Travis County Commissioners Court
October 4, 2005
Item 34
Number 34 that we almost put on consent is to consider and take appropriate action on budget amendments, transfers and discussion items. The recommendation here supported by i.t.s. And mr. Harlow. Take this from the tax reserve.
>> second.
>> motion by Commissioner Gomez, seconded by Commissioner Sonleitner. Discussion?
>> I just -- I think -- the reason I brought this up, judge, and I think I discussed it enough, I don't want to have to go in that lengthy discussion again, but I think we can do better than what we're doing. I really believe that. Because it just appears to me as we go through this [inaudible] system it's going to require a lot of f.t.e.s. I think we can do better on the front end as far as standards are concerned. Because when you create a system, you ought to have the standards in place to -- in place up front where the end user doesn't have as much work to do on the back end. And it appears to me that this has not been flushed out enough to convince me that the standards -- the percentage of the standards on the front end of this process is thorough enough whereby the workload on the back end with the users is actually having to deal with, my opinion isn't the direction we're to be going. But again, it's been a motion made, but it just appears to me we need to do something a little different than what we're dealing now especially dealing with facts and the f.t.e.s required to be dealing with facts. It's just something I think we ought to be mindful of as far as I知 concerned, but everybody has their own opinion about stuff. My computer science [inaudible] I don't think -- and I understand you guys don't have computer science skills, that's not the point, but my computer science skills make my nervous about what's going on here. So, again, I think -- I just don't feel that we need the f.t.e.s, full-time f.t.e.s on this when we can do better on the front end. As far as setting standards. So that basically is my comments on that. So I think I致e beat it up enough.
>> I hear you.
>> okay.
>> I think we all do.
>> yes, sir.
>> I think all of us are frustrated with what we continue to see with the computerization of the county. But at some point in time somebody has got to be comfortable, and I generally always look to p.b.o. To give us the write-up as to, you know, how -- how much comfort we should have in what is being done. I mean the reason that I ultimately can't do anything other than vote for this thing is because we all signed off on a time and motion study when the district clerk came over and said, okay, I知 going to do this, but I need this period of time to ferret out what I need. I don't know what I need. I don't know what is going to be caused by, you know, the things that we are ultimately trying to achieve. And I know that the more f.t.e.s we see that come forth with computerization, the more it drives everybody crazy probably from i.t.s. To the rest of us that, you know, wonder where does it end. I mean I知 confident that when i.t.s. Writes up and says we are signing off on this, I致e got to be comfortable with the fact that i.t.s. Has signed off on that. All of us will probably raise our hands and shout at the point in time when we say you know what, we've really accomplished that, and by the way we don't need to hire more people to do it. I mean all of us are probably in question as to whether or not that will happen. But I -- I share Commissioner Davis' frustration with seemingly -- here's what makes me uncomfortable. We sign off on something quite frankly I think we forget that six or eight months ago or five or six months ago we knew what we were doing when we told the clerk, okay, go forward with this time and motion study. And then I知 going to tell ought the end of that how many people I need because I think that I知 going to need folks. And quite frankly, there's so many things that come at us up here that we really have to sometimes sit back and go -- or somebody will remind us remember you all signed off on if you will do this, then we're going to tell you. So I do remember that. I mean you know talking with the clerk. And that doesn't mean that we all don't get nervous and get uncomfortable with the fact that we continue to see f.t.e.s asked for, and that's the reason I look at p.b.o. And i.t.s. And say if y'all are signing off on it, I知 okay with it. And I think that's where we are with this. I don't want us to forget that's basically the Marching orders that -- you know, that we gave you after you said, okay, you want me to try this? Quite frankly I don't know what it's going to take, but we'll let you know. I guess the question that I had was on the time and motion study, am I to understand that we did -- we got criminal and civil or are we just --
>> criminal.
>> criminal only. So we haven't done the time in motion study --
>> we're in the process of doing that. We're about to do that.
>> so really what we're signing off on now is what we have done for the criminal.
>> absolutely.
>> I just wanted to make sure.
>> and I think these are all very good questions to constantly be questioning what are we doing and why are we doing it and are we just trying to automate bad process. But this is not like the jetsons where you put a bunch of paper in a box and hit a button and somehow magically stuff happens. You are going to need to input some of this stuff. Some of the stuff we are inputted things that have never been inputted before. My hope always was is what was just the movement of paper, the filing, just move this box from here to there and just paper, that we're going to get a more efficient and effective way of management of our systems. And that means imaging, that means input of certain things. You input it once as opposed to you input eight times. So I never thought there was some kind of magic thing that all of a sudden amelia would need -- she and michelle would run the whole place and bunch one button. It doesn't work that way. But it would be a smarter way to do things and for us to be able to find things, and then the end product is joe citizen doesn't need to come down in person to try and find something. We're moving to a document empty system that we hope will be -- management system that we hope will be web accessible, and so they will see those improvements at the other end. So, you know, I think it's good that we continue to question what are we doing, why are we doing it, and that we have not gotten off track here. So these are all good questions, and we challenged amelia to come up with the time and motion to back up what they had a sense was going on. And they did that. And if we set a standard that this is how we're going to evaluate those that I知 going to be respectful to the fact she did what she was asked to do and has the time and motion to back up her request and I intend to vote for it.
>> I could go on for hours to talk about what we discussed, but that wouldn't be the right thing, Commissioner. And I think she understands, and no offense to her or anybody else, but there is a lot of room for improvements especially with some of the reports that aren't coming out the way it should be. No doubt about that. And I explained where I was coming from and on the front end and she understands exactly what I知 talking about because I got on the chalk board and chalked it out with my own flow chart. This is what needs to happen up front so when we show [inaudible] or show workload on the back end. When they do stuff, it should be the least amount of effort because of the request that they have made, it should be the least amount of effort made on the data intro end what we're doing this stuff. Commissioner Gomez, I知 not going to be sitting here for hours, but we talked about and it's not what it really should be and I understand her time and motion and based on the back end stuff or the operational point of view because the front end is not loaded right. That's why that's -- it came out the way it did. The front end on the standards are not what it should be on the front end. And we discussed that. But I知 not going to go into that.
>> set those standards [inaudible]. I think that -- I think they've done a good job of trying to establish that, Commissioner.
>> good morning, if I could just illustrate for you this couple of -- a couple weeks ago we had a case that had -- a case that had 89 counts. 89 counts. But every count is entered into the -- it has to be disposed of. It could be waived, there has to be information entered even though it has one cause number you still have to treat it as a separate case in every count. That's the type of information that my staff is having to not only -- it's not just data entry. They have to interpret what the information is and then be able to use over 2,000 codes to determine what the correct code is on there. They just don't sit there and enter, they have to really look and read and be able to interpret. So it does require somebody that has not only knowledge of the terminology but of the processes involved. So -- and yes, we went through the process that the Commissioners asked us to do, and I think it's a standard that you all are requiring of everyone else and that's fine, but we were able to determine that yes, we need some additional help and so here we are today and hopefully we'll be able to resolve it today.
>> well, hopefully in the future in this particular regard, hopefully those front end things we talked about could be addressed. You mentioned codes. Codes can be captured on tables. Because every code has something significant about it. But again, the front-end stuff, again, we discussed that. I知 just thinking that we could have done a better job at this.
>> all in favor of the motion? Show Commissioners Sonleitner, Gomez, Daugherty and yours truly in favor. Voting against Commissioner Davis.
>> and all departments that are dealing with facts, we need to run it from the beginning to an end process to ensure that we don't need to increase staffing if it's not -- if we can do a better job not increasing staffing. That's what computerization is for is to minimize workload, not to increase workload.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, October 5, 2005 8:54 AM