Travis County Commssioners Court
November 26, 2002
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Item 23
We've asked those involved with item 23 to come forward, and they are here. Were you able to contact the protestant?
>> yes. They're here.
>> number 23 -- that was on another item.
>> yes, 23 is a modification to the tiburon contract.
>> 23, approve the following purchasing actions to contract number ma 9800 survive, tiburon. Approve extended support coverage hours for the automated reporting system, ars, and records management system, rms. B is to approve one-time technical system training from tiburon for information and telecommunication systems staff. C is to approve additional technical service work to create a central database administration batch mash utility for database management of the tiburon integrated justice system.
>> good morning. Could we take a, b and c in that order so we can better understand what this is about?
>> all right. Item a is basically the reporting system and the jail management system that we need to get a 24-hour maintenance system on. We've had some issues that come up in the we hours of the morning when we've had to get tiburon in to help resolve issues. It really should have been covered in the contract in the very beginning, along with the other jail fees that we have 24 hour coverage on from tiburon as far as support is concerned. We budgeted for this. Tiburon has been working with us up to this point basically without charge, and so we needed to budget for this, which we did, so we're recommending this system along with the other jail management system that's already on 24 hour coverage, add to that.
>> I think that it came really into light when we did the field reporting. So the ars system, the addition of the ars system I think is a complex city that we're looking at because that's our field reporting system from mobile units. The officers are out there. This is a key, critical system for them.
>> the cost of a is how much, 14,000?
>> it's 14,000. 7,000 for rms coverage for a year and 7,000 for ars coverage for a year. So it would increase the maintenance contract with tiburon for that amount.
>> and we would take the service as needed? And the source of funding is?
>> it's out of ijs maintenance budget.
>> so we have the money already?
>> yes, sir, we budgetd for it.
>> I move approval of a. Any more discussion of a? 23-a? Ball in favor? -- all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. B?
>> b is a training that we've asked for for the ijs technical staff to get some training on some tools that were at the end of the ijs contract as we get ready to bring the court system up. We need to get training on these tools. We didn't want to take it too soon. If you're not using it all, then you'll forget it. So at this point, we're ready to get this training on these tools that will help us better manage the incident grace of the court system, along with the other ijs modules.
>> when the court system going to be ready?
>> the first court systems are scheduled for the end of February, first part of March in the criminal district. The last courts are the county courts, and they would come up in June.
>> okay. So basically getting the staff involved and giving them the proper training to -- go ahead.
>> I would like to take an opportunity to mention that this will assist the technical staff. It will also assist my staff that has had to learn ojt how to technically deal with the ijs system because that was not budgeted in the original contract. So they're looking forward to making sure that they're doing everything right and there is probably some things out there, commissioner, and your point is well taken that with fax coming up, it will need to be looked at differently. So we're excited about getting this type of training.
>> for those folks who don't know what the acronym is, can you basically tell what that is facts?
>> I'm sorry, I didn't -- oh. It's the court accounting system. It's the court system, the court case management system.
>> right. The timing of the personnel again that's involved in this particular training getting geared up and ready to go, because there's a timetable for all of these things, the tiburon, the facts, the whole nine yards. I understand that there are still some persons that are not on board on some of this stuff. And I'm looking forward to making sure that in other setting that these persons are on board with what we're trying to do and they need to get on board. Because as this train moves on down the track, we don't want anybody left behind because it would cost us more I think to retrofit than what we're doing now as far as taking care of these automated, computerized aspects for Travis County. And I'm really -- in the departments, we need to know who they are and they need to get on board, in my opinion. Otherwise it's going to cost us more money in the long run. I want to make sure that we go through this and that those departments are fully aware of what we're doing and what they need to be doing to get on board.
>> this has been a long road, --
>> it definitely has.
>> and with the courts coming up, we'll finally begin to see what the real true integration is going to bring to the county.
>> exactly.
>> we would like to schedule a session, maybe a work session to go through that with the court since this project has been going for five years. With the courts coming up now, then the disposition records are automatically entered into the system and some of the jail overcrowding issues have been crowded with not being able to get really good data pulled together. It goes back to the fact we're not integrated at this point.
>> do you have the source?
>> yes.
>> I second that, commissioner.
>> the first courts being the district criminal courts?
>> yes.
>> the county court at law -- courts at law will be brought on in June?
>> right.
>> what about the juvenile section?
>> they're in their -- the financial piece of that, judge, I think is the csc piece that's going on right now, and I think the court voted on that to be an interim solution. And I think we're in a process talking with the district judges right now. We're to meet with them I think December 6th to discuss those options for the facts financial accounting and csc financial accounting. So when will that be, I don't have a good date to give you today, sir. I think that that will be probably at least a year away. So it will be permanent then, right?
>> yes, sir.
>> judge, user right, csc had asked for that system for one year. They're not totally up on it yet. They're getting up, and part of it is to to get up going forward and the rest is the conversion of the old data. And that data is very difficult to convert because of the problems we've all talked about with the real world system. But whether they were to go on facts, which doesn't have a probation system yet, or stay with csc, that conversion needs to be done. So one thing that we've all kind of been talking about, just to give you a heads up, is with the conversion of the courts to facts and bring up the facts financial, which basically we've almost designed in-house with tiburon, so all of that is new and untried, I don't think that it would be unusual or it may not be a bad idea for csc to either stay on csc for two years. It doesn't seem that the timing is going to be such that there's going to be the staff to convert them at the end of the year. There may be, but I think to get everything out, I'm not convinced that they're not going to need that interim for two years and then make a decision whether they can go on facts or not. I don't think facts is going to be far enough along in a year with all the converting and working everything out tying the systems together and the new financial to assess it.
>> I think we'll get a status report on that in January.
>> right.
>> but this is to train Travis County staff on the facts system once it's up?
>> actually, this is to train Travis County staff on the integration -- integrated database. The court approved a central administration for that. It's kind of the nucleus that everybody wants to look at and we have external users looking at that. This is to train Travis County staff, its staff, who have learned this through hard knocks, to train them on additional tools that we receive to administer that database. That's that integration of all the courts, the prosecutors. It is Travis County staff, yes, sir.
>> okay. Any more discussion? All in favor. That passes by unanimous vote. 23-c?
>> the last item is a request for a program to assist us in the management of this database. We have a process where at this point at the individual record level, at the individual person record that's in the integrated data base, we've been managing those at that level. And what we have identified in the process is that if we can do some of this in a more automated fashion, we will save 15, 20 man hours a week in the process across three or four department dollars doing this. So it's a labor-saving tool that we've been able to identify as we learned this process of trying to manage this database.
>> that's also under your budget?
>> yes, ma'am.
>> any more discussion?
>> move approval.
>> second.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
Last Modified: Wednesday, April 2, 2003 10:25 AM