Travis County Commissioners Court
January 18, 2005
Item 30
30. Consider status and take appropriate action on request for Travis County participation in Austin - Travis County disparity study
>> I figure we ought to get the facts out before us, even if we don't take action today. I know the city wants to chat with us about this. It's been some time since we've heard from staff on this. I understand that there's been a slightly different move in a slightly different direction on it. I thought it would be good for us to get updated.
>> good afternoon. Judge, Commissioners. Cyd grime, Travis County purchasing agent. With me sill see I can't lopez, our h.u.b. Coordinator. Just a little background. If you will recall back last summer the city asked us to join in a disparity study. What they are calling a second generation study. At the time they anticipated the cost of that project to be around half a million. They wanted us to be one of five partners to go in with them on that. When we met back with them, or the information that we have been able to get out of them, that cost was -- far exceeded, they said it exceeded 600,000, they didn't really tell us how much it exceeded it, but it was more than the anticipated half a million. And the number of partners, apparently were only three at the time of the city and capital metro. So in the discussions we met, I believe in October or November of last year with -- with -- with the city folks and david escomilla, just discussed what was going on, we really don't have a good comfort for where they are in the process, how much of our $100,000 would get us and the sense that we got was $100,000 really doesn't get us a whole lot. So if you will recall, we were also talking with colette holt, an attorney out of atlanta, who has been trying these cases all over the country, we felt like she was just a real expert in the area. She at the time looked at our program and made some suggestions to us, which sylvia and betty have been working on, but there's more that we need to do. As we were sitting around talking, we were thinking we have this money, it's not really get us what we thought was going to get us, what might get us closer to what our goals are. We have an alternate recommendation for the court at this time. Not that we should -- that we should not do the disparity study, but it's going to cost us a whole lot more money than we thought. At this time I can't tell you what that amount is. What we had opened that we could do, one of the things that ms. Holt when she looked at us, our program, she wondered how we were tracking some of the information that we were. The huge component that we are not doing a good job at is tracking the payments to subcontractors. We have a way to track what we are paying our prime contractors, our hde system, we are not capturing that information. We are doing the best that we can. She recommended that there was software now available in the market that we could look at and recommended a couple of people and we did -- we've done, looked at a couple of demos. So what we are recommending is that we take some of that money, and invest in some software to simplify our tracking process for payments. We've -- one of the -- one of the softwares that we have liked, it -- we might can get it for the -- for under $50,000. But of course we are going to have to go out for competition on that. The other thing that we want to do is -- with some of that money was to contract directly with colette holt so that she could review our contract language and help work with -- with the county attorney's office to put some teeth in our contractual language. She -- you know, she thought that was -- that would be a good plan. She said that she would agree to do that if that was the court's desire. Then with the remaining portion of that money, go ahead and continue to work with the city of Austin as they develop and narrow what they are going to be doing. One of the things that she felt like was really important for us to do, participate with the city was on the focus groups. Where they go out and talk to the -- to the minority community and find out what their issues are and what -- what input they have. And the disparity study, we don't feel like at this time we have enough resources to do that. These alternate steps that we are recommending will get us a little bit closer to where we have been going all along. Able to track payments, put some teeth in our contract so if contractors weren't reporting that, we could have some sort of penalties or -- or some sort of action to -- to, you know, help motivate them to help us know what we are tracking. So this is, you know, this is what we wanted to let y'all know that where we were in the process. I mean, really the city has -- has sort of had a -- a bump in the road. They haven't been able to get the support from the other entities and they have been in the same financial situation that we have the last couple of years. So we wanted to just sort of update you on where we were and perhaps instead of just sitting on high ground waiting for the city, perhaps we would invest some of these funds in doing things very narrowly tailored for us and our program.
>> let me ask this question. My concern is of course how much would it take for us to money-wise to invest, to get a -- the disparity study, there has to be an example somewhere of where a disparity study was entered into by whomever and what was the -- what was the -- what was that amount to ensure that you had compliance with the disparity as far as dealing with -- with underutilized businesses. We don't have a handle on that. I know I heard you state that if I understood you correctly, cyd, thank you all for what you're doing -- we don't have a handle on that amount of money. I mean, what is the real cost, what is the full cost to reap the benefits within the disparity study to get compliance? Right now we are strictly operating on a -- on a volunteer situation here whereby the prime, whoever they may be, do not really have to hire a -- either -- address the participation at all. But so it's -- it's a voluntary, good faith effort for them to do that. And I guess even with this amount of money we're talking about here, $100,000, 50,000 now, $50,000 later, how far will that get us and how closer would that be to us getting into a -- into a setting whereby we can now say that, hey, we -- we are a part of this disparity study and there are compliance implications that must be met because we have proven, have the necessary work here before us, or compliance. So -- so I知 kind of concerned about that and I know right now according to what we have before us, the city of Austin and Travis County, lcra, capital metro, aisd, being maybe as partners in this thing, and I don't want -- in my opinion, I think that we should be moving forward together. But yet we can't dictate those other person's schedule of how and what they do. Not persons, but the other entities that I just mentioned.
>> correct.
>> but we do have control over what we do here. So my question is to you, with this $100,000 investment and what we get for it, you mentioned those three things, what we get for it, how closer will we be at that time for -- within the study to -- to assure that we have compliance mandates, ensure that prime contractors, whoever do business with the county, end up having to deal with -- with the h.u.b. Vendors. Can you give me maybe some overview on that?
>> well,.
>> it's a good question. It's a difficult question, because we have sort of been asking that question ourselves. How much is it going to cost us to get a full disparity study that's in strict compliance with the rules? And i, you know -- if I gave you a number it would be just a guess.
>> okay.
>> but the cost that they were quoting us were well over $600,000. And that did not even get us where we needed to be. So I would guess that to do with a we want to do, across the board, it would be a million to half a million. A million and a half. One million to one and a half million dollars. If we use a portion of this to do these focus groups, which is part of what the 100,000 was originally to get us, that gets us one step closer, but it doesn't -- it doesn't get us anywhere near the full-blown study that has to be done. That's why I was hoping the city could be here to explain it, you know, a little bit better than me. Because we never saw the costs. We never saw what they put out. A proposal for this. So I can't -- I can't really tell you. But I think that you are looking at a million dollars at least to do the full-blown study at this time. Then even when you do that study, you still are going to have to have someone to come in and look at your contract documents and make the changes to those documents to reflect those studies. That's what I知 -- what I知 sort of skipping the disparity study part of it and going right to getting this -- ms. Holt to help us with our contract language, getting some software, so we can start tracking this and one of the things that about the software that we are looking at puts the onus on the prime contractor to enter his payments into that system to report to us. So that would tie back into the contract. If he's not doing that regularly, then he would be in default of his contract, then we could take some sort of action to there. So what we are -- what we are proposing here is not the full-blown study. Perhaps in future years, in cooperation with the city and other entities, we can get to that million, million and a half that we need to. But right now we want to, you know, focus on our program. And do these things that we think will help us right now. And that's -- that's the best alternate that we could give you at this time.
>> there was one thing that we thought that we could do on our own. Monitoring the general contractors to prevent the -- the switching of subcontractors. And I thought that we could -- are we doing that? Have we begun to do that.
>> we are doing that, we have language in the contract, it is sort of a policings function, a monitoring -- policing function, monitoring function. Sylvia and betty deal with that where the contractors call, we are still working with the contractors to make sure that they are doing that. That's one of the other things that we want colette to look at is our language in the contracts about them doing that, making sure that it's very clear that they can't switch after the fact without, you know, getting approval with us and knowing that they went through a process.
>> I知 glad that you brought this to our attention, it's time for me to do kind of a little time out here. When this was first brought to us. I don't think there's anybody on this board that disagrees with where we're trying to get to in terms of equal opportunity for all. At the time the city sold us on this, they literally were going to have everything largely done in the last fiscal year, I think there were quite a few skeptical eyes here. That's why we split it between two fiscal years, simply because we didn't believe it was going to happen and it didn't. And furthermore, they thought they were going to have multiple partners beyond the one confirmed one that they have got. That never came to pass. We still have that issue out there that contempt plates that we have an equal sharing of the cost of whatever it is that they want to do. We have made the point all along that what we do, in terms of just the quantity of contracts, the dollar amount of the contracts, the -- the kinds of contracts that we do, are quite different from the full range and scope of the kinds of things that go through the city of Austin, which has an electric department, aviation department, they have a whole lot of categories than the very numbers that we've got. So it's like we would like to talk about partnering with you, but it isn't 50/50 or 33/33/33 and I think that's even going to impact even more and then the worst is that only gets you the study, that doesn't give us the money to implement. But I think we already have a good sense of what some of the problems are. I have been very, very happy with ms. Holt's work in the past. She's been very helpful to us, the software sound like something that would help us get to the place of being able to accurately track who is getting business into an account for it. It's almost like having the numbers in front of us for our own disparity study. What exactly are we spending, who is getting it, beyond what's going on with the [indiscernible] I think that it's a great idea to go with the focus groups. I think that is something where we can get that direct feedback from the minority business community and consulting community to get some of those results, to just act on it as opposed to spending who knows how much money, it doesn't get us any closer to our goal. That is to improve the program. And level the playing field.
>> that's how we feel. Some of the other things that she mentioned were we can do race neutral things, some of the things that she said that she would look at is reducing some of our bonding requirement. We do have some legal requirements on some things. But bundling contracts, you know,, breaking them up into smaller portions. Substitutions and maybe some prompt payments. So she has some ideas to help us on -- in race neutral items that we don't have to have a disparity study for. So that -- that was sort of --
>> [indiscernible] committee?
>> we have.
>> minimal information, they have within updated on the status of where we are.
>> what's their position?
>> well, I don't get much feedback, which I think is a good thing because --
>> have this back on next week and have the city, advisory committee here.
>> okay.
>> okay.
>> that's good.
>> yeah.
>> my intention was to call this to the court's attention. We haven't heard it in a while, but I have -- that kind of put me on the notice of the amount to exceed what we were told initially.
>> not even close.
>> and so is jeff the city person?
>> yes, he is.
>> let me just tell jeff that we need to hear from him next week, trying to take a position. Those of us who have questions about the new approach that midst holt should answer. Rather than having her come down here, can we just let you all get them to her should she's been very --
>> she's been very cooperative, answering a lot of question. If you get those questions to us, we'll forward them to her.
>> do we have a sense then, is the city even going to move on with this disparity study at this point? Are they still moving in that direction, that would actually be one of my questions, are you still going to do it, what are the time lines? Because, you know, we want a product, not have to deal with process here.
>> I just --
>> I can see this stretching into '06 I don't think that was the intent.
>> I think it was fairly clear to me that the city feels that this disparity study must be done, period. And the question is how do they go about getting maximum number of partners and reducing the cost and see what I知 saying?
>> uh-huh.
>> I was at a reception involving something entirely unrelated to this. Sort of chatting as I was leaving, that's why I said let's get this on the agenda, get you to meet with the court and see exactly where we are. Also I think since we did put that committee in place, said that we would listen to them, make sure they know exactly what the issues are and at least give them an opportunity to give us some advice, even if we don't follow it.
>> right. I agree.
>> and in the meantime, I guess there are -- no matter in what direction we head, all of them seem to raise sort of a -- of a modest to major legal issues, john, telling -- who is the county attorney working this, david or you.
>> david and I are both --
>> in tandem, I take it.
>> more david than i. [laughter]
>> so if I go and try to put ours in a position to make a decision next Tuesday, then whatever questions or issues that we have we can get them to cyd and cyd we will need to get them to you all by when.
>> tomorrow at 5:00.
>> as soon as they can, so they can -- next week try to get the -- have the information available for us to go ahead and make a decision one way or the other.
>> on that point, on ms. Holt's contract, I think it did expire and it may behoove us to revive that contract.
>> if we go in this direction. My guess is she's looking for another contract anyway.
>> yeah, she would -- she would want to be paid. She's been giving us kind of a lot of free legal help. She's been real cooperative and everything, but, yeah, she wants to get paid. I知 sure. We haven't negotiated any of that. We have just been asking her, you know, what could you do, what -- what would get us the biggest bang for our buck. Sort of been brainstorming. So -- so if this is the direction that the court wants to go, we can -- the old principal that you get what you pay for, doesn't apply in this case because there's an anticipation factor.
>> correct. [laughter]
>> judge?
>> yes, sir.
>>
>> [one moment please for change in captioners]
>>
>> I mean, if we can't do the job -- and I think we are doing the job. I think that our purchasing department ought to come up with a way to make sure that our subcontractors are getting paid, that -- because everybody tries to comply even though it's voluntary for us, everybody knows how strongly we feel about having equality in all of the contracts. And so people -- we award these contracts predicated on those kind of things. And people know it. So it is incumbent upon us -- I don't have to spend $100,000 or sign off on $300,000 for us to do the job, but I think that y'all are doing a pretty good job of. I really don't like being put in a spot where all of a sudden now we're looked at, if you don't participate with us now, well, then -- because I can imagine that's kind of what's going to come at us next week about this is what we've got to do and the disparity study. And if I thought that the disparity study was really needed on our behalf, if we had so many complaints where we came and said your purchasing department stinks. We can't get the work, we can't get paid, that's not what we hear. What we hear is that we do a pretty good job. Could we do better? Probably. It's just resources if you had folks to follow up on contracts and making sure of things like that. So I知 all ears next week, but I知 not going to be very sympathetic to going from $100,000 to perhaps not each a number that anybody is willing to sign off on, much less the time, because here we get caught in a spot again about we're going to get this done. I知 not dogging the city over this because maybe they've got legitimate issues as to why they haven't been able to get this thing done, but before I知 willing to -- at this stage I guess you could probably get me to a spot where I could get comfortable with spending the $100,000 that we signed off on. I mean, I think that col let could be vusly is very good at what she does. If she can come in and help us get some of these things done and especially from the rider that y'all have given sid yards to we think we can get there with this I don't think i'll change my mind for next week. I realize it will be on, but I want you had to know where I was coming from on this.
>> the lcra and aisd chose not to participate. Could we find out from them how are they going to try and pursue the same goals if not with this study, then what are they doing to -- see if there are some ideas that we can steal from them as well. They've chosen to go a different path. Maybe that's a path we ought to look at as well. Because they're both very big...
>> there's contracts out there at both places?
>> I know that for the school district it was totally a money budget issue for them. I don't know about the lcra.
>> let's find out what we plan to do.
>> any other questions we want answered between now and next week? Let's try to get this back on -- get the facts out as they say on drag net. We do have our legislative consultant here and he's on the clock.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, January 19, 2005 8:11 AM