Travis County Commssioners Court
February 18, 2003
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Item 39
Judge, before judge muir leaves, we -- one of the things that did not make the consent list was about our contract on the truancy court court. I didn't know if any of the questions specifically related to the judicial piece of it, otherwise judge muir could split. Truancy court. I'm trying to be cog distant of her time. Cognizant of her time.
>> I guess I wasn't really sheer when we were doing something new, this is pretty much the same contract that's been in place. [one moment please for change in captioners]
>> it's a rollover -- what we did last year, we had some rollover because we started in not quite the first part of the year, so we were able to have some rollover as a result of that, so we were able to fund it this year from the rollover. We would not be able to do that next year.
>> okay. For the county attorney's office, I'm looking at the dates here. Do we need to ratify this at this time?
>> judge, I think -- I drafted one of these and the other one was drafted by the city. I know in the one I drafted, and I think that's with aisd, it has ratification language in it. And the city, they're providing that funding, and actually, they passed this way back in September prior to the expiration. So I think that if we approve it at this point, they're going to fund it, at least that's what they've told me.
>> well, if that's already transpired, though, where it has the county judge signing it, do we need the motion to ratify it, everything that's taken place today?
>> judge, I believe in the -- I believe it's the parties' desire to ratify the agreement. It's actually spelled out in there that we didn't actually put in writing the agreement, but both parties have treated it as if it was extended. And the language in there says that the parties are agreeing to ratify and extend it. So whether you include that in your motion, it's actually included in the document itself.
>> okay. And then that item is irrelevant after that point.
>> excuse me?
>> I'm happy to do it. That's a question. Can I just do that? That's like a cleanup question.
>> that would certainly be the intent of my motion that I was fixing to make whenever we go there.
>> let me look at if and make sure.
>> the items from the previous months are heavy on my mind. [ laughter ]
>> I did tell. I can tell.
>> it does have the word ratified in it.
>> in the contract, but not the [ inaudible ].
>> I think the posting is adequate.
>> john, don't say anything. [ laughter ]
>> thank you.
>> you're welcome.
>> the only quick question that I had was aren't some of the expenditures of Travis County subject to the reimbursement through our federal --
>> what's that?
>> I know it's not all of it, but isn't there a portion --
>> yes, it is. I think mostof our funds that e in through the 4 e grant.
>> so we're getting our investment back and more so. If there are no further questions, I would move the approval with the ratification intent as part of the interlocal that's written here.
>> second.
>> any more discussion?
>> I have -- since I'm very new to this, is the truancy court, is this something that we are statutorily mandated to do, judge?
>> well, the answer is yes or no. We are not. Right now this has been -- for years it's been handled by jp courts. It's been handled as basically a fine and kids get fined, parents get fined. The jp courts have been overrun with these matters. And over the years we have looked and looked and looked at this as a significant issue. Aisd and other schools have asked everybody to collaborate to try to find ways to reduce true true antsy and to catch it faster. We get the constables to try to get kids back in school. This project is a joint effort between the city of Austin, the county and aisd to start a different truancy court allowing it to go through juvenile court, which has more teeth to it as far as the opportunity to put people on probation, sanctions, and also what it really did was to implement a process for probation officers to be assigned to these families. What we found was that children weren't going to school not just they were skipping. Generally there were other family and issues that needed to be addressed. So what we were trying to do was see if we could reduce the time between a child's missing school being brought to the attention of the officials and then coming to the courtroom and getting a resolution. We will reduce that down to I think the total time now is 27 days. 10 days between one time.
>> we're averaging 14 to 15 days from referral to court date.
>> we were averaging several months, was that right?
>> that's right.
>> we were finding because of the paper log, backlog, as well as the volume in jp courts, the schools were like holding some of the paperwork and the jp's were not able to process it so that a child wasn't actually being held accountable for truancy until the end of school. And at that point, either they were flunking or they either dropped out already or it didn't matter any more. So we were trying to make a more immediate impact to see if this would work. We were finding that intervening early does have a very, very big positive in that the children do tend to go back to school. It works better, the families are more involved and the long-term benefits we hope is that not only do we keep the kid in school, but we impact the family for oart siblings, because almost where there's one, there are others to follow. So this was kind of an initiative to do -- to impact the jp courts processes, to impact truancy in the school districts and to be a partner in all of those, hoping also that if a child is in school, then I'm not dealing with them at juvenile court because they're shoplifting, auto theft or other matters. So it was kind of a front end effort to do this. You're mandated -- the county is not mandated to do this project. It is on the books that somebody has to handle truancy cases. And it's just a matter of how. And this was a new way of looking at an old problem.
>> I guess the reason I asked, judge, is I can see where aisd is becoming collaboratively wanting people to become involved, but it makes this a 450,000-dollar gig and aisd picks up 87 and the rest of us pick up probably what is 70% of it. I guess when I asked one of the trustees at aisd why don't they pick up more of it or all of it.
>> we could talk to you a lot about that, commissioner. We dealt with aisd on many occasions with regard to this. Dr. Forgione is so supportive. And we deal with them all the time. They would love for us to do this in all their schools. They would love to be able to fund it. This is another age old problem that everyone is fighting it, it's called budgets and monies. We have always been a partner, as you said, if you want this done, we'll do it as the community and as the court has been very supportive with regard to this effort. Aisd hopes to bring more money to the table. They have always -- they are always looking at ways to do that. I think they truly want to partnership more. This has been a bad year for them, as I think we're all aware. You know, the city of Austin also is in some troubled times. That's why they reduced their funding initiative. And it was a matter of whether or not we wanted to continue doing it. We're seeing some extremely positive results, but it is definitely one of those situations everyone has to decide, if that's where you wish to fund. Because it is not a mandatory issue. There's no doubt about that. I think people are very happy with the project. I think the schools are extremely happy, families are very happy, the community's happy, but it is not an issue or a funding initiative that is mandated by any means.
>> what would you say that the percentage of collections with fines would be with this program?
>> well, now, we don't do any fines in this court. The jp courts did fines.
>> okay.
>> I would have to ask the jp courts what their amounts were. Do you know, judge?
>> do you know off the top of my -- I don't know off the top of my head, but I remember look at something for precinct four and it was extremely low. I know what the county gets back they give to the school district. Over the years, generally they don't collect those fines. Off the top of my head, maybe $10,000 off a four-year period. I don't want to misspeak, but I think the main thing is what judge dietz always says is there are cabinets full of fines that they need to collect. So they don't have the five hundred dollars or the two hundred dollars until the time comes when they want to get their license, then sometimes they will pay the fees, but for the majority of most folks, they don't pay the fees and the fines go unpaid.
>> I guess I continue to be just absolutely amazed about how many fines we have outstanding in this community? I mean, not just here, but that the collection rate -- my gosh, we probably could balance maybe the u.s. Budget. I mean, if we could collect our fines. It is amazing. And if you're not going to -- if we're not going to find a way to collect fines, I don't I don't know why in the heck we assess them.
>> that's a very good question.
>> assess fines. I mean, something is not connecting for me.
>> commissioner, when did we pass the daytime curfew? Whenever that was was an interesting time. One of the things I said was if you get a fine, you give a ticket to a child who is basically not going to school, unless you've got any teeth to it, I'm not sure if there's anything more than the paper you're writing the fine on. You've got two things that are hitting this process. One, these are kids. A lot of times their parents don't even know what's happening, so that's a big problem. And they don't have any income. And the other problem is these ve -- a lot of these families are so low income families, that to take that money from them on a fine when they can't get those kids into that school or they're I will literal or they're dysfunctional, you're not fining someone who can pay. It's a very strange dynamic. It's not -- generally speaking, the fine is not a positive or practical way, a reinforcing way to achieve its means. Because what you're really trying to do is get a kid in school. And it has never significantly been a positive means to achieve your goal, nor has it ever been effective in any financial matter. I would venture to say that it costs the jp courts or any court a lot more to even just do the process than they ever collect on any fines that they actually assess on these kids.
>> well, I think that that, judge, is maybe where I will eventually get to. I mean, not that somebody can't turn me around with that thought process, but, I mean, if -- it's bang for the buck as far as I'm concerned. And if you've got a system set up so that you're supposed to be able to show that this is -- you know, this is a positively affecting something, whatever you're looking at to be the bottom line, I mean, there's no doubt that if you can work with 10 kids and you can keep them in school, that's 10, you know, less that's out on the street. But at some point in time -- I can tell you there are going to be a lot of folks down here looking for dollars that's going to say, you know, my program is more important and I need dollars to be spent here. And it will be an interesting process for me to see which ones we justify to spend, you know, on a much more full, if you will, manner versus something else. But i'd say think biggest complaint on something like this is that it's a school issue. And I think that the school ought to find a way. I understand their whoas just like -- woes because like we all have. But this is a lot to put on county government. And it's pretty obvious to me that we're the wubz that take the lion's share of this deal.
>> two things to tell you. One is it never just a school issue since we are part of the community. I don't agree that it's only a school issue. I do believe it's predominantly a school issue, but unfortunately, having been the recipient of those kids who don't go to school, it's not just a school issue. On the other hand, also to give you some feeling of relief, the money that the county puts in, the federal funds, because these are 4 e funds that we generate by service and the people we serve, and which most of our money and all of our money that the county is putting in right now are 4 e dollars that are reimbursement from the federal government. So that does help to know that these are not coming out of any other monies. These are targeted and specifically have to be used for certain areas under 4 e dollars. They could not come back into the county money. They've i've always said to the court, this is a project that I believe in. I think the community does. Definitely we serve at the court's pleasure.
>> I stant corrected. I didn't mean to sound like it was only the school's problem. I agree with you wholeheartedly. In a roundabout way, what goes around comes around. I suppose that I would say if it's that way, why don't we take this arrow and move it to 87,000 around the Travis County and move the 228,000 around to the aisd. Which is maybe a conversation for another day.
>> and hope to have it.
>> well, and in terms of what this was doing. It was wreaking havoc on our jp courts. And in terms of judge dietz and especially judge bem bring up in precinct 2, their dockets were being ruined on what was being dumped on them related to truancy. And this is where where we are recycling dollars that we're getting coming back from from the feds that can only be spent on this kind of targeted thing. And it sound like most of the stuff their spending it on is repsychablely rerecyclable that we can get again and again. These dollars could not be spent on transportation and natural resources. It can only be used in this particular way. So it is helping out the county. We're not required, you're right. We're not required to get up a truancy court, but we are being impacted by the enforcement of the truancy laws, and this is one that seems to be making it more effective and helping out some of our jp's that are just being inundated in terms of their work load.
>> we probably need to have a little bit of history and repeat it here before we got here.
>> I need a little schooling on this. I mean --
>> anything in the world with will help.
>> judge, I move to approve 39 a and b.
>> I think we have a motion and a second. If there's no discussion, we'll vote. All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you very much.
Last Modified: Wednesday, April 2, 2003 10:25 AM