Travis County Commssioners Court
May 25, 2004
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Item 36
36 is to consider and take appropriate action in contract between domestic relations office, and office of attorney general through the domestic relations office to supervise those placed on committee of supervision, payment of child support, I previously heard a presentation on this as a member of the juvenile board and I thought the court should have it laid out. And can you give us a short explanation of it?
>> yes, judge, Commissioners, good morning. The attorney general currently, their child support division has 2,000 people on probation in Travis County for nonpayment of child support. The attorney general's office is limited by the legislatures to the number of fte's they can hire, so they are currently not supervising their probationers that are on community supervision but rather when they go delinquent on their payments are just taking them back to court for contempt. And it's really not working for them. They are contracting with counties, el paso, tarrant and harris and bexar county have these type of contracts with the attorney general's office. What they want us to do, they want to contract with us to supervise their probationers, and we believe by entering into this contract, that we would increase the overall collection of child support in Travis County and we would be seeing a group of fathers that we don't normally see in our office. They probably would be young, never married, they've had paternity established and probably have little experience in being a father. We currently have 175 -- well, almost 200 people on probation on our own cases here. Our collection rate on those cases is 87%. Which is pretty incredible for child support. So we feel like not only could we increase collections but we could give these fathers access to parenting skills, job search, counseling, financial planning, conflict resolution skills, substance abuse and addiction services. The ag is proposing to pay us $19.80 per case per month, which would more than cover our cost to supervise these probationers. And this court approved this contract back in November and we have been waiting for the juvenile board to approve it and they just approved it and judge Biscoe of course thought it would be appropriate, we do too, to bring it back to the court for a second approval on that.
>> the only possible delicate part is if we don't generate the projected revenue.
>> correct.
>> we would be stuck with the cost. But the safeguard against that is what? I mean if we find ourselves generating insufficient revenue to cover the cost, we conclude what the program is not working as expected, notify the ag...
>> cut it off.
>> ... And we have the ability to terminate it.
>> one of the things that we have proposed, judge, is we have proposed taking our current probation officer, he does other things other than probation, but really for a probation officer for child support, the average number of cases they can carry at any given time is about 300 cases. We're proposing that if you approve the contract today, we will immediately take 150 cases from the ag's office with no increase in staff. Our current probation administer will assume that -- probation officer will assume that. We will add three more employees next year, but we would add them over a period of time. Would start in November. Bring one employee on in November, one in February of '05 and another one in June of '05. So that we will be accumulating revenue to pay for these expenses. Anybody hired under this contract would be informed that this is a grant-funded position, should the money not be there, we would simply cancel the contract with the ag and we would have to let those employees go, which we are prepared to do. We don't intend for the county to bear any of the cost of this contract.
>> what you're saying, make sure I understand you, what you're saying the revenue that we generated from this program probably such that you can actually hired a additional help being actually payed from the revenue that is generated.
>> correct.
>> and what you're saying if at any time during the course of this program that the money falls off to the point where it cannot pay for these employees, you will have the opportunity or the out to actually eliminate those positions.
>> that's correct.
>> is that correct?
>> that's correct.
>> so we really -- okay.
>> yeah.
>> okay so... And that gives per se, though, where it's binding and there won't be a problem with that. And the ag understands that?
>> absolutely. Commissioner. They're paying us with federal money, this is not state money, so it does not depend upon an appropriation by the state legislature. It's federal monies.
>> it does depend on an appropriation by the federal government.
>> that's correct.
>> well I --
>> we should be cautious with both.
>> and I think this spokes volumes for the people that work for dro, the idea that we have a collection rate of 87%. I think that says a lot for local control of oversight coming from the managers and it really says we're going to keep an eye on this, and I think it speaks volumes about the state not putting in the resources it needs to to do a job that it's empowered to do.
>> the other counties have found the program to be successful as far as you know?
>> that is correct. They have found they consistently brought in more revenue than their expenses totalled and that they have been able in effect to raise the overall child support collection rate in their counties.
>> it's for those reasons that I move approval.
>> second.
>> anymore discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Thank you all very much.
Last Modified: Friday, May 26, 2004 7:00 PM