Travis County Commssioners Court
July 22, 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 12
Number 12 is to receive briefing on proposal to remodel the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 5th floors of the Travis County civil court buildings located at 1090 guadalupe.
>> good afternoon, judge and Commissioners. [inaudible] executive manage he for assistive operations. After meeting with a couple of you last week, we tried to condense this presentation into a one-page summary, and you should have that in your backup. It's a bright lime-colored paper like this. I'm going to go through four of the points that we have here and then let you know why we're -- why you are here, and then have roger go into some of the concepts. We're here to discuss the remodeling, some remodeling at the Travis County courthouse. That is the historical courthouse. We see advantage of the purchase of the building on airport, we would have several months. The election, recording and accounting divisions is moving out of the courthouse in December at this point in time, December 15th for those three, leaving about 5 #- hundred square feet -- 5200 feet vacant in the courthouse for preprogramming. In March of '03 the print shop and imaging functions will also move from the holt building right across to the airport facility adding another 7,000 square feet vacant in our downtown campus. Between the moves of the county clerk and the print shop, there will be approximately -- or over 12,000 square feet for reprogramming in the Travis County central business [inaudible]. The Commissioners court directed us, facilities management, to work with the district judges and other offices in the courthouse to determine a space program that would improve civil court operation and alleviate current congestion. We have a scheduled work session or a budget hearing to further discuss space issues on August the 13th at 2:00 p.m. But we wanted to bring this component of the space planning forward to get some basic approval -- approval of basic concepts so we can move forward and better define the space allocation and also the cost. So in order to present programming concepts and cost estimates before the budget process begins, facilities management is directing direction from the court on several of the basic premises that we list and I'm going to turn it over to roger. I believe there are several people that want to address the court also that are tenants of the courthouse and i'll ask them to come up now.
>> good afternoon. As alicia mentioned, we're going to have space available at the downtown campus area, and this is result of that -- of the airport boulevard building, we moving the county clerk and the imaging and the print shop. Now, we have some concepts here we're going to present to you so we can move forward with at least some space allocation. One of them is we would like to move the main entrance of the courthouse to the south side of the courthouse facing wool ridge square park. That will be more efficient operation, just like the cjc only one exit and entrance. This way whew we'll have -- two stations, one from the east side and one from the west side, we will have only one sequestered station coming from the south side. So this would be a major improvement on operation. And [inaudible] security. Second is we would like to -- there's a concept here we would like to work with the district clerk to move from the third floor to the first floor. This [inaudible] structural problem being right now on the third floor taking all the way down to the first floor. But we need to work with the district clerk about the square footage. She has right now about 5300 5300 sweet and we need to find -- square feet and we least to find that plus some expansion for about like five years according to the master plan. Also we would like to -- moving the district clerk to the first floor will not happen unless we move the constable 5 to the [inaudible] build. There's about 7,000 square feet vacated in the old building. We are proposed moving constable 5 to the holt building. [indiscernible] is about $186,000. And the -- we would like also the direction to research alternative for locating the cafeteria outside the courthouse. Really we need that space when we move the clerk to the first floor. That cafeteria space about 1350 square feet. We need that space. So this is -- and there's some domino effect after the move. Once we move the district clerk to the first floor, what will happen to the third floor, so we need to expand the [inaudible] also to visiting judges for courtrooms. Now, the second floor is kind of recycle right now we are working on the skwaeu footage. I cannot say how much will be reallocated to the county clerk and how much the district clerk is going to take some of it or the probate judge might take some. It's still in the process. What we will present to you is a concept to move forward with our plan. I will answer any questions.
>> if the district clerk -- just making sure we have clarity on language. If the district clerk is moved into the vacated floor space on the first floor, would she be and her operations leaving completely the third floor? We're not talking about splitting it between the two floors, we're talking about from here down to here. Is that correct?
>> we're leaving the third floor, but we would have to find space on the second floor to accommodate all of our needs. It will be the first floor and some part of the second floor.
>> and if I just might add it looks like amelia needs about 2,000 square feet. That's going to need to come out of someplace. The ideal place is as close as we can on the second floor.
>> over 2,000 not allowing for expansion and that's probably one of the things we want to talk about.
>> and there is that one little piece of the first floor that has kind of a back interior staircase, really it's more of an internal staircase connecting the first floor to the second floor. Is that the connecting piece we're talking about or not? Okay, it's not. How much more space do you pick up by going to the first floor plus this 2,000 influx?
>> right now we are not -- I would like ideally to have additional space for expansion because we do have some temporary staff that's not accounted for in the figures and also for additional staff that we might get in the future. Which we anticipate we will see. Right now the figures are 13,000 -- I'm sorry. How many on the first floor? The 2,000 on the second floor would bring us to the same amount of space we currently have.
>> I think this is a question that came up when judge Biscoe and I met on this, how much more or less space would be necessary rather than setting aside very expensive courthouse space for files we do as the judge likes to do zip zip, this stuff gets turned into electronic files which are stored in c.d.'s as opposed to very heavy and losable paper files?
>> well, once we have e-filing, which we anticipate we will be in the future, we will still have to gradually get rid of some of the file space, but at the beginning we're going to need everything we have right now. As we go and we're thinking of getting some equipment now that will allow us to scan some of our documents we will be needing less and less space. But right now we are planning for the same amount of space. It would be hard to tell right now how much less space we're going to need. Eventually we won't need the space that we have for files, but at this point it's difficult to determine exactly how much space we're going to be saving, but we will in the future.
>> understand, roger, that what is it? Is it floors 6 and 7 over there that is -- have a low ceiling or it's not as usable as the other?
>> that's correct. That's the old jail.
>> would there be any way that, you know, from a filing standpoint, that we could use some of that? I mean is there an area in amelia's area where people aren't of great issue there?
>> the 6th and 7th floor needs a complete renovation because it doesn't have the air conditioning in any of the 7 or the 6. So there's also a fire hazard also up in there. And we need really to complete the total renovation of 6 and 7 and then at that time we can really comfortably have tenant in there. At this time I will not recommend to have any tenant without doing anything to it.
>> if I may also add, we have moved out of the 6th and 7th floor. We were using that as space, storage space as well, and we have since moved out of there. But it is not climate controlled. Our files and exhibits are not protected. If anything happened to the building, and we've had water damage in there, water coming in through the windows, and so we moved out of there last year. About six months ago.
>> that was a long and arduous project that the Commissioners court directed in terms of get out of the attic because people were leaving windows open, they were flooding the floors, and they would smoke up there. And all of those were bad things. And we made roger happy by getting an eviction. A friendly eviction.
>> I was just kidding. [laughter]
>> good. Been there, done this. [multiple voices]
>> just wanted to run that by you all. Institutional knowledge is very important.
>> we would all be institutionized if we redid that one again.
>> is there any attempt to -- I know my staff brought this up and I thought I would ask the question, to look at ways -- since this is an historic building anyway, has there been any attempt to look at possible grants to help fund or look at offsetting the expense of what we're talking about here? Through grants, since it's historic site, has there been any indulgence from anyone to look into that arena if that's possible it can be done? I'm just asking the question. You know, historic, I don't know --
>> Commissioner, there are grants out there. They are extraordinarily limited and the counties that I know that have gotten them, they've been less than a half a million dollars and that was intended to totally restore their entire courthouses. It's a great deal of competition. And they are really not interested in a partial, you know, can I have a little bit of money. They are really looking at folks that are bringing forward a full renovation project and to try and do things to save historic courthouses in counties where they really have no other options in terms of money.
>> so has that effort been attempted -- that has been attempted by staff?
>> I think belinda has --
>> I need to hear it from staff.
>> they've done that research.
>> yes, Commissioner, we have looked at that. Tp-rgs we have looked into that to see what was available. We have not applied for any, but we have researched it to see what --
>> but we have not applied?
>> we have not applied.
>> I think every little bit can help, though. Even if it's -- you know, we're talking about over a million dollars here.
>> I think every little bit could help, but I think it would help to get [inaudible] a program if --
>> but if it is a possibility for us to get some grant money for historic renovations or whatever, I think we need to still pursue that too. In my opinion.
>> do we need to make some decisions on this today?
>> what's recommended source of funding? 1.25 million. [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>> he came on Friday to make sure -- [ inaudible ]
>> judge dietz?
>> I told chris that I was going to go over what I was going to say, and he advised me to -- (indiscernible). [ inaudible ]. Concerning county facilities. It was presented to the Commissioners court I believe in November of 2001. And in that strategic plan, which has taken well over a year of work, two years actually, was a poll that said that the Travis County courthouse has been overoccupied for a number of years. Since that report was given almost two years ago, it has only gotten worse. Our office and every other occupant of the Travis County has increased through f.t.e.'s. Right now our best guesstimate is that there are 250 employees at the Travis County courthouse. Additionally we believe the courts building receives somewhere between 360 to 400,000 visitors per year. And it's a situation where especially the department, dana needs more room for her operation, and your strategic plan recognized that, that there would be possibly three to four percent growth in Travis County's population each year. Y'all estimated that by the year 20/20, which is now only 17 years away, that you're going to need 250,000 additional square feet for the courthouse. It's interesting because every time we're here we recognize the fiscal crisis that y'all face, but i've been trying to reflect over my 13 years in county government, i've never heard of a good budget year. I've never seen out of the Commissioners court, which says, well, we've got enough money coming in this year, make sure y'all come up with new programs. Quite honor necessary nestly -- honestly, if you look at every other metropolitan county in this state, if you look at harris county, they have three additional court buildings that were built since 1930. If you look at dallas, they have three additional court buildings. You look at tarrant county, which is a little bit larger than Travis County, they have three additional civil court buildings. You look at bexar county, they have a new courthouse. When I went out to el paso, they had constructed a courthouse in 1988, and when I met with the civil judges, they were meeting with the county Commissioners about the construction of a new civil courthouse. When we were all meeting, every department, we felt a conflict because we know -- we're trying to be responsive to the fiscal crisis and the demands of the taxpayers, for god's sake, don't raise our taxes, and there was sort of a debate going on among us about whether or not to ask for this or to suggest that y'all take this money and put it toward a new courthouse. If you're not able to -- if you're not able to do that, to do this project as suggested by the facilities, it's only going to get bigger. At some point -- and we understand because we're following people who are trying to help the homeless and you're fiscally strapped and not able to give the support that you'd like to to a worthy group like that, and so we understand. But if we're not able do it this year, the question respectfully on behalf of all of the courthouse occupants, is if not now, when? And respectfully, at some point we're going to have to bite the big bullet and make some progress because in the last two years, respectfully, essentially we've made no progress on a strategic plan, and as far as I know, respectfully, there are no viable plans to accommodate the needs of Travis County government, in particular the court functions, whether they're the courts or the clerks associated with them or the law enforcement office associated with that. So if you're not able to do it this year, we understand. I'm just here to point out that the need continues to click off at three percent a year, six percent behind where we should have been two years ago, and by next year, we're going to be 12 percent behind. And at some point Travis County is going to have to bite the big bullet and get the space, the 250,000 you need for courthouse services. Thanks, judge.
>> judge, with all respect --
>> let me ask a few questions here.
>> i'll be right after.
>> so we make this change which provides relief for five years. What does that leave us with a proposed civil courts building?
>> I believe -- I believe I visited with you all in a work session I want to say February or March. I forget the exact date. But at that time I ask that the civil courts, the district civil courts needed 12,000 additional square feet. What I said at that time is what I say again today, that's enough to get us the five to seven years that we're thinking it's going to take in order to summon the will, develop the plans and start building a civil courthouse. It's really a band-aid to get us from now until we get a new civil courts, hopefully within seven years, but that's about as a direct manner as I can provide you.
>> okay. When we acquired the property on airport, we did so to move part of the district and county clerk's office out there. So what square footage did we free up as space that you now occupy?
>> [inaudible - no mic].
>> so we're using that space?
>> [inaudible - no mic]. Yes.
>> and before cjc was the district clerk's criminal division in the historic courthouse?
>> yes, it was.
>> and how much additional square footage did the district clerk acquire in the cjc when it opened?
>> I don't know, judge. I'll find out.
>> you see, I'm hearing the need described and one memo sort of addressing the need would help me. We have made a whole lot of moves and a whole lot of money, but we don't seem to be providing relief to anybody. That's hard to understand. I mean, -- (indiscernible).
>> perhaps I can answer it this way, judge.
>> let me finish.
>> I beg your pardon.
>> the county clerk's moving out there. I'd simply look and listen. It expanded beyond where I thought the original concept was, but in the name of relief and space pressure, it seems to me to make sense to do that. And my thinking was that not that the county clerk would free up all of her space, but some of it, and then we would be able to take care of some of the needs of the district clerk. I thought about the criminal part because we moved the entire criminal division from the historic courthouse, but not all the files, right?
>> not all the -- no, all the files for criminal have been moved.
>> that move was in 1999.
>> right.
>> January one.
>> we also have increased staff. We've increased staff in accounting and we have added -- I think 13 years ago we had 65 employees. Right now we have almost 100 and some temporary folks. If you come to the accounting department, we added three new staff last year, and that place we have almost 10 people to a very small area. So we are cramped. And we were cramped to begin with when criminal was in the courthouse. That gave us a little bit of breathing room, but that still doesn't allow for any expansion at all.
>> well, have we sat down and determined for each impacted department what the space need is, period?
>> I think the facilities does have a space allocation formula that will be used, but then --
>> the essential problem is if you use the space allocation formula as used in every other county building, you've far out stripped what's available in the historic courthouse because we were -- (indiscernible) in planning the cjc or any of the other buildings.
>> but if we're spending a million and a million and a half annually to band-aid the problem, and at some point we might as well go ahead and do the surgery. As it is, we discussed the same issues and I agree with you. Now, I asked ppo and I know they haven't had a chance to do it yet, a couple of days ago, we need to find out where the campus is. We need to find out where we would land on the civil courts building. And if we decide that they are so far off that immediate relief is not available, then it seems to me that these-million-dollar expenditures, 1.6, make sense, but at the same time I don't know that it's been -- it helps to spend this much money when this time next year we'll have the same discussion. Do we spend twice this amount to at least provide a four, five-year remedy? I'm asking if this is the kind of planning that we need to do. I told alicia a couple of days ago I thought this space issue ought to be added to the others and we ought to have a work session where the court decide what we will do next year. We outlined five or six. This is one of them. And I'm not ready on this one today anyway, but I will be ready as soon as I have the information I think I need, which is next week or later, but at the same time it seems to me that a space issues work session is what we need. And I can land wherever we need to, but I think as a court we ought to try to land in a place that at least doesn't have us looking at this every year, especially the next three or four. Why wouldn't we put in place a three, four-year remedy? If we cannot decide right now, the civil courts building, the general government campus, then maybe we ought to put in place a three or four-year remedy? That may require more planning than we had in mind.
>> I can tell you this, judge. If it were -- quite honestly, if it were the situation that we needed to do the surgery, just speaking on behalf of my department, what I would tell the other judges and the staff is we're going to have to live in this space for five or six years, but relief is coming down the road. I would prefer to make that choice as opposed to what i've styled the ban aid.
>> there may be a little band-aid --
>> because I think current projections -- it would be just a ballpark figure, but a projection for a new courthouse is probably somewhere between 45 and 50 million. And it doesn't take very many of these mandates to add up to that. In addition, you probably have the opportunity that right now a lot of your fiscal costs -- with historic low interest rates, with inflation low, I mean, your financial costs of constructing it is probably at an opportune time. A lot of that probably depends on politics. But at answer, judge, we would rather go to the long-term solution and for go the band aids between that. That's our, and I would assume the other occupants of the courthouse would agree.
>> I would too. Basically I think for the reasons that you've already stated. But we've kind of discussed this issue, kind of like a long time now. And my feeling is we need to get moving to doing some of those things that will help in the long-term and for --. And for those people who are kind of feeling queasy about taxes, but the public would suffer the taxes when? And it's not lost, it's not wasted, it's serving taxpayers as well as they come up and expect us to have the facilities, expect us to have the records, expect us to have those services, the people in place to provide that service. So this is something that I would are ready for us to start talking long-term.
>> and I think, quite frankly, my perspective is slightly different from yours, judge, in terms of we have been making progress, and I think it is setting the stage for where we are right now. If we think about what's happened over the last five years and Commissioner Gomez and Commissioner Davis and I sat on that base space planning committee, we've cleared the deck on a lot of outstanding things, so it basically makes it possible for us to focus on what's left, and y'all are what's left because we got a new weatherization building, the new precinct 4 office building is getting ready to go online, which will consolidate is it two, jim, or three cfcd sites at precinct 4, the jp and the constable, get rid of riverside drive, the precinct 2 is getting a new clinic and community center and tax office space. Precinct 1 office building is getting land for parking, tax office is going if there. Precinct 3 is getting a new clinic, jp and constable. This is stuff has already happened, y'all. Airport boulevard has been bought for --
>> it's not a case of us not doing anything -- [ laughter ]
>> there is a point here. That's for elections, tax, jps and counseling and education services. A lot of this is getting us out of the leased space. If you can imagine where we were five years ago, that was part of our strategy, get people out of leased space. And we bought east and west command for tcso and we even got into that lovely cjc and the renovation of the golf building. University savings has compliet completely turned over who has been in there. Those folks have been pulled in from basically leased space and we're fixing to get to cecelia, the dro coming back to home campus and getting out of a lease. My point is this, we have made a lot of progress, we have bit a lot of bullets. It's now your turn to bite your bullet. But there have been a lot of things that have laid the groundwork for us to say we've got a lot of really long-term, irritable problems. Speaking of irritable problems, pleasant valley got sold off. So we've made a lot of progress here and this to me just sets the stage for us to now say what about central campus, approximate what about a new civil courthouse? What about remodeling of the historic courthouse? And all that other stuff, it's done. It's paid for, it's happening, it's done. So you're not competing with jp and con strabl 3. You're not competing with the elections division any more. You're not competing with tax. Nelda is finally going to get the space she needs and get her moved out of downtown, and all of those were issues we discussed ad nauseam at the space planning committee.
>> there are two points that I think taxpayers ought to hear, though. The first is that when Commissioner Sonleitner correctly mentioned all of the lease savings that we got, there is not a big fund we're putting the money in that is parked lease savings. And a lot of these when we say 500,000, we spent 600,000 and that was an additional expenditure of 100,000. We hope in the long run, though, we'll be better off financially. So if you were to ask today are you spending more on space than five years ago, my guess is we are spending more, it's just that we're buying doing debt service in addition to leasing space, but it does help in my view to move out of leased space. Back to the threshold question. I will need a week on this to mull over it basically. In my view what we ought to decide before we act on this is whether this is another band-aid or whether we ought to go ahead and try do something more substantial. I am not sure that I know now exactly what we need to do for the people in the historic courthouse to make it a good fit and fix for four or five years. We've spent $1.6 million. I don't know that we can conclude these departments won't be back to see us in four or five years, can we? Last year when we talked about the district clerk and the county clerk, we talked about all kind of filing systems that will enable us to become more efficient and make space. Each of those had a rather significant price tag, so we're still thinking about doing that?
>> [inaudible - no mic].
>> at some point if we ought to invest money to file more efficiently and to reduce filing space, I mean, when do we address making that investment with an offset in space savings? And why wouldn't we factor that in now? I don't have the answer, I just have the questions really. But it does seem to me that we have heard that a couple of years in a row. Everybody on the court has been left with the impression that we have an old filing system that not only is labor intensive, but also space intensive. And we ought to come into the modern era and automate a whole lot more of that filing than we do like the other urban counties are. The last I heard I thought it was late in the budget process because it had a big price tag, but I didn't forget that the people who deal with it everyday have concluded based on available research, we ought to do more than move in another direction, which is the right direction at this time. So have we factored that in here or what?
>> I think in our discussions, judge, I think we have factored it in. You're still looking at a period of time of about five years before we fully realize the space savings from e-filing. Part of what we're doing right now is we're waiting to get ijs fax implemented which will then allow both offices to begin to start scanning. We're at the point of purchasing the scanning equipment for the e-filing and the document management, but realistically it was a five-year plan that we presented and it's still a five-year plan until we realize space savings. One of the real problems is that you've got about 100,000 usable square feet within the courthouse, and it's difficult because the district judges are wanting, for the reasons I expressed back in February of March about the crowded conditions, particularly in our bulk dockets, we're wanting to expand. Judge herman is wanting to get his probate operation expanded. And quite honestly, as we sit around the table trying to work on this jointly, we were rubbing in terms of friction about whether or not there was enough space even on two to accommodate dana's operation and amelia's operation. And it didn't -- I have to tell you it didn't appear that there was, which was why part of the renovation of six and seven fit into this if you're just talking about working on floors one, two, three four and five, I don't think is going to be enough to get us through the next five or six years. If you're talking about trying to turn six and seven into a usable space, then we probably have enough room that would get us through the next two to seven years. And that's just I think the way it looked to everybody that was sitting around that table.
>> what we can do in preparation for the 13 is look at what we would recommend in terms of funding and then look at the funding for a new civil courts building, the planning, the architectural and design work, and do a preliminary time line as to if you said do it, how fast that could be done and more or less what we're looking at in terms of cost. Compare that -- if you're indeed saying that is an option -- to what it is that we are spending and the time. We've been very clear I think in the materials that what we are doing now is more or less of of a five-year horizon. It will not meet all the needs of the people in the building, but short of building a civil courts building, it does the job. At least being able to utilize space that is there while the courthouse is being built.
>> but there's still a lot of unanswered questions as far as what the real space requirement needs are for Travis County as a whole. I do agree with comments that have been made about a possible work session. I think we do need to look at the big picture. A building is sometimes more sense sieve in a budget, sometimes more than looking at it as a whole at the time. So there's a need I know for people to be downtown and there's a need for folks to be from the downtown and decentralized format as far as bringing county government to the people of Travis County. So in my mind there still is some unanswered questions. I'm not ready to act on this today, just to let you know. I think there have been some real good points that have been brought up, but again, I don't think we're completely there, even though we know that we have accomplished a lot, but then again, I'm listening to the comments that have been made, the surgery compared to the band-aid approach, I think it was a pretty good analogy. As far as a budget is concerned. And again, not knowing what the full ramification is or what the impact is on these future needs for space allocations for the departments, and those particular facilities that do serve Travis County is still in my mind at a disadvantage for me as a decision maker. So I would still need to know what's coming next week, what's coming next month, what's coming next year, because I think even though we said this today, but who is going to be before us next month or next year or within the next five years? It may totally be somebody different. And there have been different players that have come up before us as far as space, allocation of space needs, so i'd like to see the big picture, I really would. And I think we can address the big picture accordingly and at least give me a better opportunity to see where we are and how we need to deal with the space requirement crisis that it appears that we're in at this time financially and also the impact that it's having on not only the courts, but on others that deal with Travis County.
>> real quickly, roger, tell me what is the cafeteria move? What does the cafeteria net Travis County? What does the cafeteria net revenuewise to the county? What does that operation over there, does it --
>> the cafeteria, we have one contract right now and it's really -- the cafeteria, we have two cafeteria, one here in this building and one -- there's a vending machine also on contact and -- (indiscernible).
>> but we don't know what that facility over there -- i'd like to know what that -- because anything that is a revenue generator, I'm interested beforyou start moving it. I mean, I think we need to look real hard. I mean, what is it, the brizendine building, is that what it's called? We've got to be creative. Judge, the reason we can't -- I can't imagine trying to go out for a 40 or 50-million-dollar bond to the people of this community. I mean, there still is a little bit of a knee jerk reaction to people take is place in Travis County in the last number of years, and that would really be tough for us to do. I know we need -- we need what you're saying. I mean, we're fixing to be looking down the barrel of a health district that is going to get everybody's attention whenever you start really talking about the ad valorem taxes that that thing potentially could be draining from this community. So I'm really interested. I mean, if the brizendine building needs to be sold, we need to find a way if there are assets that we have in this community to take and to do the things that we've got to do, then that's -- those are the places that I think that we need to be looking. I mean, we obviously have picked up some space because of the airport building, and I don't know that it's necessarily a band-aid, but if you start picking up 12,500 feet, I mean, 12,250, that's not chicken feet fooed, but I realize it's not going to remedy the problem, but if we can like do something in a stairstep manner much like we did awhile ago, somebody wants $300,000, how can we get you this amount of dollars and how can we maybe inch along with the need that you have, because we obviously have some space that has become available because of taking on the airport building. And I think that with the leases we ought to -- I can't imagine that this is not part of the whole process whenever you start going, part of the reason we did that was predicated on having, you know, the courthouse really turn into some space that we knew that we really needed. So maybe we were a little short sighted on our numbers, we didn't work the way that we should have worked to find the million four or the million six or whatever it's going to take to do this job. I think that we creatively can find some dollars. Maybe we can find some more collections. If we've gone from 65 to 100 staff members in six years, I would think that 65 to 100, with that being a 50% increase in employees, that maybe we ought to be -- I mean, I don't know, are we collecting more money because of those numbers of people that are in there, substantial more dollars? But I think that we need to -- we've got to define yield. Yield is what I'm looking for. And folks, if we're not going to e-government within the next five years, which is where you're going to save space in all of the areas that you need through filings, I think that we have got to be creative with these areas and look for ways to generate dollars.
>> and Commissioner, just a clarification, it's 100 total employees both civil and criminal, about 71 of those are civil. They are in the courthouse.
>> we believe that the amount of money indicated for each floor is accurate?
>> it's not accurate per se, but it's a number that we feel comfortable to work with when we want people around from one place to another.
>> let me ask it another way. Are we asking for a whole lot more than we really need?
>> not on this one. I'm scared that I'm asking for less on this one.
>> the first floor we spent almost half a million dollars. What happened in the old days when office a moved down to d and all it took was half a day of labor moving phone lines? I mean, would the utilization after the move be half a million dollars different?
>> what I can say judge on these, based on the poof there first to second or third floor is the minimum recommendation we're going to do to the courthouse, because the courthouse doors, we cannot do much renovation as far as demolishing a wall and putting in new ones. We have to work with the existing historical walls as much as we can not to disturb them. Our figures right here is really a conservative -- because we haven't set -- what really the county clerk is going to --
>> let's look at floor 1. What's the most expensive work required? I'm looking at your bullet. Some remain the same. The constable move won't cost anything on floor 1. What we do with the space vacanted by the constable will cost. By looking at your bullet under floor 1, and I see 10 or 11, what's the most expensive there?
>> what page is it?
>> I'm looking at a memo, the second page, your memo, in fact, page 2, final actions and describe a scenario that will achieve the goal, first floor. Then I'm going back to the page before where it says what the first floor will cost $446,478. And I'm wondering where it costs so much, to be honest. I'm looking at the things that must be done. Rather than put that on the spot, do that for me after --
>> okay. The first floor --
>> can we meet before next week. That's the earn concern I have. The total cost here is substantial. I'm wondering can we make the same moves, accommodate the same users, for substantially less? I'm not looking for pennies, I'm looking for a few hundred thousand dollars.
>> judge, we're going to do our best to make sure that we can spend as less money as we can.
>> there are two questions. One is what do you want. The other one is what do you need? And I'm looking for the answer to the second one. Unless you're doing something more than what this indicates --
>> I want to answer that to you, judge, on the 13th, because on this time i'll know more about the spacing and the location. And really to move from the first floor to the third floor, there are lots of movable file systems and that's has -- [ inaudible ].
>> well, it shouldn't cost anything. It will remain in present space as is, not newly renovated. Also moving out there may be a cost in the whole building, but it wouldn't be on floor 1. They're moving the security screening station. Is that mobile or built in?
>> [inaudible - no mic].
>> I would think that would be cost neutral. I'm going to back to my old engineering and architect days, so that's not the most reliable. [ laughter ] let's chat about it. My question basically is are we really doing what we need to do and costing that out?
>> judge, i'd like to -- those are some good point that you're bringing up, really good points. And -- (indiscernible). [ laughter ]
>> and the thing is, along with that I would like to investigate to see if there is any available money under the historical grant. I mean, I heard someone say they looked at it, but I haven't heard that no one pursued it. Sometimes you have to do what you've got to do according to what you've got to deal with. And so the point that the judge brought up, i'd like to see where we are on those things and make things fit, especially when you're in a tight budget year.
>> roger, can I add to your list of things, not right now, added to the list of what I would like to get more information on? Is I am not at all understanding how the sixth and seventh floor remodel, which is the old jail, was only going to take $150,000 to get --
>> this is a plan --
>> thank you. That is not clear in any of the backup that it is just planning money. Because it would be also helpful for you to give us a ballpark on if we actually went down that path rather than being lulled into thinking oh, it's 150,000, that's just planning money. What would it take to gut -- not right now, just put it on a sheet of paper so that we can mull over that as well. Because that is not an inexpensive project at all.
>> county clerk?
>> judge, may I add a little comment? Anticipating that roger was going to hear some of these comments today, one of the things that we have offered them in moving -- first of all, we moved everything that is not related to the courts out of the courthouse, so the only thing of the county clerk that will be remaining on the second floor is the court only. Judge herman is going to take a small part of the space in one of the offices of that current county clerk space. When we move everything up from the first floor and consolidate it on to the second floor, one of the things we're going to do is leave the furniture as much as we can as is and put the people at dircht desks. It won't be the adeal work flow, but it's a much cheaper way to get this accomplished.
>> now, do we need to have this back on for the work session or next week?
>> I think the work session.
>> can we live with the status quo that long.
>> it won't probably be for that day, but it certainly is going to be in anticipation of any potential budget hearings that we go through. That question is out there. What would it take to get us to the full e-filing and to start working on that problem. It's kind of like where we got with amelia related to the attic. What is it going to take to get you out of there and we committed the fund and personnel to do it and the funds? What is it going to take to get us to electronic courtrooms in terms of not only the courtrooms, but the filing. What's it going to take?
>> we'll have it on the work session. Any questions we have between now and then, let's get them to roger so we'll use that time expeditiously, okay? Let's move to a much easier one.
Last Modified: Wednesday, July 23, 2003 1:52 PM