The multiyear fight between the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office and Memphis-Shelby County’s Juvenile Court over operation of the Youth Justice and Education Center entered a new phase this week, after the Shelby County Board of Commissioners approved $11 million to transition management of the center to the county’s division of corrections.
Commissioners had previously struck the funding from the county budget, forcing them to raid the county’s dwindling fund balance — often called its “rainy day fund” — to meet their legal obligation to ensure the safety and well-being of detained youth. It is unclear how the county will fund the detention center in future years.
The transition, slated to occur Oct. 1, comes after years of hostilities between the administration of Juvenile Court Judge Tarik Sugarmon, who took office in 2022, and the SCSO, which has overseen detained youth since 2015.
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In 2024, Sheriff Floyd Bonner announced that his office would stop running the detention center and transition operations to the juvenile court, which had run the center before 2015. On July 22, the court and Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris signed a memorandum of understanding to transfer detention center operations to the mayor’s office. After the transition, the Shelby County Division of Corrections will run the center.
Arguments about funding are likely to continue: Harris’ staffers have said that the sheriff’s office will keep about $4 million previously used to run the detention center even when it is no longer involved in operations. At the same time, the sheriff’s office has accused Harris of defunding law enforcement by moving $6.5 million in funded but unfilled positions (known as vacancy savings) out of SCSO’s budget to help fund the juvenile detention transfer.
The impact of the transition to the division of corrections on detained youth is uncertain. But the conflict between the sheriff’s office and juvenile court has already resulted in slowed hearings after the sheriff’s office stopped transporting youths to downtown courtrooms.
If the funding had not been approved, county officials would have been left scrambling to care for almost 100 detained youth without the budget to hire staff or a private contractor.
Disagreement between SCSO, juvenile court rooted in trust issues
The sheriff’s office began running the juvenile detention center in 2015, when then-Judge Dan Michael asked then-Sheriff Bill Oldham to operate the center. The relationship between the court and the sheriff’s office soured in 2023, after both departments saw leadership changes.
“It appears you have a very low level of trust in the SCSO operation of the facility,” Bonner said in a November 2023 letter to Sugarmon, provided to MLK50: Justice Through Journalism by a representative of the sheriff’s office. “We do not wish to remain where we are not wanted or respected so you should learn all you can about the operation of the facility.”
By December 2023, Bonner sent Sugarmon another letter that stated, “It appears fiscally and logistically necessary for the SCSO to relocate its personnel from the Youth Justice and Education Center to the SCSO adult facilities, the Jail and Jail East.”
In April 2024, several nonprofit groups criticized the sheriff for failing to allow detained youth to see their parents, go outside, or go to school. Bonner responded by complaining that the detention center was nearly full, which had led to staffing challenges. Later that month, the SCSO publicly announced that it would stop running the center and transition operations back to the juvenile court.
By October 2024, the relationship between the two bodies had deteriorated even further. On Oct. 14, court operations resumed at the juvenile court building downtown after a months-long closure related to asbestos, lead and mold. But on Oct. 11 — three days before reopening — the sheriff informed the court that they would not transport youth incarcerated in the center to their court hearings.
As a result, the court has been forced to hold hearings for detained youth in a courtroom inside the detention center. Because the courtroom has limited space and thus docket slots, detained youth’s cases have taken longer to resolve, the court has previously stated.
On Oct. 15, a lawyer for the court accused the sheriff of violating the due process rights of incarcerated children, according to a letter attached to an ongoing lawsuit filed against the sheriff by the court. “Children should not be subjected to precipitous and unilateral actions that impinge on their rights,” the lawyer wrote.
Though the SCSO originally intended to complete the transition by Jan. 1, no transition plans had been finalized by the end of 2024. Eventually, the court sued the SCSO over the transition, and a court order forced the SCSO to continue to operate the detention center.
On Jan. 10, Harris’ office sent Bonner a letter, which was provided to MLK50 by the mayor’s office, informing him that his administration would act as an “interim agent” in the transition, and that the division of corrections would operate the detention center after the transition was completed.
Juvenile detention: An expensive form of incarceration
About $9.1 million was budgeted for operations of the detention center in the last fiscal year, according to the SCSO. This year’s increase will likely cover more staff members. While the SCSO employs about 71 staff members to run the facility as of July 2025, Harris’ administration wants to employ 148 staffers.
The average number of youth incarcerated at the detention center has increased since Sugarmon took office, according to the juvenile court’s recently released annual report. The SCSO has previously stated that they have too few staff members to fulfill some of the detention center’s functions, given the number of youth incarcerated there. That increase in staffing will ensure that the detention center meets staff-to-child ratios even when the facility is at maximum capacity, interim director Reese Walker told MLK50.
Juvenile detention is a costly form of incarceration. During a June 14 public meeting, Harris stated that the county may spend at least $100,000 per year on each child incarcerated at the detention center. Harris could be underselling it. In Tennessee, it takes an average of $230,000 each year to incarcerate one child.
Funding fight strains county finances
In July 23 committee meetings, commissioners were told of an urgent need to allocate $11 million so officers could be recruited, hired and trained before the division of corrections takes over the detention center, said Harold Collins, Shelby County’s chief administrative officer.
The expenditure required pulling $8 million from the county’s fund balance, sometimes referred to as its “rainy day fund.” That fund is needed for emergencies as well as ensuring cash flow for operations while the county waits for tax proceeds to flow in.
Operations of YJEC were originally baked into Harris’ proposed budget for fiscal year 2026 without using fund balance. During budget proceedings, however, commissioners stripped millions from the mayor’s budget, including for operations of the detention center.
State law requires that any increase to a mayor’s budget be matched or exceeded in future years, and lawmakers said they didn’t want to promise an increased budget for the mayor’s office going forward.
Instead, commissioners spent $21 million on grants and other projects, including: $3 million for a tax relief program, a $300,000 grant for private boarding school PURE Academy, a $1 million grant to the Hospitality HUB and a $223,000 grant to a skateboard park.
Use of fund balance for recurring expenditures like operating the juvenile justice center is generally not recommended. How the county will fund operations at YJEC after this fiscal year is uncertain, but Collins said the administration would “try to put it in our budget for next year.”
Shelby County’s policy is to maintain a fund balance at 20%-30% of revenue, with a goal of remaining above 25% to ensure it has enough cash to cover operating expenses.
While Shelby County’s Finance Department would not say how much is currently in the fund balance, it did confirm that it is “below 25% and hovering closer on the lower end of the policy.”
A healthy fund balance is also needed to ensure good bond ratings.
During discussions, some commissioners expressed concern that the sheriff’s office would keep some of the funding previously used for juvenile detention. The sheriff’s office has previously said that funding is needed to run other operations, such as those of the county jail.
“If we have funds that were allocated to children, those funds were allocated to (the sheriff) and those funds were unused, that funding should follow those children,” said Commissioner Henri Brooks.
Katherine Burgess is the government accountability reporter for MLK50: Justice Through Journalism. Contact her at katherine.burgess@mlk50.com
Rebecca Cadenhead is the youth life and justice reporter for MLK50: Justice Through Journalism. She is also a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms. Email her rebecca.cadenhead@mlk50.com.
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