Travis County Commissioners Court
September 14, 2004
Item 28
28, consider and take appropriate action on the following pilot program for
the collection of court fines and fees. A, the feasibility of a pilot program
in precinct 3. 28-b, exemption order for a collection of court fines and fees
contract pursuant to section 262.024 a 4 of the county purchasing act. And
28-c is to contract number ps 040272 ml for the collection of court fines
and fees with gila corporation doing business as municipal services bureau,
msb. Physician and this is precinct 3 j.p.
>> judge, Commissioners, several months ago precinct 3 and
Commissioner 3 looked at doing a pilot program, and we've been working towards
those ends for last couple of months. And judge goodwin is here to talk to
you a little bit about the pilot program and what they want to do. And we
have a contract here for your approval today. Barbara wilson is just coming
in. She worked on this contract, and we're here to answer your questions.
>> thank you.
>> when we first talked about the feasibility of a pilot
program in precinct 3, that is a, you were down -- [inaudible]. It seems if
it's feasible to do it, then I have no problem with the way it's been structured.
I guess my first question would be -- and by the way we have not discussed
this in several years so I知 glad to see someone step forth. The question
is whether the other j.p.s have signed on to the notion that a pilot program
will be conducted in precinct 3 and they will monitor that as well as Commissioners
court. And based on the successor failure of that program decide how to proceed
next year and thereafter.
>> yes, judge, I have spoken with all the other j.p.s and
they are more than happy to learn from my mistakes and see how this goes.
A number of them are very interested in it from their courts' perspective.
They have a number of outstanding warrants, but there's really not a lot left
to do other than leave them out there. And this pilot project is seen as a
means for collecting and reducing the court's caseload for collecting the
uncollected funds and for doing so in a manner that doesn't impact other offices
adversely or the jail facilities adversely. So they are looking at this with
great anticipation, is my understanding.
>> okay. And this will be fines and fees from what kinds
of cases?
>> the scope of this project is for cases that are already
adjudicated, regardless of year. And cases that are unadjudicated if filed
after June 18, 2003 he, and if they are more than 60 days past due.
>> criminal only?
>> criminal only, sir. At least as part of this pilot.
>> okay.
>> judge, how much does the success of this pilot depend
on having the facts system up and running? I mean is this something that has
to wait on facts or is this something that can happen and ties in nicely with
[inaudible]
>> when the vendor approached, one of the great things is
local, and two, every time I had a question about the code of judicial conduct,
handling cases, not only did he have a good answer for what to do, he had
an established answer. He has an established reputation. He has an established
client base and he already knew how to handle both of those issues. The one
unknown factor that we saw is the computer system we are operating under and
we have a plan for operating outside of facts to get at the beginning he would
prefer everything to be able to transmitted electronically but we recognize
that's not a possibility at this point.
>> is it going to be requiring any kind of manual keying
in duplicative of what you are already doing to key in folks related to the
omni system of getting it into the state system?
>> they will do the data entry, not the court.
>> great. Excellent.
>> so at the appropriate time how do we measure success or
failure?
>> that's a real good question. We had a hard time predicting
-- i've been struggling, losing sleep over it for a while. We had a hard time
predicting how we were going to determine what the revenue could be, what
the expenditures might be because I知 unaware of any other project out here.
I know there's a task force out here to explore similar issues, but it's my
understanding we were not supposed to be a part of that task force, that we
were specifically excluded from their scope of duties.
>> it would be real easy without the j.p.s. [inaudible].
>> we don't have probation to deal with, so I think excluding
us from that program was a wise decision. So when we were trying to determine
what the revenue could be, what the expenditures could be, we tried to look
at the cases that were most easily discernible. And I looked at 2003 because
one, it's a complete calendar year so I know how many cases there are. There's
a fixed number. And they were ones that at least half of them were post-june
18, 2003. We could determine easily which unadjudicated cases could be sent
and all of the adjudicated cases could be sent. What I found is of the approximately
19,000 cases that were filed in j.p. 3 last year in the calendar year, about
5700, 5800 are still to date unresolved. Now, not all of those can go to m.s.b.
Under this proposed contract because some of them are unadjudicated cases
pre-june of '03. So that leaves us about 4,000 cases to send under this proposed
pilot just for these numbers, just to kind of look at this data. And so we
were basing any potential revenue from this data only. And if those cases
represent 200 to 205 dollars on average per case -- let me get my -- if you
look at the -- I gave you two handouts. One is the background of what we're
doing and how we're doing it. On page 2, and I think for Commissioner Davis
it would be on page 3, there's bullet points that talk about what cases and
what their values are. We approximated the value of those 4,000 cases ranging
from 205 to 255 dollars when we include warrant and omni fines and court costs.
So value of those cases is approximately 820,000 to a million dollars. If
we go on that average. The reason we picked that average is because our fines
really run from $100 anywhere to 600, but we wanted to stay in the low end
of the spectrum when we talked about the bulk of these cases. Then we were
trying to figure out, okay, so what revenue -- what portion of the 820 to
one million would we actually recover. So I talked to m.s.b. And I asked what
percentage of cases they actually collect on when you send. And the number
that we talked about is about 25%, but a very conservative realistic estimate
is 15%. So if we look at what's left of the 15% of 800,000, it's about 123,000
to 153,000 for the first year of the project. And that's county revenue. That's
fines -- I guess it also clues state. It's fines, court costs, warrant and
omni. One thing about this pilot project is -- that's very significant, the
vendor's fees do not come out of the 125 to 155 number that we are talking
about. Those vendor fees are a add-on, they are above and beyond that amount.
So what I知 hoping to see in this first year is 123 to 150. Conservatively.
>> over and above, you mean that the defendant will pay that?
>> yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am.
>> so the upfront investment for Travis County is just the
labor required to make the referral.
>> to make the referral, that's correct.
>> and the contractor is paid by way of the commission on
collected fines.
>> that's correct. The cases that we are sending do not dip
into county funds at all. That's why we designed this project in this way.
>> there is a special reason why that June '03 date is important
or is that --
>> statutory, sir. Pre-june 18, 2003, we can send unadjudicated
cases as well, but then the contractors' percentage would be a percentage
of the county. It could, in theory, come out of the fine, our percentage.
That's why we're not sending those. But adjudicated cases from pre-june of
'03 is still above and beyond. It's still a add-on. So as long as we send
adjudicated cases and those cases filed on or after June 18, 2003, any fee
is a add on. It is not part of the county fund.
>> shouldn't we see in writing, I guess, a short list of
factors that will be considered to determine success? I mean three, four,
five come to mind. Every time we go through this exercise, I don't know that
we really get in writing what we ought to because when it's time to evaluate,
I have a hard time finding a piece of paper that set them forth. One would
be whether or not the cases in fact would work. Second would be money received.
I guess there's some value in trying to get the money whether you do or not.
>> right.
>> because if a judge discusses a fine or -- assesses a fine
or fee, then at least by getting out there and trying to work it we demonstrate
our intention and I guess there is some justice in trying to make defendants
pay up.
>> accept responsibility. In many of these cases they have
already entered a plea and promise to do pay the court and hence the county
for these amounts.
>> okay. What kind of report do we get from the contractor?
>> we are going to -- well, I guess I could let --
>> we really have an extensive reporting system. And the
two items that you listed so far --
>> your name is?
>> I知 jordan fry taking with municipal services. We can
give you reports to show what actions we have taken on each of the cases which
would go to answer your first question just on whether the cases or warrants,
we can let you know how many letters we sent, how many phone calls we sent,
how many times we've actually talked to the defendant, the result codes, whether
they gave us a promise to pay, they refused to pay, they did pay, you know,
and follow the theory can tell you exactly what happened.
>> each case. Certainly give you reports on the money received.
The amount that they've sent us. Any amount that we had to send back due to,
perhaps the judge -- you know, they said jail time or community service, whatever
a reason that a case may be dismissed. Can give you reports on that. How much
was collected, the actual dollar amount, the percentage. Really we could just
give you more reports than you would ever want to --
>> do you typically generate these reports periodically?
>> we usually do it on a monthly basis, but certainly can
do it bi-weekly.
>> and the other thing would be the sources that you use
to research where these folks are.
>> to locate the people, that is very important as to what
we do. We have 350 other Texas clients and a big part of what we do is cross
our frontier cases against all our other cases including the city of Austin
so that is obviously going to be beneficial. Second, we own a copy of the
Texas d.p.s. Driver's license database. We receive all 18 million records
updated week hreufplt it's all done electronically. Literally on a detail
bye basis your cases would be cross-referenced with our other clients' cases
and all the updates we receive from d.p.s. Certainly we use other sources.
There's national sources that provide tracing services and -- but those are
two -- the first once are proprietary and unique to our company.
>> and you will be able to to also tell if someone has already
died and there's no need to pursue that case and get back to the judge and
have her dismiss it.
>> yes, ma'am. We can even request a copy of a death certificate
from a family member and give that information to the judge so she has it
on file to close it out.
>> those are the steps that we took in the constable's office
when they were there.
>> it's occurred to me that a number of the questions you
are asking in terms of what tools they use for their collections and what
type of reports they use in informing the courts of their methods, I had a
copy of those, and if you would like to look at what I have, I only have my
one copy, but I would be happy to leave it with you because it does show what
they are already done in the past with other counties, with other justice
courts, with other county courts, with -- and that's part of the contract
too, judge.
>> I don't want to impose additional work.
>> well, actually they have already even agreed to provide
daily reports on omni cases and warrant cases so that we can immediately recall
the warrants when a fee has been paid or immediately notify omni within 24
hours whether that fee has been paid. So the reports that we're going to be
receiving are not just on a monthly basis, they will be on a daily basis electronically
as well. We'll still have to manually put it into the system, but we can receive
that electronically as well.
>> is it possible for the court to get, like, a monthly summary
report?
>> they will not be able -- I guess your attorney could answer
this, but it's my understanding the way the contract reads is they will not
be allowed to receive payment under the invoice if they do not provide a monthly
accounting because they have to provide that at month's end so that I can
verify the fees, verify which cases they go to, make the proper distributions
under my other reporting requirements, and then from that we can pay the invoices.
>> okay.
>> I was just going to add the auditor's office is actually
going to be paying the -- on a monthly basis the fee that's due to the contractor.
And in order to do that, we are going to have to give us an invoice. It's
in the contract to do that. So we will actually be able to see what they collected
and then what part is due to them. And so in order for us to even pay them,
they are going to have to provide that information.
>> but I had like in summary form, if you sent out 5,000
letters, I would like to know that.
>> understood.
>> and if you invoice sending 5,000 letters, you would invoice
receiving 250 payments, right?
>> right.
>> but if you sent out 5,000 letters, if you made x number
of phone calls, I think it would be good to know that.
>> certainly. We can provide that in summary form. Something
we commonly do.
>> I think that is already part -- that's already contemplated
under the tpraoeplt, that they are going to provide reports of activity conducted
and accounts results.
>> the one thing I would [inaudible] it was not specifically
stated. And I think based on your conversations now, if the vendor doesn't
send them directly to you, certainly the judge will be sending you a report
that includes the kind of information that you are interested in. [inaudible]
without any problem.
>> would you like me to bring up the book that I have because
it does have some of those reports that they have submitted as to what they
already do in these cases. Would you like to see that, sir?
>> i've got a book.
>> oh, it's in the contract as well. Sorry. [multiple voices]
>> I would warn against sort of creating something for us.
If you are already reporting monthly, my guess is that's probably more than
sufficient. If there's a one-pager to indicate what we routinely send, I知
probably 90% of the way there, but it would be good to know. And whatever
you are giving the judge, I mean she will share with us. I just think we need
to be in the loop and I would keep the other j.p.s in the loop so they can
become eager for the opportunity to become part of this at the appropriate
time.
>> judge, I guess the question I have and what might happen
hraerbgts I understand wanting the defendants to live up to their personal
responsibility in terms of their, you know, what they owe. But what does the
law say about getting a family member, if you can't find the person, then
you would go to the family member to try to get them to pay it? Do you all
try that? Because I don't necessarily agree with that.
>> right. That's something we do after conversations with
the particular client. We would first discuss with the judge or Commissioners,
whoever is interested in that aspect of it and see what they say.
>> because that's taking the personal responsibility a little
too far.
>> well, that's taking a plea for someone else and that's
not something I知 comfortable with. The contractor allows for us to define
the procedures that we want to follow and they don't even have to just pay
it. If it's an unadjudicated case, there are procedures for them posting the
bond. There are procedures in there for if a person is indigent or if they
have time served, even the statute provides for defining these parameters
so that they do get credit for the time that they have already served in jail
or they do -- there is a method in place for recognizing that they are in
fact indigent. And part of that is that they have to be the ones entering
the plea.
>> right.
>> judge, could you walk through a little more in terms of
the adjudicated cases, somebody has already made an appearance in your courtroom,
and if someone had a circumstance where they wanted to lay out part of their
fine by serving time in jail, that would have already have been an opportunity
that was made available to them, but they chose not to go that path.
>> that's correct.
>> so it's an option that they chose not to take, and therefore
they are agreeing before you when they enter this plea to pay a fee, a fine.
>> that's correct.
>> okay. Is there any possibility after the fact, let's say
they are dumped into the system and they get the lovely letters and find out
that they've got this fee now. Is there any way that they can throw themselves
upon the mercy of the court and say, okay, now you are serious, now I want
to lay out my time in jail and we reate an issue on the county's tab of housing
these folks when that's not what we thought the gig was going to be.
>> just in case you haven't noticed, I have a box here next
to me. One of the reasons that I started looking into this -- well, actually
the reason I started looking into it is that I was approached to say, hey,
why don't you look into this. And I wasn't real receptive, but after some
discussions I kind -- I washed up to the idea. -- warmed up to the idea. Initially
I thought this would be a good way to clear unexecuted warrants. My warrants
were only executed by the constable of precinct 3 which means they could only
be verified and executed by any other law enforcement agency in between the
hours of 5:00 and 5:00 Monday through Friday. We had a backlog. And I wanted
that backlog addressed. In, I would say late spring, early summer, the constable
made the decision to send my warrants to central warrants and I thought that
would be a good thing. And I think it is. People are becoming more and more
responsible every day for the cases they have out there. One of the unanticipated
results is that I am seeing a dramatic increase in requests for time served,
for jail credit. This is one box that I received last week. I have eight more
in my office that I received last week alone on time served requests. Because
once my warrants went into central warrants, any law enforcement officer could
very verify and scoot those warrants 24/2. They were stopped for minor routine
traffic violations, find a warrant, book them into jail and then the request
for time served would come along. There's a table that I handed out along
with the backup that I gave. That table represents this box alone. It's 24
-- let me get it out so I can be sure to speak accurately. This box represents
24 defendants, 61 warrants, 61 requests for time served, and over $14,000
in fines and court costs, presumably to be waived or to be written off based
upon time served. It also represents 40 days in jail. And I have eight more
just like it. I can't remember what the math is when I multiplied that times
eight, but it's on the bottom of your table.
>> 113.
>> there you go. $113,000 and 400 days in jail. I want that
to stop. This is money that we're not recovering. There's one case in there,
he gets two days jail credit because he was picked up at 1:02:30 at night
and released at 2:00 in the morning. He had three days word $200 each. If
I run them concurrently he's going to reduce $600 in fines for four hours
in jail. I don't think that's a valuable use of jail facilities. I don't know
a what the costs are associated with that use of the jail facilities. I have
no way to determine that, but I can tell you I don't like writing off the
$14,000 times eight. For four hours in jail. And I didn't pick this out because
it was a really great box. I just picked one out and started looking at it.
You can see all the fines, the warrants, the total dollar amounts and this
is something that I think we need to address. On these warrants that are in
this box, if a defendant served one day in jail but has three cases worth
$200 each, I have to make a decision. Do I turn a blind eye and not -- and
give credit for the one day's jail, discharging all the cases. I do give one
day's credit, reissue another warrant, have another possibility of another
day in jail and start the whole process over. Or do I do it what the statute
allows me to do which is give the one-day credit and look for what's left
to collections and not issue another warrant.
>> and I agree, I don't think most of these belong in our
jail.
>> there are some in here but do, but not all of them.
>> well, and they are using the system to work to their advantage
in terms of getting two days of jail credit for a couple of hours when the
reality is they have not served the time and they've not paid the fee.
>> and they've agreed to do so. And that is part of -- it's
-- again, it's an unintended, an unanticipated consequence, but it's one that
makes my resolve that much more great in pursuing this pilot because it gives
me a third option. It gives me an option that I didn't have before to resolve
these cases, to dispose of them, to take them off the county docket, to get
the money that's due and owing to the county that they've already committed
themselves to without burdening the jail and other agencies.
>> judge, I mean I think this is a perfect example of what
we're trying to find in all of this fines and fees stuff. We, quite frankly,
kind of stumbled on to this thing. I did and approached judge good win. We've
taken a look. After having done some personal research on m.s.b. And finding
wonderful reviews on this company, going to their operations here in town,
that is very impressive. This is the perfect opportunity to try something.
We have a j.p., That's willing, that's done the legwork, and I really applaud
you, melissa, for getting in this because I really think this is going to
show exactly where we can really benefit from -- we basically are still going
to collect the low-hanging fruit, so to speak, but we're going to have a mechanism
and it's going to be real easy to determine. This is going to be when you
look at the sheet and just take the 4,000 cases in 2003, the easiest way to
look at that is to say what did we collect. And within a year's time, I mean
and probably even monthly, we're going to see, you know, how this thing works,
and quite honestly, I think that all the j.p.s are really going to get involved
in this. When m.s.b. Came to me, I told them, I said if we can get this pilot
program off, I would imagine that there are going to be a number of people
that's going to want to be involved in making proposals to us. I said so,
you know, you guys are going to be in the mix. I think that you will have
a great leg up. I mean if you perform like I think that they are going to
perform, but still even then, you know, nothing has been guaranteed to anybody.
What we really have here is the opportunity to move something forward, and
for that reason I would move, you know, that we would go forward with all
-- a., B. And c.
>> let me have a couple of comments, judge, before we move
forward. I haven't had an opportunity to say anything. When this fines and
fees thing -- I think the judge brought it up, it's been around for years,
not having the ability to collect fines and fees for the county, of course
during some of this time frame we kind of stretched out and tried to give
an overview of what our fees and fines were outstanding all across the county.
And the different departments in fact, a subcommittee was formed, a task force
and a lot of other things, cscd, and then of course even had a few meetings
and had some of the departments to come before the Commissioners court. And
then we've had had meetings out the Commissioners court, Commissioner Daugherty
and I have been the representatives from the Commissioners court to serve
on the subcommittee as far as how do we recruit our -- recoup our fines and
fees. I think what we're doing is a good step in the right direction, but
this is not -- like I said, it is a pilot and thank goodness we got something,
and maybe this pilot can ab model for the other departments that are struggling
out there as far as collecting the fines and fees that's owed Travis County,
which equates into millions of dollars as far as the last reports I looked
at and information we received from the auditor. We had the testimony coming
from the district clerk and we had, you know, cscd representatives, just a
whole mess of them, but of course we did not hear from the j.p.s at that time.
It's not because we didn't go through the motion, and again, with the omni
program that we looked at purposely, this court decided to get that particular
program whereby each j.p. Could have another mechanism to assist as far as
having some ability to ensure that the fines and fees were collected. Now,
not -- I guess as far as the persons that will be conducting and dealing with
this, I understand how we have a good track record. I really haven't checked
to see what your performance has been by collecting fines and fees, and of
course the taxpayers must understand that when you collect a fee for the county,
it's almost like a finder's fee, I guess, will be added to the fee itself
whereby it won't be any cost to Travis County and the tax paeufrplt but again,
looking at this, I need to ask ashley this, and that is on the uncollectibles,
have you run into any instances whereby there are un collectibles that you
just can't collect, and if so how do you go about collecting that? Because
one of the main things we did hear from a lot of folks like from starflight,
for example, others, district clerks and others, they talked about some uncollectibles
and this kind of needs to be addressed as far as those uncollectible fines
and fees owed to Travis County. Is there a mechanism in place to deal with
that type of situation?
>> sure.
>> okay. Thank you.
>> we will take all the backlog, what the court perhaps has
deemed uncollectible. Might just be sitting in a box. Anyway, what we do,
first of all, is treat that as a fresh submission. Whether it's from 1997
or 2004. And the main thing is a lot of those people you are not going to
have accurate addresses or phone numbers because it's been too long and they
probably haven't bothered to update their information. So that being said,
we start the skip tracing process, which is, as I mentioned earlier to Commissioner
Gomez about the d.p.s. Database, we'll start cross-referencing with our other
Texas client cases, we'll start using the national databases we use to locate
good addresses and phone numbers. And that process, we might find them in
that first week. We might not find them for two, three years down the road,
but we can assure you that they are being looked for every single week. And
eventually these people will pop back into the system, and once we get an
accurate phone numbers, address, it doesn't matter if they are eight years
old, two years old, we start doing the calls and letters and start to collect
on them. If for whatever reason they refuse to pay, we continue to call, continue
to send letters. A real good example of that is every year between tax season
we'll send out additional letters and really make a lot more additional phone
calls because people just have some extra money. And we just continue to work
the case as long as it remains open and with us and we continue to search
for those people. Now, sure, you are always going to have a certain percentage
that's not going to be collected for whatever reason, but we just continue
our efforts regardless of how long we have we've had the case or how old the
case is. We work them evenly and consistently regardless.
>> okay. I just wanted to know that prar procedure. Because
that's behaving -- that was part of the discussion was that money that we're
not being able to be collected. So I still have a real concern about that.
Not that I知 not supporting what we're doing here, it's just something I wanted
to stay on top of because that's money we are not getting here in the general
fund.
>> this time next year whether be the interesting -- will
be the interesting meeting about this. I really look forward to that. And
Commissioner Davis, let me -- you can tell that -- I mean an organization
like this, I mean that is highly professional, and this is the business that
they are in, when you are talking about 15% recovery, I mean let's face it,
I mean people don't pay things for obvious reasons. Either they don't want
to, they don't have the resources to do it, and at some point in time, you
do, even an organization gets to the point of saying the cost of trying to
retrieve that is beyond what we are able to gain out of it. So, you know,
15%, I will tell you, is not a bad recovery whenever you are going after folks
that -- especially the length of time that most of these that you all are
going to get, even though you are going to receive them as fresh cases or
whatever you call, you know, a 1997 case, and that's not far fetched.
>> we have a lot of those.
>> you can bet you can just find the person, then that's
a trick. So I think a year from now we're going to be loaded with information
on, you know, what did work, what didn't work, and we look forward to coming
back in a year and making a presentation.
>> I look forward to it too. And then there's some who grow
up and they just come across and pay whatever they need to pay. And I know
I collected some that were now living in europe. They had gone on to their
professional lives and sent the money in from europe.
>> from a chateau.
>> that's what I知 saying, they grow up. I知 really interested
in doing this as well, but I do want to say we need to keep an open mind that
the process needs to be open to avoid us violating the purchasing act and
then also utilizing some of the information for our purposes to fine tune
the procedures for the people who wind up in our jail and those who do not
belong in the jail.
>> precisely. And one of the things that I think that will
help us in making those determinations is the auditor's office and purchasing
and p.b.o. Have all worked with us to give us separate line items for all
of these things so that we can track. And I mean I want to look at these cases
exclusively to make sure if it was collected through m.s.b. And gill corporation,
I want that information. If they happen to pay by omni, we want to track these
separately to know yeah, this was a m.s.b. Case but we got it through omni
or through time served at the jail. We want to have that information complete
and everybody has worked us to give us the separate accounts so we can do
those things so that when we come to you, we won't be saying we collected
this big umbrella of cases and us make the assumption it was through this
pilot. We want to know for certain these were the ones collected through this
pilot. And I want to be able to tell that to you so we are going to track
them separately if the court allows us to do this pilot, we're going to track
them separately so we can give you that information.
>> so your recommendation would be for those warrants to
not be centralized. If we're going to do the pilot to see how it works best.
>> I don't know how -- I imagine i'll have to discuss that
with the constable to try getting those back. What we were planning on doing
is tracking those internally regardless of where they are and note where we
got the resolution from. And have basically our own internal database of this
one came through time served, this one showed up at the window and paid omni,
so that we can tell you that information.
>> okay.
>> I need to close cases, so --
>> and that's the other very different thing from other kinds
of things we have used before. On the omni system, which is working well,
that was one where Travis County and through the pilot through judge bembrage's
office, we had to pay for the manual keying in of all of those entries into
the state's system. That's why I asked who is going to be keying in this information.
In this pilot, that is going to be absorbed at the cost of m.s.b. Any other
conversation i've had of somebody been interested in saying I want to talk
to you about fines and fees, great. They say well, you give us your data dump
and we're like time out, there is no data dump because of the state of our
computer system at this point. At some point we hope to have that and every
one has said no thank you. But this is one where not Travis County is going
to have to absorb the keying in of that information but the person involved
in that pilot and that makes this different from anything else to come before
us.
>> let me know if this is friendly. In my view we ought to
measure two things a year from now. The first thing would be the performance
of the vendor. And to determine that we look at the number of letters sent,
the number of phone calls made, the amount of money collected. That's the
the total. And the amount of money that comes to Travis County. So those four
things pending performance. Category 2 would be impact on our system. And
in that we would look at increase in collections in cases within 60 days of
due date, the number of cases cleared, the number of days served in jail on
j.p. Warrant, and the amount of money written off due to time served. The
impact on the system probably has a a little less to do with the vendor and
a little more to do with the second category benefit to Travis County.
>> would you mind repeating that list on impact on the system
so I can get that, please?
>> increase in collections. In cases within 60 days of due
date. Number of cases cleared. Number of days served in jail on j.p. Warrant.
Amount of money written off due to time served. And the second category, I
don't know that we can blame the vendor, but the vendor can certainly help
us a whole lot. It would seem to me we would want to look at that ourselves.
>> and it's relevant as to how viable this is to the rest
of the county. I agree.
>> do you agree?
>> yes.
>> do them probably more from the vendor in your office,
which I think that you were planning on probably doing most of this anyway,
melissa, so you don't have an issue with anything the judge is asking.
>> no, i've already talked to the accounting staff and p.b.o.
And the auditor about how to help me with this accounting because I want to
know if I want to ask for another year. If it's not worth my time, i'll let
you know that.
>> that's certainly --
>> judge, with those recommendations that you just made,
which I think -- I think you hit the nail on the head with those recommendations
as far as the friendly, and with that I知 really, you know, excited. I guess
Gerald, as far as the supplemental standpoint from fines and fees, that the
other departments come back with those particular findings in a year's time,
then it would be something for us to look at to maybe expand this to those
other departments. That's something even from the subcommittee standpoint
I think we need to maybe look at.
>> she said it first and said it well, I mean hey, I知 willing
to be your guinea pig so you got somebody that's willing to do that.
>> I may regret this day, but I知 willing to try it for now.
>> I think it will work.
>> I do too.
>> I can't see, you know --
>> my final point is the contract before us begins August
15th, 2004.
>> actually in the discussions that occurred after that were
submitted to you, someone, p.b.o. Or the auditor's office --
>> my recommendation is that we begin tomorrow.
>> tomorrow?
>> September 15.
>> they wanted it to be October 1 so it would be tied to
the fiscal year.
>> that makes more sense than August 15th. So tomorrow or
October 1, which is better?
>> October 1 from the technical standpoint.
>> we have the internal bugs to work out in terms of getting
our stuff to them.
>> so the original is not -- what we have is just a copy?
>> well, you've got -- in your backup, but we do have the
original ready for your signature in our office.
>> starts October 1?
>> October 1.
>> judge, if I may quickly run through a couple of technical
steps. As mike alluded to earlier, the vendor is going to submit all the revenue
they collect to the county. That means including their fee. So that means
that we have to have a budget in the j.p.s office for the invoices to be paid
out of. After working with the judge, the auditor's office and p.b.o., We've
all agreed I think $30,000 in revenue to be certified just to cover the fee
portion of it. Since it's a pilot project, we want to be really conservative
just so our revenue for the fee portion, and then we will go ahead and then
changes after markup next week under that agenda item we would have a $30,000
budget line added in as a line item so that you will have the balancing of
the revenue and the budget and the expenditure. And then if it turns out that
the estimates are very conservative and we wind up getting more revenue coming
in and the collector really doing a bang-up job and we need more than $30,000,
I知 sure you will be happy to consider going to allocated reserve at that
time because you will be getting a lot more county revenue than it's costing
because it's on top of that.
>> understand that our revenue comes to the county, I guess
we pay the vendor.
>> we have to pay the vendor with an in voice from j.p. 3.
>> that it is how the contract is written?
>> yes.
>> we recommend that only because it always works out best
for the client.
>> we don't mind waiting.
>> any more discussion?
>> thank you all.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Thank you
very much.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>> jordan, thank you.
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Last Modified: Thursday, October 27, 2005 10:26 AM