank you.

We have aye votes from Commissioners Whaley, Clay Bibbs, Caswell, Sugarman, Niels, Shalai, Wright, Thornton. Brooks, Lowry, and Chairwoman Avent, we have 11 aye votes.

That motion passes. Commentarian, please, now as we move on to the regular agenda, if we could read item 37.

yes ma'am item 37 comes from the budget and finance committee which is chaired by commissioner whaley item 37 is an ordinance second reading ordinance fixing the tax rate for shelby county at blank dollars for the tax year 2027 sponsored by commissioner michael whaley this item was sent down without recommendation in may 27th 2026 committee meeting

I have a motion by Commissioner Whaley, a second by Commissioner Caswell. Commissioner Whaley, could I have a committee report?

Yes, this item comes down without a recommendation.

Okay. Is there anything else that you'd like to elaborate? You're recognized, Commissioner Whaley.

Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. So this is the second reading of the tax rate ordinance and just kind of lay out where we're at and we can decide how we want to act. I did, I don't know if Director Tipton, if you had those fractional percentages, fractional pennies on the certified rate, but that's one option. So right now on second reading, so again, we can also modify on a third reading, but if we modify it substantially, it would require either suspension of rules or it requires a fourth reading. Our budget schedule is baked in a fourth reading. So we have a third reading at our next meeting. And then if we need it, we have a fourth reading at the end of June. So that is still possible. So it doesn't mean that we need to amend today. We can still do it at the next meeting. But if we do anything above the 2.663814, which is the certified recapture rate, that would require a specific notice of an intent to exceed the tax rate. So that's something that would have to be intentionally done. And there's a certain, and we can go over that if we'd like. But the options are we can continue to leave it blank on the second reading, amend on the third, either suspend the rules or don't, and send it to a fourth reading, which is just fine. Or if we want to fill it in today, we'd have to fill it in at the recapture rate, which is a 2.663814. And if we do that, we need the fractional pennies for the education fund, debt service fund, and general fund, because that was not in the proposed budget. So that is where we are on that.

Ms. Simpson?

Good afternoon, Audrey Tipton, Director of Administration and Finance. Currently allocating the 2.66, we have 1.16 going to the Education Fund and 1.20 going to the County General Fund and .30 going to the Debt Service Fund for a total of 2.66.

Okay, so if I may... Point of information, I cannot hear the last.

Can you repeat it, please? Director Tipton, if you could just repeat the amounts going to...

The last one? Yes. .30, 30 cents. going to that service if you could just state them all that service education fund if you could just state it all for the record again if you don't mind okay audrey tipton director of administration and finance education fund one dollar sixteen cents one point one six county general fund one point two zero one dollar twenty cents and the debt service fund point three zero thirty cents

okay sorry if I may madam chair yes just director Tipton please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong here but my understanding was based on our conversation on Wednesday is that we need to actually get the fractional pennies because the recapture rate which has multiply more decimal places than we're usually work with is the rate we need to acknowledge which we will later on our agenda But that's actually the rate that's baked into the revenue forecast. So the revenue forecast does account for those extra fractional pennies. And so we need to make sure that's accounted for, even if we were to adopt the proposal as it is. The proposal is built, to my understanding, is built on the inclusion of those fractional pennies. which which is like over a million dollars so we just need the the we need to go out more decimal places on each one of those general fund education and debt service and it's only going to be fractional it's going to be small amounts for each one but and we could do it just proportionally based on how it is now but i want to make sure we're accurate with it but that's really the if we're going to do it today those are really the numbers that we need

Director Tipton? Audrey Tipton, Director of Administration and Finance. I will go back and move that out the rest of those decimal places.

Commissioner Wiley, are you making a recommendation that we just leave this blank for so that Director Tipton comes back, we can move this to the Hill so that she could come back and we could put in a number for the tax rate?

We could do that, or we also don't, as I was saying earlier, we don't need to do that. So it can still be done on a third reading. It would just require suspension of the rules or the fourth reading, which we already have on the calendar so we're in a it's an okay position we don't have to do it today but just so that we know that is what needs to happen if it happened if we do want to do a rate higher than that then we need to go through the notice process but we need to make sure that the budget as proposed if we were as if we were going to adopt it today which we're not but the revenues need to match the forecasts to the fractional penny yes commercial casual

Thank you, Madam Chair. To the sponsor, I just, when he said put the notice, what is the notice to the public? If the rate's going to be higher, what's the number of pennies do we have to do public notice about?

Okay, so if there's an intent to exceed the recapture rate, which is the 2.663814, even if it's by a fractional penny, the state requires a public notice, which is kind of both our traditional public notice, but also we sort of publicize it in a specific format. And that usually can follow the same amount of notice we give for any other public meetings. And then it would be in anticipation of a public hearing, which would be like a committee meeting. committee meeting or commission meeting there's no set amount it's just an intent to exceed now where the amounts come into play are at some point it requires different numbers of votes but that is when you exceed certain percentage increases of the current tax rates yeah so that's that's uh separate from the public notice of an intent to exceed it doesn't mean that we have to uh but it's just it ensures that it can happen at a future meeting yeah thank you and and just just for the record just knowing and and madam chair if you can i mean director if you can help the opinions for every penny deals 3.1 million

Yes, Audrey Tipton, Director of Administration and Finance. I don't have the exact number, but it is 3.1 million.

Yeah, I think to help us in as we think about what their future tax rate is, is to think about, too, where we were last year when we had to come and borrow money from the reserve to be able to pay. Are we projected to be in that same place this year that I know we got another item made determined later with the sheriff department, but are we on task to be in that same place or did we cover that and we're gonna be able to pay our bills the rest of the year with what we got? Are we gonna be able to have to go to reserve for the next administration or what have you? Are we gonna be looking at that in the future? as our future forecast when it comes to where we are. And if you can answer the question, just where our general fund, where our reserves are, where are we with our reserves, as far as the amount of money we have in the reserve?

Audrey Tipton, Director of Administration and Finance. Currently, our general fund unassigned fund balance as of FY25 was at about $75 million, which is below our policy. The proposed budget that the mayor presented was a balanced budget to utilize how much revenue we're anticipating getting with this two-point budget. Well, we did it based on 2.66. It covers all of the basics and some added amendments, which were the modifications that came in. So to say if we've covered all of our bases on what we need going forward, yes, the budget is balanced and it covers the basics.

Okay, I'll wait to be back.

commissioner clay bibbs thank you madam chair um director tipton so you just said that we're at 75 correct 75 million okay yes that's correct and we're still under the policy what is this correct what is the number that we need in order to be at the correct policy threshold

It'll be closer to 85 and 90, in between there.

Can you work on the exact number? Because there is a difference between 85 and there is a difference between 90. I just want us to be really exact in what our target is. Okay, thank you. I'll get back to you with the exact number. You can send it to me, or send it to all of us. Thank you.

Commissioner Caswell. Thank you, Madam Chair, and Director, and again, appreciate you. Sure, and like where we're going to be with the basics being taken care of, but what we're looking at in the potential of what the share of needs are now. We got the task force and the needs are continually growing. What is more risk and more people in jail and more food? You know, all these other issues that come in on us. just to me like where are we thinking about looking forward other than the basics to where what's being projected as overtime and all of these things are because if if you don't give if we don't get a solid number here and we we do the same thing we did last year just the basic We're gonna found ourselves continually going through the same cycle all over. I think it's gonna be worse when this new administration come because we're not investing towards that future. So I just hope we can get some clarity out so we're not here in the next meeting till five in the morning and trying to figure out like why we stuck where we are as a county, why we continue to be involved in the poverty and all of these other things, mental health issues, all of these other things that we keep kicking down the road to somebody else addressing. And that's my concern. We just heard all of these people talk tonight about all of the delft and things that's in the jail we know i know a lot of that ain't just happening in the jail it's happening in our communities before they get there but if we don't talk about real numbers to invest just doing the basic is not changing sherbet county it's just keeping us in the national news as somewhere a place that's not going anywhere so i just you know again those numbers are needed i think that for us to be able to look at where do we go in the future How do we really invest towards, and I heard one of my colleagues tell me that if we raise taxes, people are going to move out. Where we stay where we are, people are going to move out. Bartlett took another route. They raised taxes and people are moving in. Collierville, they're moving in. Why? Because they're seeing investment and they're feeling the safety of our community. I just hope that we as a county understand that we can't, My guess is, you know, we can't keep taking the realm that we keep going down, but other suburban communities around us are going up and they're raising the taxes up while they go up. They cheered and are having the best of the best. And our children, if the community keeps seeing the list. So thank you, Madam Director. But I just hope that we can really get the right normal so we can know how we move forward the right way. Thank you.

Commissioner Whaley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, just really wanted to quickly clarify some of these numbers. So the penny value is forecasted now at 3.314 million. So it's a little bit higher, I think. I think we said 3.1, which is good. So it's a little bit higher. The current tax rate, of course, is 2.69. And so it'll have to be, it'll be reduced by about 2.7 cents. So that, just so we understand, that difference is about $8.7 million. So the difference in revenue between the recapture rate that we'll have to adopt later on, and we could adopt here, and the current tax rate is about $8.7 million in revenue. The unique thing about this year, and I think sometimes we get caught up in the semantics of is it really a reduction, is it a raise, and all that, it's important to understand that this particular situation this year is unique because it's not a reappraisal year, it's simply recapturing excess that was held back for appeals that didn't happen. So in essence, if the rate were still at 2.69, that every individual property owner who's paying property taxes would pay the same amount. because their assessed value, unless they appealed, has not changed from the most recent assessment. The next assessment will be in three years. So that's different than The situations like last year, right, where we had a reappraisal year, we had to set the rate down because the values went up and the penny values went up. But any increase above that, indeed for many, would cause more payments out of their yearly property tax. This year is different. So I'm just, you know, take that as you wish, but I think that's a unique distinction in the situation this year. That's all, thanks.

Thank you, Commissioner Whaley. Madam Clerk, please prepare the screen for a vote. Can I just say one thing?

Director Tipton. I just wanted to say one more thing. Audrey Tipton, Director of Administration and Finance. What I have provided for you are the modifications that we received and the ones that were presented in the budget hearings, and those are the numbers that we have in front of us that the body is saying we need. So I was hearing what you were saying, Commissioner Caswell, as far as correcting things, if they're not included, the things that you're talking about, the improvements or whatever you're talking about is not included within those modifications. They're not gonna be in my numbers. So my numbers are exactly what we calculate from the tax rate that we've received. That's the revenue that we have. And the expenditures are all the modifications, whether accepted or not accepted. That's what we have. So as far as correcting the problem, That's not what you're gonna find in the numbers that I'm presenting.

Yes, to answer your question, Commissioner Lauer, the motion had already, we've already had the motion before us. Please prepare the screen for a vote. Please report the vote.

Chair, I'm an aye. An aye.

We have aye votes from Commissioners Whaley, Clay Bibbs, Caswell, Sugarman, Shalai, Wright, Thornton, Morrison, Brooks, Lowry, and Chairwoman Avent. Commissioner Mills has abstained. We have 11 ayes and one abstain.

That motion passes. We go on to the third reading of the... Parliamentarian, please read item 38.

Item 38 comes from the Education Committee, which is chaired by Commissioner Clay Bidds. Item 38 is an ordinance first reading. Joint ordinance of Shelby County Government and the City of Memphis amending ordinance number 573, adopted April 14, 2025, in furtherance of a program for a high-quality early childhood pre-kindergarten for all. Sponsored by Commissioner Erica Sugarman and Commissioner Misca Clay Bibbs. This item was sent down without recommendation in May 27th, 2026 committee meeting.

I have a motion by Commissioner Sugarman, a second by Commissioner Caswell. I have three public comment cards that I was going to let...

go would you like to speak before okay commissioner klipps thank you madam chair thank you for allowing me to go first i we are requesting this item uh it goes back to committee um because we recognize that there's more conversation it needs to be had the first one actually happened just today so we think this is an opportunity for um ms smith um to be able to come back to committee to talk about it from the legal standpoint So you do not want it voted on, this first reading voted on today? No, we do not want it voted on today. We want it to go back to committee, back to discussion.

And so you do not want it to proceed to the second reading? No, she's saying no.

So a motion to refer the item to the June 10th committee meeting? That was the second by Commissioner Sugarman. Can we do that without objection? Okay, I have three comment cards. Candace Thomas, if you could say your name and zip code for the record.

Good afternoon. Candace Thomas, First State Memphis, 38104. Thank you again for the opportunity to speak to you all about the amendment to the Pre-K for All Joint Ordinance. And given the questions and discussion we had on Wednesday, I thought I would follow up on a few items. As Commissioner Misca Clay Bibbs just said, First State Memphis met with County Attorney Megan Smith and Special Assistant Hannah McCarthy this morning, and they are bringing a couple of revisions to Mayor Harris per our conversation. First, we recommended that we remove the term entities in the amendment so that there is just one entity, one fiscal agent whose job it is to invest the funds that you and the city invest into early learning, in particular pre-K, into the community. This is important. Obviously, you want one entity to do this work and not multiple for a few reasons. One, you want to ensure oversight. first and foremost, oversight. You want to ensure funding alignment. So if you have multiple entities, it will not allow for funding alignment, accountability, reporting, data collection, analysis and reporting, and on and on. So with one entity that does allow for more transparency, it does allow for more oversight, and it does allow for streamlined reporting. Also, we also discussed today that since this is a joint ordinance between the city and county, as some of you may remember with the original joint ordinance, there had to be word for word duplication for both the city and the county to sign off. And so we know that that has to be the same for this amendment. I also wanted to, thought it would be helpful for the public record, I know all of you know this, about the role of First State Memphis and what exactly is a fiscal agent for this work. The amendment articulates that we are a vendor, that First State Memphis is a vendor, and we would advise all of us, as well as the community, that the organization that you work with to invest the pre-k funds should actually be seen more than a vendor it should really be seen as a community institution for early learning if you remember this work started in 2019 when you all decided as long as um along with folks at the city that it would be important to have a fiscal agent who is a neutral party in the community who does not currently have pre-K seats themselves, but could work with a majority of the organizations. So school boards, charter schools, and privately owned operators. It was decided at that time you needed an independent fiscal agent to do this work without compromise in the community. And that also allows for more community buy in because we don't have your fiscal agent shouldn't have any stake in the game. You shouldn't be paying a fiscal agent who right now runs pre K who right now have pre K seats or paying a fiscal agent who is not considered neutral to your interests.

And so first, your fiscal agent should be neutral. Ms. Thomas, I'm sorry, your time is up. Is it?

Okay, thank you. We'll talk again on June 10th.

Thank you. Our next public comment card, Bob Nardo.

Thank you so much. Hi, I'm Bob Nardo, 3777 Edenburg Drive, Fraser, Tennessee. I'm the executive director of Libertas School of Memphis. I had a chance to speak to you just a couple days ago, so I just want to be very brief, because I know you have many weighty things on your agenda. I want to thank you first and foremost for the historic transformational investment you've made in early childhood education. Over the last several years, but especially last year, this body stepped up and expanded the eligibility and the investment. We have one of the largest early childhood programs in Memphis at Libertas up in Frayser. And I want you to know that our students are finishing their pre-K year in the 55th national percentile for reading. This is in a community where almost every single school was considered a failing school by the state 10 years ago. And now we have some of the highest performing schools of the state right up here in Frayser. And thanks to your investment, we have kids reading in the top half of the country because of the pre-K program you've invested in. So I want to urge you to continue that strong investment. I know you have many things vying for your attention in the budget, but truly I can't think of anything that will have a bigger long-term impact than early childhood. I just want to ask you tonight as you look at this resolution to understand that first aid Memphis is doing a fantastic job managing your investment in pre-k we run one of the largest pre-k programs in memphis under their umbrella and i want you to know i'm thankful for first aid and i think you have the right fiscal agent i don't think we need multiple fiscal agents they're doing a great job ensuring we have the infrastructure we need that they coordinate work across multiple school districts, charter schools, nonprofit organizations, and small businesses. In fact, Commissioner Thornton and others were talking earlier tonight about the importance of local organizations, and I think First Aid has done a great job building up small, local, and mom-and-pop childcare providers, giving them technical assistance so that they can do high-quality education just like charter schools like us they're holding us accountable they have a really strong record of compliance this is an organization you can trust to make sure that this investment is well spent and we're having the impact on kids that you want us to have so please continue to support them and make sure that your policies around the fiscal agents provide you with a streamlined unified platform for maintaining a high impact investment thank you so much

All right, our last public comment card, Yvonne Matlock, our former director of the Shelby County Health Department. Good to see you.

Very nice to see you, Commissioner. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. It's my pleasure and honor to be here. I happen to serve on the board of Pro State, and it's a pleasure to do so. I've been involved with that organization since its formation in 2019. I joined the board because I know of the critical importance of early childhood investments and the value of system building organizations. The proposed amendment that you all have before you to the joint ordinance would dismantle more than 10 years of effective alignment of early childhood services and system building. First Aid, as Candace mentioned earlier, Dr. Thomas mentioned earlier, is more than a vendor. It is not simply that. First Aid was created with purpose and intent to facilitate and support the development of a system of early childhood education for Shelby County, which also entails serving as a fiscal agent for that system. Utilizing other organizations to do this work could possibly create conflicts of interest and no other organization in this community is currently positioned to do this comprehensive system building work. The community needed, then and does now, and asked for one entity to coordinate and support the development and implementation of a quality early education system, and First 8 has more than delivered. The original ordinance focused on creating one coordinated and aligned early childhood system. First 8 Memphis, with the cooperation and collaboration of providers, has supported, measured, reported on the status and effectiveness of this system as contractually required this proposed amendment has less clarity and specificity regarding and frankly makes no reference to assuring system alignment and oversight in fact this amendment further complicates oversight accountability reporting transparency data collection and alignment between the many different types of organizations providing early childhood education in shelby county We are asking for your support to not approve this amendment to support first state. It has done the job that this body on behalf of the citizens of Shelby County has asked us to do. And it with continued support of existing contractual language first state will continue to perform with excellence as it works to assure access to quality early childhood education for Shelby County's Children. Thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Thornton, you're recognized.

Thank you, Chair. I just want to lift up a lot of the discussion that was had in committee. We know that we see other items that are asking for investment related to crime and safety, and here we have in committee know a passionate plea just to keep a flat budget and so i just want to bring back to the forefront of this body as we have been pushing forward with a robust and focused goal to really champion this cause of pre-k i'm going to ask director thomas to come up and if you could just say the numbers every single time i get the opportunity to speak on pre-k i want the public to hear what is the vision what are the big numbers where are we at and what needs to be the investment this budget cycle to keep us on track to move forward with continuing to push towards universal pre-k

Thank you, Candace Thomas, First State Memphis, 38104. I have a handout for you. You've seen this in our slides, but the goal is to reach three and four year olds with pre-K through 2030. And to get there, it will be over $50 million. So I will hand this out. You have seen it in our slides in the past. What we are asking for this year would be to increase per the plan for Pre-K for All. So to continue to increase access for 300 seats every year, that would cost 22.5 million for fiscal year 27. The county's portion of that would be 12.9 million. If we stayed where we are currently, the county's portion of next year's budget would be 10.8 million.

So just to be clear to the listening public, who I hope we fight equally as much for our law enforcement officers as we do our three to four year olds in Shelby County. So to be on track, that would be, you said $12.9 million would need to be the county commitment for fiscal year 27 correct and so based on conversations that you're having how much do we need to have in the budget earmarked to meet that figure based on what we committed um last year and i only asked because i know that there have been conversations about us possibly amending what we committed last year if you can kind of just clear that piece up are we what have we put out for fiscal year 26 how much more do we need to increase to be on track for fiscal year 27.

So for fiscal year 26, you invested 11.5 million into pre-K. Currently in fiscal year 27, Mayor Harris's budget takes us back down to 9.5 million. So at minimum, the ask is to bring us back, bring this program back.

Oh, you can say what you're about to say on somebody else's time. We're going to talk about the actual goal, because I know where you're going. We won't do that minimum stuff. So I'll get back in queue, Madam Chair.

All right. Thank you, Commissioner Thornton. So this item's, I think, already been, has it already been here? So it's already been referred back to committee. I have been also myself talking with Dr. Thomas about these numbers, and this is something we'll actually bring up this Wednesday. We're bringing the budget resolution. This is one of those items that we, by ordinance, have committed to. So we're gonna dig into that. So both the option of making sure that we don't drop below kind of what we've committed, we don't lose classrooms, but also the number that would take us and keep us on track for the expansion. So we'll be able to get into all of that then.

Okay.

All right. Thank you very much. So this item 38 has been referred to committee. Thank you, Dr. Thomas. Item 39.

item 39 comes from the Milton community enhancement grants committee which is chaired by Commissioner Thornton item 39 is an ordinance first reading ordinance by the Board of Commissioners of Shelby County Tennessee to establish additional accountability reporting and eligibility requirements for grants and approved by the Shelby County Board of Commissioners sponsored by Commissioner Erica Sugarman Commissioner McWright Commissioner Brittany Thornton and Commissioner Amber Mills this item was sent down without recommendation in May 27th 2026 committee meeting all right thank you very much item 39 moved by Commissioner Sugarman seconded by Commissioner Thornton before you go Commissioner Thornton you want to give us a committee report

This item comes down without recommendation.

All right, thanks so much. Commissioner Sugarman.

Thank you, Chair. And so, I've been listening to the people in the public as well as my colleagues for the past few years about grant funding and the lack of oversight, transparency, et cetera. And so, what this order does is bring to the table those things. For example, is listening audits may remember We asked RISE to come forth to explain to the commission what did they do with the $600,000. And it was very shocking and surprising to at least me about what they did with the funding. And so again, if for example, there are nonprofits or organizations who are not doing what they're claiming they're going to do, then there needs to be some type of callback of taxpayers' funded money. Another issue was the Chamber of Commerce, when we asked them to come before us three times, and three times they did not show up. And so again, when we have rules, we expect everybody to abide by those rules. When we asked them to come and do the reporting, to see what has been done with taxpayers' funds, at the very minimum, they should send us reports. And that has not been the case. But not only those two organizations, Arise eventually did, but some others have not. So again, this is just for the public as well as my colleagues to make sure that not only do we hold people, organizations, nonprofits accountable, but also make sure that they do the reporting as we request. and so again i urge my colleagues to support this and again it's going to go through three readings and this is only the first reading thank you all right thank you commissioner sugarman you're good okay this is items on first reading so we can prepare the screen to vote on item 39.

All right, we can close the screen and record the vote.

We have aye votes from Commissioners Whaley, Sugarman, Cholai, Wright, Thornton, and Brooks. Commissioner Caswell has abstained. We have six ayes and one abstain.

All right, item 39 goes to a second reading, item 40.

Item 40 comes from the Budget and Finance Committee, which is chaired by Commissioner Whaley. Item 40 is a resolution approving the expenditure of funds for the purchase of an automotive oil and grease from Union Auto Parts in an amount not to exceed $86,200. This item requires the expenditure of FY 2027 Shelby County Sheriff's Office General Operating Funds in the amount not to exceed $86,200. subject to the adoption of the fy 2027 operating budget sponsored by commissioner mcwright this item was an add-on in may 27 2026 committee meeting i have a motion by commissioner sugarman a second by commissioner thornton madam see no commissioners in the queue please prepare the screen for a vote

Please report the vote.

We have aye votes from Commissioners Whaley, Caswell, Sugarman, Mills, Wright, Thornton, Brooks, and Sherwin-Avent. We have eight aye votes.

That motion passes. Parliamentarian, please read item 41.

item 41 comes from the budget and finance committee which is chaired by commissioner whaley item 41 is a resolution amending the fiscal year 2026 operating budget to reallocate and appropriate 18 million 15 000 from the general fund unassigned fund balance to fund public safety expenses including overtime payments operational materials and unanticipated food service costs This item requires the reallocation and appropriation of general fund unassigned fund balance in the amount of $18,015,000 sponsored by Commissioner McWright and Commissioner Amber Mills. This item does not meet requirements of permanent rules and was sent down without recommendation in May 27th, 2026 committee meeting.

I have a motion by Commissioner Sugarman and second by Commissioner Moiley. Is there a motion to suspend the rules?

So moved.

I have a motion by Commissioner Wright, a second by Commissioner Caswell. Can we do that without objection? This item is now properly before us. Commissioner Whalen, may I have a committee report?

This item comes out without recommendation.

Seeing no commissioners in the queue, Okay. All right, Commissioner Shookum. Okay, thank you. Oh, yes, I'm sorry. There is one comment card. Yes. I'll wait to ask. I'm sorry. Before we do that, let me do the comment card. Glenda Hicks, if you could say your name and zip code for the record.

Good afternoon, Glenda Hicks, 38109. I came before you all the last commissioners meeting regarding this issue. Very, very concerned that we're talking 18 million in the hold. And one question that I had was what portion of this 18 million will be or has been utilized by the task force. Is this over time strictly for Shelby County or are these expenses incurred based on the task force that was thrust upon us? 18 million in the hole. It's just, it's very, very discerning concern that this organization, this county operates in such a just unreliable fashion. Certainly as citizens, we could not run our homes in such a manner. So I know last year it was pretty much the same thing. And it's been said that a budget has been presented to this body saying what was needed. However, it was not honored. So it's like they go forth and they operate in whatever manner they choose. And then they come back before you expecting you to honor their requests and you all have acquiesced in the past so i'm like we cannot continue to operate in this manner this is just physically fiscally irresponsible plain and simple and it's not fair representation of the citizens nor the hard-working tax dollars that are put in your hands for you to operate in behalf of the citizenry. So this issue is a dear, deep, dire concern and we simply cannot continue to operate like this, plain and simple. So I would like my question answered as to what portion of this is covering expenses for the task force. Please, thank you. the task force that was thrust upon us? What portion of this 18 million is covering expenses that they caused?

Ms. Hicks, thank you. I think this question was asked at our last commission meeting and I think the answer

was that they have not disseminated that data but um chief lindsay if there's any other anything else yes and i would have thought that an effort would have been made to answer the question i'm sorry i would have thought since i asked it at the last meeting that an effort would have been made to answer the question there has to be data that certainly would exists to answer the question.

Thank you. All right, we have a few commissioners in the queue. Commissioner Sugarman.

Thank you. The $16 million was as of February of 2026. And since then, we've paid down that amount. So I'd like to know what is the current gap that we have? And if Director Tipton or Chief Lindsay can answer that. Then also, what is the Sheriff's Office projected year-end deficit as of today for personnel costs, overtime costs, operating expenses? And then also, I would like answered, I understand the task force also, you know, included. However, the last meeting was stated only $700,000 was reimbursed or is going to be reimbursed through the federal government. And then last, what reforms are being implemented to reduce overtime reliance and avoid similar requests in the future budget cycles. So that would be a question for Archiv Lindsey. Okay. What is the current gap? Okay, again, this gap, I understand, was $16 million. And since then, we've been paying it down. So what is the current gap? I've heard $9 million. I've heard different figures. What is the current gap?

And before you answer, Chief Lindsey, why don't you just come and have a seat just for the convenience? Okay. Did you hear Commissioner Sugarman's question? Okay. Thank you.

Audrey Tipton, Director of Administration and Finance. Thank you. Currently, the numbers that I have for overtime, and I take it that's what we're talking about, we're currently at about 20 to 21 million dollars year to date. So we had budgeted for that, I think it was 11 million. So about 10 million dollars over what we budgeted for it. So the next couple of months, depending on what they spend for overtime, that will be the rest of the 16 million.

Okay. Okay, as far as the breakdown, I would like, or I've heard my colleagues state on record, for example, you could break down, for example, what amount of overtime is allocated for patrol operations, jail operations, court security, task force operation, administrative functions. For example, the state has asked for a line item, and I would like a line item as well, so we can see exactly where are the issues, Chief Lindsay.

Alicia Lindsay, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. In the past, we've only allocated overtime in three buckets, administration, law enforcement, and jail. Due to Oracle having the need of being able to post transactions directly to a section and a specific account number, those figures are now being broken out. However, we've never budgeted that way in the past. If you're asking me how much has been spent year to date in those areas, I don't have that information with me. I'm more than happy to get it back to you at a later time.

Okay.

And then the other question I had was what reforms are being implemented to reduce overtime reliance and avoid similar requests in future budget cycles?

Alicia Lindsay, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. Commissioner Sugarman, the reason we have so much overtime is because we have so many vacancies in the jail. So as soon as we hire people, there's also terminations, resignations, and retirements. So it's like a vicious cycle. So the goal is to continue to recruit and hopefully retain individuals, but as long as we have 300 plus vacancies in the jail, we're always gonna have overtime. And I wanted to bring to everyone's attention, the purpose of this item is regarding a settlement. So it's not particularly just about overtime, but it is about a settlement agreement that was entered into by the mayor and the sheriff. Commissioner Caswell.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and again, thank you all for presenting. Again, we heard a lot about it, and I think my colleague questioned, too, to a breakdown of those items is very much needed. I know it was a campaign also, and let me just first say, to the settlement agreement, there was agreement that was written, and we went over some of that in the MOU that the mayor agreed to have a conversation, I guess, about this. But the settlement, who was the settlement with? Who was the settlement agreement with?

Alicia Lindsay, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. Unfortunately, I'm not a lawyer, so I can't say. I just know that, in my opinion, it would be that the mayor has obligated the county. But I would rather defer to Attorney Megan Smith, and she can answer that question.

I'm not sure if I may to the county attorney.

Megan Smith, County Attorney's Office. My preference would be not to discuss settlement agreements in public, but in terms of what you're being asked for today, specifically an obligation, you're being presented with a resolution as you would in the normal course. You have the ability to consider that resolution and vote on that resolution. All right.

Thank you. And so just consider this obligation. I think that where my colleague was too leading to say, the number is saying 16, 18 million, and the last report was February. Where are we now with that number? Is it because are we going to reach the whole, your forecast, 18 million by the end of this budget season?

Alicia Lindsay, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. I only have information through February. I haven't looked at, the payroll is delayed in posting to the Oracle General Ledger, so I haven't seen information for March, April, May, and June. Even though March may have been posted, I just haven't seen the data. And I think through February, we were already at 17 million, but I hear Ms. Tipton saying that we're at a higher number today. But yes, our forecast is that we're going to get up to about 27 to 30 million in overtime this year.

And I hear you say that a lot of that overtime is in jail. And I heard a constituent asking the question, is there no way we can correlate, is it that the overtime, because we're looking at 1,500 more people, I mean, I guess since September, October, they said there are 7,000 arrests by the task force. How do we, can we connect the dots between that increase? Because again, if we're need to be asking to the federal, that we're, again, I appreciate criminals getting off the street and all of those things, factors are happening, but this is what we're being faced with as a county that we already talking about. And again, I've talked to the director, she said about 75 to 80 million, was the reserve I think is 110 million is where we're supposed to be at. So we're way behind in our reserves, and we keep going this route. It's going to only be worse on the next administration. We came in here, I think the number was like 90 million in reserve. We're down to maybe 75, but we're supposed to be at 110 at the base. you know so it's going to impact all of us you know and i want to be able to see those jellos and and people still have their job but if we keep going down this route not only we're not going to be able to do overtime not going to be able to have people that have jobs we're going to start cutting jobs the way that we're going and so it's just that i just hope that i get back in the queue but that we can really look at how do we get there and i and i say this lastly sure that uh when commissioner whaler was kind of going down the road talking about maybe in the reserve i mean the restricted funds of the employees that may be a route for us have you all had a chance to discuss that the administration in the sheriff's department the vacancy savings i'm sorry alicia lindsay chief administrative officer shelby county sheriff's office commissioner casswell there were quite a few questions you had there but one of the one of the questions you asked was about being able to disaggregate the data

Let me give you an example. Say Jane Doe enters 201 Poplar and people in intake are bringing her in. We don't know if that person was brought in by the Memphis Safe Task Force or if she was brought in by NPD, DeSoto County, whomever. We don't know who brought the person in. So if the data set has not been created to begin with, there's no way to get that data out. So as it relates to patrol officers that work specifically with the Memphis State Task Force, we're able to code their payroll information specifically to the Memphis State Task Force. But there's a difference between anyone else who may be working, we're not able to desegregate that data because we didn't, we haven't created those data points. So your next question about other options, other options to plan use of fund balance. So I had an opportunity to think about what Director Tipton said the other day. So if the Shelby County Sheriff's Office increased its overtime budget and then also reduced the salary restriction, what Director Tipton said on Wednesday was that if the Sheriff's Office continued to exceed overtime or even spent overtime, then it would come out of fund balance, meaning that there would not be a budget associated with that additional spend. But to directly answer your question, no, I have not had the opportunity to meet with Director Tipton to see what the offset of any other adjustment would be. So the only place that I can consider or think about or bring to your, bring to this body for consideration is planned use of fund balance, unfortunately. Commissioner Thornton.

Thank you chair. Um, when it comes to the vacancies in the jail, what is the historical trend of how that 300 plus figure has been? I mean, for the past four years, um, is this something that is increasing as a figure or is this a stagnant figure? I'm just curious what's happening with the vacancies.

Alicia Lindsay, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. Commissioner Thornton, back in 2020 during COVID, that's when we had about 520-something corrections deputies in the jail. How many? I'm sorry. About 520. I have a chart. I just don't have it with me that I'm happy to share with you. And since that time, it's been decreasing where the inmate population has been increasing. So it's like an inverted.

decline in employees I mean decline in employees and an increase in detainees and how many do we have presently I can give you that information tomorrow I don't have it with me today my computer died so in your professional opinion I don't know if y'all do any type of exit surveying to figure out why people will be transitioning out of the role but Is the condition of the facility a factor in the vacancy downward trend?

Alicia Lindsay, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. Commissioner Thornton, that's a great question. So you know there's the Division of Corrections. They have a correctional facility. There's the Youth Justice Education Center. And then there's 201 Poplar and JL East. So we lose a lot of people at times to one of those organizations. And I'm sure, yes, the condition of the facilities has a direct impact on whether or not someone wants to work at Tulma-Pablo.

So I know earlier today we heard public comment just talking about the amount of people who have died within the jail and just further another data point to show that we need a new facility because the issue that we have, we can't correct it without some type of better offering. And I did make this point earlier as we're adding on a new mental health facility and just making overhauls to other facilities. I made this case over a year ago that it would be a challenge to maintain those who are employed in the jail when they have other options, because why would you choose the jail over a new facility? With the 20 seconds that I have left, and I'll get back in queue, this $18 million figure I'm told that you have been made whole to the tune of $7 million in this figure, so if we were to pass this particular resolution today, would it still be an $18 million price tag?

Audrey Tipton, Director of Administration and Finance. There is one thing around that that I need to be clear on, if this is a one-time, So we wouldn't have the $18 million price tag July 1 if this is a one-time fix and we're not caring for any of these dollars, if that makes sense.

So I'm going to get back in queue. Hopefully another commissioner will queue up your response. Thank you.

Commissioner Sugarman.

Thank you chair, and so I've got three questions for Chief Lindsay. Number one, what percentage of overtime expenditures are attributable to staffing shortages versus special operations like the task force? And I'm gonna see the next one. How many deputies are assigned to the task force? And the last one is, would you voluntarily submit to an independent audit of task force expenditures? And then the last one is for Director Tipton. If we use, for example, reserve vacancy savings, would that impact the fund balance?

Audrey Tipton, Director of Administration and Finance. If we use vacancy savings, yes, that would impact fund balance because now you are reducing your vacancy savings and the offset of that is to go against fund balance. So vacancy savings is basically like a credit to the expense. It lowers what they can spend.

Okay, so having said that, would that impact... the maintenance of effort for the Sheriff's Department? Would it increase the maintenance of effort for the Sheriff's Department if we use vacancy savings?

Audrey Tipton, Director of Administration and Finance. My understanding is now I've spoken to our attorney about this. If this is one time, if this is $18 million to increase over time or $16 million to increase over time for fiscal year 2026, it does not impact maintenance of effort because it will not repeat in 2027.

Okay, thank you. Okay, so then I added a fourth question for you, Chief Lindsay. Is this a one-time ask? So if you could answer the first three and then I added another one since Director Tempton stated that it was a one-time thing. Is this a one-time thing or is this gonna go on to the future?

Alicia Lindsay chief administrative officer Shelby County sheriff's office, Commissioner Sugarman I don't consider it to be a one time ask because. Nothing has changed we haven't increased the number of corrections deputies that we have the Memphis safe task force is still here. We still have sequestered jurors. So every time that a court jurors are sequestered, that requires overtime of deputies. So nothing has changed. What we do know, and I think Director Tipton explained to you all that overtime has been increasing over the last five years. But also the salary restriction has also increased over the last five years. It has gone up over 271.5%. If the sheriff's office had its full budget and there was no salary restriction, we wouldn't have this issue. Or if we had a lower salary restriction, we wouldn't have this issue. But as long as we have a $50.8 million salary restriction or more, you're going to have the issue of overtime because as long as we have vacancies and as long as you have a salary restriction that pretty much equals the value of those vacant positions, then basically we have no choice but to have overtime.

Thank you. And Chair, she didn't answer about three questions, so do I need to get back in the queue? Can she answer those three questions? I'll get back in the queue.

First of all, it's very hard to hear you all, even though we're sitting right here, it's difficult to make out what they're saying.

Yes, so my apologies. We're still working on that we will have an updated system. I think this is just technology that is very dated. So my apologies that you can't hear. So if you could answer the other three questions.

I'll repeat them, thank you. Okay, can you identify the total overtime expenditures? Wait a minute, I'm sorry, that's not it. What percentage of overtime expenditures are attributable to staffing shortages versus special operations? The next one, how many deputies are assigned to the task force? And the last one is, would you voluntary submit to an independent audit of task force expenditures? Thank you.

Alicia Lindsay, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. Commissioner Sugarman, I don't have that information in front of me. I'm happy to dig in and provide the information as it relates to overtime expenses related to staffing shortages versus special ops. I can get that to you by in the morning. And the deputies assigned to Memphis Safe Task Force, I could get that to you in the morning, but I don't have it with me now. And would we voluntarily agree to an audit of Memphis Safe Task Force expenditures? That's something I have to talk to the sheriff about. But I'm sure he wouldn't have a problem, but I can't speak for him. Thank you.

Yes, Director Tipton.

Thank you, Audrey Tipton, Director of Administration and Finance. I just wanted to clear up one thing about the vacancy savings increasing. That is based on the salary. So as our officers and deputies get increases, which they have every year, you increase the vacancy savings as well. And when you have over 700 vacancies, there is no problem in hiring. You have over 700 vacancies, when each year, starting in 2024, I won't go back far, the total budget for the salaries was $171,229,702. What was actually spent was $153,981,521. So there was no problem hiring, because the budget was there, and in 25, we had $169,676,006 for the budget. What was actually spent was $170,551,000 970 and that was the first year after about seven years that we actually did exceed the vacancy savings and then we exceeded it by about $2 million. So I just wanted to say there has never been a problem with hiring because the budget has been there so. to say that we need to do this because there's a problem hiring or the vacancy savings is too high. It may be a little bit too high now because of the overtime costs being so high. But we still have all these vacancies and there's still available budget to hire. So there's no problem hiring.

Okay, let me go to the other commissioners. Commissioner Brooks.

Just a couple of questions, please.

miss lindsay i heard you say something about assignments and i'm wondering how do you how do you staff the task force operations alicia lindsay chief administrative officer shelby county sheriff's office commissioner brooke sakanali provided information with what officers are assigned to the task force as far as the task force The Shelby County Sheriff's Office is not over the Memphis Safe Task Force. There's another agency that's over that. So I can only tell you which of our patrolmen are assigned to that task force.

Now, I didn't ask that. And let me try again. I know we're having some problems. I was wondering, how do you staff the operations? Because I know you make assignments. I heard you say that and it just kind of brought this to mind. Do you have a formula? Because I understand, and I heard you say this earlier, not today, that sheriff deputies accompany the task force members. So how do you make those assignments?

Alicia Lindsey, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. And again, Commissioner Brooks, the best way that I can answer that question is I can tell you which patrolmen are assigned to the task force. How they were selected, I don't know. How they were requested, I don't know. I can only tell you who's assigned. I don't need that.

You don't have to get that personal. I just, I need to know. What I wanna know is, it's the formula. Did you have one sheriff car? Hold on, hold on, hold your horses. Do you have, you can't just randomly say, you know, everybody with the last name A, well maybe you could, you know, you go with task force last name A. So how do you make those assignments because those cars are leaving and they are supposed to be working in conjunction with the Sheriff's Department. So I'm trying to understand, how do you know which cars are where?

Alicia Lindsay, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. It's pretty much a question for our law enforcement.

Okay.

And they're not with us today. And that's why I keep saying the best way that I can answer that question is provide you the patrolmen that are assigned to the task force. Can you work on that for me and help me? Sure. Okay.

All right. I appreciate that. Thank you. Just one more. In reference to the state of Tennessee, are they current in their inmate pickups and are they current on their reimbursements?

Alicia Lindsay, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. The last that I heard was we had about 26 state inmates still in 201 Pablo. But I'll confirm that number and let you know for sure.

You have 26 now? Yes. Okay. So currently you have, so what about the reimbursements? Are they covered up?

Alicia Lindsay, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. I know we have billed through March 2026. As far as the revenue coming in, I'm not 100% sure, but we have billed for it.

Okay.

Can you let me know?

Just send us a note back on what they owe. Absolutely. Okay.

Just one more thing.

I have a sheet here that was attached to that little... I don't want to call it an agreement, but I guess I will for the sake of communicating. But it's Exhibit A, and it has a bunch of codes at the bottom. Can you tell me which departments represent these codes? It's Exhibit A attached to that agreement.

Alicia Lindsay, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. I'm gonna try.

You don't have to give it to me now. You can send it back to me. Sure, okay. Okay, thank you, ma'am. Thank you. Commissioner Thornton.

Thank you chair. Um, I think one of my questions is similar to what commissioner Brooks said. So where we see in the attachment, it just says overtime, overtime, overtime. I'm assuming those figures correspond to what commissioner Brooks is referencing. Is that correct? Um, this doesn't have any reference material exhibiting. So at the bottom of exhibit a, are those, account number similar to what we see in OnBase?

Alicia Lindsay, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. Yes, Commissioner Thornton.

Okay, nice. If you could just, the response you're giving to Commissioner Brooks, if you could send it to all of us, because I just wanted to know, you know, who's getting this overtime? Is it coming from, you know, patrolmen, or is it coming from deputy sheriffs? Like, in the jail or deputy jailers, just trying to figure that out, to see where the concentration of your overtime is coming from. And then I'm just really curious how we're gonna dispose of this particular item. I can't really call it based on the conversation that we've had. I am inclined to believe that this $18 million figure should be adjusted for today's conversation. And I hear Director Tipton saying that if it's a one-time, well, I believe through the conversation, we've heard it is not going to be one time. So with that being said, I'm just curious how we're going to keep closing the gap here, particularly in lieu of all these conversations of us being beneath policy with our fund balance and having so many other competing priorities this particular budget cycle, and I'm assuming for the foreseeable future, without us doing some other things that we don't seem to want to do. So I guess if this item does not pass, what is gonna be the next recourse for the Sheriff's Office? And can we, at least in this conversation, norm around what an adjusted figure would be for this one-time reconciliation? Is it still the 18 million, or is there a lower figure that needs to be replacing this figure that we see before us?

Alicia Lindsay, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. I want to answer a couple of your questions. If you look at the exhibit on exhibit A, and if you see anything that begins with a 61, then that is equivalent to the administration. If you see 62, that is law enforcement. If you see 6206, that's courts. Everything else is like patrolmen. 63 would be the jail or jail administration. I also wanted to point out, I want to make a correction to what Director Tipton said regarding the salary restriction or vacancy savings and bring everyone to the remembrance that in the adoption of the fiscal year 26 budget, no, 25 budget, 24-25, there was an arbitrary amount of $11 million added to our salary restriction. I know Commissioner Lowry and I and Director Tipton met about that. So our salary restriction went from $27 million in one year to $40-something million the next year. So if everyone can remember that, and there was no resolution to support that change. So as it relates to what is the Sheriff's Office going to do if we don't receive the $18 million? I believe that's already been explained to you all. that there will be additional litigation. So there's currently litigation that was resolved with the settlement agreement and I think you have 30 days after the agreement was signed and I think the sheriff signed it on May 6th. So those 30 days are winding down. And so that's the best I can answer that question. And as it relates to do we really need the 18 million, that's really a question for Director Tipton because of Oracle the way Oracle operates and having to post transactions, you have to have sufficient budget within the line. And because there was not sufficient budget within each line for overtime, they have increased some of our budgets for personnel, including overtime, and offset it with a salary change account, which is not necessarily a one-to-one match. There may be an overall increase. So when you say, we understand seven million has been added, but that seven million may have already been offset.

Director Tifton.

Thank you, Audrey Tifton, Director of Administration and Finance. I need to explain how the budget works. So in the past, before Oracle, pre-Oracle, you had a budget for all field positions which is currently this year 143 plus million dollars then you also had a budget for overtime you had a budget for all of your benefits and everything else that's their total salary budget is 177.3 million in the past what the county would do is look at the pool so like last year when overtime came in at $27 million, which was more than what was actually budgeted on that line, we collapsed everything and took everything they had and paid the 27 million overtime. So they did not exceed, well I think they exceeded the vacancy savings by like $2 million. But that was the first year that that happened. This year, We're at the same place with their field positions, 143 million, the overtime budget at 11 million, 11.7 million, and benefits and everything else at 72 million, and a vacancy savings of 50 million. That gives them the net 177. What Chief Lindsey is saying, that one line that's 11.7 million, She wants that to be now 27 or 26, $27 million. But she doesn't wanna take it from any place else. Where we used to do that in the past, we used to take that budget and we would utilize it, therefore not having to go to fund balance. But by upping that number now, by the 18 or 16 million dollars, we're now gonna have to hit fund balance. if that makes, if that's clear. That's the difference right now. In the past we could use anything that was left over anyplace else. What we're being asked to do right now is to put 18 more million dollars, 16 more million dollars on that line and not utilize the money from the vacancies, I mean from the positions that haven't been filled, not utilize the benefits money that's not gonna get used.

not utilize anything else just put the money there commissioner whaley thank you madam chair uh director tipton i think kind of hit at what i've been trying to i think get at for a few weeks now which is And I was hoping that we would have something a little more intricate here around the funding sources, because I agree, that is how it was able to be done. And you would find, we talked about the pool resources to be able to cover things like this and make those shifts. And I will acknowledge that the system is challenging. Any transition is challenging. This one's been, I think, especially challenging for both of you and really for the county because we're working with numbers, you know, we just saw February, right? And you're trying to project this, I mean, you're trying to project literally over time that was already spent. And that's a very difficult thing to forecast. So I don't think it changes. Certainly there are constitutional obligations and there are actually incurred liabilities in terms of salary payments. But this resolution looks overly simplified. It's saying let's just take $18 million, $15,000, which is you add up the $2 million, the $16 million, and the $15,000, and just pull it out unassigned fund balance. which is just not a good way to do it. And we don't have to do it that way. That's what I'm struggling with. I was hoping that, I thought we were getting somewhere and we'd have maybe a substitute or an amendment. But I don't, unless someone's bringing something, Commissioner Caswell, unless you've got it, I see you next in the queue. I'm not sure how this works. Like, I mean, I'd like to try to work something out here, but this isn't it. Like, this just takes the 18 million out of fund balance and doesn't even get at some of these things that can, I'm not saying none of it's going to come out of fund balance. Doesn't need to be 18 million. Certainly doesn't need to be 18 million where we're just reconciling February. So I just, I'm not, the way, the posture it's in today is not something I can support. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Commissioner Caswell.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And wait, Commissioner, wait, if I knew you going down that line, that would have sealed it. I say this to this because I want to support because I know I see the officers out there. The job is being done. The thing is, is that I just can't sleep knowing that I see them on this body. it already in position to be here again right in september knowing we putting ourselves in this type of hole if there is another way i i'm sure that the sheriff don't want to see this county being left in a bad place after lee lee getting ready to leave it should be i don't see why we cannot if the director is saying there's another way we found that other way Because if we go down this road, if we're already at 75 and we're supposed to be at 110 million in reserve, we're putting the county in a bad place. And I just think that, I'm just hoping that, is there some, CAO, have you got something?

I do. Alicia Lindsey, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. I know we're not supposed to talk about this settlement agreement. But the settlement agreement does say that the sheriff will bring a resolution, which is what we've done. I have not heard anyone say that they have a better solution. So I have purview of the Shelby County Sheriff's Office budget. I do not have purview or view or oversight of the entire county general fund budget. So if there is a better way or a better alternative, I certainly would like to hear it. But based upon the limited information of financial information that I have, this is the best that I can do.

I appreciate that. And again, I just heard from our finance officer and I kind of heard, I thought before even the committee that we had another way. And so to that point, I see Commissioner Lowry and I was gonna ask that we go and get this other way and send it back to committee and get the other way, because I know we don't have it here today and we got to draft that up, but really getting with both you, the director, and getting that pathway forward that we can both get the share of in the overtime taken care of and other obligations that are there, but not by putting us deeper in the hole with our reserves if there is that other way. So I know I got Commissioner Lowry if he, see where he'd go with it in there. Thank you.

Commissioner Lowry.

Thank you, Madam Chair. You could have kept talking. You were going down the line. So we'll make a motion, because I would like to hear what the options there may be as well, because I understand that There's some system limitations and everything else, but it doesn't seem like we should let a systems issue get in the way of doing something that we can do funding where I think we wanna be supportive. Well, I know I wanna be supportive, but at the same time, honestly being fiscally responsible for understanding where our general fund is. So I wanna be supportive, making sure that we can find whatever the avenues that may be that we've done this in the past, but now that we have a new system, it sounds like that's handcuffing us, if I understand that. So I'm gonna make a motion to refer this to committee, no one asking for there be some possible solutions put on the table by the CFO. Madam Chair, I can't.

There's a motion on the floor from Commissioner Lauer, there's a second from Commissioner Caswell for the Juneteenth meeting. Can we do that without objection? Members of the body, or who I'm, This is a motion on the floor prior to, is there an objection?

I'll check.

Okay, so there's an objection, and now we can speak on the motion. Commissioner, Chief Lindsay.

Alicia Lindsay, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. Just want to refer everyone back to the settlement and release agreement. I think it says something about within 30 days. That's all I want to remind you of. Thank you.

I am so sorry, Chair. Just as a point of privilege, I have no clue what she just said.

So she's referring to the documents that you all received in Executive Session, which was a copy of it was the actual settlement, and it refers to the language within the settlement. Which was 30 days. if people would that's what she's referring to you all can read that if you have any other questions you can ask attorney smith outside of these quarters because all of that will share within the executive session yes so is there anything that you could share about the 30 days

Megan Smith, County Attorney's Office, the 30-day requirement has been satisfied with the resolution appearing on your agenda. You're referring it does not affect that.

Is that clear? Okay, so now if there are any other commissioners that want to speak on the motion of referring to the committee date of June 10th. Commissioner Wright, would you like to speak on that?

Yes, Madam Chair. Thank you, Madam Chair. So I guess the reason that I objected was because, you know, I heard from the sheriff after the last meeting that they really wanted to see us have a vote up or down. I'm hearing what you all are saying, like it sounds like a lot of you aren't there at the moment. I guess I'm curious if we could tonight at the very least get from finance what the amount would be. To make them whole with the with the overtime that's already been used plus any projected additional overtime. To get us through the end of the year. Maybe in addition to the request for operational expenses, I think the two million, perhaps that's a number we could get to tonight. That's why I objected.

Thank you, Director Tiffin.

Thank you, Dr. Tipton, Director of Administration and Finance. I just want to make sure I'm clear on what I'm being asked to do. It sounds like go back and find them the money. So last I checked, that was the budget, that's revenue, it's already budgeted, there's nothing different. The only thing I can offer here is that this body allow us to utilize any funds that are available within the sheriff's salary budget to satisfy this overtime expense. I can't automatically take the extra money that's left in the $177 million and utilize it for overtime. This body can say that. So that's not for me to go back and figure out and try to do. I know what can happen. That's what we've done in the past. So I'm asking maybe you consider that for now.

And Commissioner Wright, did that answer your question? I think.

It doesn't. I'm sorry, Madam Chair. No, that doesn't. I wasn't asking you to come up with special money. My question is do we have the figure of the overtime that has already been exceeded plus a plus the amount projected through the end of the fiscal year. Do we have that total. so that maybe we could consider taking that total out of fund balance because I think we'll have to anyway. We'll have to cover that amount no matter what.

Director Tipton? Yeah, hold on one second. Audrey Tipton, Director of Administration and Finance. I did do just a really high-level projection, and from my projections, we're going to spend $177,789,000, which is $453,000 over what we have. So to project out, that's like I said, it's high level, that's a cookie cutter allocation of what we've spent already and forecast that out 12 months, we're gonna be at 177.789, which is over what they have budgeted by about $453,000. All right, Commissioner Thornton.

Thank you, Chair, so just a little under $500,000 is what you feel would be needed to make them whole, so this would be a figure. I'm just trying to understand, and I'm glad to hear the question, because that was gonna be my support of the referral or not. What are you actually gonna show up to committee with? And so... I just, if we move forward with the decision for referral, I would look for my colleagues just to see what it is that we are postponing this to receive. I think we just heard rough estimates, so I guess you could tighten that figure up and bring something, I'm assuming, similar to it. but hearing that, that's drastically different than $18 million. So I just have heard enough in discussion to know that this $18 million doesn't have to be 18 million to be able to do what we need to do for fiscal year 26, and that's personally what I'm interested in hearing, because I don't only want to spend conversations investing into law enforcement and not universal pre-K. and MSCS's budget, so I'm not hearing balance in our conversations this budget season, and that's what I will need in order for me to support this. So I'll support the referral, but I just wanna make sure that we have something to actually digest when it gets to committee that could be an alternative, and what I hear today, it doesn't seem like the Sheriff's Office is gonna be okay with around $500,000 as an amendment to this item. Thank you.

Commissioner. Commissioner Caswell.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I think that the number is not just getting 500,000, right? Chief, you're talking about, and I know CAO, you will have to be on, the sheriff will have to be on board with what she's asking. At this point, I see that's the path forward. Again, if the sheriff has the, in his budget, still unspent dollars that's gonna be unspent because of those vacancies, what have you, that we use those dollars, plus the reserve that she's talking about, and it just make that whole. You use the dollars that's there. To come here and say that we gonna keep our dollars, plus you gonna give us the 18 million, that becomes a problem for this body because it's become a problem for the county. I think like, I mean, CAO, I mean, is that not what you hearing? Help me now.

Alicia Lindsay, Chief Administrative Officer, Shelby County Sheriff's Office. Commissioner Caswell, if February 28th, 2026 was June 30th, we have already exceeded the budget by $2.4 million on our personnel. If February 28th was June 30th, we had already exceeded our budget.

The 171 million.

Well, no, just say for eight months out of the year, you allocate your budget for eight months,

So yeah, so I get it CAO, but you said you don't have the numbers that the chief financial, she have it.

Yeah, not just that, yeah.

And I know this is my time, and this is what.

We're gonna pause the time so that you don't lose the time. I would like for them to be able to stick numbers in this meeting. I think that would be helpful for this body if there was some agreement about what was just stated by Chief Lindsey and the difference in what Director Tipton says. for just the sake of clarity, we can't have, the numbers could not be that convoluted from both sides of what you all have. So there needs to be some agreement, and we would like for you to take the time now, if you need the time to discuss that, we'll pause in order for you to be able to do that. We'll just take a moment. Colleagues, in the interest of time, let's take a 10 minute recess and we'll come back to this. I would like them to take some time to do that so that at least there's some clarity for the discussion before you all make a decision. So we're gonna take a 10 minute recess. Take a 10 minute recess. 10 minute recess. Colleagues, we'll reconvene at this time. If I could get a motion to move this item to the Hill to allow them more time to discuss. I'm not trying to rush your process, but if I could get a motion to move, I am just going to move this item. This item will move to the Hill and we'll go back to our regular agenda. We're going to move this item to the Hill and we'll go back to our regular agenda. Okay, I'll make the motion to move to the Hill. Thank you, Commissioner Whaley.

Second.

A second by Commissioner Shalai. No objections? Okay. All right, we're going to, parliamentarian, move to item number 42.

Item 42 comes from the Budget and Finance Committee, which is chaired by Commissioner Whaley. Item 42 is a resolution to amend the fiscal year 2026 operating budget to reallocate unspent funds of $186,000 from the Tuition Reimbursement Fund and to approve a grant to Community Legal Center. Sponsored by Commissioner Erica Sugarman and Commissioner Brittany Thornton, this item was amended in May 27, 2026 committee meeting.

A motion by Commissioner Whaley second by Commissioner Shalai Commissioner Whaley can I get a committee report?

Yes, this comes out of the favorable recommendation So Chairwoman Avian?

Just a question. The funding source for this particular grant, and I know I'm just sensitive to this because we're about to go into budget season, and as we're making grants that could be possible budget amendments, I just needed to know how we came up with the actual funding source for this.

yeah so I know this is Commissioner Sugarman's item I can give a brief overview and then you can fill the gap so this is there was significant underspend in the tuition reimbursement line item so that's this is a small percentage of the remainder which I think from a fund balance perspective is a good thing and then the other component of this is that in the proposal it's also at an elevated level that's more than what it was More than was spent in this fiscal year. So that is something we should absolutely consider and I think we already are as we go into Potentially trying to fund some of our contractual first contractual budget amendments Just keep that in mind. So that is the source of it. Okay. Thank you Commissioner clay bibbs

Thank you, Commissioner Whaley. Quick question. I know the original ask was $100,000. How did we get to 186?

Thank you so much for that question. It was $100,000, and as stated on record on Wednesday, the federal grant was a total amount of 186, and so the federal grant was canceled. And so there was a motion to make whole this organization who's spending this money for community legal services, such as to help the elderly, et cetera, et cetera. And they came and they spoke to that. But the difference comes because there's a motion on the floor on Wednesday to make this organization whole.

Okay, and we, well, I just saw Director Tipton leave out. Maybe Director Thornton knows. So what, we know that we have the whole amount that's left over from tuition reimbursement. Okay, all right, thank you.

Commissioner Sugarman? Okay, please prepare the screen for a vote. Please report the vote.

We have aye votes from Commissioners Whaley, Clay Bibbs, Sugarman. July, Wright, Thornton, Brooks, Lowry, and Chairwoman Avant, we have nine aye votes.

That motion passes.

Parliamentarian?

Sorry, Chairwoman Avant, if there's no objection, can we read 43 and 44 at the same time? Because I'm gonna move to refer those to the June 10th committee.

Okay. Parliamentarian, please read item number, you said 43 and 44? 43 and 44 together, please.

Items 43 and 44 come from the Budget and Finance Committee, which is chaired by Commissioner Whaley. Item 43 is a resolution approving the Shelby County Capital Improvement Budget for fiscal year 2027, FY27, in the amount of $176,761,862, sponsored by Commissioner Michael Whaley. This item was an add-on and sent down without recommendation in May 27, 2026 committee meeting. Item 44 is a resolution approving the Shelby County five-year capital improvement plan for fiscal years 2027 through 2031 sponsored by Commissioner Michael Whaley. This item was an add-on and sent down without recommendation in May 27th, 2026 committee meeting.

I have a motion by Commissioner Sugarman and a second by Commissioner Whaley. Commissioner Whaley, can I get a committee report?

Yes, both items 43 and 44 come down without recommendation.

Okay.

Okay, thank you. I'm gonna make a motion to refer both of these to June 10th committee I have a motion by Commissioner Whaley to refer to a second by Commissioner Sugarman Can we do that without objection seeing none so move? commentary and please read item number 45

Item 45 comes from the Budget and Finance Committee, which is chaired by Commissioner Whaley. Item 45 is a resolution setting the certified recapture tax rate at $2.663 for Shelby County, Tennessee, for tax year 2026, fiscal year 2027. Sponsored by Commissioner Michael Whaley, this item was an add-on in May 27th, 2026 committee meeting.

I have a motion by Commissioner Sugarman, second by Commissioner Whaley. Commissioner Whaley can have a committee report.

Yeah, this item comes down with a favorable recommendation.

Okay, Commissioner Whaley, you're recognized.

All right, thank you. I make a motion to amend this rate to be the full rate, both in the caption and the body of the resolution, to 2.663814. Second.

I have a motion to amend to 2.66138. 2.663814. 2.663814.

Both in the caption and in the body.

Both in the caption and in the resolution. I have a second by Commissioner Sugarman. Can we do that without objection? Seeing none, so moved. Madam Clerk, please prepare the screen for a vote. Madam Clerk, please report the vote.

We have aye votes from Commissioners Whaley, Clay Bibbs, Sugarman, Mills, Shalai, Wright, Thornton, Morrison, Brooks, Lowry, and Chairman Maven. We have 11 aye votes. That motion passes.

Parliamentarian, please read item 46.

Item 46 comes from the Budget and Finance Committee, which is chaired by Commissioner Whaley. Item 46 is a resolution amending the fiscal year 2026 operating budget to reallocate $50,000 in funding to IBEW Johnny Dawson Charitable Foundation from the Memphis West Tennessee Central Labor Council, sponsored by Commissioner Brittany Thornton. This item is an add-on and sent down without recommendation in May 27th, 2026 committee meeting.

I have a motion by Commissioner Sugarman, a second by Commissioner Lowry. Commissioner Whaley, could I have a committee report?

Yes, this item comes down without recommendation.

Okay. I have one comment card. Matt Brown, you could come to the podium, state your name and zip code, and you'll have three minutes. Mr. Brown, I think we cut off the microphone. Could you? No, no, no. There's a switch to your right on the side of the microphone for you to turn it back on.

I have a green light.

Okay.

All right. So I'm Matt Brown. I live in 38111. So I am with the Memphis Labor Council and the Building Trades Council. We run a pre-apprentice program which we're asking we've this has been passed before but we're coming back to if the money hasn't arrived yet. So our pre-apprentice program is taking folks from our county who aren't ready yet to be union electricians, union plumbers, union carpenters, and we give them a four-week crash course in construction math. We give them OSHA certification. We give them a first aid certificate. And then we, once our students graduate, we work with the union training programs, the JATCs, to get our students placed into those. And since we've come before you, in fact, I just got texts from two more students who are hired today to be laborers and electricians. So a successful program, happy to report it's growing. We just are coming to you for the funds so we can keep growing with this funds we've asked for. We're hoping to get folks a certification in a scissor lift.

which you can imagine would be very helpful in a construction site so i'm available to answer any questions you have but uh that's what we're here to talk about okay thank you mr brown all right commissioner thornton thank you chair i would like to make a motion to substitute this particular item i believe everyone has been provided with a copy second

I have a motion by Commissioner Thornton, a second by Commissioner Sugarman. Procedurally, we will need a majority vote in order to accept the substitution. Do we need to do that by roll call or just by? No, it can be done without objection. Okay, can we do that without objection? I've seen none, so moved.

I just wanna notate that on the substitute, the reviewer line is not filled in, but I understand that it did complete a legal review. Okay, and so can we just take that up as a Scrivener's error and then just add, I believe the reviewer is Craig Barnes? Okay, is that correct, Craig? Okay, thank you, the reviewer is Craig Barnes, so we'll just take that up as a Scrivener's error and just add that.

Point of information.

Point of information. Commissioner Lowry?

Just curious of why the change. Was it a, why the change from 50 to 150? Was there? Yes.

So the substitution, yes. This is substituted to red line items. And so Commissioner Thornton, point of information, this amount is changing in this amendment?

Yes, so the amount is changing. Legal did not, or they weren't aware of a subsequent resolution that awarded this particular receiver with an additional $100,000. So when it came before committee, it was just for 50,000 in error, because it should have been a total of 150,000. So this claims, the substitute today claims of that figure.

Commissioner Lowry? Okay, can we accept the substitution without objection? Okay, so moved. All right, Commissioner Thornton, did you wanna be recognized?

No, that's it, Chair, thank you.

Commissioner Sugarman?

Yes, I have a few questions. Okay, and of course I'm in support of this. And so you said it's certificate. How about licensure? Do you all have an opportunity to have individuals to receive their license through this program, or is this for a certificate? And the other question is, how many young people will be able to benefit from the additional funds? Is it...

uh so so i'm not sure i understood the first question so i'm going to ask you to say it again but i can answer the second one we hope we're currently graduating classes between five and seven and what we want to do is double and perhaps triple that uh for the rest of this year and next so we're hoping to that be go from five to seven to 15 to 21 students we're doing four we're do uh one a quarter so You're the teacher, so four times 17, four times 15, that's what we're hoping to get.

Okay, great, 68. And so I love this. So is it in any type of trade or is it electrical trade? And then also they're receiving certification. And what about licensure? Is there a pathway to receiving licensure or is there a certain thing? Is a licensure in electrical and things of that nature? Sure.

So the OSHA 10 certification they'll come with will be applicable to anything in the construction field. The first aid certification and CPR certification obviously will go to anything in the field. The scissor lift certification will just, that would be applicable to any trade that would use that, which would be the majority of the trades. So yes, so we are now engaged with nine different training centers and 11 different trades. So that would be the whole, almost the whole gambit of skilled trades in the Memphis area.

Commissioner Caswell. Point just point of information to the sponsor there the red line substitute from glamour grooming and boarding and then it goes to West, Tennessee and it says from I Was trying to understand the difference between the two red lines If I may chair I'm gonna direct it to the legal team I

Megan Smith, County Attorney's Office. The operative change is simply the amount. There is a large portion of the resolutions that are formatted differently. I would say that the substitute before you is more standard in terms of making a grant resolution. The original made large references to budget amendment 52E and includes a lot of information that you don't really need in order to make this decision. So this now is reformatted in your standard grant contract or grant resolution and changes the amount to $150,000.

Okay, I guess a clarifying question. These were funds that were once allocated to the others that are mentioned in this resolution, the red line?

Megan Smith, County Attorney's Office, yes ma'am.

Commissioner Brooks, you recognize?

To the attorney, I just, let me first of all say I do support BEW's Journey to Austin Foundation. I appreciate the work that they do. I just want to ask the attorney, reading over this resolution, and I'm glad to see that it is mentioned over and over, that it is conditioned upon the grantee's compliance with state law, of the county charter and the code of ordinances. And it's repeated, it says that throughout, and I hadn't seen that before. But I'm glad to know someone is required to be accountable. Why is that?

Why is that language included in the resolution?

Typically we include. In a different, more general way, but it's included over and over.

I believe you'll see that resolution appear frequently in items that will get approved here and then we will build the contract packet after the approval by the Commission that language is standard and like I said appears in most of our grant resolutions when the decision is made here first and we build the packet second so one more thing

So when these organizations are required to make these reports, who receives these reports? Compliance with state law, federal law, et cetera, that's referenced in here.

Okay, so obviously those references are large labels for large bodies of law, and I would say that it depends on which version. We have a Title VI compliance office. We have a contracts administration office. If you're talking about financial compliance in large part, contract compliance falls to the department that's executing the agreement. So it just really depends on which body of law we're looking at and what item we want to focus on.

Right. Title VI is not a large body, but let me just ask. I just want to be able to find it. The physical office where these reports would be stored. So who's monitoring compliance to assure us that XYZ, IBEW, AFL, ABC, and XY, all of those are actually complying with state law, federal law resolutions and ordinances? Who's monitoring?

Megan Smith, it depends on which type of enforcement we're talking about. So we do have a Title VI compliance office. We do have a charter.

We have a Title VI compliance office?

Yes, ma'am.

Oh, okay.

And we do have an EOC empowered by the charter. Financial compliance falls in a few different capacities as well as contract compliance. So it just really depends on what type of reports we're talking about at any given point.

Well, let's just use this one, and that way I'll be able to hunt down the rest. I need a model or a template. So if we can use this resolution, and you can tell me where to go and find these reports or compliance monitoring.

I have several templates. I'm happy to share them.

No, I need to know the office. What office do I go to to find out if they have received a report to show that they are in compliance with this resolution? We can supply you with some contacts for each of those offices. Thank you, ma'am.

Commissioner Sugarman? I move to be added as a sponsor. I have a motion by Commissioner Sugarman and a second by Commissioner Thornton. Can we do that without objection? Seeing none, so moved. Seeing no other commissioners in the queue, please prepare the screen for a vote. Please report the vote.

We have aye votes from Commissioners Whaley, Klavius, Sugarman, Shalai, Thornton, Brooks, Lowery, and Chairwoman Avian. We have eight aye votes.

That motion passes. Parliamentarian, please read item number 47.

Thank you.

Item 47 comes from the Hospitals and Health Committee, which is chaired by Commissioner Clay Bibbs. Item 47 is a resolution approving a contract between the Shelby County government on behalf of the Shelby County Health Department and the University of Memphis in an amount not to exceed $1,043,560 to commence upon December 1, 2025, through November 30, 2026, for the purposes of a public health informatics, data equity, analytics, and systems approach to collaborate with academia to strengthen the Shelby County Health Department's infrastructure, workforce, and data systems. This item requires the appropriation and expenditure of FY 2026 federal grant funds in the amount of $1,043,560. Sponsored by Commissioner Ms. Viclay-Bibbs, this item was an add-on in May 27, 2026 committee.

I have a motion by Commissioner Sugarman, a second by Commissioner Caswell. Commissioner Clay Bibbs, can I get a committee report?

This item came down with a favorable recommendation.

Thank you. Commissioner Sugarman, you're recognized. I make a motion to be added as a sponsor.

Second.

I have a motion by Commissioner Sugarman to be added as a sponsor, second by Commissioner Caswell. Can we do that without objection? Seeing none, so moved. Seeing no commissioners in the queue, please prepare the screen for a vote. Please report the vote.

We have . We have aye votes from commissioners Clay Bibbs, Caswell, Sugarman, Shalai, Wright, Morrison, Brooks, Lowery, and Sherwin-Avent. We have nine aye votes.

That motion passes. Parliamentarian, please read item 48.

Item 48 comes from the Law Enforcement Corrections and Courts Committee, which is chaired by Commissioner Wright. Item 48 is a resolution to authorize a $12.50 charge by the clerk of every court in Shelby County having jurisdiction of state misdemeanors and felonies for the purposes authorized and set out in Tennessee Code Annotated Section 40-3-106, sponsored by Commissioner Michael Whaley, Commissioner McWright, and Commissioner Charlie Caswell. This item was sent down with an unfavorable recommendation in May 27th, 2026 committee meeting and approval requires a two third vote of the body for passage, which is a minimum of nine votes. And I will defer to the county attorney's office as that is not a parliamentary requirement that is statutory.

I have a motion by Commissioner Sugarman, a second by Commissioner Caswell. I'd like the county attorney's office to opine. We just stated that this vote is needed, two-thirds vote, which is a minimum of nine because it's a statutory requirement. So if you could just confirm. Commissioner Wright in the meantime. Could I have a committee report?

Yes, madam chair. This comes down with an unfavorable recommendation.

Thank you Why don't dmo is there something like you'd like to share while she's looking that up I

I'm sorry, Madam Chair, could you say that again, please?

Is there anything that you'd like to share about this item?

Yes. Yes, there is. Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the commission, DA Steve Mulroy, DA for Shelby County. I've had an opportunity to speak to at least some of you about this item. For over 20 years, there has been a fee of $12.50 assessed on every defendant who was convicted, only convicted criminals, of a misdemeanor or a felony. And that was authorized by the state legislature. The purpose of the $12.50 fund was to provide proceeds to the public defender's office. The public defender's office has been using that fund for over 20 years. There has never been an analogous $12.50 fund for the DA's office until recently when the legislature passed authorizing legislation. It's a local option. It requires a two-thirds vote by the county commission to activate the $12.50 fund, which would be administered in the exact same way as the one that's been administered for decades, except the proceeds would go to the DA's office. This fund could plug a number of various budget holes that we have in the DA's office to enhance public safety in Shelby County. It would have the additional advantage, I think from your perspective, commissioners, that it would mean that we would be back in front of you less often. which some of you maybe would cheer on. We won't be coming into you between budgetary seasons asking for this budgetary hole or that budgetary hole to be filled. There are already 15 different judicial districts that have passed this $12.50 fund that represents 56 counties. I've also been informed that DAs in additional eight judicial districts comprising another 24 counties will be trying to implement it this year. And here's the important part, or two important points. This is a $12.50 fee, only $12.50 fee. It would be assessed only if the defendant is convicted. This is only a fee that convicted criminals will have to pay. And then the other important point that I need to emphasize is that we have already committed to waive this fee if the defendant is indigent. This is not a fee that will be assessed against an indigent defendant, only those who can afford to pay it, and only after they've been convicted. So we respectfully ask you to support this in the way that other county commissions across the state have been supporting it for their DAs. And I'll be happy to answer questions.

Commissioner Sugarman. Thank you. Citizens are already dealing with rising housing costs insurance premiums, inflation, and local taxes. Adding another court-imposed fee places an additional burden on working families and middle-income residents. According to US Census Bureau, Shelby County's median household income remains below the national average, while poverty rates remain significantly higher than national levels. Even relatively small fees can have a disproportionate impact combined with existing court costs, fines, litigation taxes, and administrative fees. Individual appearing in General Sessions criminal and municipal courts already face numerous financial obligations. Tennessee imposes court costs, litigation taxes, and various criminal justice assessments in addition to fines. The proposed $12.50 district attorney fee would be added on top of existing obligations rather than replacing any existing fee. Every new fee increases the overall costs of interaction with the justice system. Many constituents believe that increased traffic enforcement and citation activity have already created financial burdens for working families. And on Wednesday I gave an example. Traffic stops and vehicle related citations often result in multiple financial obligations including fines, court costs, administrative fees, and increased insurance premiums. For middle-income households, repeated traffic citations can result in hundreds of thousands of dollars in direct and indirect costs. Adding additional conviction-based fees contributes to the perception that citizens are being asked to fund government operations through the court system. Funding government offices through conviction-generated revenue can undermine public confidence. The proposed fee would only be collected when convictions occur. While prosecutors are ethically obligated to pursue justice, not revenue, tying agency funding to convictions may create concerns about the appearance of a financial incentive. Best practices in public finance generally favor funding core government functions through appropriations rather than conviction-based assessments. The district attorney's office is already supported through state and local tax dollars. Then there's three, four questions. How much annual revenue is projected? What programs or positions will be funded? What measurable outcomes will be achieved? And how will taxpayers know whether the additional revenue improved public safety?

So I'll be happy to answer those questions. I want to point out that there's no DA in the state of Tennessee who has been more vocal in agreeing with many of the points that Commissioner Sugarman has made. I did a press conference with the head of Just City two years ago in which we announced that our policy was we would be waiving fines and fees to the extent that we could when the defendant was indigent, and we're going to add this 1250 fund to that same thing if it is passed. Also, there's no DA in the state who's been more vocal about the problem with traffic stops, particularly traffic stops that are over-concentrated in low-income neighborhoods for non-public safety-related things like equipment violations and expired tags. We've also been speaking out about that as well.

Please ask the question.

But as to the three questions that are asked, we asked the public defenders what income their fund generated to them, and it was a little under $100,000 last year. As for what it would be used for, there is a list of things that would enhance public safety. So, for example, in order for our criminal investigators to do cell phone dumps, to help increase the solve rate. There are licensing fees in order for us to use the Cellbrite software technology. We don't have sufficient number of people on that right now. We'd use that money for that. There's also software and hardware that we would help to provide our video technicians when they help to, excuse me, process the thousands of hours of body cam footage that we have to process every year. Some of them are using hardware that is so out of date that they can't actually look at the body cam in an appropriate way. We also would be able to scale up to the AI-assisted version of our computer-assisted legal research tools that our attorneys use and also be able to have a better public-facing dashboard for purposes of transparency. So for all those reasons, we do believe it would enhance public safety for Shelby County.

All right. Those were the questions.

thank you commissioner thank you madam chair and again i i hear my colleague and again understand and i had some of those same questions yet when we see what just happened with what we're what we're trying to fix even with the sheriff department budget it's overtime pay that's need to be done when we see the victims of crime that continue to happen in our community where i sit with this is is that we're paying for it and we're continuing to pay even more forward The reason why, too, I felt in support of this is that you already laid it out, the engine, those people who can't afford it. When the public defender say that they can't afford it and they need a public defender, we know that these people can't afford it. But for those who are committing crime, it's costing us. And we sitting here now trying to figure out how to pay for criminals that don't have to pay for nothing but keep doing all these crimes over and over again because it costs them nothing. and so it but law-abiding taxpayers because they become those many of not all of them but the ones who become felon no lose some of those rights as a citizen in there but then here we are still trying to figure out how to take care of people who are going to commit those crimes again i one i've been fighting restoratives work for a long time and put a lot of dimes in my own money to to try to mitigate a lot of this trauma Yet to the same point, there are those who are out here just doing it. And if they have the capacity, which you would determine that, they can go get a lawyer. And it's $12.50. When we're talking about a forensic laboratory that we still got to figure out how to pay for. We're trying to figure out how to pay for everything that the criminals continue to do over and over again, and they don't have to pay for nothing, because there's no recourse to the crimes that they do. I just hope that we can have a debt fight for really the citizens that are trying to continue to live their life without having to pay more taxes because criminals keep doing the same thing over and over again and getting the same results. So this is why I support this action. Again, with the caveat of the engineer people being taken out and again if it's if it's some capacity where we talk about those with misdemeanor driving citation maybe we can look at that too and say okay we'll need to add another 12 hours on them on driving or suspended life whatever that is uh where it's a misdemeanor we need to look at that but for these individuals just out here committing crime over and over again it needs to be a charge so that's where i stand thank you commissioner commissioner thordon

Thank you, Chair. So I was just curious, like when Commissioner Castle was saying that they don't have to pay anything, how much does it cost if you're convicted of a crime? What other fines or fees are associated with that conviction?

District Attorney Steve Mulroy, thank you for the question, Commissioner. I actually don't know off the top of my head how much all of the other fees are, but I know that there are court cost fees that are assessed when someone is convicted of a crime, but those can be waived, and we do waive them when the defendant is indigent. There are other... Non-waivable fees, I think there's a victim compensation fund that the state has imposed that I think is a non-waivable fee. I don't know the amount of it, but there are a couple of different fees. And to the extent that under the law they are waivable by our office, we'll waive them if the defendant is in a jail.

And then I'm just curious, just from a personal understanding, when do they pay those fees? Is that after they serve their time?

Clerk's office? Yeah, go ahead.

Hi, this is Jessica Indangaro. I'm the chief administrative officer for the DA's office. So those fees are assessed by the court at the time of conviction, and they become due. But often, both criminal court clerk's offices, so both the Shelby County Criminal Court and the Shelby County Sessions Court, set up payment plans. So most people who are endeavoring to pay off their fines and fees are on a payment plan, and both of those offices maintain the records that support the ability of people to do that.

And do they make those payments while they're incarcerated or how does it work?

Generally, no, not while they're incarcerated unless they have independent access to funds. But many people are not incarcerated. And so certainly at the time that they're incarcerated, they are told again about how much their fines and fees are. And at that point, they can request to be put on a monthly plan.

Okay. And defaulting on those payments does what?

It's hard to say. Different clerk's offices have done it different ways over the years. Sometimes it takes a while for the clerk's office to catch up, and it would be better directed to the clerk's offices, I'm sorry to say.

I do think it's just important to just know the barriers and burdens that we're putting on people, particularly just because when we're talking about three fourths of our graduates are not on grade level, there is a huge, you know, school to prison pipeline that we're talking about here, where, you know, if you are leaving school after 12, 13 years with these huge deficits, where do you think you're going? And so coming from a community where right now I know on two handfuls the amount of people in 201 from my neighborhood alone, I just can't say that we have served them well for them not to have made the decisions that they've made. And some of them have made some life-altering decisions, unfortunately. So, you know, $12.50 can seem like a very small amount to some. I do think that it is an additional burden. But at the end of the day, I'm going to support getting this across the finish line just because I know that we can do so much more to be able to – support with the backlogs that I've heard so many other advocates talk about as well. And it's nothing like being in a room full of parents who are frustrated that they are not able to get their evidence process in a timely fashion so that they can have closure for the traumatic experiences that they've had.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair. And so to answer some of the questions, when I worked at criminal court clerk's office, when individuals did not pay their fees, it was turned over to collection agencies, which ruined their credits. Although labeled as a court fee, proposed functions as an additional tax on individuals involved in the criminal justice system, such as misdemeanors. Unlike general tax revenues, they are broadly shared convictions-based fees. not just felonies, misdemeanors. I can imagine a lot of my former students or students will be involved because a lot of them do not have a driver's license, et cetera, but they're trying to struggle to help support their families, middle-income, working-class families. Such fees disproportionately affect working class individuals who may already struggle to pay fines, insurance increases, and other legal obligations. Just to go to the grocery store, for example, is a struggle for families. People who are paying their rent, it's a struggle for families. The working class families are being hit hard especially when you have people like trump in office who are taking away social nets they're looking towards the county the local governments to fill in those gaps essential government functions should be funded through the normal budget process rather than piecemeal course assessments the shelby county commission annually reviews and appropriates funding for public safety agencies If additional funding is needed, it should be debated openly during the budget process rather than financed through incremental fees imposed on the court users. And again, I'll go back to my first original question. How much annual revenue is projected? Okay, I think you said 100,000, is that correct?

Yes, based on what the Public Defender's Office got last year.

Okay.

District Attorney Steve Muller responding.

Thank you. And what measurable outcomes will be achieved?

District Attorney Steve Mulroy, we anticipate that we will be able to process our body cam and video evidence faster so that the backlogs that were referred to will be ameliorated and we'll have cases moving through the system quicker. We'll also anticipate that with the advanced ability to use Cellbrite to do a cell phone dumping that we'll be able to increase our conviction rate and also increase our solve rate.

Thank you. Commissioner Thornton. I'm sorry, are you able to hear through the microphone through my microphone? Are you hearing me through my microphone?

It's kind of tough.

Commissioner Thornton, you're recognized.

All I want for my birthday, Chairwoman, is great amplification of this microphone.

That's all I want. It's not your milestone birthday because we've celebrated some milestone birthdays with you, so we'll see what we can do to make that happen.

I believe in you. DA, can you just, for the record, for those people who are listening in, indigent, how is it defined? How many people, any metrics that are associated with that? I've been asking you questions every step of the way for this particular item. If you could just help those people who are listening and they have a soft heart towards what this will do as an additional burden. I've heard you say there's an exception for those people who classify as indigent. Tell us more about what that means.

Yes, thank you for the question, Commissioner. District Attorney Steve Mulroy responding. We have well-established procedures for determining who is indigent in the criminal justice system that have been used for years. Both the Criminal Court Clerk's Office and the General Sessions Court Clerk's Office have affidavits of indigency forms that are routinely used. And they ask some questions about how much money do you make? Do you receive any government assistance or pensions? Do you own any property? Are you able to post your own bond? Are you able to hire your own attorney? Are you now in custody? Et cetera, et cetera. They'll also ask for information that happen to be available in liquid form like cash or CD, any debts that are owed, credit card balances, et cetera, et cetera. So you fill out all this form. and it's not exactly the same in each office, but the forms are substantially similar. The same types of questions are asked, and then you have to sign under penalty of perjury, and then the clerk's office will review it, and then the judge will make a determination as to whether you are in fact indigent. The vast majority of people who fill out this form are in fact found indigent, which means either they'll be assigned an attorney from the public defender's office, or if there's a conflict of interest with the public defender's office, then one of the so-called private panel attorneys who are standing by for these kinds of appointments will get an appointment to represent that person, and then the person doesn't have to pay anything. This is a procedure that happens every day in the General Sessions Court and the criminal court clerk's office in every county in Tennessee and has been for years, and that is the process that is used.

Thank you. And if someone decides to hire a private attorney, does that automatically rule them out from being labeled as indigent?

District Attorney Steve Moore responding again. It doesn't automatically rule them out, but the whole point of filling out the affidavit and indigency is so that they don't have to pay for their own attorney, that they'll get a free appointed attorney. So you almost never have a situation in which someone says, I can pay for my own attorney, but I'm also seeking indigent status. That doesn't really come up because the whole point is to remove the burden of having to pay for your own attorney.

Thank you for educating us. And y'all are one of the most persistent, you know, divisions of Shelby County. So I appreciate the way that you fight for what you need. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll take that as a compliment.

Commissioner Whaley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm just going to make a motion to defer this to the June 15th commission meeting.

have a motion by commissioner whaley a second by commissioner brooks to defer to the june june 15th meeting commission meeting commission meeting not committing commission um can we do that without objection being none so moved all right thank you all very much have a good night thank you uh we have uh Chief Lindsay's not currently in the room, so I do want to just verify that I did hear from Attorney Smith in that particular item that we were just before us does require two-thirds vote, so it would need at least nine commissions. Okay, let's see. We'll move since Chief Lindsay's not in right now, we'll move on to the next item. Parliamentarian, please read item 49.

Item 49 comes from the General Government Committee, which is chaired by Commissioner Brooks. Item 49 is a resolution of the Board of Shelby County Commissioners approving a private act of the General Assembly of the State of Tennessee to amend Chapter 131 of the Private Acts of 1969 as amended relative to the privilege tax upon hotel occupancy in Shelby County, Tennessee. Sponsored by Chairwoman Shantae K. Avent. This item was an add-on and sent down without recommendation in May 27th, 2026. Committee meeting.

I have a motion by Commissioner Sugarman, a second by Commissioner Caswell. Commissioner Brooks, could I get a committee report?

Yes, ma'am. This was an add-on sent down without recommendation.

I think, Attorney Smith, there were questions. If you could just kind of outline this particular resolution and why it has come before us.