Travis County Commssioners Court
May 11, 2004
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Item 21
[One moment, please, for change in captioners]
...as you know r of 2003, our request for applications was released through Austin Travis County health and human services department for hiv related services for the dollars that both the city and county contributed to hiv services. The focus of it was to try to increase the focus of those funds on evidence of aids prevention and education and outreach activities while retaining some of the key direct services that had been done in the past. The result of the initial recommendations by staff were presented to the city council, and in February of 2004 the city council in fact modified the staff's recommendations because of the impact that the initial recommendations for -- for having on the direct -- for having on direct services. The recommendation from city council essentially included reallocating dollars that were supposed to be spent for an awareness campaign back in to direct services. I've worked with the city of Austin staff as well as a couple of the impacted agencies and the hiv service arena, and I think that we're able to come to you with the recommendation that in holding true to the spirit of what the Austin city council was doing as well as fill in some of the gaps that the staff were trying to fill in and trying to refocus some of the current dollars and in the rfa. I've concluded, and this is my opinion, that it was pretty challenging for the staff to try to change some of the directions and increase the amount of activity for preventive services without allocating additional dollars to the pool. I think it was also admirable of the staff to try to get a generalized information and referral service for the community that was actually integrated with the other information and referral services. And I知 actually referring to the united way's 211 program. At several meetings with the staff and the aids services organizations, I知 coming forward to you with the following recommendations: and that is that we -- it's page 3 of the memo that I sent you. And that is for the county contracts that we go forward with developing a contract with united way for $20,000 using one-time dollars. That we also contract with the wright house wellness center for case management for a nine-month period for $52,500. That would be analyzed to $70,000 annually. And that aids services of Austin be awarded a contract that totals an amount of $361,939 for case management as well as other services. One of the initial problems with the -- concerning aids services of Austin as it was initially presented to the city of Austin city council was that the services that were labeled information and referral was actually misdefined. Essentially the services provided by aids services of Austin information and referral consisted of what I would call intake, assessment as well as continuum of services. And the director of aids services of Austin is certainly in agreement with that. What we are doing with the new contract that will be developed is to ensure that we have a proper definition of services that will be provided by that organization. The impact also, what I知 recommending, the aids manage -- case management services for white house would actually increase our contribution for hiv services in this community. It will increase our match -- I remind you that the county or the city hasn't really had an increase in general fund dollars to hiv related services for several years. Also with this, and it's not necessarily a recommendation to you, but it's something that I had planned to work with a couple of the aids services organizations to do. And that is to -- for them to form a dlab ra active effort or -- collaborative effort or a partnership to develop an awareness campaign that would be community wide, and also cover a multitude of cultures to ensure that the awareness and outreach efforts are effective. And the goal there would be to ask those agencies to really rely on pro bone know efforts in order to do that. And so what we won't do would be to experience a decreased amount of direct services for the sake of redemption. I think it is always a challenge in this field when you're trying to increase your prevention efforts when the demand for direct services is still creeping up. We're able to do this because we have some ongoing social services contract dollars within the social services line item to contribute to this cause. There were some dollars that were left over from the old contract that we're using towards this.
>> can you answer this for me? So we could fund the recommendations for the county for approval of your current budget, so that budget needs to be augmented by how much in '05 for attenuation -- con situation of the current level?
>> owe continuation.
>> the answer is only $20,000 because the united way capital area 211 program is one-time dollars. What I was trying to do with this recommendation is to award using one-time dollars for ongoing services.
>> we need $20,000 for 2005?
>> yes, for 211.
>> and that is taking into account monies that a defunct seco would have gotten?
>> I think that is the primary source for those dollars.
>> but even after using those fund we need another 20,000.
>> yes, just another 20,000.
>> well, I知 going to encourage everybody to support this. This is one of those situations where the first round of very good work, our city and county staff working together with the hiv service community, it didn't get a lot of the desired results, and there were a lot of things related to ambiguity that were still out there. So going back to the drawing board in terms of let's get our heads together, I think what stephen has laid out here leaves out that ambiguity of things that were being called information and referral, but the reality is it was really case management. So when all of a sudden information and referral dollars were going to go in a different way for information and referral, it really was upsetting what had been going on there related to essential direct services on case management and assessment. This clearly defines who does what. It also brings in and bolsters and recognizes the excellent efforts of not only aids services of Austin, but the wright house, which if you haven't been over there, it's a wonderful organization that also has a different kind of a reach out into the community. This gets us back into the information and referral and bolstering for one-time monies and the 211 and the partnership with united way. And I think -- this is something that councilmember alvarez brought up when this was brought over at the city council. Is that if you're trying to leverage in the community pro bone know dollars to try and do more good things in the community, it is going to be much easier to find pro bono efforts in the area of public relations, advertising, those kind of things that go with an awareness campaign where you are not going to find pro bono in terms of food pantries. So this puts our dollars where they need to be in terms of direct services and says let us leverage what we know is out there in terms of interest and support of the community of pro bono things that are going to be much easier for us to get -- try and figure out some innovative campaigns there. And again, stephen has used old social service dollars and minimized as best he could any kind of ramping up of this particular budget related to next year to continue.
>> I知 in support of the recommendation. One is that I think this has taken forever. Irngs yes, it has.
>> but I think i'd like my position on the record to show that in my view the city council's rejection of staff's recommendation was not a good idea. I didn't see the justification, don't understand it, probably would not anyway. And what we're doing today is sort of cleaning up. That's my take on it. And it's costing us additional dollars to do it, but it's in an area where we probably ought to spend additional dollars anyway. It is not the Commissioner court, city council partnership that I would like to see, but at the same time I don't know that third parties ought to be victimized because of our inability to collaborate at the optimal level. So I知 supporting this. I think it should have been here three, four, five months ago and I said as much three or four months ago at a community action meeting. At that point staff had been working for months. I知 in support.
>> second. I move approval of the --
>> any more discussion? Anybody here to testify against this recommendation?
>> I just wanted to publicly thank lee mattford because one of the things I asked them to consider was a reduction in funds in order to make this happen. And he was willing to do that. And i've worked really closely with shante of the wright house and I知 hoping to at least encourage them to form that dlab ration that we talked about earlier.
>> and many outstanding collaborators, stephen. I知 not sure the city council and Commissioners court were two.
>> I didn't say all. [ laughter ]
>> enough about the lack of what collaboration with the third parties. Anything further? All in favor of the motion. That passes by unanimous vote. Thank you for your outstanding work.
Last Modified: Wednesday, May 12, 2004 7:23 AM