MEMPHIS, September 14, 2026 - The Shelby County Board of Commissioners approved a contract with Wexford Health Sources, Inc. to provide health care to inmates and detainees at the county jail, the Division of Corrections and the Youth Education and Justice Center on September 14, 2026.
The resolution sets an annual amount not to exceed $37,982,899.00, prorated for an initial term running from October 1, 2026 to June 30, 2027, with the option to renew for two additional one-year periods. It commits fiscal year 2027 county general funds of up to $18,936,182.25 for the jail and youth center facilities and fiscal year 2027 enterprise funds of up to $9,550,992.00 annually.
The item was sponsored by Chairwoman Shante K. Avant and Commissioner Erika Sugarmon. Commissioner Sugarmon moved it and Commissioner Rhonda O'Dell seconded. Commissioner Sugarmon reported that the law enforcement, corrections and courts committee had sent it down with a favorable recommendation.
The tally
The clerk read the result as eleven aye votes and one recusal.
The eleven ayes named were Commissioners O'Dell, Mills, Dial, Avant, Caswell, Brooks, Richardson, Streeter, Rudd, Sugarmon and Huett-Garcia. Commissioner Mark Billingsley was recorded as recused.
That is twelve of thirteen. Commissioner Miska Clay Bibbs does not appear in the tally in either column. She was present and participating: she questioned the vendor on the record about nine minutes before the vote was taken, asking what the county is getting in this contract that it did not get in the last one.
The clerk did not note an absence, an abstention or a thirteenth vote. The announced result was eleven ayes and one recusal, and the chair declared the motion passed.
What the money buys that the last contract did not
Anthony Alexander, director of corrections, gave the county's explanation for the increase in cost over the previous contract. He named two causes. The average daily population has risen at all facilities since the safe streets task force began operating. And the contract adds an intermediate medical care unit, which he said is something the county has not had.
That unit is for people returning from the hospital who cannot go straight back into general population. He said they will be housed in a unit with hospital beds and direct nursing staff for wound care, intravenous treatment, oxygen and breathing machines.
Four facilities, four populations
Commissioner Derek Mills set out what the vendor is taking on. He described 201 Poplar as holding roughly 3,000 people fresh off the street, juvenile court as holding all of the county's adolescents, Jail East as holding female detainees fresh off the street, and the correction center as holding what he called more seasoned inmates. He asked whether the vendor had preparations for four specific and different groups.
He also asked the company, as it hires the outgoing vendor's staff, to check with management at each of the four facilities about whether a given employee was a good employee, "because not everybody that is working there is the greatest."
A corporate vice president for Wexford Health, identified on the record as Shannis Stock Jones, said that check had already been completed.
The handover date
The contract begins October 1, 2026. Stock Jones said the company will have representatives inside each location on September 30 so that questions can be handled at the moment the contract flips over. She said staffing at Jail East, the youth facility and the correctional center all looked adequate and that 201 Poplar is where the company needs to focus.
What happens next
The contract term began October 1, 2026. Commissioner Karen Streeter asked the director of corrections to return to the Commission with a written report after the first 30 days describing how things are going, and he agreed on the record. That report was due at the beginning of November 2026. The director also committed to quarterly reports to the Commission from the monthly compliance meeting.
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