Travis County Commssioners Court
December 17, 2002
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Item 47
47. Consider and take appropriate action on the following items regarding jail overcrowding issues: a. Report on impact of 24-hour magistration pilot project and b. Scopes of work for county staff and potential outside consultants on county jail overcrowding issues. C. Receive report on action taken by Texas commission on jail standards in response to Travis County plan for county jail overcrowding issues, and take appropriate appropriate. -- appropriate action.
>> would you like to take these in order or the good news and then the bad news? [ laughter ]
>> well, it wouldn't hurt to get a little good news, to be honest.
>> well, the first good news is that the numbers from the sheriff's office this morning show that the jail population is still coming down and we are about 320 inmates less than we were this time last year. That's the first good news. Do you want to do the report then?
>> last week, commissioner daugherty, commissioner Gomez and I and a couple of my senior staff attended the Texas commission on jail standards meeting in which we were asking to be able to continue actually 570 of our variance beds which allows us to be able to meet the remedial order that we are under. We submitted a plan to the commission, which outlined all of the -- of the heroic efforts of lots of different folks in the criminal justice system and in this court in dealing with our issues of jail overcrowding and -- and also suggested that we give up 167 of our variance beds in exchange for getting to keep roughly 175 -- [inaudible] of them, the jail commission approved that plan as commissioner daugherty knows, having been there, shortly before us, kind of the opposite sort of experience with bexar county in that they had the commission pull all 1,000 plus of their variance beds and cancel them immediately. And so it really highlighted to me what I already knew, that is that it does pay when dealing with those folks to do the -- the right thing because they do have the power to -- to have a significant impact on the county and in bexar county's case, I figured it would cost them, you know, be having to send roughly 600 inmates out of county in probably about another nine days. Before they have to start doing that.
>> is this just for another year that we get to keep those 500 some odd --
>> yes, ma'am. It's for another year. We have to, because of the remedial order we will be on the agenda of the jail commission each time. So we will just kind of do an update with them. As long as we are in full compliance, with the jail commission regulations, I don't -- I don't perceive any difficulty between now and next December, but next December they will want to know what we are going to -- you know, what is our plan? One of the things that we outlined to them was that we are trying to get our jail population down to what the real number is assuming -- the system works great, what the real number is, to be able to make decisions, as to whether we build or make other decisions.
>> thank you.
>>
>> anything else on the report?
>> the only thing that I would like to say is I really appreciate commissioner daugherty and commissioner Gomez getting up before dawn to join us down there. Because I think it makes a tremendous impact on the commission when the -- when the -- when the commissioners court and the sheriff, not staff in the commissioners courted, not staff in the sheriff as we saw with bexar county. But when the elected officials appear together in front of a -- thank you.
>> on the assumption of 24 hour magistration, we've had a couple more meetings to discuss the 24 hour magistration, the impact of the pilot. Since we last were in commissioners court, the jail overcrowding task force has still not come to a consensus about a recommendation to make to the commissioners court with regard to whether or not to go forward with permanently implementing 24 hour magistration or any modification -- modified version of the -- of it. And yesterday we decided that it might be best to -- to roll that issue into the issues that we would ask a potential consultant from outside to look at. To help us come to a recommendation about whether or not that should be implemented permanently. So that would roll into item b. Unless anybody has any other questions about 24 hour magistration.
>> > looking at another option, which would be instead of the full 24 hours, trying to do something extra between 1:00 a.m. And 7:00 a.m.? We didn't say what. But it does make sense to try to look at it and -- and we collected some data during the two weeks that we had to -- we had the pilot in place, right?
>> right.
>> we may be able to look at that and decide that if we really had somebody there or the right people there, an hour, hour and a half, in the middle of that gap, we could -- we could smooth out a lot more than just waiting until 7:00 or 7:30. If that's worth looking at, I think we ought to. If not then I understand.
>> I think one of those modified things, judge, was related to pretrial. That while the judge is on duty until, what, 1:00 in the morning, really pretrial stops at 10:00.
>> four nights a week they do.
>> yeah, but I mean that is something that could help ease if we had a pretrial there up until when the judgings off duty so that there is not a -- not more of a stackup that waits for the next morning as necessary because they can push a few more folks through and that would be a very small thing as opposed to a very large thing.
>> well, pretrial services did put in a budget request for 24 hour magistration that included that alternative of -- of just extending their hours on those nights and the cost for that was $160 annually. And so -- so that's what we would be looking at just for that option of -- of adding a pretrial services hours. At least under the current proposal.
>> that would assume that you add to the time period instead of spreading out what you have.
>> but isn't there a owe.
>> Thursday, Friday, Saturday, they are, yes.
>> I guess that really would be -- would be Friday morning, Saturday morning and --
>> Sunday morning.
>> Sunday morning, after the nights then.
>> right.
>> so the other time that they leave at 10:00?
>> uh-huh.
>> yes. 9:00 or 10:00, I can't remember if it's nine or 10.
>> you have the potential some of those phone calls being they can get somebody out, otherwise they are left for 7:00 the next morning.
>> right.
>> correct. These are issue that's we have -- we have talked over at length with the jail overcrowding task force and with the subgroup of the jail overcrowding task force. We just have not arrived at a consensus. About -- about how to proceed.
>> okay.
>> on the scope of work for a potential outside consultant. We've also had a couple of meetings to discuss that further and we have some -- some very rough first drafts, which we are not distributing yet, but which I am going to just go over basic contents of. And ask for your input if we have any. Because there are different levels of expertise or different types of expertise that are required for some of the things that we want to look at, we have sort of by if you are indicated the -- bifurcated it into scope of work. The first one would be an r.f.p. Or a consultant to look at jail operations and the physical plant. What would be included in that one at this point is looking at staffing patterns and scheduling for security and support staff, looking at staff relief factors, overtime usage and leaf usage, hiring -- leave usage, health care cost, inmate health care, other efficiencies that might be gained within the jail operation. Also looking at classification and bed usage and doing a facility evaluation, looking at what buildings are getting ready to outlive their -- their useful lives and might need to be replaced and that type of a thing. On the other side is a work flow analysis of the criminal justice system, which we spoke about quite a bit when we were here last. We -- we are having a meeting this Friday to -- to further discuss this scope of work. Everybody is in agreement that it will be a good thing to further hone our criminal justice processing and get whatever efficiencies that we can and iron out the inefficiencies that we currently. The level of detail which we would ask a consultant to look at those processes is something that's still under discussion. And the type of work that we would do internally versus having the consultant do is still under discussion as well. But the idea would be to have the consultant look at our criminal justice processes, how we do things here and compare those to best practices in -- or things that they have seen that work well in other jurisdictions, and tell us what types of things we can do to process cases more efficiently. Do we know of anyone else that have used consultant services for jail overcrowding or having to work more efficient -- in any other part of the state of Texas?
>> I think jail planners are very -- very frequently used as consultants to look at the jail operations.
>> but do you know of anybody --
>> as far as work flow analysis --
>> the question is do you know of anybody in the state of Texas?
>> I don't know. There are some --
>> there are some commissioners, I can't sit here -- I could name a couple of them off the top of my head, but I don't know that that would be appropriate in this forum.
>> there are those and then the results I guess of what they were trying to do and stuff like that. So -- so that -- that's my question.
>> we would not be the first county to do this.
>> didn't say we were. I just wants to make sure basically that it's been done before. If so, what were the results then and what are the continuing results from their involvement, that would be good to know.
>> I need to make sure that two things are not lost in all of this as we proceed forward because I don't want a lot of work to be done, it turns out that's not really what we were talking about. I know in terms of when I pushed to get this into the budget process. The main points of what we had set aside was a top to become performance review of the sheriff's office.
>> right.
>> ied in our desire to overlay and incorporate our desires to do some things related to overcrowding, but I don't want the performance aspect of this related to how we run basically got us -- a small city out there, related to what you have to run out there. I don't want that lost. The other point that I absolutely want to make sure is that in terms of according to standards, if we decide to say that this is according to some -- some best practices blue ribbon certification stuff, we are going to see a whole lot different kinds of recommendations in terms of a wish list that would be beyond the financial means of this county, versus what does jail standards require us to do and how do we best medal efficiencies with what -- with what is required by jail standards, because I think that's where we are trying to get back to is what are our mandated requirements, how do we best meet them in the most efficient and effective way. The last thing that I want is for a report to come back that is basically loaded with stuff saying that if you had all of the money in the world, here's how you ought to spend it. That's not what we are looking for. That's not what this person is looking for. I don't want to preload this thing with unrealized expectations about what we are trying to do here. It is all about a performance review overlaying how we deal with the efficiencies, but quite frankly, I think it ought to be set, this is just for me, to what are jail standards, because we have seen just minor changes in jail standards, have multi million dollar impacts on this county budget. I don't want a report coming back saying if you had a kajillion you could spend every dime in the sheriff's office, I'm sure we could, we are just trying to deal with jail standards as far as I'm concerned, what do we need to do to make them happy and have the most efficient and effectively run operation that we can possibly have. I don't want it front loaded with if you had all of the money in the world what would you put in there. That's not realistic given our financial condition.
>> my point is that -- is that I think jail overcrowding is direct -- directly related to -- to what the commission on jail standards requires. And overcrowding, things of that nature here as we are in the past. What's going to prevent this from happening in the future. I know that we have tried to put the everybodies into it to reduce the jail -- effects into it to reduce the jail population. When the sheriff comes to ask us to look for money for contracts to export our inmates to other counties, such as bowie and fall county, then that is an impact on the budget. Jail overcrowding I think is an integrate part of this process, it's a big deal. If we do not control that to some degree, then of course we will be back again looking at some of the same stuff. There has to be in some mind, a way to look at this to deal with the remedy for a jail overvoweding situation. Sheriff, you and no one else enjoys exporting inmates to other contract, but a contractual situation, totally responsible for them, so much per day. For those particular inmates being exported of Travis County. So I think all of this can be a part of the process in my mind, it's something that we have to deal with, because if we don't deal with it, the folks at the Texas commission for jail standards will look at us, at the commissioners court as being responsible for the problem. So, again, I would like to make sure that what we end up doing here will include the solution to this jail overcrowding situation.
>> I see this bifurcated sort of approach. What we are suggesting here is that we have a consultant look at our process through the criminal justice system, our processes to make sure that we are doing that in the best manner so that we wind up with what is the true number that we should be outstanding. Then the second equally important components is to say, now, if you have, if your population is going to be 2200 inmates, this is the way that is most efficient while constitutional and meeting state jail standards way to -- to operate the jail system to -- to provide proper care for those individuals. So I mean I think it's two parts of it, both of them being equally important to the long range budget issues.
>> what are the next steps.
>> we have a meeting on Friday to talk about the work flow analysis, both honing the scope of work to be -- to be more specific than it currently is and getting down to the brass tracks of what we would want them to do. Having the folks if the criminal justice system bring us documentation of their current process that's we could provide to the consultant to get them started, Friday, tomorrow, we also have a meeting to talk about the scope of work for the jail operation aspect of -- of the scope of work. [ laughter ] I just repeated myself. And we are going to try and come back to the commissioners court by mid January with -- with a complete scope of work or a draft, a much higher quality draft than we have now for you to review and comment on.
>> I think it would help to try to get back to us around the 7th or 10th of January. So when the court has that mid January meeting, we can take action. I'm assuming it will take 35 to 40 days, we ought to have a subcommittee in place to deal with jail processes and another subcommittee in place to deal with courts. When you are talking about the courts, we are really talking about the county attorney, district attorney, as well as county court at law judges, district court judges. I think a good exercise would be for us to outline in writing exactly how we process cases. Rather than paying somebody from the outside to come in, who would probably ask the same questions anyway. We pay that person hourly, I say we ought to get that together for ourselves, that ought to help us determine exactly what we need to pay an outside expert to help us with. The other things that I suggested to katy that she contact members of the court individually to get what additional input we have up front. About the proposed scopes of work. We have a couple hundred thousand dollars or 250.
>> I think it's 250. Remember save part of that because after we finish this whole part, as far as doing the full, you know, kind of auditor efficiency study, we still have the law enforcement aspect of the sheriff's office, too.
>> entering the holidays won't help a whole lot, but I think we ought to try to buckle down as much as we can. Get as much done by the end of the first week of January, so we can start looking at drafts, trying to get it to the court in mid January. If we need to take more time, so be it. But I think if we can get the court as finished a product as possible, by about mid January, I guess I'm talking about the 15th to 20th, it would help. If we are serious about somebody coming in and actually helping us, we will want to grill them some. Let's leave some grilling room. I think, you know, I see several folk involved in that process, selection process. So I would be real surprised if that takes less than 30 days. I would plan on it taking 30 to 45, I would think.
>> this is a -- [inaudible]. [inaudible - no mic]
>> I think a lot really depends on what we end up deciding we need. See what I'm saying, now, if we think we can get it locally, I see us maybe visiting with some folk. So that process will be a bit more informal man a formal r.f.p. But -- than a formal r.f.p., But in either case it's [ inaudible ] work. We will make sure we pull you into it. You have an interest in going to these subcommittee meetings? [inaudible - no mic]
>> just want to keep us out of trouble. I want to make sure -- this is more r.f.p. Than r.f.s. I think quite frankly a lot related to the performance aspects of this, you have a kabillion contracts coming through tcso, I think there may be some questions and asking for some good advice related to how best to bundle those, how best to -- to get the most bang for the buck in terms of how you handle all of the contracts that come through medically, certainly through the commisary, certainly a lot of stuff related to the purchasing that I want to make sure sid has her input related to the scope of services, beyond just the technicality of how to write this thing up. I would also like to have somebody from the county auditor's office involved here because quite frankly, a lot of the work that --
>> [inaudible]
>> again, it's because so much of what we are trying to do related to the central booking contract, it was very difficult for us to articulate exactly how much it costs for us to -- to do that service on behalf of the city. I think it would be better to have that input up front in terms of the kind of things that they would like to see built into a performance review from the auditor's point of view as opposed to simply from the user points of view. I'm trying to meld everybody's interests here, purchasing, auditor's office and those involved in the criminal justice system. It's not just a criminal justice issue. It touches so many parts of our county government. I want to make sure that's covered.
>> yes, sir. Let me if I could ask a couple of questions. Karen is kabillion with a c or a k.
>> my name is Karen with a k, so it's with a k.
>> [ laughter ]
>> maybe some of this you have to -- to please bear with me. On this 24 hour magistration pilot project, am I understanding we don't really know if this is working or not, ores is it something to do with we have taken our numbers down 4 or 500 people? Can we put a quantitative number to this imageation program.
>> > we can put a number of what folks said, you know, if you ask me how much more does it cost me to do it 24 hours, here's my price tag, but interpreters, -- both interpreters, magistrates, pretrial. The sheriff's office didn't occur any additional cost. So here's the number. The -- on -- on the other side, the -- what do you save sort of thing, what we heard from everyone at the committee was this really makes it work better, makes it work more efficiently, makes it work like it should. But the legitimate question from the court was: how much money do I save? And when we looked at the numbers before -- before we started the process and after we started the process, the numbers weren't significantly different. Part of that had to do with some retrial -- pretrial, some diversion things that we were doing with class c's. Now, what we have seen from the sheriff's office is those numbers are creeping back up, it might be interested -- we looked at three numbers, what we haven't looked at, we aren't doing anymore, what are the post numbers showing us. Which is that those numbers in the booking area are kind of going back up. It's not -- really turns into a number of hours sort of thing, you know, it's the -- takes an inmate, three and a half, four hours less to get through the Sam if they are going back out on the streets, same thing if they are going somewhere else in the jail. Number of hours in efficiency of savings.
>> but the one thing that we do is that the program is costing us money to see whether or not it's working or not.
>> it did cost us money to do the pilot, the pilot is no longer going. It was a two-week period and --
>> so that's not an ongoing pilot.
>> not an ongoing pilot.
>> let me just make a -- make a comment. For the room I suppose, this is more philosophical than anything. Consultants are something that I will probably be a little bit harder sale on. I can't imagine that we don't have the collective knowledge in this -- in this community or in the sheriff's arena, I mean, if I'm wanting to know something about how you incarcerate people or catch people or take care of people when they are here, I would imagine the sheriff has enough brain power around here, I don't want a phone call, this or that, I'm going to be -- going to take eight of the top people that I have, we are going to sit around here, come forth, tell you. That's basically what we are paid for. I believe that's what people in this community, I certainly would want to believe that. So the dealing is mai, made as instructed, but the scary thing is impactly what commissioner Sonleitner said. I mean, you can have a menu brought to you that says you can fix this problem if you have a money machine over here. So I would -- I would really want us to do some big-time thinking about we bring on a cupant. I think we have a fair sizable cost to bring something on. Plus a period of time that they really want to be with you. I can see this meter ratcheting up a lot more than what I am going to be comfortable with. Unless somebody can convince me that we don't have the brain power here in -- in Travis County and especially in the sheriff's office, I would going to be a little bit of a hard sell with that.
>> commissioner -- I think you brought up some good points. I think the judge kind of -- kind of opened the door towards some of your concerns that just expressed, especially when he suggested that they go in-house and get as many things as possible to bring to the table during this process without the services of the consultant. And I -- you know, of course, I'm in that same direction, I want to see how much we can do in house. We can have a lot of things that we have knowledge of, as the judge stated earlier, the court system is set up or -- or the other folks that's involved, what can we put on the table without hiring, needing the services of a consultants. I think there's a lot to what he just suggested. But I think of course that the judge's suggestion as far as bringing as much as they can to the table, how the court operates or how this is operating, all of the other things, how we are operating, we do have people that do that on a day-to-day basis. As long as they are in the knowledge and information is readily available, the same thing we will be asking the judge and the consultant will probably be asking. So there is a lot of things that I think can be answered and put on the table up front. Before -- before it even gets to the consultant phase of things.
>> well, I mean, for example, not that I can place out of six hours of law enforcement after having walked through the harris county sheriff's department's jail. But I learned a lot of things. That I would not -- I mean, I wouldn't have even known to have asked that particular question. I would be more than happy to be part of just sitting and listening. I've certainly -- I certainly intend to come offer, as I told you, right to go through the different departments and I mean I really -- I want to do that because right now I practically don'ted in how that takes place. But I know that -- sheriff, I'm I have the you are the most respect of your intelligence, I would come to you and ask these questions before I would go to a consultant. So anyway -- I mean, I look forward to working with you.
>> okay.
>> > anything else on this item?
>> no.
>> I appreciate your work and look forward to spending more time with you on it.
>> thanks, y'all.
Last Modified: Wednesday, April 2, 2003 10:25 AM