Travis County Commissioners Court
November 22, 2005
Item 35
Number 35, consider and take appropriate action on acceptance of a donation of $10,000 from the downtown alliance for the district attorney's office.
>> I had a question. I understand that this is a payment or a donation made to us for the work that we perform out of the da's office, kind of specifically for the alliance or for the downtown area? And if that is the case, I mean, do we -- is this $10,000 that we get for doing the job that we were going to do anyway or is there more work that has to be done for this $10,000?
>> if I may, this is something that's been going on for a number of years. There is no requirement nor would there be a specific district attorney assigned to the downtown area to deal with the very specific issues here. The downtown Austin alliance in partnership with the city of Austin felt that that was absolutely necessary and so they have worked up a partnership with the da's office to basically fund a very specific slot that if not for these payments would not exist because ronnie could not make that argument that he would assign somebody very specific, but this allows a specific person to be dedicated to the downtown area and it is paid by the people requesting that extra service.
>> okay. So in other words, the city -- does $10,000 cover all of it?
>> no, this is a regular da slot, but there are other dollars to come in through the city of Austin, the Austin police department. They fund this slot.
>> so this is a net --
>> it's a pass-through. No net for us. It basically says they wanted it and they said we're willing to pay for it. And so this person specifically works with the downtown Austin community court. They work on the re-entry round table issues, things that are very specific to the downtown core. And ronnie would not have assigned a perp to do this -- a person to do this because no one area of town gets their own da.
>> but they do a lot of other stuff as well. They don't just do daa stuff?
>> this is related to the downtown area, Gerald, and it does involve a lot of cross-function stuff. He works on the re-entry round table because remember a lot of folks coming straight out of the straight jail --
>> can we go directly to the source? The backup information says the donation has allowed the district attorney's office to continue assigning an assistant da to this program. The funds are used to hire temporary staff to assist in covering the permanent responsibilities of the position. The memo says the city of Austin as well as Travis County, but this seems to say that this $10,000 would be used to hire temporary staff or to continue temporary staff to assist in covering the permanent responsibilities or the positions and the position would be the da, I think. But it's been going on for years. I don't think we've ever gotten it clarified. We've been happy to receive the money. My guess is that we will probably perform this responsibility even without the $10,000.
>> and that was the question. If we're doing it anyway, you've got da's person doing it -- okay, I’m fine.
>> we would as part of general responsibilities, but they wanted to add some very specific things related to the arch being located downtown, the sally being located downtown and very much re-entry issues and the downtown Austin community court.
>> so move.
>> second.
>> discussion? More discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, November 22, 2005 2:41 PM