Travis County Commissioners Court
November 29, 2005
Item 10
Number 10 is to receive and take appropriate action on update concerning impact of changes to Travis County's animal control regulations. And we have several representatives here from our city of Austin partner, two of whom we don't see nearly enough.
>> does that mean -- [ inaudible ]. [ laughter ]
>> judge, Commissioners, arlene timnx]7aiw3 monz for ts county health and human services. Last fiscal year you had some lively discussions about dangerous dogs and licensing and such and did change some of I guess we'd call them policies surrounding those laws. And our department is in negotiation currently with the citym&8 oni governs all the services that they provide fordn us, including animal control. So we invited them today to give you an update on the kinds of numbers of animals they are seeing as a result of your changes. And to give you an idea of where they currently are with implementing those. I’m going to turn it over to david lurie or dor rin da, whoever wants to speak.
>> good morning, always a pleasure to be here for your lively discussions. I’m with the skin health and human services department, and with me is dorinda pull yam, who is assistant director for administration and also animal services. As you know through your interlocal with the city of Austin and what we provide for you with the animal control services. You know there were some concerns in the community about dogs running at large. You had some discussion about that over a period of time in early '05. And as a result adopted a leash law. You updated and strengthened your dangerous dog regulations and also provided some support for some preventive services, specifically outreach and sterilization, spay and neutering services for a low income areas and for individuals who could not afford those services. We also at the time updated our interlocal so that our department would be authorized to enforce those regulations that you had adopted and agreed to come back and provide you some data and update in terms of what progress we've made and what we've experienced. And as she will share with you, there has been an increase in activity, but always an increase in response time because we did not add any resources related to animal control activities at this time. And also as arlene pointed out, and I certainly want to take the opportunity to encourage you to move forward and consider is our recommendation to greatly improve and update our entire interlocal with Travis County as relates to health and human services and specifically I think where that's beneficial in animal control services is, one, it will give you some specific options in terms of the level of service you would choose to purchase through this interlocal. Most specifically related to response times. And it would enable us as a department to better integrate our resources within the department, so we move away from having designated f.t.e.'s, equipment resources for the county and other designated f.t.e.'s for the city, but rather have a truly integrated system where we're using staff interchangeably and much more effectively and efficiently. And we believe that in turn would also improve our overall response times in the system. So with that introduction I’d like to turn it over to dorinda and ask her to give you the report and data as it relates to our regulation and experience with them.
>> good morning, Commissioners. I have submitted some information for you. You should have it in the packet that I would like to run through with you and tell you a little bit about what I think is happening with those numbers. If we first talk about intake, we have had an increase in intake of dogs. The total intake is increased, but our dog increase has been 167 animals. However, the story I want to try to tell you, and it may be kind of hard to follow the numbers, but stick with me, your field intake has increased by 297 dogs. And then our over the counter intake as you see on that chart, has gone down. So what that tells us is that we're beginning to take care of the problem instead of having citizens having to take care of the problems themselves. So it's a big indicator that we're making a difference out in the community because we are seeing that switch in who is bringing in the animals and that is making for a safer situation than having citizens out there trying to corral dogs themselves and drag them down to us.
>> is that what you call overthe counter? If I were to bring a dog in, that's over the counter?
>> that's our jargon for that, yes, sir.
>> are the numbers you're giving us related to the system as a whole regardless of Austin-Travis County, are are these the Travis County numbers?
>> these are just the Travis County numbers. Our total intake for fiscal year '05 was about 26,000 animals, if that gives you a sense.
>> and were you seeing comparable increases for the city of Austin itself. I’m trying to figure out how much of this is just stuff happening in the county, easier access, people accessing the system or is there just an explosion on pets regardless of jurisdiction and our numbers are consistent with what you'rexavv/mi/hi?ym well?
>> we are seeing an increase in intake in the overall system, but where we're seeing the explosion happening is in cats. Not in dogs. Cats are -- cats are a totally different story and they are on the increase, and that's something that we're going to have to start looking at in both the city areas and the county before it becomes a big problem.
>> 2z)w3 domesticated cats ors as in feral cats as somebody who brought a feral cat to you that had to be taken down because it was in such bad shape?
>> I believe where we're seeing the intake from cats coming from is we have marge ali owned, unowned, packing lot owned, group feeding situations where animals aren't fixed and then they're just multiplying and multiplying. We have some significant pockets of problems with that. And it's something that eventually we're going to have to get some programs in place because people think they're doing the right thing by feet fooeding the animals, and instead they're making them more fertile and multiplying the problem. I believe that the dog intake that we're seeing here is due to the changes that we've made, and not just duekrov an over abundance of puppies. Our puppy season for this last fiscal year was not significantly dircht than any other -- different than any other year, probably a little bit less. Our kit 10 season was different. So I believe my conclusion from looking at the intake picture is that we did make a shift that you would want to see where we're shifting from citizens having to corral dogs and[e bring them in and shifting that effort over to our animal control officers getting out there and bringing those animals in. And that's what I wanted to see happen in those numbers is not necessarily significant overall increase in animals copping in. And back in our conversation we talked about the efforts here was to get voluntary compliance, not to drag more animals in. We didn't want to necessarily see a significant increase in the total population coming into the shelter, but we wanted to see a difference in how that was being managed.
>> let me ask you this question: has there been any increase or decrease in -- which I’ve been able to determine in this -- first let me give you an example. Let's say I’m going for an evening walk and an animal, a dog, comes out of their yard and of course would like to interrupt my walk. And of course you kind of are just stuck there, kind of frozen, knowing that if you proceed you don't know what's going to take place, but anyway, you do what you've got to do. Has there been any increase or decrease as far as the number of complaints from dogs that are not restrained in any shape, form or fashion, still coming off their property attacking passerbies or whatever? Have we seen any significant change so far as we've implemented here?
>> if you turn to the next page where we look at the number of activities, that's the field activities that we actually dispatched someone out to respond to a complaint. Number of activities. And the number of activities you should have one chart that just shows you a comparison between 2004 and 2005 and another one that shows you the comparison by precinct. What you will see is in March and April when we implemented the program, we had some pretty significant call or activity volume coming in. And then you'll see that that is on a downhill curve as you moved out towards September. And that's a good sign because August and September are our peak seasons for bike complaints because kids get out of school, they're out in the neighborhoods and there's more opportunity for conflict with animals. And so this graph is showing you that I think we're headed in the right direction. If you look at the comparison between '04 and '05, we have a significant increase in the number of field activities because we're now responding to complaints other than just rabies or bite calls. But then we're also seeing that graph on a downhill curve where when we started the program we had a higher level of complaints and that is on a down hill curve. So I think we're going in the right direction with that. Anecdotally, they say the neighborhoods look cleaner, they're not seeing as many animals running around. Their sense is they are getting a lot of compliance out in the field and they feel like things are looking improved as they're out there driving around. That is one of the indicators that we look at is what does the advise al look like when they're out in the community.
>> I remember in that earlier discussion, there was a period of time when you asked persons to voluntarily comply with what we're trying to put forth here. But after awhile, if a person would not volume varily -- voluntarily comply, and I don't remember what that date was, then there would be other measures to make sure they came in compliance. I guess my question is have we got to that yet? Are we still under the voluntary compliance setting?
>> we implemented it March 15th and we started issuing citations that would be filed in July. And we issued some warn warning citations that we didn't file, but we started filing them in July. And you may remember when we talked we would also with the first time offenders give them the opportunity to go through our responsible pet owners class to get the citation waved, if they would like to do so, with the idea being that education is really what we're after here, not a punitive effect. So we are issuing citations now that are being filed for people that are not willing to comply.
>> comply.
>> and having said that we try to work with people. If they don't understand the law or if there's a problem we can fix, if there's a hole in the fix that they weren't aware of, we want to have that resolved without having to revert to a citation because we're looking for a safe community, not being punitive with people. So we are in full compliance, in the full enforcement mode now.
>> thank you.
>> you can see just to summarize that we have had an significant increase in the number of activities as compared to '04 because we're enforcing more things now. If you look at the next slide, it will show you the number of activity by precinct, and that's just to give you a sense of what's going on in what parts of county, precinct 3 is our most active precinct.
>> what does that mean? What does that mean about precinct 3?
>> well, we just -- we have some pockets in the county that are just areas where we've got some problem packs. We've got some areas, for example, in apache shores. Part of that area has become more urbanized and more residential setting kind of situation. And that area we've been able to get cleaned up pretty well because those animals are owned. But part of the apache shores area goes out into a rural area where there are few houses and there are feral dogs living out there. We've been doing some trapping out there and trying whatever methods we have to try to get those animals out of the woods, but we're not being very successful and we will have to look at different options for those areas. So I think that the factors are going to be affecting that, our geography in some cases where we just have some of those more wooded type areas where animals can get away and hide and we can't catch them, as well as some of the economic factors in areas where people can't afford fences or afford to get their animals fixed and those sorts of things.
>> I think you would have, though, as the best response for that the things that brought this toytbyyy forefront, the attack with the little girl, and we continue to see areas like you said, apache shores, where the awareness -- and western Travis County, because there are probably more or as much wooded area in eastern Travis County as western, but given the fact that it happened in western Travis County, both of the incidents where we had in the1 afluene foothills and then in cardinal hill, it doesn't surprise me that precinct 3 wouldn't get the elevated status because that was what in the news.
>> but certainly the awareness issue, there are some pockets of problems that were there before the law passed and we're not able to get the animals out and they are still out there causing some problems in the neighborhoods.
>> dorinda, I just remembered --
>> let me make one other comment. The awareness point is a very good point in western Travis County because those neighborhoods have been extremely cooperative with us in the education areas. They've it had it in their newsletter, they still get in contact with me once a month or so for information they can put out in their websites and news letters and that sort of thing. They've been very proactive out there.
>> do you have specific numbers as to the spaying and neutering? I know judge Biscoe asked some questions about this, about what I’m trying to focus in on is we did 10,000 10,000 last year and sherri has found 10,000 to get us through this fiscal year. And it's my understanding they want to institutional looiz that amount, but what's the gap in terms of what's needed out in the county? Is the 10,000 making a dent? Is it close to what's needed out there? Is it not even -- is it in the ballpark of what's needed out there on spaying and neutering in terms of if we really want to in a humane manner and not have to go -- with the idea of a no kill, spaying and neutering is the best proactive way to handle this stuff as opposed to after the fact we have unwanted pets as as opposed to 56% iewtdz nice I can't rate. -- euthanasia rate. First.
>> with the program last year with $10,000 we did eight clinics in Travis County locations for a total of 269 animals. I would like to do a little better than that, and what it will take to do that is get some consistency in service delivery. What we've seen in the city program is once we got the service established, the number of animals showing up for each clinic increases significantly because people get the idea that that service is there. We do a rotation of sites in the city, and I did the same thing in the county. And some of those sites weren't as productive, meaning I didn't have as many animals there as I would have liked to have had, because it's new. But if we consistently -- if we can find a way to consistently provide that service over a number of years with the same dollars I would be able to up the number of animals that can be done because I have a fixed price contract. So that's one thing I would like to see is one consistency and service provision so we can be getting more for the dollars that we do spend. And then to answer your question on the gap. We need to do this a little bit more before I can give you a better feel for that. Because I’ve had five years of experience with this in the city program, I’ve seen changes happen in neighborhoods. I’ve seen neighborhoods where we had large populations of puppies and that sort of thing and I’ve seen that change. But since we haven't had a program in place like this to begin to see what effect can we have with this particular amount versus this dollar amount is kind of hard for me to predict. Animal activists folks would say that there is no cap on the amount of money that should be spent on spaying and neuter. So we spend -- should we spend more? Absolutely. Can I give you a deaf definition? Not until we have more experience in these pockets to see what kind of gaps we're seeing. Our city clinics, I have some sites where 100 people show up and we can take 40. So I’ve got a gap. I have some sites where 20 people show up and I can take 40. So I’m adjusting all the time that money to take care of those gaps. I just don't have a good feel because we haven't done that many clinics for you out in the clinic.
>> a clinic is what?
>> a mobile van to goes to a location and they are contracted to handle with us a minimum of 20 animals and a maximum of 40 animals. So what I’m always striving for is to get 40 animals checked into every clinic.
>> how do we advertise the upcoming clinic?
>> we access libraries, social service delivery systems, news letters, neighborhood associations. I had for one or two of them, a group of volunteers that did neighborhood walking, handing out fliers. We're pretty good at getting the word out to people and targeting the low income neighborhoods, targeting those people that people go to services to get the information out to them. And the other thing is just if you repeat them -- like we set this up and we say every Tuesday we will be here or whatever day we pick, and if you get to that, then people know it's going to be there and you will have the thing swamped if you have a repeat cycle that you can do.
>> so maybe it's not just the number of animals, but the number of clinics to get more consistency in terms of the clinics occurring because that's -- that's certainly what we experienced in the city is we developed more of them and we're there on a more consistent basis and we've got a much better turnout.
>> in the city program we fund one day a week for 50 weeks. We skip the christmas and new year's. And then I have some additional funding from other sources, donations, etcetera, that we use to do a second day for part of the year during the peak season. And so that program is very available and I’ve been rotating through the neighborhoods for five years and so people -- they know Friday it's spay-neuter day at rosewood zaragoza or whatever the site is. So if we could get to the county program, my desired state would be to have at least one a month. And then you can pretty consistency say, oh, it's the third Tuesday of the month, it's spay-neuter day, here's the location and then people are just working on where's the location and not when is it and that sort of thing.
>>
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>>
>> we try too support them with some additional volunteers because they don't have quite the volunteer base to do good customer service at the site, just managing lines, animals, things like that. But other than that, it's a turn-key operation that they do.
>> periodically, I get e-mails from residents and advisory committee members that basically indicate that we ought to do more to sterilize pets. If we did that we would be able to reduce the number of that we have to euthanize. So I mean do we think that's true.
>> yes.
>> do we connect those two?
>> yes, sir, that are, what I am -- that is true, what I’m seeing in the city program is that cost is a big barrier to sterilization. I’ve had a -- a graduate group from the school of public affairs at u.t. Analyze the data that I have coming out of the city program. They have five years worth of data, their preliminary report to me is that it actually reduced dog intake from those neighborhoods by 134 dogs a month. So I have concrete evidence that a consistent sterilization program targeted to a particular neighborhood can decrease the number of animals that come into the shelter and are subsequently euthanized. So, yes, sir, I believe that will reduce intake into the shelters, reduce looks dogs into -- loose dogs into the neighborhoods, other issues associated with stray animals, dogs in the neighborhood, absolutely. What dollar amount that should be, that I can't give you a quantitative answer to because I haven't had as much experience in the county doing these clinics yet to tell you if we have enough volume out here to be doing this three times a week to two weeks a week. But could I spend more than 10,000 effectively, yes, sir. We could be making a difference. But having looked at this data from the city program, I think consistency, and targeting the neighborhoods are the two keys to make those programs successful. You can go out and spend a lot of money on sterilization anywhere because anybody that's got a dog or cat that wants to get it fixed would like to get it fixed for less rather than more, but what I have liked about our program is that it is targeted to low income neighborhoods and it's targeted to neighborhoods where we have a problem with -- with loose animals, stray animals, unwanted puppies, we are trying to target the areas where it's a problem, trying to target the barrier to sterilization costs. We don't want to go to people who can afford to fix their animals, say, let us help you fix them. We want to go to the people that can afford it, that's the barrier, remove that barrier for them.
>> judge, I know that sherri is bringing forward the budget transfer amendment related to making that 10,000 happened [sic] during fiscal '06. For another $4,000 we can get to dorinda's goal of once a month having this and I would like to see the department challenged to find that extra 4,000 bucks, five, whatever it is going to be, I was doing the quick math of 1200, it would be 14,000. Anyway I think they should be challenged to find the 4,000. If they can't, I can't think of a better investment. They have already found the 10, I can find the other four or five thousand, we ought to get to that once a month gig, we can save on the back side in terms of intake on animals and start to make a difference. But I can't think of a better investment for us.
>> over time, if you do it consistently in the same neighborhoods you will see those populations reduced. And you will see a phenomenon that happens in the county, where those unwanted puppies are just let go. Then those are where the dogs that live in the woods are coming from. We can see that phenomenon begin to stop because those puppies aren't getting created and then becoming a problem that's just running loose in the neighborhood that nobody owns them. The owned animals we are beginning to see compliance, beginning to get people who own their animals to act responsibly with them. But that prevention side on stopping the creation of these unwanted, unowned dogs is a significant part of a long-term plan to get the problem fixed.
>> okay.
>> then I believe your next slide should be a slide that talks about the bites ultimately what we would like to see is a safer community and less people getting bit. For fiscal year '04 we had a total of 225 bites in Travis County and for fiscal year '05 we had 272. I believe as Commissioner Daugherty mentioned that what we are seeing there is a phenomenon better reporting and so that the increase for the year, I don't feel real troubled about because I think we are having much better reporting because of the awareness that we have raised over the last year. If you look at this slide, the dark bars are the -- or the '05 bars, they are going in the right direction for the fiscal year. August and September are our peak bike periods because the kids are out of school. And those numbers are significantly lower than they have been last year during our peak bike seize -- peak bite season, that's what I’m feeling about, when we are having significant problems with bites, that was reduced significantly for this fiscal year. I feel like we are going in the right direction with that. Your final slide is the average response time. I do not have it graphed out for you for '04, this shows you what's happening with response time since the last waw passed in -- was passed in March of '05. From October of '04 to March of '05, it was 55 low, high of 81. From March until April when the law went into effect from September of '05, our low was 98 minutes, our high was 143 minutes. Because of the increased activity in the field in the resource levels remain the same on a response time as just about doubled in some areas and so that is a problem, that is a problem that at least I’m hearing customer complaints about, because our officers can't get out there in a timely fashion to deal with whatever is happening. Now, having said that, we do prioritize aggressive incidents and things where there's an immediate problem that we need to take care of. We also implemented this year, did not integrate the full systems david discussed earlier because of the resource issues that we have, one thing that I did do to help with emergency responses is that I did put Travis County into our night response on call system that I have for the city. That is integrated now so that if there is a night call coming in, that's an emergency, we are responding to that instead of that having to flip over to the sheriff's office. Now, we are not taking every call that comes in at night, but those that are of an emergency nature, we do have on call officers responding to those, I think that's helped significantly with some of the concerns and confusion that was happening in some of these situations that we weren't getting there, then there was confusion about what needed to happen. Some other information I’ll cover with you that I didn't put on slides, just real briefly, the other part of the ordinance was implemented was dangerous dog law, 28 cases filed since the law was implemented. Of the 45 animals that were filed against, 23 cases were closed meaning that the witnesses never showed up, they dropped the case, they didn't end up following through with this. So 23 were just closed without a hearing being conducted. The remaining 22 hearings that were conducted, seven have been declared dangerous, one has been declared not dangerous, 14 are pending. We got a little bit backlogged during some of the hurricane relief efforts that we are doing, so we are trying to get all of those caught up in the next couple of week. We talked a little bit about the emancipet prevention program. Also beginning to have rabies clinics in the county to try to get more education and outreach done in county areas, we have added one county site into the rotation. We only do them four times a year we are adding a fifth in the county location. We did one in richard my yoo --richard moya park, had 150 participants because it was it was new. We are putting that into our cycle so we can be doing some of those. Rabies clinic free vaccination as a way to get them there, also helps us with our rabies program, we get them there because they need it, we talk to them about sterilization, give them information on the sterilization clinics where they are, then we also talk to them about other responsibility issues like the leash law, grooming if the animal hasn't been taken care of, we give them collars if we don't have collars, we recycle collars and leashes from the shelter and from donations. It's really kind of an overall responsible pet kind of outreach thing that we do. We bring them in with the rabies vaccination. So we will continue to do those on an ongoing basis and get us a site in the county that we can do rep actively and we will -- repetitively.
>> why wouldn't it make since to have the rabies vaccination program at the same time as the sterilization clinic.
>> we do. If they can't provide proof that the animal was vaccinated, we vaccinate them, every one of them. Two things that we do, outreach to get them to go to the spay-neuter clinic.
>> that's what I’m saying. When we do that outreach, if we get takers, why don't we say there's a veterinarian waiting on you.
>> if I had the ability to do that, we would do that. The problems you get is that you have to do the surgery first thing in the morning, day surgery like it is for people. You can't just keep doing ing them sending them out the door. Do it, let them sit there until they come out from under the anesthesia, then they are picked up at 5:00 in the evening. If we had the ability to do that, that's the way to do it. We are actually working on an idea that we'll probably do a pilot on this fiscal year for a product called neuter-sol, done with an injection into the testicle for male dogs, only. What we are trying to work out is a linkage to a rabies clinic for those animals where the visual testicle still existing is a problem for the owner, we can eliminate that problem, go over here to this tent, we can take care of that right now. We did one of them last fiscal year and I was real pleased with our ability to do it in a field environment. I think we will try to see what we can do with something like that, there's not a big anesthesia requirement for that proceed.
>> so today your request or recommendation is what? You have four or five thousand dollars one vote for. But don't talk yourself out of that. What else do we need to do? Interlocal?
>> I think it's three fold. In terms of this specific program it's a balance in terms of inv.e.king and prevention. Investing and prevention, but also enhancing the response capabilities. You can see with the dramatically increased response times that limits us in terms of our effectiveness. But absolutely prevention is the best investment in the long term, Commissioner Sonleitner's suggestion in that area is very consistent with what we would recommend at this time. I think but at the same time I do think that you need to be thinking about the enforcement side of this and beefing that up also in terms of resources. Then the third piece, as you mentioned, was referenced earlier, just this overall interlocal. And moving forward on that. Because that's going to help us I think be much more efficient in terms of what we are doing. It will bring us up to date in terms of how we should be functioning and will enable us to deploy resources in a more efficient way. Will dramatically reduce a lot of our administrative costs for both the city and the county with the multitude of outdated interlocals that we are now operating under.
>> any --
>> for those who are a little slow to take those subtle hints, the layman's way to explain number 2 is when you say reduce response time enforcement ...
>> spend more money on the animal control program. We need more staff resources to respond to complaints from the county in order to be able to reduce the amount of time it takes us to get in the field. I think at one point we had a package for you to consider with that.
>> when we talked about this last year, we talked about the doughnut idea. The model is that we have three county staff that there's this pot of money that's to pay for 13 people to do this. They run around the county with the city being in the middle, which is a very inefficient way for us to dispatch field activities. So if a county officer is over here, we get a call over here, we are going to have a long response time getting across over to where we need to be. If I integrate the system, think about the e.m.s., integrate where it's one system, I deploy resources geographically where they need to be, not by jurisdiction. To do that, and not impact my response times in the city, I need to increase the animal control staffing level. I think last year we talked about that being two positions would be that I thought we could start with two positions to see if that would keep our response times level in the city and reduce the response times in the county. If I can get those additional resources to not negative impact my city operation, I will integrate the entire system, I will have an improved response time for our county citizens because we won't be running around jurisdictionally, we will be dispatched geographic kel.
>> but with that scenario that you just put before us, it was mentioned earlier that these dispatches that you will be orchestrating are based on a type of priority. Could you give me an example of what priority would give precedence over something -- because I’m still falling back to response time. As far as a dispatch situation, as far as priority concerned, can you give me an example of that? One that's more severe than one that's not.
>> the number one priority is a bite case. If somebody has already been bitten, that's a priority because we want to capture the animal before it disappears to see we can get it into rabies operation to avoid the person having to have the -- to have the rabies treatment. Our next priority is any aggressive animal, aggression is underway. So you have an animal that you are walking down the street, this animal is out there growling and barking at you, that's going to take precedence over this dog is loose running around my neighborhood, but it's nice and friendly. So we dispatch them according to that priority. Even if we have a bite case, on the other side of the jurisdiction from where that officer is, I have got a large area to cover, our response time to even a bite case may not be adequate for us to be able to capture that animal. And so even though we are dispatching based on priority levels, our response time even in those critical situations where we need to get there quickly is not adequate right now, I don't think. We are still having situations that we can't get there before the animals disappeared on us, it's not a good situation.
>> judge Biscoe, to be very explicit in terms of your question, the gap we identified related to bringing our level of response up to, what we think would be an appropriate level for Travis County, is approximately 172,000.
>> that's positions, equipment, supplies and all of the things that it takes to deploy additional officers.
>> 2,000 more.
>> yes, sir.
>> that's the way to get our attention. That memo, you may want to send it to us again, I guess you all have that on the agenda sometime soon.
>> we have the o going interlocal discussion. Ongoing discussion. And the funding for the state.
>> the law enforce, constables, the law enforcement situations that we have here that's available have no jurisdiction as far as complaint, a vicious animal that's attacking a person, a bite, as you said response time we have to rely on animal control to go to that situation [multiple voices]
>> other law enforcement officers do back us up and respond. The problem with that is that they are not the experts in capturing animals. So they may not be able to capture them or they may get bid, so our ideal situation -- may get bit, our ideal situation is we may be able to respond to animal control, we don't have to throw that over to a.p.d. Or the sheriff's office who are not trained and experience the in handling these animal activities. They do back us up. But it's not the best way for our system to operate if we really want to deal with the situation and get the animal off the street. A lot of times they are not going to be able to capture them.
>> or have the cage.
>> or have the cage to transport them and hold them safely. And --
>> okay.
>> anybody else here on this item with something new and different to say? New and different.
>> if we were to allocate this $270,000, in your guesstimation right now, we have a range of 98, 143, take the average of that, 125, so in your guesstimation, what would we garner if we we were to allocate these kind of dollars? I would like to get us down to a response time. I’m not -- if I’m not making up something new. Maybe I will just make up something new. I would like to see us get down around 40 minutes. 40 minutes means the average. That means one call might be 10, one call might be 70 or 90. Yeah, 40 is what I had proposed in the interlocal. I feel like -- I feel like that gives us a starting point. We may come back and look at that then based on customer complaints, but based on my experience in the city, I feel like if I can get it down around 40 minutes average, that our customer complaints from citizens in the county will probably be reduced significantly and we won't be having some of the complaints that we get now with, you know, it taking forever for us to get there, that kind of thing. I feel like that will get us to a safe level where we are able to handle most of the animal situations ourselves.
>> that's contract. If you are talking -- that's considerate, if you are talking about taking response time down, you know, twofold.
>> I think we can. We have already done the planning for this. We have already decided how we will draw up the districts that the field officers are working so implementation can be pretty rapid, we have done everything that we need to do except have the resources to deploy it.
>> Commissioner, again, I would reinforce that's a combination of having more staff, more resources, but also with that new model within that interlocal having the flexibility to redesign how we are deploying staff rather than having them, you know, dedicated specifically to the county or city.
>> we will back up and explain to that --
>> I think cost allocation to e.m.s. Is an excellent start to a system approach. There is an allocation and appropriation based on what percentage of the system response is allocated to the county and to the city. And I know on that what we learned is that when you had city based dispatch of e.m.s. Calls, it was going to take longer than if you had some of those resources located closer to the people that they would serve. I think we do need to look at -- I think the e.m.s. Model is an excellent places to start, but also one to cuts to the chase on what's the appropriate apportionment of funds to the city versus the county. We get away from this, you know, individual kind of thing, system allocation to make the adjustments on a year by year basis.
>> Commissioner Sonleitner, very consistent with the package and proposal that we developed and have submitted and we are very anxious to get the dialogue going because we think it has a lot of potential in all of what we are doing in health and human services.
>> does that also include, that question that you just made, does that also include -- it does in Austin because you have other jurisdictions in the county other than Austin as far as cities are concerned if it's going to be a cost share type of participation, are we requesting other cities that are able to participate in bringing down that cost make sure they also allow to have the same kind of service for dispatch purposes, are they being included?
>> I do not provide field services for any jurisdictions except Travis County and the city of Austin. Any incorporated municipalities within our jurisdiction, they --
>> they take care of their own [multiple voices]
>> however, we are sheltering them. If we don't -- the city of westlake doesn't found a home or the owner doesn't come for it, they may bring them down just like any other citizens, they bring them down. I am tracking that. The percentage of animals that are coming from other jurisdictions into the shelter for sheltering purposes is not very large. I mean, I think total from all of the other jurisdictions for sheltering purposes is less than Travis County itself. The other issue is that citizens bring them wherever they find them.
>> that covers sheltering or doesn't it.
>> 172,000 is just field operations. Sheltering services are still [multiple voices]
>> for discussion in the future. Thank you.
>> thank you all.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, November 30, 2005 9:31 AM