Commission approves contract with University of Memphis to build CLEAR criminal-justice data dashboard, with amendment to contract language
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Summary
The Shelby County Commission approved a contract with the University of Memphis to fund the CLEAR initiative, a research unit and data dashboard to track criminal-justice outcomes; the County Attorney recommended amending the resolve clause to match the $300,000 contract caption and commissioners pressed staff on data access and sustainability.
The Shelby County Commission on Feb. 10 approved a contract with the University of Memphis to create a criminal-justice data dashboard known as the CLEAR initiative, and amended contract language on the floor to correct the dollar figure in the resolve clause.
The contract (Item 30), as read, is for an initial term through Feb. 29, 2028 with options to renew and described a not-to-exceed amount of $300,000 for the initial term; the resolve clause in the printed text included a different figure ($175,000) which County Attorney Megan Smith advised should be amended to $300,000 to match the caption. The commission amended the resolve clause on the floor with no recorded objection.
Dr. Jonathan Bennett, associate director and chief data scientist at the Center for Community Research and Evaluation (CCRE) at the University of Memphis, presented the initiative. He described CLEAR as a research unit housed at the university that would serve as a neutral third party and work with Shelby County government, criminal-justice agencies, the county Data Governance Subcommittee, and County IT to compute and publish criminal-justice metrics. Bennett cited a March 2025 Tennessee Comptroller report that recommended the county publish 18 metrics and said the initiative would help triangulate data that currently sit in separate systems (booking data in the jail, General Sessions Court records, Criminal Court records).
Tammy Sawyer, General Sessions Court Clerk, told commissioners her office has been billed $15,000 for a dashboard built by CCRE and will present that dashboard to committee on Feb. 19. Megan Smith (County Attorney's Office) clarified that the contract term runs through Feb. 29, 2028 with renewal options and reiterated the advice to amend the resolve clause to the $300,000 figure in the caption.
Commissioners asked how the data would be governed, who would have access, and how the initiative would be sustained financially after the contract period. Dr. Bennett said data access would be managed through a state-of-the-art data warehouse administered in partnership with County IT and limited within the university to authorized technical staff; agencies would be required to sign memoranda of understanding (MOUs) to permit data sharing. On sustainability, Bennett said the research unit would pursue external grants and foundation funding and that the project required agency buy-in to demonstrate effectiveness for future funding.
The commission approved the contract after the on-floor amendment; the initiative will proceed contingent on passage of funding and agencies signing required MOUs before data integration begins.
