Travis County Commssioners Court
August 5, 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 A1
Let's call up a1- consider and take appropriate action on appropriate actions in response to request for services on jail operations and [inaudible]. [multiple voices] now, we will need everybody who has stated business with the court to finish conversations in the hall way so we can go on with the other court business. My guess is we have three hours worth of work and maybe one hour because we have neighborhood night out discussions tonight beginning at 6:00. Yes.
>> judge, just a brief background. Last -- well, at the work session Thursday you asked this item be added so we could assess further what the evaluation committee and the jail overcrowding task force met to discuss and that was basically you wanted to look at scaling the scope of work back to what the outside consultant would do and what in-house staff would do. And we've met and attached to the agenda you have the breakout of what would be done in-house and what would be done by outside consultants. We reduced what we initially went out on in the scope of work almost half. One of the issues that we've had is the cost and what the court is willing to pay on this project. And if I could get direction from the court on an amount you would agree to, we can work towards that. And of course we can just go with what we have also. But this is what the group has scaled down or how we've divided it up, and we're here to answer your questions and get direction on how to proceed.
>> the part on cost we need to discuss in executive session and I understand from john that we can discuss that as long as we take a vote on specific language that the new statute requires. So at the time we go into executive session to discuss this and other matters, we'll just announce it out here to make sure we get the final action on that. If you remind me we need to do that. I've got john right here. What we can do is what we can do in-house, what we need an outside consultant to do, and that's what you all tried to do.
>> correct. And if you would like some details, kim or belinda --
>> it might help to get an overview of some of the highlights. I think that would help us.
>> okay.
>> generally what can we do ourselves?
>> when we met last week, we all agreed upon that the sheriff's department, criminal justice planning and p.b.o. To do phase 1 or number 1 of phase 1, which is review the jail operations. And the rest of -- that's correct. Phase 1, number 1. And then I think all of phase 2, a and d. Or of phase 2, a and d would be done by the outside consultant. And b and c of phase 1.
>> b and c?
>> b and c of phase 1. Kind of put it into simple terms, that we would in-house, we would do all of the staffing analysis and reviewing staffing patterns, those sorts of things. And then use an outside consultant to look at the effect that the reduction in jail population has had on the current classification of inmates and the best way to utilize the beds, and then what that means in terms of what -- you know, what are projections given the fact our jail population has changed so drastically in the last year. What projections would be as far as future needs not only in terms of numbers but also in terms of numbers and types of facilities comparing it to what we currently have on site. And then the other part was also looking at inmate health care and programmatic issues as for as if there were ways to further reduce costs in that area.
>> was the recommendation to do for the outside consultants any piece of phase 2 that had to do with evaluation of the physical plans?
>> yes.
>> sit under 1 a and b, and under 2, a, b and c?
>> yes. As you figure out what you need according to the type of inmates you have, then you look at what you have on the ground and determine how well what you have presently on the ground meets your needs, and then gets you some indication if you need anything additional, what it should look like. And part of that assessment is what do you have as far as -- you may have a building, but the building has outused its usefulness. We have a couple buildings that they are just flat worn out. So the question becomes do you refurbish, rehab that building or just do away with that building, recognizing that sometimes you can make a capital investment of a building that is in -- and actually pay for reflected in staff savings. Because what we have presently are very staff intensive designs at del valle.
>> and I really want to say thank you to belinda for spending a great deal of time walking through this with me yesterday, and I left that meeting with two questions that at some point we would need to figure out as well. The biggest one is in terms of for the big project in terms of overseeing if we go this way with the outside consultant, et cetera, who is running this? Is this a p.b.o. Gig? Is this going to be coming out of criminal justice planning? Is it a hybrid? Somebody -- it's kind of like gasby, somebody has to be the point person, somebody has to be the one that basically takes responsibility for a very important team of in-house work and outside consultants like gasb 34, somebody has to take the lead, but that is something we would need to give direction on, I think, is who is the team leader. Second, I did not see under physical plant review, that while we talk about updating the evaluation of the facilities and assessing the remaining life expectancy, I think the missing piece that's always been out there at the physical plant of the sheriff's office is that we need to get you help in developing a maintenance and replacement schedule. It seems like the only time I ever hear about boilers is when another one has died. And we need to have these things on a regular replacement like we have done with the rest of our county facilities related to carpeting and painting and all those kinds of -- roofs. You replace them in an ordererly basis, you repair them in an orderly basis as opposed to they get ignored and we hear about it when something has croaked. And then all you've got is replacement costs. That would be good in terms of knowing what needs to be budgeted for that and make sure the proper attention is given to preventive maintenance and the orderly replacement of things before it's an emergency and we don't get to go out for competitive bids, we are just flat out trying to get water back in a building because we don't have any option.
>> well, Commissioner, I would respectfully agree and respectfully disagree with you. In the last four or five years of our budget process we have been doing some of those things because we know there's a life expectancy of things like boilers, but I agree with you that I think as far as assessment of the plants out there and how you deal with the maintenance issues, I think it's fine. I question whether or not that is an issue that needs an outside consultant or if that isn't something that can be done between p.b.o., Facilities and the sheriff's office.
>> I think roger has some of that expertise with him, but I any [inaudible]. There's one of the big three. Mechanical engineering and plumbing. He's policing one of these. So whichever one it is, there may be some of it, but there's other pieces. The whole intent here is to assist knew trying to get orderly repair and replacement as [inaudible] and there are no choices.
>> I think part of the thing, I'm certainly going to have no objection to having it added back in, but I think part of the initial thing we were looking at, we were trying to do some things to try and keep costs down. Although I agree with you cost in the long run is probably benefited by doing that, and that's part of the question, the issues you need to discuss in executive session, just how much.
>> just for clarification, that part, the preventive maintenance scheduling was not part of this originally. It talks about the facilities and it looks at some of those issues, but it was not to set up a preventive maintenance plan like we did with facilities. It didn't go to that level. [inaudible] the sheriff to start from there setting a schedule based on the [inaudible]. [no microphone on]
>> one of the things I did want to point out, when you look back at the original scope of work and the difference, an item that has been taken out of the phase 1 a work that the team, in-house team would propose to accomplish, has been added and is in bold on page 4. This is to respond to some comments we had about looking at comparing the cost of operating and continuing to operate the facility as it stands today and its fragmented pieces as you look at the life cycle of buildings if there are recommendations to refurbish or replace, if there are recommendations to construct in another fashion, that you would actually end up with a cost comparison developed by the consultant who knows at what level they are doing the planning work, that would match that, so you could compare today's operation, which we would be documenting today's operation costs, they would be developing [inaudible] costs and you can come up with a cost comparison between those two. So you could see the savings gain. So we did need to pull out a piece that was in the phase 1 and put back here to help with a better understanding because we couldn't [inaudible] their facility. A lot of times understand exactly the detail at which they might propose construction. So given that this was a fairly high level process, charette process to discuss ideas with the sheriff's department, that we had proposed doing for long-range planning for the site, we wanted the cost analysis to be the burden of those preparing --
>> I know sometimes we authorize and talk about getting into negotiations with the top two firms so that you can see what you can narrow down related to the delivery of how many of these things for blank amount of money. You basically still have a competition going related to your professional services and can make a side by side comparison that way, and that is if you can't reach an acord in terpbls of what you want with the price you want with number 1, you are already talking to number 2 to see if they can do better. And deliver everything we want for the price we want without [inaudible].
>> I think you get a better price that way.
>> I do too. We have not made up our minds related to which one, but the top two, who are reasonably close in terms of numbers. There are two very highly ranked firms. There is a differential, but when you get to final negotiating, a lot of times what does not emerge during an initial r.f.p. Becomes clear when it comes to negotiations with who you really want to be doing business with and for what price.
>> are we convinced that doing part of it in-house, contracting out the second part is a better strategy than us trying to do 100% of it in-house?
>> we discussed what areas that we feel comfortable that we have [inaudible] expertise and mr. Smith's shop has expertise and we tried to just delineate the portions that we don't. I mean, I don't feel that particularly some of the assessment of facilities and what you ought to build in the future portions, I don't know that we have -- I mean I could give you my best guesstimate, but I don't think that we necessarily have the expertise in-house, and I think misparticularly if it turns out in the end the assessment is that there is a need for replacement of or building of additional facilities or having to go out and talk to the public. I think it's important for the public to know that there have been some folks looking at these issues without any sort of initial agenda in order to [inaudible] back any sort of bond issue.
>> so when I see the services that are under the consultant, I should read into that that we believe that an outside expert will possess more expertise than we possess in-house?
>> yes.
>> I assume that answers my next question that we think going out for this work will be the best investment for Travis County at this time.
>> yes, sir, I think that's the best [inaudible]. The court can obviously decide not to spend any funds, but, you know, in looking at it, I don't feel it makes sense for the county to go outside given the current situation. Might be nice in an ideal situation, but given the current situation, I don't think it makes good sense to go outside for the phase 1 parts. I think that quite frankly you will have our [inaudible] three-headed monster, whatever it may turn out to be, but I think that we can -- between institutions, justice and public safety, p.b.o. Andist sheriff's office, we can bring as good a product as anybody outside.
>> what we can do in-house we have carved out.
>> yes, sir.
>> what we think we cannot do or cannot do as well as somebody with more expertise, we really have said get a skult ant to do this and it will be a good investment.
>> yes.
>> judge, one other thing we had discussed, I don't know if we discussed it with the sheriff or not, but on the in-house work that was decided that we could do, there is an agency called the national institute of corrections that we could send our analysis to and they could -- they haven't agreed to yet, we have e-mails to them, they could review the work and make sure it's within standards and within general practices and that sort of thing. So that is something --
>> when I said we do it in house, that doesn't mean we don't rely on the other experts out there, people you can get for free. And that doesn't mean, for example, anything you came up with, we will definitely discuss with the commission on jail [inaudible] to make sure we will pass muster with them. There are some resources out there that we will utilize so that's the same ones, quite frankly [inaudible].
>> any more questions or comments? We will call up the money part for executive session discussion, okay?
>> and you are going to take a vote -- have you to have a unanimous vote that you all will do that.
>> right.
>> okay.
Last Modified: Wednesday, August 6, 2003 4:52 PM