Travis County Commssioners Court
August 26, 2003
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Item 30
We indicated this morning that we would call up at about 1:40 item number 30, which is receive report from Travis County after-school network, tcan, regarding afterschool proposal for Travis County collaborative. Good afternoon. We've got five chairs. We can at another if we need to.
>> > good afternoon. I'm anna layer, chairman of the after school network. Have I other representatives from the Travis County afterschool network.
>> shirlene justice, Austin school district and member of tcan.
>> Karen hunt with the ywca greater Austin, also a member of tcan.
>> dave martin, executive director of boys and girls you club of capital area and member of tcan.
>> we have a power point presentation I believe is going to be put up. This was a presentation that talked about our mapping stud that I we just completed on Travis County. If you can get that up. Great. Thank you. First we wanted to give you a couple reasons why we think after school is important to you and to the community at large. The hours that we know about in after school, which we consider out of school time generally to be 3:00 to 6:00 p.m. When school is in session and then, you know, the 8:00 to 5:00 during the summer break and winter break is when we consider out of school time. Specifically the time between 3:00 and 6:00 when school is in session, juvenile crime trip else and children have a seven times greater chance of being a victim of a violent crime. Children are also during this time twice as likely to engage in experimentation with tobacco, alcohol, drugs and sex. On the other side of that coin, we know that after school works. Youths in after school are two times less likely to use drugs or drink alcohol. They are 35% less likely to become gulf offenders, children who are in -- juvenile. 35% less likely to become teen parents. Children have improved school attendance and do better with their homework. They turn it in more often and it is -- they get better grades. They also show better achievement on tests in math, reading and other subjects. We know after school is working here and around the country. This spring tcan determined what is going on in out of school times. Specifically the types of services that are being provided to our youth during this time, the number of youth being served, and the ages that are being served. The times of day and year when service are abundant or when they are lacking. The ability for families and their children to access these programs. And also gaps and overlapse in services so that we can better strategically plan how we can serve all the children in Travis County. The zip codes that we studied were the ones that were according to aisd the lowest income zip codes in Austin. According to those children that were 40% more of the children in the school district in that zip code received free or reduced lunch. That's how we determined the poverty line for this study and the kids we were going to study. The most significant thing that we found from this study was that we are only serving 30% of the youth, the school-aged youth in those zip codes. According to aisd, there are around 48,000 children in those zip codes so that means 33,000, almost 34,000 youth are not being served in those zip codes surveyed. 70%. We found even more profoundly was that middle school and teens in those zip codes have even fewer options. So you have a small percentage of the pie that's being served and even smaller percentage of teens and middle school kids have access. Only 62% of the providers that we study serve adolescents, and of the providers that do provide services to middle school kids, only one-third have specific programs or specific hours. So we really need to focus on middle school children. Specifically we believe the middle school child is at great risk both for dropout and other risky behaviors. We're doing a fairly good job with the providers that are serving the elementary schools, but we really need to focus more attention on the middle school and teen population. So what our bottom line is is that we need more out of school opportunity for all youth. Again, we are only serving 30%, but we specifically want to focus on programs that serve adolescents, programs that are affordable to all youth, and programs that serve underserved zip codes. Specifically the ones that we studied. This is the recommendation from the Travis County after school network which is a collaboration of after school providers public and private that have come together to put this recommendation together. We would like to recommend the community fund a three-year program for out of school care in Travis County. I want to stress this the year-round care we are recommending. Those in the school year and also during the summer. We feel that's very important. We recommend there's an r.f.p. Process that uses tcan died guidelines for affordable, quality care. We would also recommend this program expand to low service youth. We're asking money be provided to serve more youth, not to go ahead and give money to a current operating budget. So we want to serve more kids with that money, not duplicate services. We also recommend it's very important this is a collaboration of different programs so the r.f.p. Include different organizations coming together to solve the problem to serve high-risk youth, and it includes a planned measurable evaluation as part of the plan. This is an example on the next slide of what we might think program evaluation would include. To increase academic achievement, to increase school attendance, to increase positive attitudes and behaviors, and to degrees youthful delinquency and there's several ways we can do that and those are outlined in that slide as well. Another one of the four parts that we mentioned a moment ago was affordable, quality care. And these bullets on these next two slides kind of talk about what we as a group think that looks like. First of all, we think there should be a coverage of care for all of these 13 three hours a day Monday through Friday. And during the summertime we want that to be expand to do six hours a day, five days a week. We think that's our goal. We would rather serve a group of children during the full time than serve more children perhaps in just a slot or two a day. A week, excuse me. We also think it's important that these programs maintain a staff ratio of one adult to every 20 children or better. We think that there should be a broad range of programs which include academics, character development, health and safety, physical activities, arts and life skills. This is where the khrab rakes collaboration becomes important. We think working through a collaboration we can do a better job of targeting specific needs of some children. Some children are doing great in schools and they may need more of a safe haven. Other children need targeted academic and/or character development. That's where the collaboration becomes very important. As a group we can do that. Also we think that each of these organizations involved should have a governing body that oversees each of these programs. Most of them have a board of directors. The second slide, about what we consider the quality care. There should be a removal of any socioeconomic barriers to attendance or participation. That could include the service fees, it could be something as simple as transportation. Formalized evaluation mechanisms. It's important each of the organizations have their own method of evaluating the program. An annual formal independent assessment of the counties. These programs should offer programs to a broad and diverse range of school-aged youth. That's very important. We're talking about after-school providers as opposed to day care. Again, another bullet would be background checks for all staff and program volunteers, and finally, I think this is very important. If we're asking for a three-year plan, it's important there r.f.p. Talk about a plan to sustain built after that ends. What are they going to do in terms of having the community support them and make sure these children continue to get covered. What will it cost? We recommend a funding of $440 per child per year. I would like to point out that this is below national average of $800 a year. And the reason we think we can do this for less is because we are expanding services, we have programs that have already proven to be -- to have success, and also I think it's the magic of the collaboration that really makes in a possible. By banding together, we think we can do this for 440 a child per year. That's full coverage and summer programs. We r-pl the funding programs serve children between the ages of 10 and 12 specifically within the zip codes studied. We don't know what that looks like, depending on what funding opportunity you decide we can have, it may be a certain zip code or it may be a couple. But the area of coverage would be within the zip codes that we studied.
>> that was the middle school age stphes.
>> programs that serve the middle age schools in those 12 zip codes.
>> right. But students in this age group should be in middle school.
>> yes. Uh-huh. Some junior high. I have outlined according to that 440 what we think those funding opportunities might look like. For 1.75 million per year, we could serve up to -- we could serve 4,000 children. 1 million gives us about 2200 children. Half a million per year, we could serve a little over a thousand. And for 330,000, we could serve 750 children per year. Again, that 1.75 serving 4,000, remember, we have 33,000 children that we need to serve total. So it does sound like a lot that we're asking for, especially over a three-year period, but we think this is important to remember that we can serve all of these children and get more children off the streets. And with the three-year plan we have a chance to evaluate our program to see if we really have made a difference in the programs we are trying to study. Do we decrease juvenile crime? Are we improving kids' grades? And are we making a difference in the new kids we're serving. We would also like to point out kind of the risk factors about these children make them more likely to engage in juvenile crime, be victims of kraeupl and even game in behaviors we may need to later. One study that kind out from an organization nationally of sheriffs and parents said that for every dollar that we put into afterschool care, we'll save $4 in terms of fighting crime and the cost of society even if only a percentage of those kids we don't serve commit crimes, there's still the cost to society is four times greater. So, you know, obviously we see that as an investment we can make to save money for the community later on in terms of tax dollars. And nationally, we haven't studied this so much in Travis County, but nationally other communities have actually saved money and measured that. But it is an investment that saves money for the community. San diego and l.a. Come to mind as two communities that have proven that. Here's sort of a sample budget if you wanted to know where the costs were going based on the $1.7 million opportunity. Most of the money goes towards program staff and making sure each of the children has focused attention and, again, materials and supplies. You will see also that we -- have addressed transportation which we do think is one of the barriers to a lot of children participating in programs. They simply cannot get to them even if they can afford them. That's our presentation. We're open to any questions you might have to any member of the group.
>> i'll wait. In terms of which folks to potentially serve, you looked at going with low-income zip codes, that kind of information. Have you been able to independently overlay with who we know for sure is in our gardner betts facility? That is with -- everything related to who that person is is to get a printout list of their home zip codes to kind of independently validate of kids we know that have gotten into trouble, are they coming from these same areas or not?
>> we have not done that survey. I think that would be very interesting to do.
>> yeah, because I hate to make the assumption that just because you are low income means that you are destined for crime. I think we just need to get some independent verification that that indeed is where those resources ought to be. And we know who is in gardner betts.
>> yeah, we should be able to get that information.
>> I think it's just a good reality check that this is where the kids and the schools, we know who they are. Second thing, have we -- and I know we have, steven, how does this compare to the cost of expanding our very excellent after-school program which is called capital 4-h, which is in our elementary schools, it can go into our middle schools. It's extraordinarily successful program and could be expand to do many of these exact same schools, I think at a far lower cost.
>> actually I see this as a continuum with 4-h really looking at elementary school kids. I think that is important to have an intervention at the middle school level to continue to work [inaudible]. First question, a lot of the zip codes that they are looking at targeting do overlap. When we talk about certain demographics concerning juvenile crime and other things like dropout. So there is an overlap. As a matter of fact, we find that when we're dealing with a lot of [inaudible] in health and human services, whether we're talking about adults or juveniles, pretty much the zip codes [inaudible].
>> in terms of dealing with 4-h and specially with their animal science program, if you teach a kid how to care for an animal, they get it related to being nicer to human beings. And we've seen incredible results. And a lot of that is happening not just in our elementary schools, but programs that continue on to anything from bowie high school to lanier in our urban high schools as well.
>> I would like to kind of let char lean and dave answer that more fully because I believe we are all fans of that program and think that would be a good thing. I think that also we need to talk about all the children, though. And some children do not necessarily do well in a school-based program. If we really are talking about children most at risk, I would like charlene and maybe dave to address that.
>> well, lillian getters is a member of the Travis County after-school network, and we would definitely bring 4-h into this collaborative effort. We have 4-h -- and you are right, I mean, we use 4-h to the extent they can be used. We would have them in our schools five days a week. But they can only stretch their dollars so far as well. And I think they are a wonderful program. And I do think they need to be brought into this collaborative. They do some amazing things with children. But they are also the type of program that goes to a site and brings their wonderful things to schools. They come to [inaudible], I don't know if you have a partnership with 4-h or not. But -- so we would love to see them involved in the collaborative effort. I also want to point out to you in this report, page 5, we did have some juvenile crime referrals statistics on here. And one of the things that we're so excited about working with the county is because that actually allows us to have a partnership with the juvenile justice people. So that we can target the kids that are in gardner betts or at risk of going to gardner betts, the ones that got out of gardner betts so we can target those children and make sure they get in a program. That's what's so exciting about being involved with the county is that we have that information available to us.
>> touching base on your second question, I think honest point is -- anna's point is valid. Boys and girls club, we provide opportunities for the kids and facility obeys -td programs that are outside of the public schools. There's a fair number of these kids when the school bell rings at the end of the day, some may attend an after-school campus and some may say absolutely not, I'm leaving school. And that's okay. Boys and girls club, ywca, the heart houses, we need to be there to get the kids not interested on staying on the school campuses for after school programs. The other side going back to your first question, I believe you are going to find there are a large number of kids who tend to make it to the juvenile justice system from these 12 zip codes. More importantly is the statistic that doesn't show up and that's always that yes, a small percentage of the children we will divert into after-school programs, we're diverting from the juvenile justice system. A large number of kids might also end up being victims of crime and we're also interested in getting them a safe haven.
>> another thing we don't have anything here in terms of school districts outside the city of Austin. And that disturbs me greatly in terms of the del valle school district, Pflugerville. There are other schools that have issues besides aisd. I appreciate you all's focus, but that is not the full scope of what is problem is.
>> agreed. The study did include some areas --
>> we did survey all of the schools that were in Travis County and del valle, manor and Pflugerville. And -- that were in these zip codes. And basically there is a huge gap of services in the rural areas of Travis County, and we recognize that. And once again, the people on this list, it is not an exclusive list of the people that will be brought into this collaborative. We plan on being very inclusive. And one of the first things that we'll do is exact the people that work in -- contact the people that work this those schools that have those kids. Mostly this is the information that we had available to us.
>> any idea too, I may have mentioned this to steven, was to try to do something on a pilot basis. It's kind of hard to take on all of the school district at one time. The other things that I did chat with judge meuer and in her opinion is kind of this age group that we ought to try to help. The other thing I was thinking was that if we can do some good with this age group before they are introduced to gardner betts, the money would be better spent here than gardner betts. So there are a whole lot of things I was hoping, you know, I would look at and this is a lot of it. The other thing is you all have been in this business for years, and even if we were to basically help put a pilot program in place, you would continue to do your thing. So this would just be an addition of what's in our community already. But it's our realization that we're not covering enough of these young people that really drives the effort to try to expand things.
>> yes.
>> i've got three of the toughest questions. Has anyone done a program evaluation of the dollars the city, county and school district are already investing in other kinds of after-school programs? Is anybody willing to say, you know what, we think some of these dollars are better spent in this way rather than that way?
>> I'm not sure I understand the question.
>> where are you spending money after school. Is somebody willing to say you know what, that's not really a good use of that money. It would be better to pull those dollars and pool those dollars and apply it towards what you are talking about.
>> you are talking about a collaboration or an individual --
>> [inaudible].
>> just speaking from an accounting perspective, it's really been our practice and I actually shared with this group that the only after-school program that I would actually promote would be 4-m [inaudible].
>> absolutely.
>> up to this point.
>> would be what?
>> I said up to this point was 4-h council. It wasn't until we started to look at the broader issue of after-school programming, and I did work with them to look at some of the criteria that would sway me to actually be supportive of another effort. Because this program -- their proposal actually targets middle school students, which I think is important. I'm there with them on it. I think that it would be worthwhile to start looking at this issue from a continuum standpoint as I said earlier, certainly if we're talking about elementary school kids, you know where I am as far as [inaudible] assuring once those kids go to middle school or to high school, there is some after school available for them. In addition to the moneys that we put into 4-h, the only other place that would really fit in this category is our work based learning or some -- [inaudible]. This pretty much somewhat of a county-wide.
>> tough question number 2. City of Austin, aisd, how much are they proposing to throw into this venture? New money.
>> I can't speak pore the city.
>> we already know they are cutting health and human services by outrageous amounts. I already know the answer, but it's the school districts and the city of Austin bring in money to this proposition.
>> I don't know the exact dollar amount, but actually the aisd contract is supposed to get I think [inaudible] which would impact -- we know what's going to happen. It would in fact impact after-school programs if it goes through as proposed.
>> yeah, and they just did the budget last night and they are going 30 million into reserves. That's how bad they are at aisd. So what proposed cuts have been made at aisd and the city of Austin in their after-school pard programs this is not going to be an issue too in trying to do good stuff, it is to try and stave off the deficit from those particular programs.
>> this proposal -- and correct me if I am wrong, my understanding that most of the after-school investment between the city of Austin and aisd actually goes into school -- after-school programs. What I see proposed here would tend to lend itself away from that setting because of the characteristics of middle school kids. I think what they've said earlier is quite correct in that with elementary school kids, I think having something that is more school based is fine because they love the experience. But as you get into middle school, of course attitudes change a little bit. And they are not necessarily as apt to want to stay in an environment as elementary school kids. What I see is opportunities for kids to really participate in after-school programming that is not necessarily school based. Which means that we really wouldn't be surplanting any investment in this proposal, we wouldn't be supplanting money that was reduce odd one side if those two invest in this proposal.
>> I would hard that -- find that hard to believe because they are December mating pard. That would be the next question, how many unduplicated tkeudz are we talking about. Are we talking about kids that have never been filled before or are we talking about kids that may be dumped out of a program at the city or aisd and we are not getting a net positive happening here?
>> you actually could be correct on that part. I was just -- my comments were actually focused on the after-school investment through health and human services. [inaudible].
>> and have you to remember that not all of the children that are being served now or even the largest percentage are being served by aisd. You've got programs all around the city. Not as many as we would like, but there is more community-based programs that we thought that were revealed with the study serving more kids. Those programs depend more on corporation, private donor and foundation support, which has also dried up, as you are well aware. But I think this is a way that the county could perhaps partner with other community investors to solve a bigger puzzle. We're asking simply for this part of it.
>> with that suggestion -- [inaudible].
>> the timing on this, if anybody has followed anybody's budget presentation, be it the city, county, school district, you know, it doesn't mean this is not well meaning, but the idea that somehow there is, you know, more than a million dollars over a three-year period to start something new and different no matter how wonderful it is, I don't think it's being realistic. What I'm looking for is something that truly is realistic in terms of a pilot. A pilot isn't a half a million dollars. A pilot is something much more modest. And you see if it does give you the impacts you desire. Not anecdotally, but real impacts. And you evaluate and go, hmmm, should we do this or not eye think there's an opportunity for us to go back and to look at where we have [inaudible] and mentoring, where we have [inaudible] in systems of care, wrap-around and to really follow up with something that is more targeted and more holistic as it comes to children and youth services. Which means that where we know those efforts are underway, we come back with after-school programming that would compliment some of those efforts.
>> this is my final question. For example, some of this had to do with trying to find something for the kids to do during the summertime. We have dollars set aside in summer youth employment. If somebody were to say we're going to take a really great effort to take those summer youth employment dollars and target them towards this target audience, you are utilizing existing resources and saying can we maximize how those dollars are being spent. That's not new dollars, it is being very focused and tying it in with your continuum of care to track them in a whole different ways, the same way we do with our healthy families group. That's my last question. Commissioner.
>> I just had a few questions. Steven, I would like to really know exactly as far as what Travis County spends per dollar amount on any of the programs that are addressing this age group that we are referring to today, between the ages of 14 and 16 years old. How much money are we really spending now? And also, are there interlocal agreements with anybody else that's been investing money to address the concerns of this particular age group whether it's after school, anything else. It would be really good to know how much we're spending.
>> okay.
>> so I would like to have that information.
>> I can answer part of that.
>> you don't have to give it to me right now. Number 2 is that it was mentioned do not duplicate services. Well, what are those services that will be duplicated? I think this is part of the presentation, yes, we're going to alleviate duplication of services. However, what services are we talking about duplicating?
>> that refers to we're not going to use money to -- we know all budgets are going down. It's not going to operating money that --
>> I understand. But what I'm trying to say is that the money is being focused on a service that is to be provided to whoever the recipient is, what that dedicated money for that particular service, sit a duplication of that.
>> it would be the same service, but more children. So for instance, it's just serving -- it's not duplicating the service that's already being given to those children.
>> and I understand what we're saying we're not going to duplicate services. That's what we're trying to get away from is duplication of service, which I don't know exactly what that all entails. Number 3 is that we -- let me give an example of what ymca is doing. There may be other entities out there doing a whole lot of stuff, but like for instance the ymca site on 51st, it's involved in some schools over there in the area that they provide after-school attention to youth. Again, I don't really know the full ramifications of what -- talking about county general in a sense and then maybe needs some specificity. But I guess if you are making an approach here, you are trying to be all encompassing, I'm not knocking what you are doing, I'm just needing to get it fine-tuned a little bit in my head to let me see what is going on here. We heard a very alarming and still disturbing to me information from judge meuer who is with our juvenile courts, gardner betts and things like that in Travis County. And we received some very sad news that was grant moneys that we were looking forward to receiving this year are not going to be there anymore. Like the drug court and things like that. And what is also alarming and really sad and almost make you want to tears come from your eyes is that the youth, there's been a big increase in our youth participation at gardner betts. Why is it all -- I guess we can speculate why there is such an increase, but I do know this, that the dollars to address such as the juvenile drug court and stuff like that, some of the grant money that we expected to get from the state is no longer there, is not going to be anymore. So I think of course we have to make a concerted and a very strong effort to be proactive to keep [inaudible] those positions of being in gardner betts and the juvenile crime they are participating in. This is a prime age group that I think we're looking at. So until I'm able to see something more defined where we are, I don't know exactly how many dollars we are spending right now, what's the involvement. I know we have wrap-around services here. We do have programs that we do have on the table right now that exist, you know, and until I see more defined possibilities here, it's kind of hard to go in a direction without more -- without better definition.
>> I need to have a lot of facts. I need to see what aisd's budget is going to be for this effort. These are children that attend more than likely the different school districts within Travis County. I would like to see what the city of Austin budget is going to look like, how it addresses some of the same concerns with the interlocals we have existing right now between all three of us. And of course I would like to see how much Travis County is spending up to date on serving these youth, young folks here in Travis County to -- in a preventive measure to make sure we don't have them at gardner betts. All of those things for me is going to have to surface and be placed on the table so I can have a clear picture on the things we need to do and the direction we need to go. If we're going to approach this as a comprehensive approach to address all the concerns of the youth in this community, that's the direction we need to go. If it proves itself. But otherwise until I get there to see where the money is and the commitment -- and I mean really do the commitment from these other government entities to come together with Travis County if that's what we decided to, then I'm going to have to reserve myself until positive information comes to me where I I can be convinced to go in that direction.
>> I have three or four things I would like to say. One is that during the 14 years i've been associated with county government, we have all bemoneyed the -- bemoaned is fact that the time when school let's out and the working parent gets home is so volatile and our young people are so vulnerable and we ought to do more. Two is that there is never a good time for a $1.7 million request. If this had come two years ago during the financial boom, you all would have heard from this court the same comments you are hearing today. If you had brought this two months ago, it wouldn't have been ready, I don't think, based on the information that was shared with me. So what you have -- this was posted last week and we took another week to generate more backup, but I thought it was more understandable by the five of us, but thank god you all gave us this voluminous document here that has more facts than you would need basically. But there is more detail here probably than the average person wants to know. Now, as to the need, it was established at least -- I'm 56 years old. At least 40 years ago because I started hearing it, in every community, and some communities have been bold enough to try to do something about it and I thought it's time for Travis County to stop talking about this problem and getting out there -- get out there and try ork on it. The other thing what we always complain about too is our school systems have such wonderful facilities that are pretty much abandoned when school lets out. Up to 6:00 or 7:00, and in the summer we wonder when you pass the school and it's empty why aren't we using the gymnasium, classrooms. So the if school district puts up the schools and facilities, and it seems to me that is good enough for contribution. What I was hoping we would get from the court today basically some buy-in for the concept and basically some indication that we're interested in doing something real positive on this. Commissioner Sonleitner did have an excellent idea, which I mentioned to steven and everybody else who has heard me talk about after-school programs, and that is we ought to identify programs that we think are not producing real good results and retkreblgt that funding into a pilot program like this to at least give this two or three years to operate. Now, when you do something like this, as you know, you hustle up as many partners as you can get. You will never get enough of them. On something like this if we are now hitting 30% of them and our goal is to put a dent in the other 70%, we cannot invest too much money. But it seems to me that any investment is better than no investment. And I don't know that it's fair for us to hinge this that city of Austin or any other governmental entity, fed, state, we wait on them, nothing will ever take place. What I have said, and I commit today to try to find funding if wgo the r.f.p. Route, you aree automatically talking about several months. I'm convinced that we can find dollars that we invest and maybe dollars that other partners invest in programs that we have never been happy with, maybe we have not had the political will power to take them on, and in my old age, I'm bolder now than I probably was 10, 15 years ago and I'm willing to get out there and point them out and say here's what I think we ought to do with this money because this is what I think is a better purpose. Obviously I don't have the authority to do that alone. But I did tell steven, I shared with steven here's how we get some help if the Commissioners court is on board. And [inaudible] I did expect to us have $1.7 million sitting aside waiting on this today. But we hope to look at it and say this is a pilot program big enough for to us help out, and what can Travis County do and when. Realizing the sooner the better. And that's what I was hoping for. If it's a good program, now is the time. If it ain't a good program, now is not the time. In my view. And I'm -- I don't know that we ought to sit around and wait for the economy to rebound because I'm mindful two or three years ago I knew of after-school programs. I attended a big ceremony at the capitol -- was that one year, two years ago? Two years ago. Before that there was another big celebration somewhere. Money wasn't flowing then, but it was flowing a whole lot better than it is today. So in terms of the wraoelt of the situation -- reality of the situation, if we are committed to try to implement something like this on a pilot basis, I'm willing to vest the time to try to come up with funding by identifying the sources and if we want to make the move in a timely manner, then we can. That's my view.
>> I'm absolutely with you there in terms of lets figure out what if anything we're already spending money on. Again, we're not there in terms of could the dollars be better used someplace else. If they are not willing to do it or someone else is not willing to do it, we need to make those tough decisions.
>> we need to do it ourselves with steven.
>> we're coming up on renewal of our social service contracts come January 1st. And you also get screaming, hollering and moaning and not necessarily in that order when somebody says we are going to choose to go a different direction. That's our right to say that. I would say what dollars do we want to put in addition to that. I would like to see us also explore fully any other creative ideas. I mean if aisd's contribution can be open up your gyms, that's a good thing. But I would also ask the city of Austin is it possible that the boys and girls club could be running their programs out of your facilities. In terms of utilizing their physical places when they are cutting a lot of their folks that work at the city of Austin with their pard programs. Can we get -- can we get creative thinking there. They are cutting their roving leader programs. I want to make sure we're not just stepping in and becoming that new source of the money when the reality is there are others that are doing theubgs r things that are detrimental to our after-school efforts. I want to see us see if we can maximize a program we always believe in which is the 4-h capitol program and work cooperative with aisd related to mentoring programs that are out there in terms of schools and to see if we can overlap after-school support with perhaps more adult volunteer support. Something that doesn't cost you any money in those schools during that same time period. Loot of us have decided to spend our hours over at allen elementary school. Well, if you couple mentoring programs with an after-school program, and perhaps they get the attention because they are in that zip code on other kinds of things, you begin to href rage the resources that are out there. So --
>> this is middle school. These were not randomly selected.
>> I know. And they are -- they need to be expanded because the list is way, way too limited.
>> well, if we do it on a pilot basis, I don't know that we can expand this number. But I don't have any problem with it. We want to pick up the full 70% on a pilot basis, i'll back that too. The funding challenge is much greater than we're looking at right now.
>> there are other schools -- > I guess my own feeling would be to figure out a way to deal with the food and the transportation. That ought to get us down to about a million dollars. Which is a whole lot lower than 1.7. I have no interest in fighting with the city of Austin, but I would bless pheu member of this court who wants to take that on. If I can commit to spend my time trying to raise the money, fine tune this pilot, let me work on that. And when you go down to the city of Austin and pick a fight or finish the fight, use my name in whatever way you want to. [laughter]
>> it's not about trying to pick a fight. It's just can we see if there's some dollars that we can redirect. And i'll tell you, I would be somebody to say you've got summer youth employment money. If we think there's a better way to have a youth summer program --
>> you have to be more creative.
>> I'm saying in terms of dollar amounts. I never thought the kids were getting that much out of the jobs.
>> if we say here's what the county is doing with its money and we recommend that do you the same thing with your money in the same program, that's the leadership I think we need. And in terms of city facilities, anyone that -- any ones that are available that we think can fit in this program, I think if we're out there showing we're 110% behind it, I see them as being super supportive.
>> that.
>> I see the city as being in the same place aisd is, cash poor and facilities rich. That might be the best way to utilize those resources. They've got the facilities. I love the boils and girls club, but they are spending a lot of money to build new facilities and the answer is we've got a lot of tkpwalts. Maybe it's some of those facilities get turned over to the boys and girls club to run their programs and other youth as well.
>> the boys and girls club, just to make sure the record is clear, our newest facility was built in 1952. We operate out of a church built in 1940. We rent space in a strip mall because it's close to the children. We agree, we're going where the kids are and try to get the kids in. The other thing I think is very important is as aisd makes cuts not only in after-school programs but in base curriculum, I think we need to look at after-school care because talking about a holistic approach to provides these kids with arts, physical education, this things they are not going to be getting much of.
>>
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>>
>> I need to know facts, I need to know thrar amounts. I need to know what services are we looking at? And I do know one of the remedies, latch key and a whole lot of other situations out there personally, which we get some of those situations established like at the elementary schools and a whole bunch of other systems over there where kids did have an opportunity to participate in after school programs and a lot of other things like that. It apparently worked. But again, I need data and I need information before I can move forward with this. I'm not going to do anything blindly until I get that information and see where we are as far as expenditures, how much money are we spending on programs, that are already on board, that we're already funding and also is there a duplication of services. That's what you don't want and I don't think we want that either because it was brought up in the presentation that we do not want to duplicate services. Again, all those things are challenges to me and it's information that I need to have. And -- before I can move forward. So steven, I would appreciate it if you could get us that information. But it does work as far as after school is concerned. It makes the measurements against what's going on in gardner-betts, it makes a decrease into that area and it's all well and fine and good, but it's a challenge. It really is a challenge for this community.
>> what time would it take for there to be firm work to come up with a very focused pilot in terms of what we're talking about, what zip code, what overlaps are going with other things we're doing, what new things we need to put in, what recycled dollars are out there. And most important, I think, how do we measure success. Because I think that's the thing that's driven me crazier than anything else is attendance doesn't count. We have not figured out a way to measure success. So we're real reluctant to yank dollars from one agency because they've fulfilled their can contract in terms of seeing folks, but how do we measure success? I'm wondering can that be accomplished in 30 days and come back before we adopt this budget of something specific on a pilot. Because there is one version of a pilot in here. But it's not as specific as I would hope. And I don't know what other agencies can be triggered in terms of being a partner here.
>> what I'm hearing is that you really want something that's very similar to how we propose healthy families.
>> that would be perfect.
>> zip codes, the capacity of that and what will be involved in that. I think we can do that in 30 30 days?
>> you can do that?
>> yes.
>> yeah, we're very committed to this, so I think we can do that.
>> can we pull that together, judge, in 30 days, and that would still be before the adoption of our budget? It would not preclude anything related to the can contracts of anything that needed to be moved around. And if we want to put -- set aside dollars to also add to the pot, I can be convinced to go there as well. But I just don't think we're ready to say bless this.
>> okay.
>> yes, ma'am.
>> I think we also need -- take that bold step. Where can we get the funds from and not keep carrying those -- [overlapping speakers].
>> if kids are not getting all that they can from a summer job, maybe this is something better.
>> I'm not there with y'all.
>> I think we need to be real open. I want to be open to every possibility.
>> and when you see what the city is doing related to its cuts. If they eliminate certain kinds of programs and we're the only ones left standing, we may choose to do our business in a different way.
>> I want to be open. I'm just asking you also to be open.
>> it's not one that I'm ever --
>> we don't know. We need to evaluate it.
>> I have already evaluated it. [overlapping speakers].
>> judge, I'm happy to spend whatever time you want me or don't want me to spend on this proposal.
>> i'll be glad to work -- [overlapping speakers].
>> is 30 days enough, steven?
>> we can do it in 30 days, three weeks, whatever you desire.
>> we'll try to fine tune it and bring it back.
>> give me those numbers, though.
>> i'll give you the numbers and meet with y'all.
>> thank you. I'm not precluding that 4-h is not a part of the bold after school --
>> you need something that's pretty comprehensive.
>> as we've been told, the only reason they have not expanded is because they don't have any more dollars to expand.
>> that's my understanding, and I'm not an expert on that. [overlapping speakers].
>> it would be good to see the zip codes that 4-h serves as well.
>> it's pretty much the same zip codes that are being proposed here.
>> see what lively conversation you stimulate.
>> we should say that 4-h is all over the county. You're talking about the capitol program, which pretty much concentrates central and east.
>> thank you folks.
>> I would like to thank y'all for letting us come here and also to invite you to the after school rally on October fourth at the capitowhere we will have kids from all over Travis County there celebrating their after school opportunity. And you're all invited. We loved to have you last year. It was a great convenient. The judge was there and it was a lot of fun. So we would like to invite you. It will be at 9:45 at the capitol on October fourth. You will get a more detailed information later. Yes, it's a Saturday.
>> remind us when it gets closer to the date.
>> I sure will.
>> thank you.
>> thank y'all very much. Appreciate it.
Last Modified: Wednesday, August 27, 2003 7:52 AM