Travis County Commssioners Court
December 9, 2003
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Item 9
Number 9 is easy, y'all. It is to consider and take appropriate action regarng Travis County health and human services and veterans services request to negotiate contract renewals with social services agencies that now meet audit requirements. Stephen, this is for the few who had audit issues before?
>> yes. We have three contractors who now meet our basic requirements, so what we're asking for is permission to move forward with negotiations of those contracts. We also have an additional five agencies who have not yet met our requirements. And what the second part of the request is is that you authorize me to move forward with negotiations with those other five once they have met those requirements without me having to come back and ask you since we're coming close to the end of the fiscal year, the contract year, which is December the 31st.
>> how close are we on the remaining five that you're going to continue negotiations on? Getting pretty close?
>> we have not even started negotiating with the five. My request is that we not negotiate with them unless they meet the basic requirements, which is to give us a clean audit.
>> and my next question is will the services that these five were providing, will there be a shortfall in the delivery of service?
>> if the contracts are not removed in -- if we do not have new contracts by December 31st, we do not have the authority to continue to provide reimbursements for these agencies. In the next couple of weeks I will do an assessment along with the city of what the impact on the community would be if we did not contract -- if we did not purchase services from these individual agencies. I was hopeful that all of the agencies would meet our minimal requirements, and so I hadn't really concentrated on that. What I will do, though, is do an update, and if you want me to bring that information to you before the end of the year --
>> I think bring it to us because if there's a void in delivery of services, we need to fill that void. I don't really want to see services curtailed if someone is holding those services up by not being able to come to the terms and conditions of in the negotiation process in which we are proceeding. So I'm kind of concerned about that.
>> move that we authorize stephen to negotiate with the top three because they have met audit requirements and give him authorization to start work wg the other five as soon as they have met the audit requirements. Let them know they are sort of on hold until they take care of the audit issues. Consistent with Commissioner Davis' request, I guess around the first of the year we need to know whether there is any of these who don't seem to be making satisfactory progress.
>> exactly.
>> because for the residents that they are serving, we may want to consider taking that funding and transferring it to another agency to make sure the needs are met.
>> yes, we have a couple of options in that regard. We could contract with another agency, we could put the agencies on a probationary status with an action plan to ensure that they meet our requirements within a certain time frame if they want those services to continue.
>> any more discussion? That motion is seconded by Commissioner Davis. All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Thank you, stephen.
Last Modified: Tuesday, December 10, 2003 6:44 AM