Travis County Commissioners Court
November 22, 2005
Item 13
We do have a consultant here on the clock and major so let's take number 13 and we've got our coordinator ms. Coa burn. 13, consider and take appropriate action regarding central booking interlocal revised issues list to be negotiated with the city of Austin.
>> good morning, judge, Commissioners. I知 carol coa burn, interim criminal justice planning cord inator and we're here to present to to court a revised issue list created by the central booking interlocal committee for negotiations with the city of Austin on the interlocal. And I have here on my left to do the presenting mike with m.t.g. Management consultants and he is acting as a consultant to Travis County to negotiation of the interlocal.
>> thank you. Mike tremble. As you aware, as carol explained, the central booking interlocal committee has looked again at the issues. As the court is aware, we recently -- Travis County and the city of Austin entered an amendment to the interlocal agreement for one year. They extended the agreement and also had an agreement to look at the operational issues and try to have some recommended resolution of these eshs by April 1st, 2006. And so -- we have two attachments to your backup. One is the memo dated July 1st of 2004, I believe, which had the original issues that were presented to the court and that the court had considered and approved for discussion with the city. And what we have also is a list which is your attachment a. Of the revised issues list. Some of the differences, just so you know, the cost model obviously was our leading issue when we began discussions with the city back in spring of 2005. Since we had made progress on the cost model, the revised issues list has that basically in lower priority. The main work that still needs to be done on that is to determine how the renewal periods will be established if we enter a multi-year agreement. Also, the issue related to definition of city prisoner has been combined with imagine station issues. It was determined that issue kind of rolled into some of the issues with magistrate availability while on the bench. We'll take those as a combined issue under imagine is administration. Also the issue with the sally port is no longer an issue, from what I understand. The issue what that had been that a.p.d. Had been bringing prisoners into other entry points aside from the sally port, but I think that issue has been resolved with a.p.d. So that's my understanding from the sheriff's office.
>> so the sally port is being used?
>> right, the sally port is the primary port of entry. The issue regarding quick books is we need to remove that language in the interlocal agreement. From my understanding and I think we mentioned this before with the court, the quick book system is no longer really being used. We just need to remove that. So that really isn't on the issues list for consideration. What remains is really focusing on the magistration services. The availability of magistrates. Processing times for the probable cause affidavits. When they are on the bench. Identification services, issues around the turn-around time for getting positive i.d. Also interlocal requirements for provision of fingerprints and mug shots. Also interlocal definition of dak arrest reese. One of the things we had talked about is try to get an agreed upon process for identifying and processing those individuals. Also identification of injuries and intermediate weapons used on prisoners by a.p.d. Just so we have full information on condition of prisoners when received. Some of the things we talked about looking about for improved interlocal is getting performance measures similar to what we did on the els and interlocal agreements. Creation of a central booking coordinating committee to work on operational issues on ongoing basis so all these things don't build up on the back end. As I mentioned and trying to get whatever final work we need to do on the cost model. What staff is recommending today is your consideration and approval of the revised issues list so we can begin negotiations with the city.
>> judge, there's something new that has come up in the last week as we've been talking about our space challenges over in the courthouse complex. And I知 not -- I知 wondering where this could be a plat for form discussions. There are issues of space allocation related to city folk be it a.p.d., the magistrates, be it whatever. And some of these I think have been rather informal in nature in terms of the assignment of space, how much space, and it seems like there may be a situation where folks have ventured outside the perimeter in terms of space that has been allocated not by this Commissioners court to other jurisdictions who have even got keys to parts of our building that we don't have. That we need to have a more affordablalization of allocation of space and get that formalized. And who gets to give away that space and for what consideration if any in terms of space that has ventured outside of central booking and having huge impacts on our court operations and we need to formalize who goes where and who gets to distribute and authorize space allocation in what is a Travis County facility, and I値l just say this could be a wonderful platform for those kinds of discussions. If,.
>> okay. We believe that this list contains the critical -- I guess these are points of disagreement up to this point, right?
>> yes, they are points that need to be worked through. We had received an issues list back lags spring 2005 from the city and they had provided some additional issues and some of them were just kind of points of disagreement with us on some of these things.
>> I know we've had an internal staff meeting, but have we had a chance to meet with the city of Austin?
>> we have had discussion with the city basically discussing that we would look at both of our issue lists and try to come up with a schedule and priortization for how we're going to take some of these issues the next couple of months. With the understanding we would have to wrap up our negotiation around these issues probably by the first of March so we can come back to-Commissioners court and city council with recommendation.
>> okay.
>> judge, I would ask that a bullet -- I don't think it's a number, I think it's more of a bullet point under something here, we need to have the ability to have a platform to discuss space allocation and parking allocation in terms of formalizing any kind of agreements we might have so we have a document to go back to to say this is what we agreed to and people signed off on.
>> the city personnel involved in the central booking process.
>> yes, sir. I think we need to be more formal in terms of this is part of the consideration and what's out there in terms of what will be provided and what people's expectations are. Because it's way too informal and I知 afraid we're going to have some -- well, it's way too informal.
>> I don't have any problem. I don't have any idea what specifics you have in mind. Let's put Commissioner Sonleitner's name in parenthesis next to that. [laughter]
>> space parking allocation of city and county employees.
>> any more discussion of the issues? Are we ready to act or do we need another week?
>> judge, I think the biggest concern that we have with this interlocal is I mean just, you know, get to the bottom line. It is the reimbursement with regards to how we bill, if you will, the city of Austin for the services that we perform. And I realize that's not an easy task. A former mayor in here and it's not -- it is a costly operation. But, you know, to me, I mean all of these things that we do with the interlocal, not that they aren't important, but without question the reimbursement structure of how we deal with especially since over 70% of the people that come in through the county jail comes in a.p.d.-wise. That's not their fault. I mean it's just they are picking them up, they are police, they are doing the right thing. But we have really got to find a way to sit down and to see if we can't get our arms around streamlining of what it really takes in order to take on this whole system of incarceration and the city is use our partner in it. And I think that the only way that you really get your partner as involved as you are, we're highly involved because we run the jail. And I think that the city wants to be a good partner with us. But unfortunately the way to get the city really involved is giving them an invoice. I mean whether it through a true-up or just in the agreement up front that says, hey, here's what it costs us to operate, 72% of the people come in through y'all, we are the county and we do have the statutory obligation to take prisoners on. But now that we're watching what the city is doing, and I think rightfully so in honing in on all of this stuff, panhandling and all the stuff that is going on downtown, those are class c misdemeanors. We're three, 400 over our daily population now and we are fixing to watch the major law enforcement agency embark on here's what you got to do. So I知 afraid that if we don't really find a way to sit down and say, hey, we're partners in this. Let's find a way to deal with this, I mean, you know, you got articles and editorials where some counties just say we don't take class cs anymore. We don't care what you do with them. Take them to the ditch, out to lunch, take them somewhere, don't bring them to our county jail because we can't take them. And I think that we are almost there. With regards to how we need to take this thing up. So I hope that our major thrust of what we are going to do with this interlocal, not to say some of the other things don't come into play, but reimbursement is the key. And I think it is the key to really get the city at the table and say, hey, I know you guys want your costs as men mal as we want our costs so how do we get there. Seems like that's always a quick thing, we get the sally ports and we get the mug shot idzs and all of these other things that we do have to do over there. But as far as I知 concerned, all you got to do is go to the page and start looking at $146.39 is our average cost per booking. And if we're only getting $82 out of that from our partner, then we need to sit down and say, okay, how are we going to narrow that gap. So I know nobody knows more about it than you, mike, because you've worked on it the last couple of years.
>>
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
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>> ...the first three may well determine what we should do in the cost model anyway. At one time there was the issue of imposition of the adopted cost model to other municipalities in the state of Texas. Did that one go away?
>> no, it hasn't gone away. I wanted to mention that because that was on your original issues list. It's probably going to come up with these discussions, but really that's more something that's a little bit separate. It's not going to be so much a direct discussion with the city as something we kind of made a commitment to do is look at try to get these other interlocal agreements on place. It's more on the to do list of the county to try to get to work to get some of those interlocal agreements in place.
>> move approval of the issues list with -- including the comments made today.
>> second.
>> and the changes recommended.
>> we'll submit a revised issues list.
>> do we need this back on then? Are you going to do that?
>> just make the changes.
>> discussion? Seconded by Commissioner Davis. All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote with Commissioner Gomez was compelled to leave the rest of the morning meeting. Move we recess until 1:30.
>> second.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, November 22, 2005 2:41 PM