Travis County Commssioners Court
June 15, 2004
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Item 39
Item 39, consider and take appropriate action on request to create two detective positions to work cold aces in the Travis County sheriff's office during fiscal year '04.
>> good afternoon. Terry pick -ring with the sheriff's office. As soon as he finds a chair, sergeant stan roper who is immediate supervisor over our major crimes section. We're here today in regards to this agenda item which really deals with the proposal in which the sheriff's office is requesting additional f.t.e.s of the detective line to specifically work on what's commonly referred to as cold cases. These cases are essentially unsolved violent crimes, generally homicides that have occurred over the years. Our current staffing really doesn't afford us the opportunity to devote any time to these cases and we recently have received a lot of requests from the victims' families as far as reopening these cases, reexamining them. And looking for additional evidence through means of some of the technological advances in d.n.a. And such. Right now we're -- we have identified approximately 30 cases that we have received information on recently that we are certain need to be reopened and re-examined. There's also an additional 74 cases that have occurred over the past 30 years that we still need to take a look at and review and really don't have a determination as far as a case closure on them. And really that's pretty much it in a nutshell. We're just -- we're at our wit's end at trying to figure out ways to address the needs of the community and the families of these victims and our current staff is just inundated with current load and it makes it difficult to go back and review a case and only be able to spend 15 or 20 minutes on it and have to put it aside for a few days while you work on a current case. So we're asking for two additional detectives, and I did provide some cost analysis on that in your attachments to the proposal. And i'll take any questions from there.
>> I have a couple of questions.
>> yes, sir.
>> if the court decides to look at two new f.t.e. Staffing positions to [indiscernible] cold cases, would they be filled from inside of your department, existing personnel department that you have currently or would those positions be filled from outside sources?
>> well, the actual new ones would be filled from within existing positions and then obviously there's a backfill -- backfill from there. But because of the very specialized work that needs to be done, I mean these need to be experienced detectives with some specialized skills and abilities that generally they gain not only through training but just through experience in working these particular types of cases. So it's not something that we can just, you know, pick someone and say here, go work these cases. We need to -- we're going to have to select current detectives who are familiar with working major homicide or major violent crimes cases, have some experience behind them and know the key things to be looking for and how to analyze evidence and such. So yes, these people will be selected from our current staff, but obviously once we move those in, then there's kind of a backfill process that ultimately takes place.
>> and I guess and have looked at the backup here, I知 wondering, have you all anticipated on how you may can fund these positions internally coming into this particular budget cycle this year. Maybe the remainder of '04, maybe if that's what the court decides to do, but then we're looking at the '05 budget and of course requesting if there is any opportunity for you to visit at how to fund these positions internally?
>> Commissioner, we've already done that. If you will look at your proposal, we're already proposing that the sheriff's office find some of the funding internally. We're just not able to find all of it. Just over the years we just made so many cuts in resources and budget, we're scraping the bottom of the barrel now. And like I said, we are able to come up with some moneys to off set the total cost of the program, but not the entire cost of the program.
>> what was the -- I guess I need to ask what was the amount of money that the two positions were created this year -- what were the resources -- sources of that money revenue to come from to finish out fiscal year '04?
>> the salaries and benefits?
>> the total amount. 77-some-odd- thousand dollars.
>> that's the thing sorely lack ing is a memo from p.b.o. Analyzing the validity of these numbers and any recommendations or suggestions on what are the potential sources of funding.
>> I mentioned p.b.o. Awhile ago and they didn't move. Did you see how they both jumped?
>> it's the middle microphone.
>> I知 hurt. No, but really, I know these numbers have been floating around and we do have a need for this, but I知 looking on also how do we fund it. And we're going through a budget cycle, as you know, we just spoke with some folks here earlier with h.r., For example, looking for ways we can maybe look at a wellness program, but --
>> Commissioner, I fully understand it's pretty unusual to come in at this time of the budget year and be asking for additional f.t.e.s, but I hope you realize the importance of it and i'll let dale or leroy address the --
>> someone address that as far as looking at this fiscal year and then going into the budget cycle. Where are we after you guys analyze this stuff?
>> for f.y. '04, we believe the sheriff's office has sufficient internal funding to fund these positions with the court's permission to move some funds around internally within their existing budget because there's some capital requirements in this. And however, for f.y. '05, you would need to probably increase or increase the target amount or the amount for f.y. '05 for these positions. You would have to --
>> for a total of about $155,000 is what our --
>> so that is the amount?
>> for f.y. '05 is.
>> leroy, what was that figure again?
>> 155,000.
>> 155,000.
>> rounded.
>> okay, because I知 hearing different numbers.
>> by then we'll also know how well the team is working. Are they solving problems or cases or, you know, let's say that you still utilize all of the new technology and you are still not able to solve cases for the families and we'll know a little bit more by budget time.
>> right, and Commissioners, there's no guarantee that, you know, even utilizing all of the available technologies it's going to fully solve the crime, but the other thing that we will be able to accomplish is to at least have a more of a permanent record of what -- what investigative analysis has been done. And, you know, we're looking right now at a case from 1974 that, you know, a lot of documents are just little scraps of paper with notes on them and they've all been thrown in a box and stored and the varmints have gotten to them and so we're really hoping, you know, to make sure we have a better record of what has been done on these cases and at least be able to go back and make sure that everything that is -- could possibly be done has been done on them.
>> well, how much would it -- and I guess I知 trying to look at something that will get us through '04, and if it's internal money within the department for the rest of the duration of '04, what is that real number? Now, I have 77-some-odd thousand --
>> the amount is the amount they have set for, the 77,000.
>> the 77,000 is the official number?
>> yes.
>> for the remainder of '04.
>> dick, are you all in agreement that you can find the 52077.31 internally related to the personnel piece of this in addition to the 1910 simply for the remainder of this fiscal year?
>> I don't know that I知 in agreement, and I say that because I知 sure bill and leroy probably have been looking at other budgets within the sheriff's office and, as you mention, maybe some capital projects or something that maybe I wasn't aware of, but I mean looking within my own law enforcement bureau budget, I can tell you I don't have that much money -- I知 not going to have that much of a balance.
>> he is correct in that regard. There is -- it is fairly tight in the law enforcement group and -- however, there are savings in other areas of the department.
>> that you can look at?
>> and that would require a budget adjustment, of course.
>> is that something that the sheriff would consider to be an acceptable kind of -- i'll call it compromise, is that if it can be authorized on a pilot basis using internal funds for the remainder of fiscal '04 and then the full year-long funding gets rolled inappropriately related to our budget conversation so that permanent moneys can be added appropriately for the permanent establishment of this? Is that kind of a compromise position? Because it is going to take you x amount of time to set the office up, that even if you wanted to begin tomorrow morning at 8:00 a.m., You are not going to be able to do that.
>> right.
>> that kind of gives you some time to kind of get it organized and then it appropriately gets rolled into a budget request related to -- there will be a number of requests coming from this department and others. You know, I intend to give this like extraordinarily serious consideration because it is a big deal. But this late into the budget process, it seems like that is kind of the measure that we leave to other departments that if you can figure out how to do this on a pilot basis using your internal funds and still meet all your targets, that that's something that we ought to do and encourage people to do. And then we evaluate how we're doing and then decide the merits of moving forward or not. That would be after-school programs. Then there are other things we have done that are wonderfully great programs, but we haven't processed them into the budget process.
>> I知 pretty confident the sheriff would be willing to do that and very probably just be a matter of myself and bill sitting down and taking a look at things and see exactly specifically where we can come up with the money from in order to take care of it for the remainder of this fiscal year.
>> well, i'll put that in the form of a motion that item number 39 be authorized on a pilot basis, strictly using internal funds of the sheriff's office and that they work cooperatively with p.b.o. To identify those dollars and that this item be rolled forward through the budgetary process related to the permanent funding of these two new detective slots. But for right now we would authorize the creation of two new f.t.e.s using internal funds for the remainder of '04.
>> second.
>> it's been moved and seconded. Obviously questions. Gerald.
>> heaven help us if the chamber of commerce found out we were spending money this foolishly. We would probably get called on the carpet over this. But, you know, that being the case, let me understand something. Do we not have anyone thousand that does this kind of investigation? I mean we do have people that do this. We're talking about wanting more people, right?
>> well, we have -- right now we have four what we call major crimes investigators and all homicides and classify a homicide as any unexplained death. They also work all the sexual assaults, robberies, kidnappings, et cetera. They do try and work on these cold cases as time permits. It's just our -- with our current active cases coming in, it just doesn't afford them time to really sit down and concentrate on it. Like I said before, it's real difficult to pick up something and try and piece it all together and study it and analyze it and comprehend it and then a few minutes later have to put it aside and maybe have to put it aside for several days while you work on a new case that just came in, and then when you pick up that old one you are essentially starting all over again. So it's -- I mean we're trying. We're doing the best we can with what we've got, it's just not effective and we're not fruitful with it.
>> so the answer to that, terry, isn't that yes, we do have people that do this. We're talking about, you know, adding folks. And I mean to me the bigger point here is it's one of the basic services, I mean it kind of gets back to law enforcement. I mean I知 more inclined to say, okay, let's find a way to do this if this is something that we need to do. If law enforcement says you know what, if you want to do this, this is something that needs to be funded. I mean because let's face it, this has come about at this time, I知 almost certain, because of at least one particular case that has gotten, you know, has made a lot of noise about and probably rightfully so because they don't think that something has been dealt with. So bingo, it gets on the agenda and it elevates to the point where we need to consider doing something like adding or, you know, at this late in the budget cycle. What percentage, terry, I mean of -- what does it take to become a cold case? I mean when does it finally get put on the shelf? Does it get put on the shelf when we say we've dealt with that an amount of time or we've run as many traps on that and we're not getting anywhere?
>> i'll let sergeant roper kind of explain how we've kind of classified cold cases and active cases.
>> Commissioner, basically how we classify these cold cases are we have the four detectives that are assigned to the major crimes unit, and if they work an active case of a homicide or something and let's say it doesn't get solved and it goes on for two or three years and they are still in this unit, they continue with that case. Now, because of the nature of the calls and other calls coming in, there's times they have to leave that case alone and work on active cases. After that they get a chance to go back and work on that case. We try to keep the detective as long as he's assigned with that unit keep this case. The problem is you get people who promote, leave out of the unit or it gets to such an old stage we have to make it a cold case in essence and and then what we're trying to do now is we've analyzed what it takes to have a cold case detective. We have one gentleman in our unit that has went to these classes and studied up and we've kind of come to the determination that a bare minimum of two people really need to work on those cold cases to start it because we've worked on four cases, four cold cases as time permits, and we've realized how hard it is to once you get started on it and then, you know, two months down the road you have to take another homicide call because of just the sheer numbers, then you lose a lot of that information and it's a lot of backtracking having to go back and review what you've done and go back again. What we're wanting to have is having these two detectives who are solely cold case and don't get involved in the actual current cases that come in and that way we can concentrate all their efforts on these old homicides. As the major said earlier, when we had 13 -- I can identify 13 different victims' families from the last year called wanting their cases reopened and rightfully so. There's a lot of these cases that really need to be looked at. It's a matter of time because of the amount of cases we have. We just can't get to it. We can't dedicate the personnel to stay on that case continually and that's the big problem here. And said, there's over 70 cases we haven't even had a chance to look at, to pull the file to even start going through to see how bad it is or what we need to do for future follow-up, et cetera, things like that. It's going to take a cold case detective, two cold case detectives at least a year to go through four or five cases. I mean that's being honest. Four or five. You know, it's going to take that long. Just to really investigate it th sheer need of having a cold case unit because of the sheer numbers we have is the reason we're here and I know the timing might not be the greatest but it's a need that we've probably needed for many years and now that we've identified so many cases we really have to have the personnel there to look at that and just stay with the cold case and not be involved in the active stuff. As far as getting, you know, I hope I answered your question about how it turns into a cold case. You know, there's numerous.
>> well, it will be a thing that I would expect the sheriff's department to come in during budget and say our budget is -- here's where our budget is or what we would like for our budget to be. And that is an important, you know, part of our operations and we are going to appropriate more dollars in that and because I知 really relying on law enforcement to tell me, you know, this is what we need. I mean this is -- we get bang for buck out of this and it is something that the constituency, you know, absolutely demands. I think the trick on this thing is how do you get to the $73,000 and looking at it for the -- you know, for the upcoming year and i'll look forward to having the sheriff come and say, yeah, you know, we're going to beat that thing up because we do need it. I can imagine how people feel like their cases have gotten kind of swept by the side and, you know, that's a pretty tough thing to take. But I think we all realize that there's only so much you can do with these things.
>> Commissioner, I understand where you are coming from, but again when I first started the conversation in asking law enforcement -- their department about the remainder of fiscal year for the amount of money, you know, it's kind of important to me to ask p.b.o. To verify the internal funding that they have now as far as savings with the $73,000. Now, of course, everyone coming through the budget process for '05 will probably look for ways to see if they can fund things internally and stuff like that and I expect everybody to be on the same page, including this. But we do need to I think have the direction and if there is money that they have available right now to fund this internally, I think we should move forward with it. Because it's something that's been I think long overdue as far as these cold cases are concerned, however, funding is still an illusive butterfly as far as how do you deal with it. I知 sorry, go ahead.
>> for twao eu '04 there is no question the sheriff's spwaoer budget can internally fund 73, 267.
>> that's the bottom line for me. And of course I think the motion that Commissioner Sonleitner made or alluded to just these things, internal funding as we look at it for the remainder of f.y. '04. F.y. '05, that's a whole different ball game. And of course we'll look at that again and revisit it when '05 comes around as far as the budget cycle is concerned. So I知 ready to move on with this one.
>> we have a question from the audience and it's a good one. Can you help us on this one. Mike joyce is calling from fleet needing clarity on whether it's a yes or a no on the vehicles for these two slots for this item. He's watching and is unsure. So how do we -- so is the internal funding related to the two vehicles also possible to be found in this budget year or you have some extra vehicles or whatever?
>> as far as the vehicles, in my proposal what I basically suggested or recommended is that it just be simply a fleet increase. In other words, we don't turn in -- once our new cars come in, we turn in two fewer than what we were sphraeutd to as opposed to going out and buying new cars for those positions. I think I did indicate in here that there would be an anticipated vehicle operating cost, fuel and maintenance for the remainder of f.y. '04 of $2,080.
>> that's a whole different issue.
>> bill, is it possible we can get to the same place in terms of that they internally have to figure out -- do they internally right now have these vehicles or not?
>> certainly they have the vehicles for now.
>> no, I mean for the --
>> we have two scheduled -- do you have two scheduled to be turned in right now?
>> yes.
>> so it could be that for the time being related to this --
>> for the pilot, they could use existing --
>> you don't turn in two of them. That's probably someone else calling in. You don't turn in those two and we still have the opportunity if this is an ongoing thing we make a permanent solution related to fleet. But it does seem to me that related to the dollars that need to be transferred to t.n.r. To cover your fuel needs to occur as well out of the tcso budget and not come out of t.n.r.'s budget related to the maintenance and gasoline for the remainder of '04. Is that friendly to -- which I hope is friendly to the motion?
>> yes.
>> hopefully, mike, that covers that. And I guess my last little things are as far as I知 concerned, related to the creation of this, it ought to be done because it's the right thing to do and it is not any one case that is prompting me to say that this is the right thing to do. It is every single one of these cases that's prompting me to want to do action on this. So I want this very clear this is not a custom unit for any particular person or their case. It's on behalf of every victim and their families that are out there. And you all are going to have to decide how you tackle them and in what order and that's for you all to figure out. I think what, frankly, and I think t.v. Shows like cold case that kind of raise this up. No one ever heard of c.s.i. Until c.s.i. Is on the airways morning, news and night, but it just shows you a different part of that investigation. I think now there's been that profile raised on cold case and it does work. A.p.d. Has had very good results with their cold case unit. And on their website, they have profiles that run on the a.p.d. Website related to the top 10 cold case cases that they are working right now with photos, with little blurbs, anything to get out there in terms of getting solved. My motion is based to giving the flexibility to this department mid-budget year internally to try something new and different, and I hope that it works out really well so this becomes a no brainer during the budget process that it's a good thing to do and we step up to the plate in '05.
>> hopefully these 13 cold cases that you have on the books right now, hopefully we don't get any added ones, but resolve the ones we have.
>> Commissioner, that's 13 families that have called to want us to open up their case again. There's roughly 30 that we've identified that we need to look at.
>> how many?
>> 13 families who have called, but roughly 30 we've identified we know we need to look at and another [inaudible] going all the way back to '74.
>> this is not about one family. This is about all of the families. Have we talked this one to pieces? All in favor say aye? That passes by unanimous vote. Thank you.
>> thank you very much.
Last Modified: Wednesday, June 16, 2004 1:30 PM