Travis County Commssioners Court
August 12, 2003
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Item 29
29 is to discuss and take appropriate action on the reorganization of accounting personnel in the offices of the just a moment ps and constables to create a central accounting unit including the reclassification of two positions.
>> thank you, judge. Anyone who wants to take a seat up here, please do so. If I can give you just a brief introduction on behalf of the constables and j.p.s. As you know, there has been discussion and organization and reorganization over the past few years, and what has happened is there was a senior account ant and accounting clerk that served half of the j.p.s and constables and another clerk did the accounting to serve the others. And in the group that represents one of the -- half of one of the groups, both of those people resigned. And so in the discussions of recruiting and filling those positions, discussions took place, and it appeared and we were asked -- we were involved in those discussions, it appeared that this was a good time to look at the reorganization of the accounting functions in the j.p. And constable offices and perhaps a single accounting unit with an accounting manager, a senior accountant, and an accounting clerk and an accounting associate would be more appropriate that dealt with all 10 of the offices. And their books would be kept in the same manner. They would be familiar with the issues of the constables and the j.p.s, and help all of them with the accounting in terms of getting their reports done, reporting on fines and fees. And so after much discussion, the budget office, you got a letter from them. They support the reorganization. Our office wholeheartedly supports the reorganization. The positions were looked at by hrmd and I believe you have personnel amendments which supports the new supported unit. And so very briefly, that's how we got here and what -- there is a slight cost of $27,000, and we felt that the reorganization would in fact be a step of being more accountable, stimulating the collection of more revenue. And so for '04, we are very comfortable certifying enough revenue to cover that so it is cost neutral in the '04 budget. The constables and jps out of salary savings can cover any additional costs in '03.
>> now, before we hear anything else because of who I see in the audience, we should let the risk management officer and facilities know that after this item we will take up item 37 in executive session. Is that okay? Since we have three representatives down here. And so they may want to start moving this way is the only reason I make that announcement. Now, there are other comments about item number 29.
>> we understood that you all had considered possibly it being a consent item, and we all signed off on it because it was actually proposed -- I'm judge diaz of precinct 4. I'm one of the representatives in the group that we call ourselves south of the river except for the constable van that's north of the river. Then there's the other five elected officials that had the other accountant and -- that had the resignation that caused all this to come before you. This was all planned and designed and submitted. Before we had a chance to comment about whether we thought that the number of bodies proposed was actually enough. And before we analyzed the situation and the work that was going to be in store for the new accounting unit. And the only thing we wanted to comment on was perhaps we thought that -- and the jps all met and we discussed this, that maybe a second accounting clerk, the lowest level of position on the scale here, might be needed maybe on a one-time basis during fiscal year 2004 simply because there's still a transition period for the accounting unit, simply because there's five offices whose books and records have to be put in order. Some of their audits indicate that their offices need some improvement, and we are still coming online with facts and all the things that that entails. So instead of letting it come on as a consent item, we thought we would come and talk to you about that. That's the only difference or the only comment that we still had about what was submitted.
>> well, let me ask a question especially since you brought the facts into this. When we basically go live in bringing facts in the county, will these positions that we are looking at now, consolidating, kind of reducing some f.t.e.s and using the salary savings, will the facts or will this person that we're looking at here now be tied in with the facts as we will see it implemented in the very, very near future? Will we have to come back again and look at a person to receive training for the facts? How will that work as far as the accounting end of it, which is a big portion of what [inaudible].
>> we have to see how facts is going to work. That's the problem. We're not sure how it's going to work. If it's going to have any bugs in the accounting end of it that are going to cause any accounting problems in the system when it's finally online, if it's going to have any extra work. So that's why we thought we would just come here and say if you would consider -- because we always had two clerk. Two senior accountants and two clerks. What we've done here is we've promoted one of the senior accountants to a management position, and we still have the same number of bodies. We still have four people. But what we've done is we've created a mid-level accounting associate that didn't exist before. So in a sense we've moved up a clerk and created an accounting associate position, a mid-level that didn't exist before, and the four bodies may still be enough to handle the work of all of us. But we were just concerned that -- that right now in this transition year we may still need one more accountings clerk to with entry and get into a system where we're handling all the books the same. Like one-time funding thing. And if it turns out that only four are needed to handle it, then that one-time funding ends and we don't renew and we don't come back and ask for refunding for that clerk at the end of this first year. We're just a little concerned about this transition. And all of us agreed on that when we met, the five jps, that we would come and present this as an idea or a q it didn't make it on because we didn't have time to incorporate it or to meet with susan to incorporate it. And of course she didn't have time to consider it in terms of it being a zero cost, you know, to the county. And where would we get the money and all that. But we just felt like we needed to comment, just make our thoughts known and presented it to you. Barbara, do you have anything to add?
>> sort of wrapped up in that. I'm judge bembry from precinct 2, and I was one of the judges who got separated -- well, I was the only judge who got separated from my constable when we divided up the accounting duties a few years ago. And so --
>> is that good or bad, though?
>> it turned out to be not good from the standpoint that, yes, everybody can -- still. And I still have one, believe it or not. It turned out to be not good from a couple of stapbts because when we come to Commissioners court, obviously we want to have all of our ducks in a row and my ducks were singing a different song than constable ducks because their books were being kept in different formats so we couldn't pull the data quickly and any statistical confirmation when you are requesting information from us. So we have to do a lot more homework to come up with the presentations that we are making. Secondly, because omni revenues in particular have generated a a lot of transactions, shall we call them, we have a lot more bookkeeping to do. And a lot of the transactions that occur between parks and wildlife and those sorts of agency are being tracked manually because we're in that phase where we're not quite on the new system and so not many changes are being made to the old system. So my court in particular has a lot of transactions that get manually tracked. And as far as audit comments, those typically have to do with the reports not getting in on time because we have a lot of manual tracking that's being done, et cetera, et cetera. I'm real any favor of this merge and this upgrading and i'll answer your question, Commissioner Davis.
>> okay. And I'm glad you brought that point up. Because one of the things this is supposed to do is -- as far as looking at the facts system is to become a better tracking mechanism as far as not having to manually do what you have just suggested. And even with the omni program, and this is something that I need to probably look at also very seriously, even with the omni program itself, it was actually -- it was to actually alleviate a lot of manual stuff.
>> well, now, we don't track as much manually on omni. I'm just saying manually parks and wildlife. But transaction-wise, omni creates a lot of transactions, as you can see, our revenues for all the judges are almost $8 million. And that's a lot of money to keep track of. And report accurately.
>> right.
>> so --
>> and I guess my pointed is to interface, and I guess I need to make sure [inaudible] you are all on the bus and everybody else will actually end up tying this system in. You all are pretty much familiar with the omni system.
>> let me give you a example of something that's manually tracked and the accountants have to manually figure out because we haven't been able to reprogram the computer to do that for us because you've put restrictions as the Commissioners court don't spend any more money reprogramming the old system because the new system is coming. We get told that all the time. The last legislative session, they created a trauma fund that some money was going to go to the state. 50% of the fines related to unrestrained children in vehicles, they have to manually track all the fines related to kids in vehicles that weren't in their safety seats. And then we have to split that fine in half and send half to the state, not the court cost portion, but the fine portion, and half the county keeps. Because the state had upped the fine by over 50% because they didn't intend us to keep it, the fine, they intended half to go to them to pay for this trauma fund statewide. So we weren't able to program the computer to do that for us automatically, so guess what has to be tracked manually, all those unrestrained child violations, and that's got to be done by the accountant. And that's just one sample. And the parks and wildlife she is talking about, we have to send 85% of the fine on all parks and wildlife violations, our computers aren't programmed to do that automatically on all offenses or something because they create new offenses, we can't program them in and they have to be tracked. They are always doing that and since we've been going online for quite some time, we've gone over a couple of let I have -- legislative sessions, there's several things we track manually. Half of the school fines we send to aisd and we track them manually to pay all their school fines eye understand what you are saying, I'm glad you brought those points up, because I do know when the state legislature met, there was a lot of mandates we had to take care of and I know some of the things were passed down to different departments, which is one of yours. But my concern is still this is that those particular manually tracked funding activities that take place within the omni system itself and you have to manually track and do, parks and wildlife, you just mentioned trauma for kids, those kind of things, if there are others, I would like to know as many of those -- have as many of those on the table as possible so when we do get to the automated situation, we won't have to go and revisit this again.
>> oh, absolutely.
>> that's what I'm trying to get to.
>> our accountants will work as facts is being put online to make sure all those are in there.
>> and we have a new legislative session that is about to be reviewed tomorrow, as a matter of fact, all day, and next week we'll have our judges meeting as to how we will implement the legislative changes that affect our court. So I just from perusing, as you all know from earlier in the year when I was here, just from perusing any number of statutes, we have lots of new court costs, shall we say, fees that will be divvied up among various agencies and that sort of thing. How many of those could be easily put into the new system or the old system, I don't know. That's a i.t.s. Question. I'm just simply here to say thank four the realignment possibilities.
>> all five of us are going to a legislative update tomorrow, all five j.p.s tomorrow here in town.
>> do we need to give you another work to work through this, give us a specific proposal to look at?
>> no, in, we would like this approved. We just wanted you to know we sure would like an extra accounting clerk during --
>> where we're at is this is brought to us as a reorganization, how to better utilize four people with some opportunities with some vacancies to do -- two of those positions to be upgraded. Rather than having two units, to have have upgraded unified unit. That is what was presented to me and they've come with a very creative way for to us get there so that we have an upgraded unit on behalf of everyone. If you want this a discussion to have a fifth person stand in line and we can schedule budget issue. I'm hear to weigh in on a reorg. But if we're talking about extra people, I'm not going to preclude the budget hearings for the next 15 days.
>> we want this approved, we just want to you know that.
>> I appreciate that, but if you want to accounting clerks, you have that opportunity, but I thought we were trying to get you some extra skills in your unified unit. If you want to keep two accounting clerks, but we aren't giving you a higher level of persons. But I'm not going through related to a fifth person unless I'm also going to open up that same discussion with the county clerk, and gosh knows how many other positions that are also struggling to try and meet with their additional workload. I'm willing to be creative and I appreciate ms. Patera's ability to get through, but I'm not going to go to an extra person unless I'm also willing to discuss that with every other department within Travis County and it is challenging.
>> that's why I would rather, you know, I move that we approve the reorg as presented today.
>> I second that, Commissioner. And with this aspect, I'm really concerned about where we are, will the auditor really have an opportunity to certify some of these things that have been passed down from the state as far as the manual tracking opposed to out mated tracking. -- to automated tracking. The time [inaudible]. So I can second this if it's leading into the direction of better automated, the possibility of persons being apprise of where we are trying to go and that is for full-fledged automation tracking these particular actions as they come in regardless what comes down from the state level. We ought to be able to solve it.
>> I can rest you assured that we want to be as fully streamlined and fully automated as is possible so that it stream lines everyone's operations and keeps the revenue where it belongs. And since I'm one of the ones whose report is now 12 days late, I would ask that you vote today.
>> judge, as part of the motion , are we looking at the personnel amendments as well?
>> you told me item 12, 17 and 29.
>> motion is to approve this item.
>> there are personnel amendments and there are also budget --
>> this reorganization, I take it, is intended to enable us to go back to the uniformity we had before we kind of created the two account ants and divided jps and constables into two groups basically. So we think four people working this way will promote efficiency, make us a lot more effective, enable us to timely file require -- if not finally file reports, at least file them more timely than we used to.
>> it's coming up in the district courts and the civil and then the jp dz and constables. So hopefully all systems have bugs, this one will too, I'm sure, but by the time we get to the jps and constables, we're hoping facts will in fact suit their needs. It wouldn't surprise me if it has to be tweaked and some little adjustments and with new legislation. But we believe this is the most efficient use of dollars as well as really upgrading the quality of the data. Everyone wants conclusions drawn from data, but you can only really draw valid conclusions if the data is kept in the same way and is comparable and consistent. Then you can use it to draw valid conclusions. So it is my opinion that this reorg is the step to do that.
>> that's why it makes sense to me initially. It does seem to me, though, that we probably ought to see this in place, try to get facts implemented and give ourselves an opportunity to see the impact of that and then deal with it.
>> right.
>> now, at the same time, at some point in '04 we will need the task force or a task force to sit with you all and discussion collections.
>> yes, and i've seen a couple of things that cause me to want to discuss that as well. From an agenda item to various other departmental budgets.
>> but all we've done so far is mention the possibility. We were presented information that showed other counties that really had beefed you up the effort really focused on collecting constable and jp fines in other parts of the state really had achieved dramatic results.
>> right.
>> and I told judge evans when he and I chatted real briefly a couple days ago, we just talk about the possibility in general terms. We know at some point a task force needs to sit with you all and work out specifics.
>> correct.
>> and it may well be that we don't need to change much, we just need to change some things because results aren't as good as they should be.
>> as you well know, my court has beefed up its revenue generations simply through the omni and some other stuff that we've been doing, but there are other avenues that we can pursue and there are other items that we can pursue, i.e. Bond for teu forfeitures. But in order for us to get to any point where we can add a significant program, we have to be able to account for revenues that we already have. I mean my court sort of rock and rolls all day and it's scary to me when, you know, i've got all these reports and i've got to make sure that they are accurate because, you know, the jps are personally liable for all this stuff. So accounting is a significant function to our courts. And it's a very important aspect of our comfortability, shall we say, with our own operations. And so I appreciate all the efforts that susan has put into trying to help us with this program, and constable van for running all over the county trying to get people participating, and I'm sure linda had something to do with it over there as well as all of you all. And I would be willing to serve on any kind of task force that talks about that. Like I said, i've already put a list of questions about like that long to talk about aoeut
>> it does seem to be we need to do whatever to set forth the automation and if we don't start out we'll never get it done.
>> quite honestly, there's always the temptation to say, you know, go while the going is good, but we won't know until after we do this legislative stuff and find out what these changes mean in terms of breakout of revenues. We do know that a lot of the cost and fines and fees have been pushed down, as you all well know from your legislative impacts as well. So we just sort of have to deal with that as it comes and address the issues as they appear in the ways that they can.
>> the motion is to approve the recommendation. Any objection from any jp or constable's office? We have put -- we'll put our heads together after the budget process and really --
>> I do want to mention that because we do have you all here and this is not very often, and that is what we talked about last week is I think we would also be well serve to do have the same budget analyst handling the jps and the constables and for those things to be teams together related to revenues because that way you don't have the issues of, well, we did the work, but it's collected and accredited to this office. Look at a team approach, but also have the same analysts so there's a clear understanding that this is a team effort to make this stuff.
>> correct. That's one reason why constable van and I in particular wanted to reunite our books because it's difficult for us to do our budget preparations in anticipation of the officers' needs. And those discussions are certainly enhanced when we have the same data and can have the same person go pull the data using the information that we need. So thank you all very much.
>> thank you.
>> thank you all.
>> any more discussion of the motion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
Last Modified: Wednesday, August 13, 2003 7:52 AM