Travis County Commissioners Court
November 8, 2005
Items 4 and 5
Moving back to number four. Receive update and take appropriate action on Travis County assistance in response to hurricane rita. Should we call up five too? In the past it looks like our discussion have been common to both of them. Five is to receive update and take appropriate action on Travis County assistance in response to hurricane katrina.
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>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
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>> ...also referrals to other community services, also contacting information, mhmr, those kinds of requests that we've come forward. As of today,, [indiscernible], means that your waiver of residency, not only for your programs, but also for the programs of our partners, who are funded through the social services contracts, would waiver -- would waive -- would end today without any further action by the court. At the time that the court initiated this waiver, of course, we did not have knowledge of hurricane rita and where, you know, did not have any consideration related to rita as a part of that policy waiver. If it were your desire today to continue to have us not consider residents see as related to hurricane rita evacuees for food items and other services, you would have to extend your waiver until about December 6th, which would be the next appropriate court meeting following a 60 day cutoff. As of today, hurricane katrina evacuees would have been in our community, if they remained in our community would meet the 60 day residency.
>> [indiscernible]
>> well, the city of Austin's programs are somewhat different in that they provide food items and clothing and so -- there -- as far as I know, there's not a -- not a --
>> [indiscernible]
>> a residency requirement per se.
>> okay. Because I -- the reason why I posed that question was because I did know that -- in the community, we thinking of -- we think that we have done a heck of a lot from the evacuees, however we are hearing from persons, however gus pena brought up let's don't forget the person that's reside here in Travis County that also may be netted. Now, I really don't know exactly the extent of those -- of his comments. I really don't know the depths of it. But what I知 trying to get down to is the reimbursement of moneys that should be coming down from fema to address a lot of the strain that's being put on the local governments financially. And I知 just wondering where we are all -- so we can maybe do both as we go through the process. Still continuing dealing with the evacuees the best we can. However, not neglect the residents of Travis County that are also in need of our services. So trying to -- trying to pull these two together. I知 trying to see where we are on that.
>> yes, sir. I can -- I can let you know in terms of our services to hurricane katrina evacuees, through October 31st, we were not paying for food items that we were dispensing to these residents. The food bank was providing additional food supplies over and above our regular food -- food orders. At no cost to the county. Now, that arrangement ended October 31st. So in your consideration of whether or not you would want to extend your residency waiver for hurricane rita evacuees, you would have to take into consideration that we would be in fact paying our normal 12-cent per pound maintenance fee in order to purchase food items to give to those residents. So that would be a part of your consideration. Now, I have no reason to believe at this point that there would be an undue hardship to the department or the department's budget in this area. But we can't -- we can't predict. We do know that there are some areas in the gulf coast region in Texas that residents have not been able to return. So therefore they are still here with, you know, family members or in hotels or whatever. Those are residents that we have seen take advantage of the food items that we have available.
>> do you have any idea of the when portion of intent to get reimbursement proceeds from fema to -- to wherever -- to maybe offset some of the expenses that are being experienced? Do we have any idea on where we are? Reimbursement?
>> pete baldwin, Travis County emergency management coordinator. The cost, the primary cost that Travis County incurred were personnel costs, not supply costs. And so we are still in the process of working with that. We have been resigned a new fema rep, which I visited with this week. As with new fema reps, we get new direction. We have started some discussions now to talk about invoicing the city of Austin since we were working under a -- under a mutual aid request in supporting the katrina effort, which in one way is very good, if that's the case under mutual aid, we are allowed to charge straight time versus just overtime. So I am -- I am still trying to work with our new person who has been assigned to us, to make sure that we get that in writing, to make sure that we can do that. That would take a lot of burden off of trying to get work through some of the other issues. I oppose questions of which they have not dealt with before and ask for requests or answers such as how do we reimburse utility costs for the expo center. That was under rita, that was ours, so that goes under a different set of rules. But I also asked if there were increased correction costs, would those be eligible? They have never dealt with those kind of questions. The bottom line is on personnel, I think that within the next couple of weeks, once we work with the auditor's office, we should be able to, I visited with the city of Austin, they don't have a problem with us direct billing like that. So -- so we should be able to turn some of that fairly quickly.
>> if you are going to endorse -- I guess my question still is even dealing with the city of Austin, which I知 quite sure they are looking for reimbursement moneys from fema, also that the point, have we heard anything as far as the city of Austin involvement as far as reimbursement?
>> they have been receiving reimbursement.
>> they have.
>> they have.
>> okay.
>> the city of Austin also had a lot of direct costs such as you know housing costs, that sort of a thing, so that was -- appears to be those costs, fema this been more expensive to, in a more extinguish shows manner. -- expeditious manner. Your policy waiver as far as it relates to hurricane evacuees we feel is appropriate. Those persons have been in our community for 60 days, with your concurrence we would serve them as we would serve your constituents under our normal policies. What the court may want to consider today is whether they would like to whether you would like to extend the waiver of residency for hurricane rita residents, which in that case the department would have you be aware that the specifically food items that we would provide to those residents, we would be purchasing from capital area food bank and our normal maintenance fee of 12 cents per pound. If you were to do that, we would indicate it would be appropriate for you to do so for the meeting of December 6th.
>> the hurricane evacuees basically said I came here as a result of hurricane rita, I plan to stay in Travis County, would that person be a resident of Travis County or a non-resident? By your people. Now, the law does answer that for us. But how would the average case worker treat that, do you think?
>> the hurricane rita event I think occurred around September 27th and so we are just a little over -- a little over 30 days or so out from that. So I would think that -- that my staff would respond that those persons were not residents. However they would provide them a food pantry.
>> okay. So -- so what's the importance of 60 days?
>> the importance of 60 days is that your emergency assistance policies indicate as a part of determining eligibility, that a person have -- have lived in Travis County for 60 days with intent to remain.
>> so that's why I asked hurricane katrina, those evacuees you would treat as --
>> yes, sir.
>> but because the -- because rita occurred 30 so days ago, we would treat them as a non-resident until the 60 day period residency had --
>> yes, without any further action of the court today, yes.
>> I move that we extend the residency waiver for hurricane rita evacuees at least through December 6th to entitlement them -- entitle them to the emergency services that we have been providing. Typically that's been pretty much basic needs, right?
>> yes, sir, absolutely. Seconded by Commissioner Davis, any more discussion.
>> yes, one more point. I知 still hearing that I heard from gus pena. Any way that we can actually analyze and see where we are on the social service that's we provide to persons within Travis County. Those that are eligible and how much it would strain -- is there any way that has been looked at, also, because I知 hearing -- hearing what they are saying, lord knows we don't want to forget anybody on this. But then again there are those that say, well, we are here, we want to continue to get the services that we were getting before, but it looked like they are being ignored. I don't know that to a fact, but I知 hearing that. How are we looking at that.
>> one example that I can give you is our palm square site where we have seen quite a bit of evacuee traffic. We actually have an evacuee who has been employed through the federal funding that came down through the work source board, and I spoke with the court several weeks ago about the fact that there was federal funding that could be used to hire evacuees to work in efforts to aid other evacuees. Well, we actually have a staff person at our palm square site, a delightful young woman from louisiana, who works with us for folks who identify themselves in our emergency assistance center as hurricane evacuees. And so she is able to divert those folks, if you will, from our normal resident track and provide those services in conjunction with one of our case workers. So -- so we have not found that there's been considerable displacement of -- of residents because of that -- because we have been able to do that. Now, we have not been able to do that at all of our sites, but of course palm square, Pflugerville, and post road are our busiest sites. So we have -- we have tried to ensure that there was no displacement at those sites.
>> okay. All right. Thank you. Thank for you that answer.
>> do we have somebody locally whose expertise is in -- is in helping individual evacuees file the -- proper paperwork to access federal assistance? Looks like the most -- the ones that I hear about are entitled to federal assistance, but if you don't request it in the right manner, apparently you get rejected. There seems to be just a whole lot of specific rules that you have to follow.
>> legal aid has been providing those specific services, I understand that there at one point was an attorney who was actually displaced from louisiana or from the gulf coast region who -- who has some level of expertise in knowing the louisiana law, but then also being able to interface with fema. So it's my understanding, I don't have that number with me today, but -- but the legal aid services in our community, they are prominently listed in the phone book or through the internet and they would be able to assist with -- with any process issues that folks might have. But you are absolutely correct, there are -- there are several programs that fema has offered and we know that considerable number of the evacuees were living in public housing and so the rules are a little bit different for them. They are a little bit different for folks who are renting, a little bit different for folks who are homeowners, knowing that distinction could be critical in what you are entitled to.
>> okay.
>> 211 still a good number?
>> still an excellent number, thank.
>> a person just dials 211 and some of these questions that we are posing to you this morning may be answered through that telephone number?
>> absolutely. Certainly significant referrals to resources within the community. Just another word by our continuing efforts, Commissioners. We are continuing to participate in coordinated outreach so that we are able to provide services to families as they are needed. We realize that a lot of the evacuees do not have telephones, so we manage to make connections with some of the apartment complexes where many of them are residing. We are also making our staff available for persons who might be having events that -- where a number of evacuees will be gathered so that we can provide information on services in the community, ways to connect. So we are continuing to -- to do a coordinated outreach plan. Not only in our -- in our Travis County programs, but then in con vungs with our partner -- conjunction with our partners as well. The community continues to meet on this issue to answer many of the concerns that Commissioner Davis has voiced here today. Not only the impact of these new residents in our community on a system that was already strained, but then also how do we capitalize on those things that we did really well in responding to hurricane katrina and rita and make some of those systems permanent so that we can assist our residents with some of the lessons that we have learned.
>> there's a motion. Basically to extend the waiver of residency for the hurricane rita victims to -- December 6th 2005. All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> anything else on this item today?
>> I think that covers it. We have served under hurricane katrina, 1039 households. 1039.
>> > thank you.
>> the other number that you gave us was just hurricane rita, the 400 plus.
>> 46,.
>> 446.
>> okay. Do we need this back on next week? Not for health and human services purposes, we will advice.
>> you will let us know when to put it back on.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, November 8, 2005 6:21 PM