Travis County Commissioners Court
June 21, 2005
Item 10
10. Consider and take appropriate action on jail overcrowding, including the following options: a. Request to Texas commission on jail standards to authorize more variance beds and staffing implications; b. Cost for housing inmates out of county; c. Cost for leasing modular building system; and d. Cost and benefit of adding a visiting judge's courtroom. I was advised this morning that a couple of judges would like to come over, so -- so if we finish our morning discussion, maybe we can complete that discussion this afternoon to give them a chance to come over. I think this afternoon we would only have one or two other items before executive session. So we would be able to do a little bit more this afternoon. Good morning.
>> good morning, judge, Commissioners. Mike trimble, criminal justice coordinator. Here with major balagia, from of the folks from the district attorney's office, district attorney ronnie earle is here as well. We had gotten together to talk as the court directed on getting some additional analysis on some of the recommendations. Definitely from the sheriff's office side we have some additional information on those options. I did want to mention that we felt like we needed to do some additional analysis and work on the visiting judge's courtroom and some other preindictment options, but the d.a.'s office may have some additional information on that.
>> okay.
>> good morning.
>> good morning, judge, Commissioners.
>> you still have to be away this afternoon, ronnie?
>> later on in the afternoon I do. Are we going to do this early in the afternoon? I heard you --
>> I was -- I know balagia will be at work all day, we can maybe take you first. I think we are all in the same soup here. I will make whatever time is necessary to give a complete picture to the court and I think that probably needs to begin with the numbers.
>> major?
>> well, real quickly then, then mr. Earle can address his issues. You have seen our issues since we have talked last, the population hasn't gone down any. We are -- we have 2766 as of today's count. June's average population so far after 21 days is 2756. And so we are probably about 400 higher than we were this time last year and again we've told you what we believe is the reason why we have just more people in custody with higher level felony charges. So we believe that the long-term, the best long-term solution is to do whatever we can immediately to bring more components of this new district court online, whatever that entails. As mike said, we did have a conversation last week about what could happen in the district attorney's office and of course i'll let them speak to those issues. There's some short-term action that we would like to see occur to -- to help us in the sheriff's office with the -- with our issues and so real quickly just to recap those is -- going out of county is a viable option that we believe we need to do immediately just to relieve some of the pressure that's on our system right now. Even if we sent 200 people out of county, it takes us down to 2550, that's still a pretty big burden on our system. But we can manage the 2550, but we do think some people need to go out of county as soon as we can. And to get everything in place and to make that happen. We would probably have to jump through some pretty good hoops just to make that happen on July 1st if in fact the funding was there. We approved the other day the contract with pre I don't. We appreciate that -- frio. We appreciate that. We have two contracts, frio and limestone, as soon as I get back to the office I will be calling them to see how much space they have available. I know people don't want to talk about adding variance beds, but I think it is an option that we seriously need to look at. Because if this population -- even if we for some chance started building new facilities, they wouldn't be built for at least a couple or two or three years. And if -- if this population trend continues, I don't think we would want to house inmates at county for the next three years. So we really do need to seriously look at adding some variance, additional variance beds and so I would encourage you to -- to allow me to do that. I would have to come back with another agenda item to get you to approve for me to go to jail standards to add additional variance beds. And then lastly, very quickly, is -- any time our population goes over the 23, 2400 mark, then we are in an overtime situation because we would have four to five buildings closed, that's what we were staffed for. By having those buildings opened and -- that itself creates a staffing shortage. Real quickly the bottom line, I think we ought to send some inmates out of county. I think we need to hire some additional staff for the buildings that we have closed and now have to constantly keep open. And then again would encourage you to allow me to go to jail standards to add some variance beds, then there's the court option.
>> [indiscernible] we gave back some variance beds, what was that 18 months ago?
>> December of -- December of '02.
>> okay. What was that number.
>> 167.
>> okay. That's a good reminder for me. Thank you, sir.
>> yes, ma'am.
>> david your third recommendation is the hiring of 20 to 40 f.t.e.s.
>> yes, sir.
>> before we even get to the court thing. I think that that -- we did it here last week, why that is so important in having gotten the report from bill campbell showing the numbers on overtime and overtime is just stress on -- on f.t.e.s that we have. I mean, and obviously that is, you know, the major concern. It should be a major concern because we are just working people into the ground.
>> that's absolutely correct. We have 12, basically 12 posted day for the buildings that have been closed. Then we have additional posts that we have opened because just of the population increase. So -- so it's -- it's not getting any better and in -- but even if we set a number of -- sent a number of inmates out of county, we would still absolutely need those f.t.e.s because those buildings are not going to close.
>> sure.
>> well, we are here again to talk about general overcrowding. The last time we were here, a couple of years ago, we used this as an opportunity to re-evaluate everything that we do. And we came up with the rocket docket as a partial solution. Then later we came up with the missile docket. And both of those have been huge successes. The rocket docket has cut the number of -- average number of days in jail by almost -- almost two-thirds. The missile docket has cut the number of days in jail by half, from 78 down to 39. But -- but our most recent analysis, as major balagia alluded to, is that the problem is higher level felonies. That -- that where the accused are staying in jail too long from the time that they are arrested until the time the case is completed and leaving our jail. Our caseload of cases on the docket is about a thousand cases per assistant d.a. Roughly a thousand cases per lawyer handling it. And these cases that we're talking are more serious than the rocket docket and the missile docket cases. We could move those faster because they are not as serious, but these are -- involve defendants who are often dangerous, pose a greater threat to public safety. Some of them are prison bound. Many of them for a long time. They are often less likely to plead guilty. Some of them know as much law as people that are appointed to represent them. So we're talking about a harder core of inmate when we are talking about the higher level felonies. Now, what we would propose to the court is that this problem be addressed from -- in two phases from two points as -- as in military terms perhaps a pincher movement. The first part being preindictment. The period from arrest to grand jury. It takes longer for a.p.d., which is where we get about 95% of our cases, takes longer for them to investigate more serious crimes. Takes longer for us to get the case, process the file, review the case, present it to the grand jury. So the solution that we would propose to the court is to add resources at the intake stage of the case. When we get the -- when we first get the case so that we could replicate as much as possible the success that we've had with the rocket and missile dockets. If we add more resources to intake, that will get the intake function of reviewing the case, screening the case, presenting the case to the grand jury, which requires that the file be assembled, all of those functions that we could speed up by gaining more resources into the intake area and get that part of the process off the plate of the trial teams because right now the -- the four lawyers plus the child abuse lawyer in each of the six district courts are also presenting cases to the grand jury. They are presenting the more serious cases to the grand jury. Not the rocket and missile docket cases. We have lawyers presenting those cases. But the more serious cases are being presented to the grand juries by lawyers who otherwise would be in court moving cases. So what we propose to do is add three lawyers and one record staff person to our intake function and create in effect an intake division, which we once had. We would prefer in a perfect world we would like to have the same lawyer handling the case from intake all the way through trial. That's why we've had the same lawyer presenting the cases to the grand jury in whose court the case is going to end up. But that's not as efficient except in like really, really serious cases like capital murder cases. Then you need to have vertical prosecution. But we think that with the three lawyers and one regular staff person that we can process the files faster, present the cases to the grand jury faster, and in short get the cases to the courts as soon as possible. That's our primary recommendation to you as of today. That's what we could do today if we had those additional resources. Three lawyers, one records person. We think that we could shave considerable jail days off of the more serious cases. Because we're handling pretty much the same number of cases, roughly 9,000 cases a year, with the same number of lawyers in the trial courts. So the only place to speed it up, really, is without the addition of a new court. And that's the second phase. That's the second part of the picture. Which is post indictment. I've been talking about preindictment. The second phase, second half is post-indictment. In other words the indictment to disposition of the case. The time it takes for us to get the case through the court system. A new district court has already been approved by the legislature. The only question left is when it's going to start. And when it starts, whether temporarily by use of a visiting judge or permanently when the new judge is appointed which won't be until January of 2007, but we could start that at any time basically, but we are going to need -- when that happens, we will need a full court complement. In other words the same resources in the new court that we have in the 6 existing courts, which are five lawyers, an investigator, counselor, secretary, records clerk because in the long run, really the intermediate run, major balagia has given you an outline of an immediate remedy to this problem. What we're talking about is in the intermediate run, in other words it will take us roughly six weeks to hire a new intake complement and find places to put them. And we are working with facilities to find new places in our building to put these additional lawyers and the records person. So that's the intermediate step. It is long-term step, which is the addition of a new court, that -- that will require hiring, as I said, five additional lawyers, victim counselor, an investigator and an additional records clerk. Along with an investigator. So basically, ultimately we will require both parts. Right now we can get some mileage out of a new intake function.
>> let me ask you a question. Comparatively looking at the population here in Travis County as compared to another county of the same size, have there been any type of evidence to show the increase -- that you brought up as far as crime [indiscernible], has that been pretty consistent across the board, if so how are other counties handling -- you mentioned intake, you came up with a lot of good things, a lot of good ideas. How the counties are looking at this to ensure that they can meet the demands of the request to ensure that we carry out the legal system accordingly --
>> that's an excellent question, Commissioner. Most every county handles it differently. Different ways this is handled in every community. Harris county has a way of hang it that probably wouldn't work here. I don't know with enough specificity to be able to tell you exactly how other counties handle it. I don't know of any better way -- nobody does it any better than we do in terms of speed. Disposition of the case with a -- with a competent appointed defense lawyer. I think we do that better than anybody else anywhere. So I don't know other than by reducing the crime rate, other than by prevention, we have got a number of programs that the court knows -- we are -- my office is deeply engaged in efforts to stop the crime before it happens. But once it happens, there are certain steps that have to be taken in our system. And what -- what this overcrowding problem has done is sort of make us reexamine everything that we do, that's how we came up with rocket and missile. This is how we really staved off this crisis as long as we have. We would be here having this same conversation several years ago had it not been for our success with rocket and missile docket and working in conjunction with the sheriff's office to keep the number of jail days down. So we are really, also operating with the same number of grand juries, same number of lawyers, same number of grand juries. We think that we can get more productivity out of the current grand jury system. We don't think that we need a third grand jury today. We may come back to you in two months, say we have done the best we can with the new, if you give us the new intake capacity to give us these three lawyers this records person, you give us that new capacity, and we run with it for a few months, we may come back to you and say the wheels are coming off the grand jury, we need a third grand jury. I don't think we are going to have to have that, though. I think we can get -- because we've got, for example, right now two highly efficient grand juries. I think that we will be able to take full advantage of that and avoid the necessity of a third grand jury, which would be frankly just in terms of pure logistics very difficult. We have only got one grand jury room, for example. So -- we think we can make a considerable difference by taking the intake load off of the trial division in our office. So that the lawyers that are now having to leave court and go present cases to the grand jury would be able to stay in court and deal with the more serious cases that are constituting the majority of what's left in the jail. We are witnessing the phenomenon of a hardening of the jail population as we weed out the different elements with rocket and missile docket.
>> is there any correlation I guess between inmates that are in our county jail with any setting because of state jail overcrowding problems, is there any relationship before us that they are staying here in Travis County a little longer than they should because of state jail crowded situations?
>> Commissioner, you know, i've heard everyone say and i've even read articles that say that the state system is getting full and I think we all realize that. But our numbers as far as transfers has not slowed down and they are still taking their prisoners within their allotted time and in fact they -- as far as this county goes, they take them a little quicker. They can -- they have a duty to take within 45 days, they are actually taking them quicker than that. So -- but now we've heard that. But i've not really seen it.
>> i've heard it, too. That's why I posed the question.
>> the disability on what -- to follow up on what major balagia said. The total number of transfers for may of '05 compared to may '04 were actually a little bit up. We've actually had more releases in may than we did in may of last year. So ironically we have seen our releases up, but seen our intake numbers up so much higher. Several hundred. So --
>> right the numbers.
>> we still are seeing more people come through the front door than we are leaving out the back door, even though both numbers are up.
>> I would like to introduce buddy meyers, the long time chief of the trial division of the district attorney's office, the backbone of the office. That's where most cases are dispossessed of are through the efforts of the trial division. In terms of the heavier burden that has fallen on the trial division trying to do the intake function and the trial function, buddy can speak to that if anybody has any questions.
>> I have a question. We heard last week, I guess I met with major balagia and other staff about two weeks ago, the two category that's have increased dramatically are assault and serious drug cases. We were dispossessing of -- disposing of more of both types, but the number in our custody had dramatically increased. So that left me with the impression if we could put ourselves in a position to try more of those cases, we could have a best shot at reducing the everyday population.
>> try more of those cases?
>> right. So rather than an intake option, I assume they have been indicted because the average stay had been like 200 days. Looked like these were posted indictment inmates who were waiting their chance to go to trial and that's why the -- an additional visiting judge's courtroom and maybe more case trying capacity, which would include prosecutors, support staff, visiting judge or master, sort of came to mind. So is that -- do we think intake has immediate relief that's -- is more -- is better than --
>> well, that's kind of what we are saying a while ago. What's happening is the lawyers in the trial division are presenting cases to the grand jury. They are performing the intake function in addition to the trial function. What we are trying to do is get the trial function or intake function off the plate of the trial division enabling them to provide more time and attention to those cases that you are talking about. We think that we can move them faster if we are able to provide more time and attention. Often it's not just a matter of available jury weeks. Or jury trials. Often it's a matter of just an added attention to the case in order to move it faster.
>> if we set up intake, we take the lawyers now involved in the intake process, they are in the courtrooms trying cases.
>> yes, sir.
>> we think that we could try more and try more expeditiously.
>> yes, sir. I believe so. I think that if we can free the lawyers up that are on the trial teams, to just dedicate themselves to working on the cases that are in their court, the -- the cases can -- the cases that you referred to, we can be ready on them quicker, we can try to resolve them with the negotiated pleas and if not we can be ready to try them quicker than we are right now because those lawyers on those trial teams not only have the responsibility for their court in terms offing in court, but also they have to be in grand jury and that's -- that's a considerable amount of time that they have to devote to be ready on those cases to present them to a grand jury.
>> well, we are kind of to the point where we have to quantify the benefit. Are we able to do that with the three lawyers and.
>> records person.
>> records person for intake?
>> I believe you can, yes, sir. Yes, sir.
>> are you able to do that between now and 1:45 this afternoon?
>> well, we have a budget.
>> what are you looking for.
>> benefit. What's the likely benefit of the additional investment on the front end,thereby freeing up lawyers who should be in the courtroom to try cases.
>> let me tell you for example, we have had the same number of lawyers in the trial courts since 2003. 2003 there were 7300 -- 7400 roughly indictments and informations filed in the district courts. In '04 and '05, there were roughly 9,000. In other words we are doing the same amount of work with the same amount of lawyers, same number of lawyers. So we are increasing the amount of work for the same -- with the same number of lawyers. The lawyers are now doing double duty. They are doing intake function, presenting the case to the grand jury as well as the trial function of trying the case. Now, in terms of quantification, how many cases can we move, I could probably come up with a number, but it would be more in the neighborhood of an educated guess than it would be an absolute quantification.
>> well, the money that we have to invest comes from emergency funds and there are four or five ways to spend it. So -- so the -- I guess we are in kind of the worst position in that we need relief as soon as possible. That's because of the number in our custody. So we are not overlooking the long-term veamg, but there is like an urgency in emergency situation that we need to try to meet as soon as possible and unfortunately, you know, limit it, finish night, emergency funds. So I guess what we would like to do is get the biggest and earliest bang from investing this money. Than from -- on the long-term strategy we have another budget process to go through, so we got a little bit more planning opportunity. Before the immediately relief, we are really looking at dollars in reserve that we can redirect to deal what we consider to be an emergency situation, which is why some best guess at the -- at the benefit would probably would help I guess. Because we do the same thing with out of county, there's costs associated with that. What's clear, too, is that if you spend in overtime right now, you get a lot more bang by hiring regular corrections officers, assuming that you can find them, train them, you know, put them to work. So that's sort of approach is what I?m thinking of.
>> when we initiated the rocket docket, way back in '02, we were doing -- dealing with the same issue where you asked us how much can you save us. We kind of guessed then. We might look at the kinds of things that we have done, shaving off early time, preindictment time in the rocket docket and the missile docket to give you some sort of estimate about how much we might shave off preindictment. Now that doesn't mean we'll do -- we can tell you now how much more quickly we will move in the courts because of course that's a different initiative and a different area. That will just be an approximation because as ronnie mentioned earlier, these cases are drug cases who are in jail, and lower level property type offenses in jail. And the cases that we will be talking about and -- major, I guess the new analysis shows it's the bigger drug cases and assaults?
>> well, it's the person crimes really that the judge said assaulted. But it's the persons crimes. And we have given additional information to rosemary and her folks, but we haven't broken it down to -- to indicted versus not and we can do that.
>> would be in jail -- wouldn't be in jail a couple hundred days before indictment, though, would you?
>> say it again, sir.
>> the number of people in jail, four or five months before indictment would be very, very small.
>> no.
>> so I just assume that most of the one that's we were looking at in those numbers were post-indictment. But now persons for -- [indiscernible] you talking about murder cases, aggravated robberies, real serious stuff other than [indiscernible]
>> right, your description was accurate, it's assaultive type of charges, sexual assault, aggravated robbery, robbery, on and on. I mean --
>> so we can try to give you some numbers on the preindictment shave off, if you will. You should see some benefit in the courts just from -- from having that load taken off those lawyers and there being able to -- their being able to spend more time working on their post-indictment cases . They do sit for a long time, not four months, we have to get them if they are in jail into the grand jury before that. We can't quantify that part immediately.
>> I had in mind looking at the number of additional cases that we thought we could dispose of by setting for trial realizing setting it for trial, you all have communicated to me on the fact that you get a lot more pleas that way. If you are there, never on the docket for a trial setting, there's for pressure on you. If you think that you have state time coming, and your you're a Travis County resident, seems like they would like to stay here a lot more than go to the state, so they would postpone it as much as possible.
>> I?m afraid at this point in time would only be a guess.
>> are you guys fully staffed right now? You have x number of f.t.e.'s, are you fully staffed?
>> we have an opening [indiscernible] state unit only.
>> that's good. I?m going to ask the same question of the district judges this afternoon. Do you have an opinion about the greater use of associate judges, image straits, however you want to put it? Because over on the civil side, one of the ways they have been able to manage what is also huge numbers they have a lot of workload that they have dumped off to the associate judges to handle and use precious time for a district judge to handle those things only a district judge can handle. Also each and every one of those district judges has a briefing attorney. We don't have some of those same techniques over there. Do you have an opinion about whether associate judges or image straits could also be -- magistrates would also be helpful as opposed to its only about another criminal district courtroom, are there other ways to move along the business of the courts.
>> I think that I would defer that -- an answer to that question to the district judges. I would observe, however, that the real issue in judge Biscoe alluded to it, the real issue in the criminal, on the criminal side of the docket is how soon is the guy going to plead? How long is he going to wait? And if he's only looking at a magistrate, he knows that he's not getting a good trial there. So magistrate only takes pleas. So if the guy is ready to plea, he can plead to a magistrate.
>> okay.
>> but it's the district judge with the jury waiting that creates the pressure for the pleas. And I would -- I would invite rosemary and buddy to -- to offer their opinions as to that. I -- judges, of course, are going to know far more about this, have much better opinion abouts this than I would -- about this than I would.
>> I would defer to the judges. As I would reaffirm what ronnie has said about putting pressure on defendants using, trying to use magistrate court. In my opinion that's not going to work because you don't have a jury panel in front of a magistrate, that's not putting the pressure on a defendant to resolve the matter quicker than they normally would.
>> ronnie, you know I was going to ask this question. We have three months left, there are limited numbers of reserve, et cetera, in which to deal with our emergency swaying. Got anything in dapso that could be thrown into the pot? I?m looking at trying to get through the next three months. Because clearly we will have an opportunity in the budget process to get us properly fixed for next year. But we got three months to get through here. Got anything that you can throw into the pot from that?
>> y'all -- [laughter]
>> I have no shame.
>> call in a lead-in national thinker. You have pretty much dragged dapso to the bathtub and drowned it with the past measures.
>> you have voluntarily thrown dollars in our direct. I am wondering if you had any more discretionary dollars nine months into the fiscal year to help out with the hiring of some folks or for equipment or whatever. Tied into expenses that are going to be directed back to the d.a.'s office.
>> related to dapso, but a little bit different. I have been informed by the magician, ms. Skinner, that we could [indiscernible]
>> you want to transfer that into real dollars.
>> that's a million, isn't it? [laughter]
>> [indiscernible]
>> somewhere around 20 to 30,000 I?m informed.
>> it all helps. Pennies in the couch.
>> we do have the judges coming over this afternoon. There's another 10 or 15 minute item hopefully that we need to take up pretty early, so if we could take this item back up at about 1:45 this afternoon. It would be good. Is that okay? Everybody can come back? We will have the judges here, too, so --
>> judge, before we get out of here, let me ask -- I mean, what -- is what ronnie is talking about with bringing these other attorneys on, last week's backup, I?m looking at when you -- the pages aren't numbered, but it says Travis County criminal district court departmental summary preliminary annual cost estimate, is that the -- is that the page that we ought to be looking at? I mean, the district attorney's -- the district attorney's is 666,000.
>> that was just -- I believe something the court administration put together in '04 to illustrate the whole entire package and that's not with a we are talking about here.
>> okay. Well, I just wanted to make sure because that's a million-six because it spawns all of these other things from district clerk, sheriff, district courts, cscd, but if that's not the page I need to be looking at, I just need to omit that page.
>> the original figures for the new district, they will have to be updated but that's the new court.
>> in other words the -- would 666 be the part that you are talking about.
>> no. What we are talking about --
>> we don't have --
>> the first part of what we're talking about is the intake function, which is roughly 344,000.
>> okay. All right.
>> [indiscernible]
>> that's annualized. Is that annualized or the next three months?
>> annualized.
>> thank you.
>> I would like to make sure when you do return, everybody is bringing up good points, but I would like to make sure that the -- that the benefits of looking at how we can pull the attorneys out of your shop away from the old process of dealing with intake and also the trial process. What would be the actual benefits of -- of separating those? Basically dealing with trial and then you have somebody deal with intake.
>> well -- [indiscernible]
>> would then be able to develop their full attention and time to dissupposing of the more serious cases -- disposing of the more serious cases, talking to witnesses, basically a matter of time --
>> well, even with that, that should -- that should be something predicated on -- on a reduction as far as volume and stuff.
>> it would mean that we would be able to dispose of more cases.
>> more rapidly.
>> right. More rapid pace, stuff like that.
>> so those are the kind of things I want to kind of be flushed out if we end up going in that direction, so we will just wait and see what else would be --
>> what we are basically doing, we are moving the necessity for the trial division lawyers to appear before the grand jury.
>> exactly.
>> and keeping them in the courtroom, working the cases.
>> thank you. Okay. Thank you.
>> move that we recess to 1:40.
>> second.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
let's call back up for continuation of our morning discussion of item number 29 -- not 29, but item -- yeah, 10, I believe. It's involving the jail overcrowding situation. That was to consider and take appropriate action on jail overcrowding including the following options. A was the possible request for additional area beds from the Texas commission on jail standards. B, cost for inmate housing out of county. C, cost of more modular -- leasing a modular building or buildings, and d, cost and benefit of adding a visiting judge's courtroom. Good afternoon.
>> good afternoon. Judge, thank y'all for having us over this afternoon. There were two or three things that we were talking about, and I believe one is the sheriff I think brought forward the idea of possibly starting the new district court early. And by using a visiting judge in place of that court until January first of 2007, which is when it's supposed to go into effect.
>> just for the record, you're still judge bob perkins, correct?
>> yes, that's correct. Sorry, I didn't introduce myself. Thank you, judge. And this is something that we district judges are in favor of. Obviously, you know, the thing is that the judge is always the bottleneck of the system. I mean, since everything has got to go through that, it doesn't make any difference how many lawyers you have, how many state lawyers and clients and everything that you have, it all got to go -- funnel down through that one judge that's deciding everything. So if you're going to have everything bottlenecked up, then at least let's have several bottlenecks to let the liquid get out of there, you know, let things get out and let things go. So obviously the more judges that we have that are available to dispose of cases, the better off we are. My understanding is that y'all had asked a question this morning as the cost benefit of having a visiting judge come in and how many other cases we would be disposed of by doing that. I don't have a quick answer for you on that. I?m not really sure what the answer to that question to be r. Would be, but if you do have a r. Another visiting judge come in and help us, it would dispose of some cases faster. Just as a result of the rocket docket and the visiting judge program that we already have, I think our jury cases now are down to a level that I think it's something like 200 cases that we have that are on jury trial, is that right? And so we've already worked the numbers down to a fairly low level. It's one of the lowest levels that I ever remember. And with another visiting judge, I guess we could knock it down some more. I just don't know exactly how far that would be. In terms of the cost benefit analysis, I think you would have to run the numbers on that and I?m not an expert in that field, but I can tell you what numbers look right to me, but I couldn't give those to you offhand. That was one thing they mentioned. The other thing that they mentioned was having an additional grand jury. We have two grand juries meeting now. Up until like '82 or so, we only had one grand jury meeting at a time, and then as a result of the jail overcrowding lawsuit back in '81, we started another grand jury at the same time, and that did help -- that did speed up the number of indictments and the quickness with which those cases were indicted. So that does speed up the disposition of felony cases because you get those cases into a court of jurisdiction much faster. So it is possible that if you did start a nird grand jury -- a third grand jury at all times that you could speed up that process as well, disposition of felony cases. I know that in my court I do have my prosecutors complain to me particularly in the last couple of weeks, they have complained to me about the fact that they have not been able to get before the grand jury to get their cases heard and indicted. And sometimes that was a scheduling problem in that I was requiring that they be in court instead of before the grand jury. Other times they would try to get to the grand jury, but they were filled up that day with other people's cases. So I do think if you did start another grand jury up, I think that it would speed the disposition of those cases a lot because it would get them into court a lot faster. I think that that idea would also work. I do have to say if you did start an additional court and have that visiting judge start coming in before January first of 2007, if we started that additional visiting judge court, there's no place to put that person other than that visiting judge courtroom, the jail courtroom. It's also known as the jail courtroom that's in the jail. And I have to say if we're going to do that we need to spend some money to beef up that court. Y'all remember I think this is like three or four years ago that we started this court up primarily with $120,000 that the auditor gave to us to build that courtroom. And we haven't really spent any money on that since then. It is not -- if you had to go to trial, that's not the courtroom you would want to go to trial in. It's a bare bones thing and it's not really -- it's hard for the public to get access to it. There's just a lot of things we need to work on in terms of beefing that up if we're going to use that courtroom day in and day out. Right now we don't use it day in and day out. So if we're going to do that, we're going to need to spend some money on that. In addition, if we get an additional visiting judge, we're also going to have to find a courtroom for our magistrate because of the fact that he really -- he basically uses that jail courtroom now if there's nothing else available. If we start giving that one away, we will have to build a courtroom for him right away or someplace.
>> is -- [ inaudible ].
>> no, because y'all -- remember, we talked about that a few weeks ago. We have decided to use that courtroom for regular sexual assault cases and all these other sort of things that we didn't want to try down in the jail courtroom. So now he's using -- he's hearing cases in the jail courtroom.
>> so who is the judge assigned to that particular courtroom?
>> whoever the visiting judge is that week.
>> okay. So that really is the visiting judge's courtroom.
>> that's the number one visiting judge. In other words, we already have one visiting judge every week to help us. And he helps one of the six district judges each week. And so the -- that person sits in judge cornell's courtroom and hears those cases. If that case ends early like the one this week did, there's not a problem or -- I?m sorry, last weekended real early, so he goes back and hears those cases there. So what I?m saying is if we gave them a second visiting judge, then the only place we could put them would be in that visiting judge courtroom down there in the jail.
>> I think -- [ inaudible ]
>> and I?m just --
>> the visiting judge's courtroom that I thought was the regular time for using our visiting judges was a special courtroom that we had built. And not that there were actually two ongoing visiting judge's courtroom, because that was part of the reason for trying to get real district judge, not the visiting judge, not a real one, but somebody that is accountable to the voters of Travis County as opposed to somebody that's really running a court who is not accountable to the public of Travis County: I never thought that we would not only have a new district judge, but two other visiting judges. It's like I hope that improves.
>> what we've had for several years is we've had one visiting judge that comes on and hears jury cases, and since there's six district courts, every week he's assigned to one of those judges. Now, we have crowing of the courtroom, because the people coming into the building, we have divided up the jury docket, so we have jury cases one week and the other three are doing trials before the court and the next week they flip-flop. And so what has happened is we need to get our jury docket way down. I think the last time mine had like 11 cases -- I have 11 cases on my jury docket now altogether, period, from now until the end of the docket. That's all that I have. And so a lot of times I?m able to give my visiting judge over to one of the other two judges that are hearing things on my rotation. And that's also happening with the other three judges. If they run into a situation where they don't need a visiting judge, then they would pass that visiting judge over to one of the other judges. So it helps to reduce all the caseload on the jury docket. So that visiting judge has been hearing cases for several years. Originally we always had that judge going over to the jail courtroom and hearing cases over there. That's virtually the only place that he heard them. Then, what happened was beginning the last year, y'all had some concerns about maybe using the judge's courtroom more because it does have a jury box and it does have a jury room and y'all suggested to us that sooner or later we would have to use that as a regular judge's court. So we took you up on the suggestion and we started assigning that visiting judge to hear it in that courtroom and for the magistrate to hear his cases in the jail courtroom, which is what has been happening since then. Now, as a result of that we have been able to give a lot more cases to that visiting judge because more we would not send an aggravated sexual assault or a murder or one of those type big cases, we wouldn't send it down to that jail courtroom. That's the way that worked out. What I?m saying is if we start up now using a second visiting judge, which is basically what the sheriff's proposal entails, we would have no choice other than to send them down to that courtroom. That's the only other courtroom that there is is the jail courtroom. That's what I?m saying. And so we'd have to beef that up. I think we need to beef that up if we're going to continue to use it day in and day out. And we also need to find a place, a permanent place for the magistrate to sit and hear cases. He doesn't need a jury box and he won't need a jury room, so it doesn't have to be the biggest court in the world, but it would be good if we could get something that would be kind of a permanent thing instead of him being a nomad and having to go from one vacant courtroom to another and that sort of thing.
>> we need some more education. The thing is when we went over to the state lawyer to say we needed a new criminal court. We thought it would be on the top floor of the cjc.
>> that is where it's going to be.
>> which means if we're going to start it earlier, the fact is we're already starting it earlier, it already preexists.
>> we're already at capacity and overcapacity. Exactly right. That's exactly correct.
>> judge, since you don't know the numbers cost benefit analysis wise of a visiting judge, did either of the bill's that are sitting on the front row? Where is a -- when somebody comes and asks us for dollars, I mean, and with judges, cost benefit analysis, I mean, somebody needs to go, hears the benefit to get if we bring a visiting judge in, here's what we can dispose of, here's what we have less daily -- where is that?
>> [inaudible - no mic].
>> well, I don't --
>> last week we met with debra and the staff from the district attorney's office. At that time we discussed we needed to get together and have some more information about how the courtroom would be used. And I think once we have that information, I believe we can provide a cost benefit analysis, but kind of discussing the difference between the visiting courtroom right now and how that's being used and what type of cases would go to that new courtroom I think we would need to know that first before we could really give a true estimate of what the impact would be on the jail population.
>> and Commissioner, let me also say that a few years ago when we started up this program of using the visiting judge to come in and help us with these jury cases, we did compile those figures then and talk about how many people we estimated we would be getting out of jail that much faster and everything. So those figures do exaft, but -- exist, but they're back in some notebook in debra's office and she's out of town this week. So we can get those figures for you. I mean, that's not a problem, it's just we need to lay our hands on it.
>> so we shouldn't be expected to pass judgment on some of these things today given that we don't have that kind of backup.
>> if you want dollars and cents figures, we can get those for you. I would say that if you want those before you vote, which I agree, then we should set is off for another day.
>> that was our recommendation we had last week is we need to do more work on this. So we knew that the visiting judge's courtroom part probably needed to have additional analysis, but the other part, especially the sheriff' is office and the other things they presented might be ready to go.
>> and why is it that we never really look at using courtrooms in the evening I mean, versus, going around here and trying to find all these -- I mean, we use facilities 30% of a day. Now, i've heard everything from lawyers don't like to work, staff doesn't like to work in the evening. I bet you that we could find somebody that will take that evening gig because there's a courtroom. I mean, can't we do that? I mean, that's not thinking too outside the box, is it?
>> well, if we can find those people that are willing to do that, let me know.
>> are you serious, judge?
>> I?m just saying that I think that what happens is this, in terms of the work schedule, you have -- for instance, the lawyers that come into my court, they're working all day long. They're working in the morning, they're working in the afternoon, and if you want them to come back at night and work too, it becomes a chore. It becomes a big deal for people to be in court all the time. I mean, that just -- that's a big deal. I mean, if you're talking about saying, well, we have some people coming in and working at night only, I don't know any defense lawyers who will be able to do that because defense lawyers would always be subject tom cog into court because some court is going to be in session during the daytime, so they would have to be in court morning and afternoon. And then if you say in addition to that they need to come in at night, I don't know what kind of attendance you will get from defense lawyers on that, number one. In terms of da's and county attorney's, I guess you could say, okay, we're going to set up a separate work shift where da's and county attorney's are going to -- some of them are going to work just at night or work in the afternoon and at night and that's it. And I don't know, there again, I don't know how you're going to set up that system where you will be able to get enough people to get there to where you have a critical mass to actually dispose of cases at that time. Plus, sheriff's deputies, etcetera, etcetera, people that are going to be working and asking for overtime and everything, I just -- I don't think that will work. I do think that you can use the daylight hours more efficiently and still dispose of a lot more cases than we're doing. I don't know that necessarily you have to go into the nighttime kind of night court situation. Night court is probably a good idea in terms of the layman being able to come into court and actually get his case heard. That's the reason why you will see jp courts, municipal courts use that a lot because a lot of people are going in there without lawyers and trying to get traffic tickets taken care of and trying to get small claims cases taken care of. You're not talking about any lawyers in that situation. You're talking about laymen coming in, talking to the judge and maybe a city attorney or somebody being there.
>> well, I?m all ears, judge. When I see 1.6, 1.8 million, when I see all the numbers that are coming at us and it's being pushed by the 25 or 26, 2700 people in the jail, if we don't mindseting the tax rate at 62 cents, then I guess we can do all this stuff. But -- my dad was an attorney and my dad was in law enforcement, but he worked graveyard shift. This country works more than eight hours a day during the -- I know this is not your -- I?m not telling you, judge, why don't you open up a court in the evening.
>> I did have a night court when I was a justice of the peace.
>> I?m just looking for some answers that are outside, this is normally what we do and this is what we've got to do because there are unbelievable dollars coming at us for these things. And all the preliminary things i've seen budgetwise, there's no way that we can do this. I mean, it's kind of like you go, okay, tell somebody to sit out there in the holding area for another two weeks because we don't have a place -- we don't have the dough to do whatever it takes to expedite and to do whatever you've got to do courtwise for these folks. But maybe I?m missing something. I?m all ears if somebody wants to sit down in a very micromanner and go Gerald, here's what you need to understand.
>> I will say this Commissioner, and that is, back in 2002 we got very aggressive in terms of dealing with jail cases and we cut them way down. And I can't remember, but you look at the graphs of 2001 and then 2002, and you see starting in September of 2002 those jail cases really start declining a lot. And I?m certain that if we got -- if we went to some second tier, if we went to some second attack now on that and got more aggressive than we have been, I?m certain that we can knock those numbers again down lower. But I don't know that we necessarily need to use a nighttime approach yet, but it may be that we'd have to do that later on.
>> judge, one of the things we talked about this morning was whether a greater use of magistrates and/or associate judges would work because that's been utilized very successfully by the civil judges to find things that can truly be handled by these folks and leave the district court time for the district court judges who can only handle that. Have you all explored associate judges?
>> you know, we started the magistrate court back in '91, something like that, and originally we set it up to on where we were all sending cases to him and that sort of thing. When we started rocket up back in 2002, we started sending those cases to him a little bit at a time and then just kind of a flood of cases, all of them go there now and all of the missile cases go there now. And in October of 2004, of all the cases -- all the new cases that were disposed of, 16% of them were disposed of just by the magistrate court and the rocket and missile docket. So 16% basically is one-sixth of the docket of all the new cases that were disposed of just in that one system alone. So definitely the court master can be used. I don't know that the numbers dictate at this time -- dictate doing a second magistrate, but that might help. I guess the problem is my perception of it is that the increased number of felony cases that are being filed, ie, first and second degree felonies, do not go to rocket and they don't go to missile docket. And those end up going to just the elected judges primarily, and so for that the magistrate is not going to help us that much in that situation because the main thing the magistrate would help us in that situation would be for us to send pleas over to him as they get worked out so then we can go ahead and get something worked out pretrial or something like that that's actually getting heard. But that is a possibility that it could help. It's sort of like when you're running for office and you ask your campaign manager, well, should I advertise on this thing over here? And they say, well, it couldn't hurt? Yeah, it couldn't hurt, but y'all are the judges of what the cost benefit is. Everything you're suggesting, all those things would help. Which ones give you the most return for the money, that's a judgment that y'all are going to have to make. We'll try to get to the facts and figures that will show you that.
>> another one that actually goes to where Gerald is talking about of what we can actually do at night. What we have done at night is drug court.
>> yes, we do that. That's the only time it meets.
>> and another possibility is considering how many people have drug related issues, and it's not only about using our facilities at night, it is also about keeping people out of that facility if they just stay clean during the day. Is that a possibility?
>> well, drug court does meet at night. And there again what you have in drug court situation is you have the judge and you have two lawyers that are representing the state and you have lawyers representing state and you have two lawyers that we have hired to represent the defendants there. But everybody else that comes in there, they're all laymen. So that kind of situation works. In addition to which, we have like the treatment kind of situations in my court every Wednesday night they have been meeting for d.w.i. Offenders and that sort of thing, so we do use those courtrooms at night. It's just not usually for courtroom situations except for drug court.
>> even though the drug court possibility, did that -- again, getting back to the cost benefit --
>> in my opinion --
>> where's the best use of our money in the same way that we did that related to rocket docket?
>> we have sent over some more cases to drug court recently and we've empowered them to hear cases during more hours than they were before. So we're kind of doing as much as we can there. I don't think we need to start another drug court right now, but that's my offhand opinion. I haven't really looked at the figures. I think that would really help us a great deal with the jail cases that you're more concerned with.
>> [inaudible - no mic].
>> pretty much they're a lot of first time offenders. That's most of the people that go there are first time offenders. Every once in awhile you will get a second time offender or third time offender, but it's almost always it's first time offender that you're trying to rehabilitate and trying to keep out of the system because they actually get a dismissal of their case if they do all the things that we ask them to do. Or that judge bennett tells them to do.
>> I want to clarify sort of what we did with new courts. Remember, when we came in, the judges made a presentation, then I looked at the data, and it really looked to me like the data showed we're already short a court, it did. And if we had lots of money, we would have asked for two, but we didn't. We're bringing on a new civil court in fy '06, and because of the financial constraints given by the budget office, we asked for the criminal court in '07, and that's why it was pushed back. Everyone knew the demand was here today. And so that's kind of the reasoning between the way that figured out and judge perkins is right, what they thought is, well, facilities were another issue, what do we even do with a new court? And the idea was to put it where judge coronado is now. It was all driven on cost because the criminal court, there are just a whole lot of auxiliary people that go with a court. And if we were going to institute that court as we asked for it, but just without a selected judge before January of '07, then you really have all the costs except for the cost of the elected judge. If you want --
>> a visiting judge can hear more types of cases, serious and not so serious.
>> primarily what the visiting judge helps you with is with your jury docket because the thing is it helps the disposal of cases if the people on the jury docket know that not only are they have a chance to go to jail with the elected judge, but there's also a chance that they might get reached by somebody else, then it does force the state and the defense to listen to reason and possibly dispose of their case as ps opposed to just saying no, and continue to do the brakeman ship kind of thing, which all of us are kind of inclined to do. It does help to dispose of those cases. That's the main way that a visiting judge will help you. Primarily when we're out, if any of us are on vacation or if we have to go to cle or whatever, we usually get a visiting judge to come in and sit for us, so that already happens, but the court that y'all are talking about is sort of like an additional court that will fill the void until January 1 of twowrch. 2007. And so we should get those facts and figures for you together so you can see the kind of cost benefit analysis. That was made with some different assumptions back in 2002 or whenever it was that we started that because we were looking at different jail numbers and different number of arrests and that sort of thing. Also, we had a lot -- our jury docket was way higher than it is now. I mean, it's definitely down 50% now compared. I know that back then we had over 400 cases on the jury docket for all of us, and now we have like 200. So it's down a lot. And so I just don't know how much more good that will do for us, but we can figure that out.
>> if we look closely at offenders who have been in our custody say 200 days or more as far as assaults or serious drug cases, we can figure out how many are set on the jury docket and how many on the -- [ inaudible ].
>> a lot of the people that are going to be on there for a long, long time, a lot of them will be on the jury docket. If they're not today, they will definitely be on there tomorrow or the next day. If they're there a long time, it's because they're on the jury docket. They want a jury trial. That case is not going to get disposed of unless they have a jury trial or unless at the last minute a plea bargain will occur. But if you have somebody that's threatening to go to jiel on it, that there's a chance that it will actually get heard, is in that way -- the visiting judge helps you not only in the case that they actually end up hearing, but just in the case that plead out as a result of that visiting judge threatening to hear the case. That's the thing.
>> well, judge, is there any law that keeps us from getting a -- (indiscernible) -- approved. In cases where we think the guilt is very clear and there's no motivation to go to tdc? Anything to keep us from putting those first?
>> well, I -- in answer to that question, I would say that 50% of the cases that we do, that 50% of the jury cases that I hear are primarily cases where the state pretty much has a lay down hand. They have a case that there's just no question. But the guy that's habitual or something like that, he knows he's going to go to the pen for a long time, so he says, what the heck, I might as well have a trial, so maybe I can build in some error in the trial or something like that. So the low hanging fruit, those go to trial a lot. That's the problem.
>> does this show a who's in jail analysis to the rest of y'all like the one I saw two weeks ago?
>> i've seen that report, yeah.
>> [inaudible - no mic].
>> while he's coming up, the thing that amazed me is we're disposing of a whole lot more cases than we were this time last year, but the number in our custody on the serious charges really has dramatically increased, which is why I think not the sheriff, but I may have been the one to ask would another visiting judge help, thinking that a visiting judge would be able to try the serious cases? Because clearly the offenders going to tdc are not going to delay they're day -- are going to be delaying their day in court.
>> I remember when I was sitting in law school back in 1971, we had a municipal court judge come talk to us, ronnie earle, and he came and talked to my criminal law class, and he said delay always helps the defense, so for whatever that's worth.
>> we don't use the word delay. [ inaudible ]. [ laughter ]
>> ronnie has been saying he was in elementary school in '71. [ laughter ]
>> I thought I would get that passed you. You were speaking of night court awhile ago, judge. In 1971 I was a judge of the night court of the city of Austin, and we moved those cases like they were scalded dogs, I?m telling you. We moved them really fast. But not all of them had lawyers, as judge perkins pointed out. So it's easier to move them when they're not represented by council. But we have more important rights to be observed at the felony level, so we hold court in the die time. We might be able to do something at night, but I don't know what it would be, just on speak to your court, Commissioner. Judge, you had asked this morning for some cost benefit analysis that you wanted some targets that we thought we could reach with additional lawyers. And judge, what we had asked for this morning was to basically recreate our intake unit to take the load off the trial division lawyers so they can spend more time working cases. So that was our point this morning. And we put together some information about what we thought we might be able to do by doing that. There are two copies here. You will see from this chart these are entitled estimated reduction in inmate jail days. First degree felony -- average bed jail days is 171. We think we can cut that back by 20 days. Second degree felon now averages 92 days in jail. We think we can cut that back by 20 days. With the additional attention that we can pay to the docket by taking the burden of intake off the trial lawyers and putting it in the lawyers that we discussed this morning that cost, is it $344,000, as I recall, for the package. Third degree felony you see 57 and the determined average is 49. You see that that estimated number of jail days down at the bottom, say a one day snapshot. This is a one day snapshot, but the estimated total number of jail days saved is almost 24,000. You multiple that by however much we're spending now per day per inmate and you have an idea of what the savings could be. Now realistically when we first presented to you all the rocket docket, we estimated that we could cut the number of jail days down from 103, which is what it was for those low lying drug cases from 103 to 45. What we actually did was cut it down to 37. So we thick we can do better than this, but this is what you had asked for this morning and this is what we're giving you this afternoon.
>> and just to add to that, I got out the calculator and started running some of this. What that would equate to if we took a 55-dollar number for our cost per day of incarceration that's $1.3 million and that's the reduction in 365 people across the year.
>> of course, ils also doing the low end and saying I could have shipped them out to frio county, so I did the low end and that's still $181,000. Still much more benefit than the 343, including some one time cost.
>> that's what I was going to add to the discussion too is for every 50 people you can reduce the -- it's about one million dollars in cost if you look for the average cost of incartion ration that well surpasses that.
>> let me ask a question. My common sense makes me think of this. If in fact these are the serious offenders and repeat offenders that have some serious time coming somewhere, that number has been increasing dramatically I guess for the last six months, hasn't it? Every month has been dramatically higher than the month before. Will we run out of repeat offenders sometime soon?
>> I hope so.
>> I mean, it is surprising to me, it has been surprising to me how many more felons they have been arresting, really not just this year. Every summer we get a little bit higher since we got down to that low in 2003, and every year since then, 2004 was higher, 2005 is higher. It's surprising to me that it just keeps going up. And I guess we just have to get more aggressive and more aggressive. Now, one thing about it is that one of the reasons why we're doing this is because we're comparing this against the standard of a raw number, and that raw number being 2400. In other words, that does not envision any growth in Travis County's population or in crime. If you look at crimes per 100,000 people, if you look at that number, I?m sure that number today is -- whatever it is, the thing is we've had so many more people move into Travis County for 2002 when we got to be aggressive with this that there's no way that we're going to stay down at 2300 inmates. In other words, it's artificial to marry us to that raw number. But if you look at a crime rate or persons in prison per 100,000 population, that would give you a truer number of what to expect to be in jail. In fact, doing the same thing now that we were doing in 2002, we would still have a greater number of people in jail.
>> we were hoping to go from 2300 to 2350.
>> that ain't going to happen.
>> I have to say, judge, that it is surprising to me that the increasing number of felonies that have been committed and the number of felony arrests that have been made in the last year. I don't remember it going up that much that quickly.
>> let me irrelevant fate about every judge that's out there. Have we checked to see if there's courtroom space on occasion over on the civil side and whether the courtrooms down at gardner-betts, both of whom are secured facilities and both places where I have covered many a criminal court case. Are we checking and making sure we know exactly where we have open courtroom space on any given day?
>> the answer to that question is I have not checked. I don't know anybody in our building that's checked on that issue. Primarily every time a question comes up, well, we need to put somebody someplace, we've always been able to find a place in the criminal building. So we might have to ask that question at some point, but up until now we hav not had to ask that question.
>> they're both secured buildings.
>> if we would approve the intake recommendation, how long would it take to implement it?
>> a minimum of six-week just to find a lawyer who is hired and get him on board, take about six weeks. That's moving pretty fast.
>> judge had sent over an e-mail to us the other day about the court order that we put together back in '81 when they said y'all have to get everybody together within 21 days. The only way we could do that is if we had that taken and reconstituted. Otherwise, my prosecutors, they're in court. You can't go to the grand jury and be in court. Once the lawsuit -- once they found the jail was in compliance, I think that ended the lawsuit. I don't know if that order is still in effect.
>> this this sheet right here that we have $344,000 grand total to do legal secretary, senior office analyst, compared and taking your numbers of 23,820 jail days that we could offset, susan, is that something that you could support and sign off on that that would be verifiable and supportable I mean from the county auditor's? Because if you will, what are we, idiots? I mean, are you not willing to save $600,000? I mean, is this -- if this is accurate, then it's --
>> I don't think it's a matter of saving $600,000. I think it's a cost of -- [overlapping speakers].
>> if i've got to spend it versus save it, I mean to me it's saving it. If that's what we're really talking about, I mean, I?m all ears.
>> the question is if we do this package of an intake package, we can conceivably save what we're talking about here.
>> and so -- and that's a difference of 600,000 -- over $600,000. So you're telling me, ronnie, that we ought to sign up for that, and susan, you're saying --
>> I?m saying -- (indiscernible).
>> okay. Somebody needs to -- somebody needs to tell me, travis, if that's you. Because if this is what we're predicating our decision on, I?m just looking for -- I want somebody to give me some numbers and i'll go sign me up.
>> that's over one year and that is equivalent to sending 200 inmates at $37 a day to frio county for three whole months. That's it. That savings just got eaten up in the absolute minimum you're looking at.
>> you heard judge perkins talk to you about the psycho dynamics of moving a docket. In other words, the ready availability of a prepared prosecutor and a jury and a judge has a way of focusing the attention. Like benjamin franklin said, it's the same dynamic that judge perkins was outlining a minute ago. And if we have more people ready to go to jail, that's -- that will have the effect of moving the docket faster, it just will. Now, we don't know if there's going to be 20 days, 19 days, 25 days. As I said, we estimated 45 days with rocket docket and we beat that by eight. We might be able to beat this. We're saying that this is a reasonable estimate to give to you based on this is our best judgment.
>> and I guess really what susan said is pbo and pbo can sign off and verify. That's all I?m looking for.
>> I think first I would say that if the district attorney and the district judges would commit to making these numbers, we're in full support of it.
>> we have to have the cooperation of the criminal element. [ laughter ]
>> which means we've got one of those.
>> if the jail population doesn't agree, we're not going to be able to make that.
>> if ben franklin will step outside. [ laughter ]
>> why don't we then -- let's think about this. I hope we're not hoping to take action on this today, but it certainly look like something that we ought to do. Unless we think of a reason not to between now and next Tuesday, next Tuesday we can have it, but I think we can kind of touch base and it would be back from the two that won't be here on stuff that -- stuff that I think there seems to be agreement, we act on. What seems to be still controversial, let's just wait until it's more comfortable for the court.
>> can't we sign off on variance beds, the inmates going somewhere --
>> maybe we can do that. You mean today?
>> today.
>> I?m not ready on the 20 to 40, but let me tell you where I am at today. I think we ought to get that request on the variance beds and pray to god we don't ever need to. We ought to try to get our 167 beds back -- i'd be happy if we can get back what we gave up.
>> ask for 250.
>> whatever the judge thinks on that one. I am absolutely in favor of this added intake unit. I think it makes sense. I think it's something that needs to get done sooner, not later. I am there in terms of -- I am there at 200 inmates, good-bye tomorrow in terms of frio county is a lovely place this time of year. I am not in favor of the leasing of the modular buildings because we are trying to get a building project started out there and filling it in with more buildings that don't seem to ever be temporary I don't think is going to be helpful.
>> and I don't think that would be -- it's still on the page, but it's not recommended.
>> and I think there's more work to be done related to visiting judge's courtroom. We have space issues, we have other kinds of things. That one seems to take another couple of weeks' work. The reality is we already have that visiting judge's courtroom ongoing today, which was intended to be the one starting in January of 2007. It's already up and running. And it hasn't fully helped a lot of those numbers.
>> so we are going to --
>> on so y'all will -- ifthere's a motion, begin the intake strategy. It's fine by me, but I still think I want to have pbo take a look at it. And if we're overlooking at something, let us know. If it takes six weeks anyway, we may as well start moving. You have to post the positions and advertise and then interview before you make selections.
>> that's right.
>> you have to make it in terms of moving on in an intake unit with the court courting backup information. But you would be authorized to immediately start advertising.
>> the other thing is that in terms of a source of funding, we need to -- there's a finite pool as we look at these options at some point, we have to figure out whether the folks match the available funds. So next week we need to look at the funding also.
>> and it looks like the one time costs are almost equal to what you were offering this morning from your stuff.
>> I think I said 20 to 30,000.
>> this seems like a perfect match.
>> remarkable environment or coincidence. [ laughter ]
>> any more discussion?
>> yeah, judge. Commissioner, with your motion you were saying that it's contingent also with --
>> what we expect to have follow-up discussions next week related to implementation and where the dollars are coming from, all that kind of stuff.
>> okay.
>> and also nail down the specific funding requirement.
>> all that stuff.
>> okay.
>> any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. We'll go ahead with the variance beds.
>> I?m happy to move on that. Move that the sheriff be asked to put together an appropriate request to jail standards in relation to more variance beds. I quite frankly think that I would like to delegate to the sheriff to tell us what they think is a realistic number that does not try the patience of the jail standards.
>> won't the commission think something is seriously awry if we ask for more variance beds than we gave back?
>> I don't really have a sense of what the commission will say. I've already had discussions with staff, and staff are very supportive of our agenda request. Or potential agenda request. I've talked to jail standards staff and said this may be coming, and they were very supportive of us because the numbers are the numbers.
>> what numbers?
>> what number are they okay with?
>> I originally was in the number of about 140. I haven't had the conversation with them, but I will.
>> what you just asked for, what opposition do you see of 167?
>> can't you justifiably go to them and say we're sending 200 here. We would like to spend 300 here? We told apd not to bring 300. We need more beds. We're going to go ask, then let's go and ask for what we think we may need if we think we're going to need more than 1 zero. -- 164.
>> if our numbers stay the same and we don't go out of county, we definitely need the 200. We absolutely have to have the 200. Now, of course, the out of county is only temporary. I think I can --
>> I want to make sure we give ourselves motivation either to keep the number where it is or to reduce it. If you put all these number reduction measures in place, the motivation for them is to figure out other ways not to need them.
>> but if we have to go back for them, I think it's harder to go back and say we really would like to have another 38 or another 40. I mean, you're right, judge, you can look at it either way.
>> but we're hopeful that we're going to see some results of some sort related to the intake units and some other kinds of strategies. So I think we have to predict that some of these strategies have to work and will work. I don't feel comfortable going over.
>> because we are looking at doing something with our jail facilities, they're pretty supportive of working with us. I think it would be an okay strategy if we go for the 140 or 167 and be conservative on it and say that we're doing everything we can. Do you know what? We just need to get some additional beds, but we're working on it, we're going to continue to work on it and come back and ask for another 100 if we really need it at that point, but hopefully we won't.
>> i'll do it for 167. And i'll have to put it --
>> no more?
>> yes, ma'am. Y'all will have to approve that. I'll write that up.
>> I would leave the door open if you have to go back two months from now and ask for more, you can do it. But i'd ask for 167 would be that basically we'd like for authorization to use the 167 that we gave back because of circumstances that we did not anticipate and that today are beyond our control, but that we're working on.
>> yes, sir.
>> based on what happened when I was over there before, this kind of information about that is what they need to hear, unless they change dramatically.
>> but what's the number, 157 or 167?
>> 167 is the motion thai seconded, right, by Commissioner Sonleitner.
>> at some point we need to make a real serious attempt to make those permanent beds.
>> absolutely.
>> we've got to give major space right now to deal with this issue right now.
>> we're not giving up on the permanent remedy. Hopefully it will just get us through at least the summer and hopefully early fall is what we're thinking, right?
>> right. And you're really looking at two issues with the variance beds. You're looking at the one block we have, the 572 that we're looking at addressing because we've had those for such a long time that we were supposed to be in an emergency state when we got them. So those have to be addressed. But then we had this immediate spike in the population and that's what this 167 has to do with. Hopefully we don't have to ask for more, but it seems like they're two different blocks and reasons why we have to address them.
>> is there any indication that the numbers that we're seeing come into our system as going anywhere other than up?
>> i've seen no indication that --
>> even if we institute some of these things. I mean, I don't know what's happening out there. Everybody is scratching their heads wondering what's going on. We don't have any occasion. The way to do it is to do it now, then knowing what situation we're in and just going, do you know what, unless we can get this thing remedied, then we may have to come back with you and at least they won't be surprised by that.
>> and the piece of that I would like to work on is getting additional information from a.p.d. And what strategies they're looking at, what's going on over there. That's where we're seeing the increase and seeing more people come through the front door. We're seeing more high level felonies. We're up since the first quarter up on felonies for the year to date. So just to get a feel for are there some things that we build into our assumption that we and pbo try to work on projections for these numbers.
>> any more discussion of the motion? All in favor? This is regarding variance beds. This passes by unanimous vote.
>> judge, I?m ready.
>> on the 200 inmates out of county, you need to try to find out availability, we need to work with the budget office. You would like authorization as early as next week to go ahead and start using them, I take it?
>> yes, sir, to answer your question. Limestone right now couldn't take any more than 150. And frio apparently has gotten really busy lately because last time I talked to them they could go up to 300, now they can only go up to 100. So -- and then I?m going to have difficulty finding 200 inmates. I know that sounds silly, but I have to concentrate on people that won't have to constantly be brought back for court although I know in the contract it says they transport, but they'll get tired of that after awhile.
>> we do have people who are post adjudication, I had you run that number before, people who are with us 60 days or longer, and it seems like those post adjudication county jail folks would be good candidates for that if you consider those arrangements.
>> you're right, they are. I just have to make sure they're not my trustees, my worker force. So we've been looking at this, so we already have all the names. We have an ongoing list that we can keep. To answer the judge's question, I need to get people out of the county as soon as I can.
>> effective today? Can you do it that fast?
>> we can do it within a couple of days.
>> I really want to try for the 37-dollar a day beds in frio county and that limestone be the backup, but if they've got 100 beds in frio county, i'd like to fill every one.
>> give me four of them and i'll take them down there for five. [ laughter ]
>> he's got a new truck.
>> frio county, that's on the other side of san antonio?
>> yes. How many how many.
>> 50.
>> bill?
>> [inaudible - no mic]
>> give Commissioner Gomez six copies of that and she'll pass it down.
>> let me just take a moment or two with this. And if y'all have any questions that require some further detail or querying of me, please feel free to call me or come see me or whatever. Basically there have been a lot of numbers ban died about here, many of which have been correct, some of which have not been. This is an analyzed number for freed inmates working against the incremental cost of adding staff, either doing overtime or sending them to guadalupe county. That's a 45-dollar number. They're sending them to frio county. I can add limestone pretty easily. These are the things that happen if you keep people out for 365 days on one of these options. The reason you've heard numbers of 45 or $50 a day of average daily population, the reason it's only 22 or $23 is because part of that 45-dollar cost is something that doesn't respond to population. It's the nursing staff, it's all the folks that are related to him. They exist when you have 12 people or 2,000 people. So I just want you to understand that occur why isty. -- curiousity. So we're dealing with the incremental edge. Also, the way the population is right now, after a certain point, roughly 2750, actually about 2700 with an average daily population, everybody leaves that goes beyond that point nearly. So you then get to a pricing of $40 a day or whatever it is per day. It's not the effect of we've got to get rid of 48 inmates in order to have an impact, but it's within our capacity. And i'll be glad to walk through all this. In connection with david's immediate need, we do not have in the line item for -- we would have to move from some other internal line item or not. So if you wish -- need to give him that flexibility, give us authority to do an automatic -- to move internally from somewhere within the sheriff's budget temporarily for a week or so while we go and scrub for money. And I think there was an emergency reserve of a couple hundred thousand. It was kind of for this as well. Or tell us to go ahead and move that money so we can go ahead and do that. This is just a matter of making things work well immediately. Bear in mind that when we talked to you all last week, we had rejected that the sheriff's budget, regardless of any other circumstances, is probably going to be $960,000 over budget this year. We envision having an average of 100 inmates out of county for the rest of the year beginning in July.
>> so that's already --
>> it's built into that $160,000. And those siewmentss are built into -- siewmghtss are built into the work that we're doing right now for projecting fund balances. I believe it's in the -- the assumption is on the second revenue estimate already for fy '06. The other thing, and this is just a small personal note, I?m actually working on the budget for '06 and I?m kind of restrained now, but I will do my very best to work with folks to get these things done.
>> let me ask you this then, based on your analysis, since we would be adding to an already funded core service, the cost per day for 100 to 3 or 400 inmates beyond our expectations costs substantially less for us to try to meet them.
>> if you do staff, that's correct. Up to a point. And then you're having to just do out of county, and that's what it is.
>> we're at a point then.
>> I?m working on that right now. But basically it's somewhere between 27 and -- when I have done numbers -- the problem is we are still working on what the average daily population will be next year. And the monthly numbers and how that falls out have some effect on it. Basically we reach about 2750 and then you have to have -- I ran this this weekend. You have to have inmates out of county, about 100, continuously all year except for November or December.
>> why don't we do this then because there's a item and it will move everything. Why don't we authorize up to 100 beds, 100 inmates out of county, but you also need authorization to go ahead and hire at least 20 or more corrections officers immediately also, right?
>> let me mention one theng. The 960,000-dollar assumption we have has overtime built into it as well as the out of county. If you hire and authorize folks immediately, we will have to add to that 960,000-dollar estimate for spending this year because we will be running like we did in '02, as you may recall, except for Commissioner Daugherty, overtime and training staff simultaneously. Now, the training staff that they have to train right now is being used to offset or reduce overtime, so they don't have a training capability at the moment and won't until probably --
>> in the best of all would worlds, how long will it take us? If we told you to go out and hire the people you need to, how long before those folks are trained and are actually on the line working on the job?
>> best case scenario --
>> by October 15. That's if everybody just worked out.
>> this is where it's like it pains me to say, out of county gets them -- out of county. And I can't talk about another overtime hour in corrections for anybody right now. I?m not going there. We've got to do something to get the population down and get them their vacation and their sick days and other days.
>> we'll keep them working overtime.
>> they will continue to log over --
>> until the numbers go down dramatically, through the end of this year, maybe the calendar year, not just the fiscal year. Bring us back something that we can look at and tell. And let's focus on three weeks from now. How's that?
>> that would be fine.
>> it would give ourselves some time. But on frio county, they've got how many beds available?
>> 100.
>> that's at 57.50 -- 37.50. What did we authorize -- why don't we authorize that and that seems to be -- up to 100 for immediate. And if we send them 100 tomorrow, they wouldn't want a paycheck tomorrow, they would want one when?
>> I think the contract is 30 days.
>> we just can have the court approve the budget for --
>> for how long?
>> if we put a time limit on it, that way we can't go over that.
>> I say through September 30th and that will give us a chance to go over.
>> that will basically be about $360,000 because that's what we have the ability to do overage right now.
>> $4,000 a day for 90 days or less.
>> I think I did about 41.
>> let's do that. And on the --
>> is that a motion, judge?
>> it sure is. It is now.
>> second.
>> authorization of 100 for frio county effective immediately.
>> that's very helpful. We appreciate it.
>> any discussion of that? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. And I guess we need further analysis on the overtime and look at this budget. What's left there. 960,000, is that from the amount that we identified as being allocated reserve?
>> 960,000, I?m not sure how leroy does that. I know he took away the -- I know he built in an assumption of spending more than 960,000 into from the sheriff's budget.
>> is that from the allocated reserve?
>> no.
>>
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>>
>> ...we will look into that. I don't have an answer for you right now. We have been trying to do everything possible.
>> I wanted one more time to say --
>> we appreciate it.
>> thank you, sheriff.
>> thank you, sheriff.
>> thank you. Did you all approve p.b.o. To do -- did you approve the money for the account for the transfer.
>> bring back next week, but go ahead and implement it.
>> with your permission we can do an internal transfer that will cover a week, maybe even two.
>> going to do the deal next Tuesday, if we need to spend money before then, do it. Otherwise, my thinking, if they bill us monthly, we take this action next week, then next Tuesday afternoon, had the money is -- [indiscernible]
>> correct. We wouldn't get the bill for [indiscernible] days.
>> I apologize for coming in late. I've had meetings and was at a service today. But I just want to reiterate the concern that I have for the officers that are working those long, long hours and you probably already talked about it. But I would ask the court to keep that in mind.
>> uh-huh.
>> sheriff, do you think, if you ask your officers do you have -- do you have officers that -- that many officers that like the overtime as that don't like it? Or would you say that most of your folks are saying [indiscernible]
>> any time our officers are going to get some extra money, they are willing to go after it. But I can tell you that I?m constantly hearing that they are getting burnt out.
>> yep.
>> and that they are company men and women and one of the things that we have to consistently do is turndown some of the officers to have vacations and I think that is a sad state of affairs.
>> I got bill to run me 2002-2003-2004 line item, by slot number and started looking and i'll tell you, I mean, there were officers in 2002 that made 30% of their pay was overtime. I mean and -- that would be interesting to know how those folks felt. Sometimes people learn to live with 30% more money. Because 2003, 2004, I bet you 2005 is going to be like 2002.
>> or more.
>> or more because of all of the over time that we've had. It would be sort of interesting to know. I know everybody likes agents extra dough, but pretty soon you say you know you need to take off, I know you want the money I need for you to take off because you are getting burnt out.
>> there were some risk issues in that report big time made all of us aware of, huh-uh, there are limits.
>> thank you very much.
>> thanks, guys.
>> we will have this back on next week. Three weeks from now we will have it back on for whatever issues are still outstanding. Okay?
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.
Last Modified:
Wednesday, June 21, 2005 7:51 PM