The Shelby County Sheriff’s Office presented a “worst case scenario” cost of a new jail to Shelby County Commissioners Wednesday, April 23, in a budget subcommittee meeting.

SCSO Chief Financial Officer Alicia Lindsey pinned the total at about $1.4 billion, according to the sheriff's office’s capital budget proposal.

The Tennessee General Assembly considered an additional one-cent sales tax hike for Shelby County to specifically fund construction of a new jail. That bill failed in this year’s legislative session, which ended Tuesday.

If sales tax hike is dead, how will Shelby County pay for a new jail?

The $1.4 billion estimate is partly based on the revenue that would have been generated in the event the bill had passed first in the legislature, then at the county commission and finally at the ballot box. 

Lindsey told commissioners that she realized the new jail is competing with the county administration’s plan to finance a new Regional One Health campus and build new high schools in Frayser and Cordova.

But she said a new jail is the sheriff office’s “most critical capital project” and called the current Shelby County Jail, commonly known as 201 Poplar, “operationally inefficient.” It’s been at the center of controversy involving a string of deaths and lawsuits as living conditions in the 44-year-old jail have deteriorated.

“The cost of doing nothing is continued reliance on repairs, unsustainable emergency spending, risk of lawsuit if the facilities are being noncompliant or unsafe,” she said of the 1980s-era facility. 

Where would county build a new jail?

Sheriff Floyd Bonner Jr. didn’t tell the committee where a new jail would be built, except to say it would not be on the current Downtown Memphis site.

Lindsey said the cost estimate is for the jail only and doesn’t include moving criminal courts. Pre-trial detainees, who are held at the jail, are taken to the adjoining Walter Bailey Criminal Justice Center for court appearances.

Opinion: Building a new jail won’t make us safer

The Sheriff’s Department expects to have a feasibility plan, prepared by the University of Tennessee’s County Technical Assistance Service (CTAS), on a new jail’s construction by May 6, according to Lindsey. 

Commissioner Mick Wright said SCSO’s multi-year capital budget proposal comes to $229 million annually.

The commission voted in 2023 to increase the annual capital budget from $75 million to $150 million for all of the county’s capital projects, both new and underway.

“The new jail would totally consume all of that,” said Wright, while questioning the source and extent of the estimate. 

Bonner said he’s not sure if the CTAS study will look at building on the Downtown site or at a different location.

“I’m thinking it’s going to be both,” Bonner told Wright. “We can’t tear this facility down and do nothing with 2,600 inmates. I’m sure it’s going to be another site that’s going to be mentioned in all of that.”

Another death at 201 Poplar brings number to at least 55 since 2019

Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris has estimated a new jail would cost at least $1 billion and would take 10 years to build.

Capital budget proposals are usually laid out in five-year plans with the coming fiscal year the one the commission votes on. The out years beyond that are not approved in a budget season but a guide to what completing a sizeable capital project will take.

Harris is expected to present his consolidated county budget proposal to the county commission on April 30.