Travis County Commssioners Court
January 14, 2003
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 16
[Change in captioners]
>> can you try to explain, lay that out to me,ecause I think this is kind of important.
>> yes, sir.
>> a year and a half ago, fy '02 budget, at the -- toward the end of the budget process, we were approached with doing a pilot program for court funds and fees. The commissioners court gave a -- put $100,000 into our budget in f.y. '02 to start this project. We started researching this, talking to other counties that were doing this, talking with cscd, the auditor, other people that were part of this i.t. At that time. And in f.y. '02 it didn't look appropriate for us to do anything because there were so many things that were happening that particular year. So the commissioners court needed some funding to do something with cscd from what I remember and we transferred the $100,000 that we had in fy '02 back to the commissioners court, I don't know what exactly line item, I think it went to cscd to hire temporaries to get the -- the mopes that they had -- the moneys that they had on hand posted I believe is what that was in the fy '02 year.
>> that is correct the funding transferred over to cscd to manage their fines and fees situation over in that department for fy '02.
>> okay. With that, with those temporary employees that were in place there, where are we at this time on the particular project as far as bringing it to closure?
>> you are asking the question -- excuse me, my name is dusty [inaudible] with the tax office, I apologize.
>> well --
>> are you talking about the cscd funds?
>> because I think it's an interrelationship with cscd as far as what you are doing. As far as some of the collection of some of the fines and fees and stuff like that. I'm trying to -- I'm trying to isolate this to -- to [inaudible] whereby you are accident pick things out of it -- able to pick things out of it, especially with the financial end of this, to see where we are, what you are doing as far as that particular program and where we are. So can somebody answer that question for me, please?
>> [inaudible - no mic] I have had a conversation with cscd, and they are in the final stages of the conversion. You may recall the court approved funding to put the correction software system into cscd. And they are getting very close to having that software converted from the real world system at which time they will be able to have a proper accounting of -- of what's -- you know, what their balances are and who they owe those funds to. So in answer to your question, commissioner, I believe that cscd is going to come to the court within the next month and give a status update on the conversion of that -- of that system. And my understanding is they are within a month or two of having that thing converted. So I think that they are pretty well on schedule on that conversion.
>> okay. Well, these particular court cost pilot programs, though, as far as what we are looking at on the tax assessor side, the integration between these two shops, as far as looking at that program, where are we on that? I understand what we were doing there, we actually -- we are -- go ahead and answer that question and --
>> okay. The way it is -- the way it is currently, wherever you are probated, your citizen is probated, let's say for simple math, you have given 24 months probated sentence, you have to report to cscd over 24 months. The way it's being done currently you are paying your court costs and the fines to cscd over that 24 month period. The program that we have come to commissioners court on and approached you with the office oca from the state of Texas, is they have found in other counties if you accelerate this collection, try to get the court's fines and fees, the county portion of this within 90 days, your collection rates are much higher than what they are if you try to string this out over 24 months. Our pilot program was to come in, start taking over these courts from this day forward, when people are sentenced and given probation, and start collecting the court fines and fees in a more accelerated mode. That's what our pilot program is.
>> are you -- you are saying accelerated mode. But accelerated mode to me means a lot of things.
>> I'm trying to collect it in 90 days versus 24 months.
>> well, as far as the integration, though, software, the integration I think network that needs to be somewhere down the line, whatever they are doing over cscd -- hold on -- whatever they are doing over at cvcd and the tax office, where is that?
>> there is no integration between cscd and the tax office. When fax becomes available we will be integrating with fax so your fax system is doing all of your gasb 34 and accounting stuff. That's what we will be interfacing with is gasb 34. Don't know where cscd will be in the future. We will be back with the county's fax system is where we are going to be integrating with.
>> well, the question is then, whatever system it is, whether it's fax or cscd, which is still a part of fax, cscd is a part of the fax that the court tracking system. Since it is --
>> not to my knowledge, sir. I think the reference, some of the other things that I have given to those particular folks over there, as far as pretrial, a whole lot of other stuff, my whole concern, though, is looking for the best way that we can get fines and fees collected here. We have a lot of, I think, ambiguity here in the county, and my point is how can we get to a fast solution on this. I notice in the backup, saying looking at, looks like a tit for tat situation here. Where we get software. But is this software in the best interest of the direction we are trying to go as far as the county is concerned. I notice that you have what two f.t.e.'s I guess I don't know what that would equate to as far as the annuallized cost on that. Can anybody give me a cost on that and what are we doing?
>> I can tell you what we are doing currently. I can tell you what we are going to do when fax comes online. I can tell you that to do this with tip tiburon was going to be [inaudible] dollars. I think what we are doing is a more cost effective plan for the county. Well --
>> I think commissioner that the plan is that this test pilot will give us some information on the -- this will work long-term and county-wide. So it's really just sort of a test pilot to see how it works. And down the road, they will need to be some integration with tiperon and fax, if that's the direction that the court decides to go. I'm glad you brought that point up because you say it seems there's going to be no integration. We know better that. There is going to be some future integration, I'm seeing we are not putting the cart before the horse in this particular scenario, even what we are doing here now. Again I still would like to hear an answer on the one hundred dollars, less than $100,000 that we are giving to the tax assessor office of course I think how much of that has been spent thus far on this f.t.e.'s?
>> during the fy '03 budget office, it was placed in the Texas office budget for them to use on this pilot project. On October 8th commissioners court approved for the tax office to transfer 99709 of that 100,000 to hire two positions to start the pilot project. And to date they have made payroll on those positions totaling 20,780.
>> as of today.
>> as of the 10th.
>> all right. If that was annuallized later, what would that figure be if we were to look at this in the future?
>> the 99709 where it's an annuallized -- so that covers the two positions.
>> okay.
>> plus benefits.
>> benefits plus --
>> salary plus benefits for two positions.
>> okay.
>> I guess my question then is that I would like to know when is the tax assessor's office going to report to the commissioners court on the progress of this pilot program and with what you have in house -- where are you all with what you have in house now.
>> I was asked previously to report on April the first, which I was more than happy to do. I'm willing to report today if you are willing to hear it.
>> no. I think that probably can be something later. But I think we need to hear -- I really don't want to do anything on this today in my opinion because I think there's still a lot of gray areas here. I definitely don't want to look in a situation, like I said, it's a tit for tat situation. They are allowing us to have software in exchange for this particular vendor in exchange for maybe getting something later down the road. I'm not convinced at this point that we are in a position to do just that. On also to allow personal data that's out -- getting the best bang for the buck. I really can't say -- can say -- I really can't say exactly what's going to happen until after I hear from you all.
>> could I -- could I just mention something that I wanted to at least publicly acknowledge a couple of facts. One is that for many, many, many years, there has been acknowledgment with the commissioners court and all of those involved in the criminal justice system that we have not been collecting very well the millions of dollars of fees and that the -- that the county treasury for all departments has suffered as a result. Three or four years ago, inquiries were made with a variety of offices on how to make this happen. One of the ideas was a -- was the treasurer's office. Other offices. Tax assessor collectors stepped up to the plato try to assist the commissioners -- plate to try to assist the commissioners court in securing revenue that would otherwise be lost. And I think that tax assessor collector's office has been pushing quite hard to assist, not just the commissioners court, but the entire county to get that revenue. And that was a -- that was a -- I won't necessarily say a voluntary act on the part of the tax assessor collector, but members of the court, I think unanimously, applauded that office's attempts to generate additional revenue so that property taxes would not be used for necessary services. This -- this software allows them to do that pilot project. In my humble pin, we are looking at -- opinion, we are looking at a very significant income stream that is otherwise being lost. And I would hope that all of us would do all we can to try to facilitate the collection of these fines and fees that are otherwise not coming into the treasury. I'm glad that you brought that point up because I think we need to look at the lost revenues of thousands of dollars. We are losing, not bringing to the -- into our -- into our general fund revenue that we need to have there. Especially now. And all of the time because I'm not concerned. Again the -- I'm going to go back to cscd, I'm asking you this question, does this software as far as fines, fees, and things like that, will that have any relationship to some of the revenue that we are not able to capture right now as far as cscd is concerned, in that scenario. Does this software allow that?
>> yes.
>> that's the answer that I'm looking for. And if it does allow this, then the question is I mentioned integration before because I think before we do everything I think everybody should be on the same page knowing what each department is doing, and from that standpoint, will the integration process be according to the software that we have -- that we are looking at now that you are putting on the table today? That's my whole question. Does it really fit into the picture in the big scheme of things as far as capturing information.
>> yeah.
>> again, I need to find, you know, I know that will help them and according to what you are saying, but is it the software that we need that will serve the integration networking capability for the county as far as -- that's the question that I'm asking.
>> this system is basically a stand alone to getting modules of the fax system was $376,000, which we did not have that moneys approved for the pilot program. I will continue to do what I am doing currently today. We take the paper documents, we enter the few data items that we can get. We could have that data sent to us by the fax software to save us some key stroke time. Welcome be using the remote to go into the fax system to say this payment was made by client whomever, it will be against the fax receipting system, create a receipt in the fax system, create relief the receivable, do all of the accountability that the fax system is there. I would need to also on this system, because of stand alone put in, that the client pay the same amount here. That would be double entry. Or I could get that information to be fed back to me from the fax system so I wouldn't have to do double entry. This is a temporary thing, we only know if we are going to do it for one year. We would not be doing this integration. I would be doing the turn and type the second time. We will be iewption the fax system. We are not trying to circumvent anything that the auditor and everybody with the criminal justice system has tried to create. We are just trying to collect the money quicker.
>> okay. Well, I guess my next point is that as I stated before, I would like to know where you are at this point --
>> you will indulge me I will tell you.
>> no, no, because I have a lot of questions.
>> can I tell the rest of the court where we are?
>> right.
>> I have a lot of questions in that regard. I don't know when you are scheduled to come before the court.
>> April first.
>> right now I'm trying to isolate this to make sure what we are doing is the best way to go, but not only the most effective and efficient way to go as far as integration of our particular systems that we are bringing online. And I think that's very, very important. Issue to me anyway. Because it means more efficient means less money.
>> > yes, sir, we have been working with all of the players in this to make sure that we are not throwing any kind of extra burden on anyone else to do this.
>> so that's all the questions that I have at this time, with the exception that I don't know why it has to be a tit for tat type of situation here.
>> making reference to what, sir.
>> reference to the use of this software for -- for possible exchange for other things later. But that's all right.
>> actually, commissioner, what we are doing right now is the use of the software, the agreement is that we will use logic's credit card applications, so we are actually going to be doing that now. When we start this process. That was the exchange for using -- for getting the software at no cost, we would use their credit card system.
>> well, what I'm looking for is the most effective efficient way to do it. And I'm going to keep hammering out that until I feel comfortable in it. Is that commissioner, let me sure that you in the egov committee, which several of us are a part of that, we have been discussing this from the big picture, county-wide, how it affects cscd, how it affects the tax office, how it affects the courts. So we are very conscious of that and it's just he is a -- is a difficult task, everybody on task, understands that, everybody is doing the best that they can to make sure that -- that that happens.
>> oakie doke.
>> what schedule is this on? Are you asking for a one week courtesy --
>> I would like to have that judge, at least.
>> I --
>> I would like to get -- [multiple voices]
>> I need to come forward and tell you everything that's happened. Supposed to have been on here several weeks ago, we made a commitment to the judges, we have started, we have been collecting money. We were assessed -- last week we had 26 cases came from from judge triana's court. 25 made it over to the tax office. One person that didn't make it is still in jail, we haven't seen that one individual yet. Of the 25 people that came in, 18 of them made a payment. That first week, we received an assessment of court fines and fees of $15,000. We received payments already in the treasury's the next day of $4,300. That have already gone to the treasury's office, split out like it's supposed to be, all of that has already been done. Four of the individuals out of that 18 have paid in full, we won't be seeing them again, not stretched out over 24 months, paid in full. We are using the software currently because we told judge triana we would be doing that. We told judge crane --? If you are using the software already [multiple voices]
>> let's just preserve the status quo for one week.
>> I want you to know we are using the software.
>> all right.
>> can I ask a couple of questions.
>> I would like to get with you and contact my office.
>> certainly.
>> > I need to get cscd, joe hollow, everybody, I want to make sure that we are efficient, we don't get ahead of the situation where we are not able to -- we ended up having to do a retrofit situation. I don't want -- I think it's ineffective, I think it's costly. Very costly. So I'm trying to insure that we are though the going to end up retrofitting like we've had to do things in the past. I can't go there.
>> I can appreciate that, sir.
>> all right. Commissioner Sonleitner?
>> I can -- I have an appreciation for the fact that this is a pilot. We will evaluate it and therefore if it works, we then move forward to talk about integration. If it doesn't, we will go in a different path. My question is if we do this, this ability to do e pay using the credit cards will also apply to property taxes, is that correct.
>> we would like for it to apply to property taxes, motor vehicles, beer and wine, all of the things that the individuals that come to the tax office over at the county, we can do it over the internet, but people that come over the counter will be able to do this. The vendor will also do our v.r. For us, create telephone situation, like the internet where you can call in, punch on the thing to be able to to do this for our motor vehicle property tax and court fines and fees. This is what we would like to do if it was okay with you all. Certainly --
>> that's where I'm hearing you. How does that, you know, how does that jive with what we are already doing related to credit card payments via our Texas online project? Is that conflict with our contract with Texas online or do these things fit nicely together?
>> it is my understanding in all of the meetings that we've had, i've said in the meetings this week we have been dealing with the e pay for [inaudible], they are not exclusive, you can do one without the other. At this point in time, the -- I can only say from dusty knight's opinion, the $3 and 3% that this is offering us would be more used in the tax office if you offered the $5, 5 percent that's bearing point was offered. I'm sure my customers, we would offer them both --
>> that was my next question. How does this transaction fee, is it different? It is lower? Because that's --
>> from what we have initially been told by bearing points, yes. It's $3 and 3%. What we met with yesterday, bearing point was proposing $5 and 5%. Unless we hired a whole bunch of people to do some resolution type of thing. We were leading as a committee with people going off to find out how many additional staff would it take to do the job so that bearing point would lower this down to 3 and 3 also.
>> because the -- the concerns that i've heard represented to this is strictly related to property taxes is that there are still auction that think that that is even too high. If you have like a $200,000 property tax bill like I'm do -- $2,000 property tax bill like I'm getting ready to pay, that's too much still pretty high in terms of people wanting to use that in terms of property taxes. Are they thinking -- is there more negotiation, possible there, I'm thinking more with the really big ticket item kinds of things. Of something lower. Is 3% about as low as market gets on this --
>> I was sitting in the back of the room, two of the people that are to my left were both there, probably better to speak to that. I passed it to them.
>> we are still in negotiations with bearing point. What bearing point is currently doing is they are doing the reconciliation on the cash. On dusty's end they are -- the system is doing that automatically for them. What bearing point stated to us is that if we would take back that reconciliation function that they would -- that they would entertain negotiating a lower fee.
>> okay. But am I correct, dusty you probably have shared the data with the court, currently there are folk who are paying their property taxes with their credit cards and many folk internally thought, well, no one is going to do that because who would pay the extra fee. But didn't we receive a surprisingly large number of dollars in accounts with folks with -- who paid that 3%?
>> we've 1300 people pay approximately $3.3 million to the internet at 2.75%. We also take discover card that's a maximum of $8, and we have had the same, about 1300 people pay 6-point $6 million on the discover card. But it's a maximum of $8. You can obviously see the lower you get, the more --
>> that was really my question because I do continue to get e-mails from people saying they would like to utilize credit card options, but the percentage fee especially when you are dealing with property tax makes it prohibitive.
>> I would also like to expand just a bit on what christian was saying. You are able to take 2 or 3 credit card, discovery, american express, mastercard, visa, the four major ones they are talking about. What they are talking about the reconciliation is we charge of 100 people's accounts a day, 100 different things. What we have required through our internet one, what we are doing currently with bearing point was that they resolve it. If today I should get in $100,000, that they deposit to my account $100,000. They go chase down with a visa, american express, all of these people, that they have actually gotten the funds to us. What they are asking us to do is for the county to take this over with the hundreds of transactions that we would be doing to make sure if on -- we have our deposits balanced daily. That the moneys they said they are going to collect get to our checking account. This would take quite a few people to be able to do this. They said if you would do this they would lower the person. It's a lot of work on our part, believe me.
>> okay.
>> judge, my point is, I think you took it in good spirit as I gave it in good spirit, was that I want to become more efficient and I'm going to be hollering and screaming about that, better efficiency. Also you mentioned those credit cards that you do accept now, is those the ones before -- the four that you just mentioned that you accept right now.
>> in the office for anybody listening, discovery card currently over the counter.
>> discovery.
>> if you go to the internet site for a motor vehicle, it takes visa and mastercard.
>> visa and mastercard.
>> if you go to the property tax site, it takes visa mastercard, discovery and american express. E pay I believe is also going to take visa, mastercard, discover and american express. In talking with hamer system, we are not sure about american express, it's so small, they want to charge 3.5%, so you would have to be paying for us to use that. So I don't know that an entrepreneur really wants to do that. We are kind of looking at american express at this point in time --
>> as far as over the counter, just discover.
>> that would -- over the counter today is just discover card. [multiple voices]
>> would that be an increase in over the counter participation from the other major credit card holders in your shop?
>> I'm thinking so, yes, sir. To turn around and go to the little atm we have there, basically if it's a cash advance, they are going to charge you 4%, so we would be 3%, so they would probably be doing it. We do get people that go over to the atm machine, get their cash, turn around and come back. I'm assuming we would see much larger volumes.
>> okay.
>> well, thank you, those are all of the questions that I have.
>> we will take this item up next Tuesday.
>> yes, thank you.
>> we are still continuing to collect. You all are aware.
>> yes.
>> yes, sir.
Last Modified: Wednesday, April 2, 2003 10:25 AM