Travis County Commssioners Court
January 14, 2003
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Item 12
12 c, approve grant application for -- to substance abuse and mental health administration for a youth offender reentry grant program in the juvenile probation department. This is a new grant program with no grant match.
>> they are new grant programs. They are [inaudible] administration. The two programs are new programs and these are new applications. They extend the current services that are currently being provided in juvenile probation.
>> commissioner daugherty has a question.
>> my name is allen miller with the planning and budget office.
>> I'm sorry. I'm trying to get everybody's name down. As I had mentioned, my question is whenever we institute one of these grant programs, and obviously this one has been going on for a while.
>> this is a new grant application for a new program, but juvenile probation performs duties similar to this. This would expand the current duties of juvenile probation.
>> and would this -- I mean obviously additional personnel? If the grant were award snd.
>> if grant were awarded, both the grants, I believe three f.t.e.s for the second one and one and a half f.t.e.s for the first one gets added to the program. We account for grants in a separate fund other than the general fund. At the termination of the grant, unless it's the picked up by the general fund, those conditions would terminate as well.
>> and what seems to be the history with that, I mean, once we have a program that gets instated. If we don't have grant money, does history show that the court is agreeable to that so we no longer have the grant money? The thing that I fear is that I know how things happen once you institute something and telling people that the program -- you know, that we don't have funding for the program, and I just want to make sure that we're not going to continue if we don't get to reapply for the grant and get the money, that we really need to make sure that that is something that we are aware of.
>> in the past, it's been somewhat of a mixed bag in that there are some grants the court has chosen to continue and other grants have been discontinued. Generally what occurs is we'll know in advance whether a grant is going to terminate, and usually those grants are bought up as part of the fiscal year budget process in order to determine whether or not the court wants to continue the grants or not. In several cases the grants are continued. In -- aren't continued. In other cases they are. One of the things we look for is whether or not there is a requirement as has been the case -- for example, the federal program to hire law enforcement, there was a requirement that program be continued upon termination of the granted. We looked at that in all grants and inform the commissioners court if such a situation exists. We didn't see any such language in these grant applications. So continue with -- would be up to the will of the court.
>> I would make sure that -- I want to make sure that we all are aware that that is the case. Obviously everybody that has a program has pretty good reason as to why that program needs to exist to begin with, and it's always tough telling me, you know -- on top of that you've done a good job. It's always difficult to tell people you've done a good job, but we don't have the money to continue it.
>> there's the possibility these are both juvenile court programs that in terms of the federal reimbursement dollars we get for doing certain things can only be spent back in that department. It is also possible that the juvenile board could make a determination that that is a program that they want to use those dollars that can only be spent within that program and there wouldn't be a request at all coming to the commissioners court for general fund dollars.
>> that is correct. Also, juvenile probation is very active in seeking other grants -- different circumstances in a -- this is a circumstance where they are always looking for additional dollars to supplement the general fund programs of juvenile probation. So even if these grants were terminated, I'm sure the department would be seeking other grant funding opportunities to support these activities.
>> move approval.
>> second.
>> any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
Last Modified: Wednesday, April 2, 2003 10:25 AM