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 22
Moving further to item number 22 approve modification number 1 and ratification of contract number ps 020181 lb with corrections software corporation, csc, for renewal of the financial module for the community supervision and corrections department.
>> [ inaudible ].
>> the reason I called it up first is to we could hear it and decide whether we could -- (indiscernible). But I do know that the known thaw that you're talking about, that will get us through this year. A more important question is next year's, right? You're taking the lead on this one?
>> if you'll recall, last year the court approved this as far as cscd, we did not know what was going to happen. We thought that it was going to be in place and there was a lot of discussion, and I understand there's been a lot of discussion on what that -- if we are going to have a long-term solution to tiburon. We're not there yet, so cscd suggested we renegotiate this contract for an additional year, which we've done, and csc can come back with a cost of $208,000 here. There was -- there's a couple of days that were not covered in this last contract. That amount is about $17,333. And we were able to negotiate -- last time we negotiated this agreement, they did not know how much time and effort that it was going to take, and they were not willing to negotiate option years. And they were also not willing to negotiate any sort of caps on their cost. When we sat down and negotiated with them this time, we were able to negotiate a three percent cap, so they cannot increase their fees in subsequent years more than three percent.
>> but this is just a one-year deal, so after this year it would be all over if tiburon and also the fax system is ready to roll. That's my understanding.
>> I think joe harlow would have to answer those.
>> i'll get it directly from joe then.
>> I can't answer that.
>> okay. Let me get an answer from joe because the escalating cost, the three percent increase, however, we're just talking about a one-year deal here.
>> where are we on the facts system as far as our financial --
>> the facts system is first courts are starting to convert last of August, first of September. And the courts and the jp's will be converted in the first quarter of '04. So we're on schedule for that facts conversion.
>> so the time frame on this particular contract will go into the time frame that it's expected that the facts sm will be complete? Do you have time here to look at the accounting situation that they're dealing with as far as cscd and also the facts situation for other financial accounting type mechanisms?
>>
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>>
>> so this would enable the csc consultant to keep working with us.
>> yes.
>> our goal is to complete this next fiscal year so we will not need this assistance in '05.
>> correct.
>> that's the goal.
>> that's correct.
>> a lot depends on how much gets done.
>> yeah.
>> so what we can do jointly is sort of monitor this throughout the year and make sure we're moving in the right direction.
>> yes, sir.
>> now, what about integrating this with the facts financially? Are we going to address that at some point in the future or have we --
>> I believe this task force -- [multiple voices]
>> that's what joe was --
>> there's a number of issues, judge. I mean, we've got the csc [inaudible] and then we've got [inaudible] and the county clerk. Then we have the tax office working on central collections. Right now there is no plan for what is going to be integrated and who is going to do what. There is no plan for that. So if -- and it goes down to where is the central record kept. Who is responsible for that record and how do you know what that is. So if someone comes in and is put on probation or is supposed to pay a fine and fees, the question is who is going to collect it, who is going to record it on their system, and how do the other related parties look at that. So if, for instance, they are going to pay into cscd, how does the county clerk and the district court know these were collected. If the tax office is collecting in central collections, how are they going to know what is owed and what is collected. If in fact the tax office is the one that's going to collect it, then how do they communicate to the two clerks and cscd. None of those systems' communications are worked out and they need to be because those are, first of all, the process needs to be set out like who's going to do this. Forget about systems for a minute. And secondly, what systems are going to be needed to do that and what is that going to cost. And are there people involved, new or more or less staffing involved in those processes. Meanwhile, we will be paying for c.s.c. And we're going to be bringing up facts. Facts was not set to handle cscd yet because they are on c.s.c. So there's a lot of planning that needs to be taken into account as well as figuring out who is going to do the work, be responsible for those, and communicate to the others and what that's going to cost.
>> okay.
>> that has not been done.
>> not item 13 that we had on the agenda today, which really was not worded properly.
>> that's the case management. This is just financial, judge. Yeah, this is not 13.
>> I understand.
>> okay.
>> that being my point. On proposed motions submitted in the packet of materials that was supposed to be backup for number 13, the second part was the plans and fees task force. Now, we expect a working group basically to look at the very issues that you just described, right? So what I知 saying is it seems to me we ought to have a better wored agenda item that enables us to address integration of case management plus the financial part and deal with that and try to get headed in the right direction. But on 22, I take it that we still need to keep on keeping on for c.s.c.d. To do its thing and on 13 next week we'll address integration fees for case management and the other --
>> the other question is that when we enter into a new contract that needs to be somewhere in the budget so the question is was that contemplated next year and is that money available for this contract, and the question is, of course, you know, we were in the midst of this whole mess when we were trying to clean it up, and at that point c.s.c.d. Indicated these contracts would be $120,000 a year. Now it's 208. So this is significantly more than was contemplated as an emergency measure. So that too is an issue. An extra $108,000.
>> what you need is the difference.
>> c.s.c. When they came in they didn't know whathey were looking at in Travis County. And when they got here, they found there was additional costs. Like they did not know we were going to have deloitte & touche to be involved in our conversion process, and they -- which was a good thing, but it slowed them down considerably because deloitte & touche had to understand what their process was. About the time that we were negotiating the contract, from the very beginning, they understood that they would have to comply with Travis County security, i.t.s. Security. About the time we were doing the contract, apparently a few months prior to that there had been a breach of the security and the security requirements changed significantly. And he had to ask -- have security requirements that were tougher than they thought they were going to be, and he assumed that those security requirements are going to continue to change. They are going to make them tougher. I don't know if that's so or not. I guess you could ask joe on that. And there was the -- you knew -- they knew, we talked about the gasby requirements and he was aware of that but he didn't know exactly what it was until he got into it and that's quite an additional expense. And I think everybody felt at the time that $100,000 a year was really a bargain deal. And the difference is -- whether the difference -- if you think $208,000 is unreasonable or is it because the $100,000 last year was just a tremendous bargain.
>> go ahead, joe. I'll let you finish. I've got a couple of questions, though.
>> the security issues were right on the table in the very beginning of negotiations, as jim mentioned. Up front we laid out what we felt the security changes were going to have to be. Within a very short period of time they were able to agree that they could do this, and we haven't changed the security requirements since then. I think we had two or three meetings with them and in about 10 days they had it l taken care of.
>> but joe, you did have -- security requirements have changed from what they were that year, right?
>> no. We gave them --
>> you did not have the -- someone hacked into the county security system and didn't that happen about three or four months prior to our negotiating with the contract?
>> I don't recall exactly when it was. It was prior to the negotiation of the contract. And we had laid out what our security issues were going to be and we gave that to --
>> and when did you hire shannon? Wasn't that -- just hiring shannon, didn't that make your security, the county's security requirements much tougher?
>> we addressed the security issues in the county after the hacking of the system occurred. We developed policies and procedures of what we wanted to do and how we were going to do that. All that was already on the table when c.s.c. Came in. In fact there was also a clause in the contract that says if they run into any increase in cost of their security they could come back under the $100,000 contract. They did not do that.
>> shannon reported to me, and if I remember correctly, I think -- and I think you both are right. We were hacked on the Friday before shannon came to work on Monday. We always tease him and say that's a really good job security for him. And we're not sure what happened, but that was in March, if I remember correctly.
>> right.
>> so the moment shannon came in, shannon began to set security standards. And so when we began working with c.s.c.d. And c.s.d. And other user departments, I think he had those standards set by June of last year, if I remember right. And he's still working on policies.
>> i've got a couple -- sorry.
>> I知 thinking of 163 and 168, a number I got from -- what does that number represent?
>> 163 was the -- I think was the original cost of the contract for last year including the conversion costs. So the entire cost was 163,000 for last year for our contract with c.s.c.
>> one of them was $63,000 by itself.
>> that was the conversion.
>> that was the conversion.
>> that's a reasonable cost for conversion. [multiple voices]
>> that is a very reasonable cost.
>> yes, it is.
>> so we're going from 163 to 208.
>> yes.
>> do we still need to do conversion?
>> no.
>> so conversion is done --
>> when we get to tiburon there will be another conversion fee and we don't know what that will cost.
>> and do we have a cap on them?
>> on tiburon?
>> uh-huh.
>> there's a couple ways to do this, judge. When you go to tiburon, if c.s.c.d. Remains on c.s.c., Then there will be an interface cost that will occur. If we convert to fax, we will have to take the date that that c.s.c.d. Has cleaned up and convert it into the fax database. So there would be a cost to do that. Now, i.t.s. Is doing a lot of that conversion itself, but there will be --
>> that's part of our -- that's part of next week's discussion. Two quick questions. We do need this work done in '04.
>> yes, sir.
>> in our view, if we don't pay 208 to get it done, we're --
>> we need to do that.
>> the data needs to be accurate in order to merge together with the facts database.
>> we don't like 208. We like 100,000 a whole lot better. But are we convinced that 208 is too much?
>> not in my opinion, judge.
>> it boils down to whether we get $208,000 worth of value to us. And that kind of depends on how accurate the end result is and to what use we put it, how it benefits us in the future, even if we were to convert to tiburon, the better this work is in '04, the more reliable our data is next year. So in the end, I mean, the c.s.c. Consultant is probably the only one who can do this, right?
>> he's the only one who can continue the operation the way it's being done today.
>> Commissioner Davis.
>> yes. I would like to ask the auditor a couple questions. Joe, if you would just remain there, I would appreciate it. Under this scenario, c.s.c., The way they are collecting the data, a lot of this stuff, financial reports, a lot of this stuff goes to the state, however, there is money that does trickle to the county, to Travis County as they go through the data fields on these records to Travis County. My question to the auditor is, under this scenario, are you able to certify the revenue accurately under this financial accounting at this point?
>> yeah. Are you asking -- are you asking do we know how much money has been collected to date? Do I understand your question?
>> well, that and also -- yes, that has been collected to date.
>> all of you were sent a statement that was prepared by carolyn damron in our department that was looking at all criminal fines and fees, and the total of all criminal fines and fees, we are forecasting for f.y. Twao er our estimate for '04 will be less than that. The amount of money that c.s.c.d. Has collected through June as well as the tax office, the combined of those two, is less than it was last year at this time. So there is some confusion as to -- have I the numbers right here. But there is some confusion that more money has come in for those. That is not correct. That is not accurate.
>> okay.
>> now, having said that, one of the problems of not having a good financial system and not having deposits made on a timely basis, it's very difficult to compare periods. Because if you are sitting there depositing one time every month, then every four months, every six phorbgs you don't have all the deposits, it's difficult to go back and make an analytical decision. But we are contemplating with -- I mean we know for a fact by the end of June we have less criminal fines and fees collected by c.s.c.d. And the tax office come pwaoeupd than we did no f.y. '02. And we are contemplating for the year it will be less, we are contemplating for next year it will be less than 2003.
>> thank you for that answer.
>> I guess my whole question is the financial mechanism as we get it in place as we are leaning towards the facts, the overall i.g.a. Situation, is that more feasible or more reliable going that direction for the county [inaudible] and everybody else is concerned as far as our county feasibility and things of that nature as far as getting things reported in a timely manner and also the accuracy of those reports. And the reason why I知 asking that because if we're going towards this -- let me let you answer the question.
>> I think it's important to get to one set of books to account for all these fines and fees. That's the direction we've been going with facts is to have that be the controlling mechanism for fines and fees. Then you can manage and control it from one place. The gasby reporting is there and that would give us a much more solid ground.
>> and my overall concern is what do Travis County as far as fines and fees of that nature, we should get -- I don't care how many years it goes back, there's been a lot of substantial money that we have not recovered that I think should be in the general fund and we don't have possession of that money. So, again, I think it's a challenge to us to head in the right direction to get that. So if this is one way of getting there, and there will be an expense, joe, and I know it's coming up where we do get to the point where we'll have to address the conversion aspect of that data. There's got to be another conversion. I don't know how much it's going to cost she but it's going to be a cost. So there's a lot of cost factors that we haven't realized yet as we go to that end.
>> Commissioner Sonleitner.
>> we have finally hit on a subject that has my looking forward to my root canal surgery. [laughter] a week from Friday. Looking forward to the drugs. Okay. [laughter] my head is wanting to explode. I actually have a working knowledge of this as opposed to its like being thrown into -- I知 still getting extraordinarily confused after all the money, time, energy, everything, the swat teams we've sent in trying to figure all of thut and I get an e-mail, maybe I知 misinterpreting it from susan and carolyn and blaine that we're going to be collecting less money on cscd and other fines and fees than last year. And then who is going to be collecting delinquent fines and fees on behalf of cscd? Do we keep it there or is this something we send over to dusty. Dusty is dealing with a situation of hello, where do I go when the rest of the office leaves. And are they going to get space for just themselves or do something on behalf of cscd. I知 getting the point of asking the Commissioner Davis question of tell me what it will take to get to close our this because I知 hearing language here that makes me feel very uncomfortable in terms of well she that's just the interface with this system. We haven't begun to talk about the interface with the tiburon system. Then I had a long conversation with the county clerk which went on for miles related to per needing to have access to legacy data so that she can continue to do herpes of all of this. So it's just somebody at some point has got to be able to wrap autopsy of this up and say closure. This is what it's going to take to wrap up everybody's loose ends. And not this gets us here, we forgot talk about tiburon, the county clerk, whatever. I just am in the there yet in terms of I guess using the expression band-aid. I feel like all this stuff continues to be a band-aid, then I get a memo from the auditor that basically says all of this money and -- we're still not bringing in the dollars that I thought we were supposed to be bringing in, which really goes to question is justice being done because the payment of those fees absolutely is tied into people doing restitution, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. This is not meant to be anything other than I知 way frustrated and I知 going to do whatever is necessary, but it's just always something here and I知 trying to get to a place where it's closure. We're all using the same language and we're not misinterpreting what anybody is saying, not by design but because so much of this is embedded with technical language that we think we're doing good stuff, we think we're moving us closer to conclusion and the reality is I feel like we're just spinning and spinning and not getting any closer and somebody is always bringing up something else and I look forward to you all visiting with dana about her legacy problem.
>> I have a comment in connection to the collections for the last four year. In '01, 2001, there was only about 5 million plus collected. The next year in '02 there was 7 million. Between those years there was some problems with the computer system, and I believe there should be an average of those two years to figure out how much was truly collected. The average of those two years is less than '03. So I believe that when you talk about how much we've collected in '03, that it wasn't less than we collected in the average of the two years before. I just wanted to make a comment.
>> it's hard to determine that because of the condition of those books.
>> I知 not hearing that.
>> but you compare 2003 to 2004, we do our revenue estimate based to collection of the departments making the money and know. So I don't dispute. That but year not seeing with what we're doing now an increase for '04 either. We aren't. That's just a fact.
>> but the point I was trying to make in '03 we did not collect less. If you took an average of the other years, we collected more than the previous two years many and we are passing forward the money that we have.
>> I think last year that we -- at the end of the year $4.8 million in fines and court costs. Soy guarantee that money is money that in 2000 and 2001, maybe 1999, it was not 2002. So if we take that and compare '03 to what we turned in in 2002, it is going to be less, but 2002 covers two, maybe three years.
>> well, the item 13 that we and he greed is on next week gives us an opportunity to [inaudible]. But is there any disagreement that we need the c.s.c. Consultant to keep working with us and we need to keep working with him or them on the cscd financial issue here? I知 not hearing that, right? I知 just -- I知 just hearing there are four or five major issues that we need to address, integration, case management, financial services, and next week we ought to have an appropriately worded item that gives us opportunity to address all of the indetectively and related issues so -- indirectly and related issues. I agree at some point hopefully in the foreseeable future question at least will be able to accurately account for what's owed and after that accurately account for what is received, so maybe we can put in a strategy to try to close the gap. But on this item is there any disagreement we need to do this?
>> I think we're all in agreement with you, judge.
>> my recommendation would be we indicate our -- to approve the contracts, we need p.b.o.'s help to identify a source of funding for -- it's on the budget amendment.
>> then we have the contract.
>> yes, sir.
>> and I second that.
>> what source of funding?
>> allocated reserve.
>> allocated reserve?
>> number 7.
>> that's to get through rest of the year. But the contract we're scooting would be for '04. 208, see? The 19 on the p.b.o. Item today is to get us through the end of the fiscal year, right?
>> yes, sir. For 2004, this was a budget request based on estimated dollars early in our budget process when, frankly, we didn't feel we had enough information to make a recommendation to include it in cscd's budget. What we've done for purposes of the preliminary budget is we've established a reserve of $108,000 that once the costs are identified for this contract, that we would recommend that as the funding source.
>> so [inaudible].
>> right now we have a specific special reserve set aside for -- we call it for the preliminary budget, the cscd financial reserve.
>> that's my motion.
>> second.
>> any more discussion? Yes, sir.
>> i've got a couple of statements to make and then a couple of questions, if you don't mind. I mean since I don't -- I don't have a lot of history in this thing, but this is the only thing that's taken as much as my time as waste, as landfills, and I知 really trying to get a handle on this thing. I guess, you know, the initial thing is I知 a little concerned that software item that we are speaking of now is just an interim solution and an interim -- and interim frightens me. And it is my understanding that there was $100,000 and a $63,000 first time first year spent leaving the county the anticipation that the second year would be $100,000, not $163,000. Aim wrong?
>> they made it very clear in the negotiations because we tried to negotiate future years' prices and they woald not. They said they could not because of all the complexity of this issue, having to work with tiburon, having to -- they would not commit. I know we -- we knew they were going to come book and have a higher cost o the conversion cost of 63,000 we sat in there and they gave us an option of doing it on a time and materials basis or fixed amount and we jump odd fixed amount -- jumped on fixed amount because we knew they were going to spend a lot of time. We really thought they had underpriced the conversion part of it so we knew full well when we sat down the second time that we were going to have a hard negotiation and they did not come down but I think 33 cents a month. And the good part about the negotiation is I was able to get them to agree to a cap, a 3% cap. So we won't have this issue next year. It might be 3% more if we even need the software, but we knew this second negotiation was going to cost more.
>> you can see where I知 really confused because the information I have was clearly 100,000 plus 63,000, but i'll take your word for it.
>> it was 100,000 for the software and the work that they did and the 63,000 was conversion. So together it was 163,000.
>> right. But it was my understanding that the anticipation that the following year was going to be 100,000, but that's fine, I can understand it. But there was some confusion there. I mean, of all of this, I mean, I知 amazed that we can't go to cscd and say can you all help us take scare of an additional $108,000. I mean why -- I mean it appears to me that the county finds itself, you know, a number of times where it's sort of like, well, you know what, we just missed that and you bring it to the court and the court goes I guess that's what we have to do. I mean i've understood for a long time that the c.s.c. Program was something that you all felt like that you needed. You know, we've sat through many a meeting and the judge's siding with you all about hey, we've got to do this and I think you've eventually gotten us to the point we know you need to do the job, but it is very frustrating because about the time you think or I think I知 about to get a handle on something, all of a sudden I get a little bit more information and I go oh, my gosh, I didn't know that. I will say this. It's obvious to me that in all of the collections of these criminal fines and fees and everything that we have to do, that we really are grasping as to how we're going to do this or how you all are going to do it. And it doesn't do me any good to -- I say for a lack of better way to put it piecemeal all of these things. Any time that i've ever embarked on spending substantial dollars on something, i've always asked for a basic business plan where somebody is able to sit down with me and say this is where we're trying to -- this is where we're coming from, this is where we're trying to get and this is how you get here and here's a step by step this answers basically all of these questions. Because it's -- and when I say a business plan, I知 talking about what it really costs to really collect and to do the things that you all have to do statutorily and we want done. Because, you know, money is -- for the county are at skwrep teu as well. I know some of this pertains to the question we're going to very next week, but I would just like to go on record as stating I知 going to be, you know, pretty hard with regards to what I expect out of this when everything is said and done with what we're really getting at, and especially with us tupbing to spend the dollars that we're spending. So for whatever that's worth.
>> want to join me for my root canal?
>> [laughter].
>> would you like for me to perform it?
>> I feel like you all already have [laughter].
>> any more discuss? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
Last Modified: Wednesday, July 23, 2003 6:52 PM