MEMPHIS, September 14, 2026 - Commissioner Amber Huett-Garcia took the Shelby County Commission through the enforcement terms of the county's new jail health care contract on September 14, 2026, and did the division out loud.

She said she was reading page six of the contract and asked what "timely" means there. A Wexford Health Sources executive answered that a health assessment and physical must be completed within 14 days in the jail setting and seven days in the prison and youth centers. Commissioner Huett-Garcia then asked what counts as a timely response when a corrective action plan is issued. The answer was ten days.

Then she set the penalty against the price.

"There's a $125 a day, so you're looking at about $3,000 a month for a corrective action plan being unaddressed," she said. "And if I'm looking at a contract that is over $100,000 a day, are we building in a certain amount of room for non-compliance?"

The contract's annual amount is not to exceed $37,982,899.00. Divided across a year, that is roughly $104,000 a day.

The county's answer: a second penalty track

Latasha Palmer of the Division of Corrections answered on the administration's behalf and pointed to a different mechanism in the contract.

She said exhibit E provides a penalty for non-compliance, and that non-compliance means anything below 90 percent per audit. She said the county's oversight compliance unit conducts 18 audits per month, ranging across mental health performance and services, history and physical, sick calls and grievances. Non-compliance on those audits, she said, yields anywhere from $2,500 to $10,000 per audit, per month.

Commissioner Huett-Garcia said she was familiar with exhibit E and asked whether commissioners would get a monthly update on any penalties assessed. Palmer said yes, the county can do that.

Where the reports go now

Commissioner Henri E. Brooks pressed the same question from a different direction. She commended the director of corrections for standing up a compliance unit, then asked where the compliance reports go.

Anthony Alexander, director of corrections, said the county holds a monthly compliance meeting with all stakeholders, including the sheriff and the youth justice and education center, that representatives from each agency review the audit reports from the health care compliance team, and that the reports are then filed. If penalties have to be imposed, he said, they come to his desk for signature.

Commissioner Brooks said that was not enough for a body voting on hundreds of thousands of dollars. She asked whether the contract requires a report to the law enforcement committee every three months. Alexander said that in the committee meeting the administration had agreed to provide quarterly reports from the monthly compliance meeting, and that the county is committed to doing that.

She said she needed to see those reports in writing, and named youth mental health as the area she is focused on.

A third commitment

Commissioner Karen Streeter added one more. She told the director that since the body was having to move quickly on the decision, she had one ask: that after the first 30 days he come back to the Commission with a written report indicating how things are going in general, so that the body can get on top of any issues immediately.

"Understood. We'll do that," he said.

By the end of the item, the county had committed on the record to three separate reporting streams: a monthly update to commissioners on penalties assessed, quarterly reports from the compliance meeting, and a written 30-day report.

What happens next

The contract term began October 1, 2026. The written 30-day report Commissioner Streeter requested was due at the beginning of November 2026. The first quarterly compliance report would fall at the end of December 2026. The 901 Report has asked the county for all three.

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