Travis County Commssioners Court
December 31, 2002
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Item 11
Number 11 is to approve modification number 4 to contract number ps 010173-lc enhancement to the facts court management system.
>> judge, I had a couple of questions on that because here again there is another modification. And my concern, judge, on this, and I know that the bonding is already -- funding is already there in the department to accommodate this particular request on the agenda. I need to be sure what we're doing here, even with some modification, the reason for that modification why is there a reason for this modification? Can someone here -- it's modification number 4. I think to let us know why there are modifications and why wasn't it put on the front end instead of where it is now. In other words, we come up here looking for the funding for modification, but there had to be somewhere in this process, the database, record keeping, to build the identification to give you a better accounting mechanism for where your money is going to be going. Somewhere along the line is -- can you explain that?
>> I'm chief technology officer. This mod in a indication is part of our continuing effort to provide as much accounting controls as possible in a court system. We want to make sure that any time we run across an issue or an area where we can improve the accounting process and accountability for the funds that are in this system, we want to bring that forward and do that. And I commend the district clerk's staff and the county clerk staff and jp staff and auditing staff that are assigned to this project that are working with us to bring these issues forward as they find them. The devil is in the details and when you get into a project and you begin to learn more and more about how the system works, so you find areas where you can begin improvement, and the more improvement we can have and the more way we can have financial controls, I think we all know we're better off to do that. And that's where this one is coming to the service. Is that we've determined that if we don't do this, there are going to be a lot of manual entries that are going to be made, there are going to be a lot of entries that the user departments will have to do that lend themselves to human error. So anywhere we can improve that process and make those transactions more automated, then that's what we need to do so we don't get ourselves in a situation where a department gets way out of balance and the funds not being able to be accounted for.
>> I was wondering specifically what is the modification?
>> I'm the project manager for this particular project. What we have are -- is a screen that allows manual entries to be made. It's complex. With thegation of the gasb 34 accounting there are a lot of financial entries that need to be naid maid and you need to have a knowledgeable person to make that. When we're attempting to do is to isolate a copy of a screen for the time in lieu and for the case and waive assessment for so that it's prepopulated with those accounting codes and accounting functions so that a nontechnical person, one of the end yiewrses' clerks, can merely bring up that screen and by initiating it in the background, all the of the accounting entries are taken care of automatically without having the person understand how to make the change. It's -- we're actually adding several new screens that provide this functionality to the masses. If you don't provide that we would have to have the accounting staffs within those jurisdictions make the changes. You're do you nou down to 21 or two personnel and you have anywhere from 50 to 60 clerks coming at them with the changes and you would build a natural bottleneck that's going to be a real problem. [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>> ... Everyone agrees ahead of time less room for error in the first place and eliminate the manual entries. We've got some situations now, as you well know, where offices have said they had no problem with manual entries, but indeed they have had a very serious problem with manual entries and they are almost impossible to go in and correct. And so what I think we're trying to do, I know it's disconcerting because it always seems there's another change, but what we're trying to do is when we see something that can be fix understand the design, get that in front of you and get it fixed rather than put that aside, bring the thing up and then have more costly problems in the back end. So, you know, in the budget process joe asked for contingency money for just this reason, but, you know, it is our belief that when we see some things or the department sees some things that really are a problem, to get those out now if we can -- if we can fix them in the process. So that's what we're doing. I realize it's disconcerting because there are changes.
>> but you previously had a modification to reduce the amount because it was going to be a test that you were not going to need to do. So I mean the modifications sometimes bring savings so you are fine tuning the whole process.
>> and there's a savings in terms of staff. I mean, if you can auto mate some of these entries and eliminate the errors, and you don't need people with as complex a degree to do the entries, that is savings in the long run. Because if you don't have that -- you know, we all used to keep books, write them out. That's expensive. It is.
>> sure.
>> so we're moving toward -- toward --
>> one thing about this, it's probably good to just clarify on this modification, the ideas that we would be doing accounting entries off the tables and all that has been going on the whole way through this project. What's happened is there's been, for lack of a better word, miscellaneous transactions that have always been planned to run through the case financial docket, which does not have right now the ability to have these automated accounting entries. The users would have to pick them out, decide which is the right one to do, and in the case where there's a lot of transactions that fit a specific type of miscellaneous transaction, and one might be in the district clerk's office, the family law cases that have indigent attorney-type transactions that have to be added at some point after that case has already been entered in the system, they have to go into the case financial docket and modify it there. Well, there's different accounting entries that are created by that. This modification is specifically really to deal with those types of transactions. I don't want you to have the impression that knowing all along we would have to have automatic accounting entries. They've been in there all along, there's just this set of, for lack of a better word, miscellaneous transactions that are now sort of start to be identified and where it makes sense to try and automating that where in the case of these there might be several hundred of these a month, that's when there's been some modifications proposed and brought back to you all so you all can make a decision.
>> okay. Well, I just basically wanted to -- and I'm glad you brought that point up, the miscellaneous transactions, because you can [inaudible] different departments. But I wanted to just make sure that what we're doing here is another modification; however, we are going toward an end to this, and I'm looking at some of the time lines as far as when this will be complete, and I wanted to make sure we're on target to make sure whatever we do, we don't end up creating a monster that will come and bite us in the future. And I'm going to continue to watch this in the progress of how we're doing and making sure that we are in compliance with the time lines. Even though modifications are sometimes good. In this particular case I think it is a step in the right direction. But I wanted to explain on the record today publicly we're getting what we should be getting in the the amount of money and in the process of going through with this system.
>> move approval.
>> approved by commissioner Gomez. Seconded by commissioner Sonleitner. The source of funding is the amount -- the money that we budgeted to i.t.s.
>> that's correct. The funding is -- the allocation that we set aside for contingency.
>> this is one of the contingencies we thought we might have.
>> yes.
>> I take it there are others that might be coming this way.
>> there may be others. It's the better to identify it and deal with it up front than handle it on the back end.
>> any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you, joe.
>> thanks for participating, joe.
Last Modified: Wednesday, April 2, 2003 10:25 AM