Travis County Commissioners Court
January 17, 2006
Item 16
16. A. Consider and take appropriate action regarding the following property damage total loss claim recommendations:
all of these are under 16.
a. Tnr unit 2338 - settle;
b. Tcso unit 2838 - settle;
c. Tcso unit 2350 - settle;
d. Tcso unit 2459 - settle;
all of these in the Travis County sheriff's office.
e. Tcso unit 1810 - settle;
f. Tcso unit 2155 - settle;
g. Tcso unit 1946 - settle;
and
h. Tcso unit 1975 - settle
b. Discuss and take appropriate action regarding the total loss of tcso unit 1955 and
16 c. Discuss and take appropriate action regarding the auto liability claim recommendation for state farm insurance and stacy keaton.
>>
>> [one moment please for change in captioners]
>>
>> I would move approval of the staff recommendation.
>> and I’ll second. And to note for the record that the employee involved is no longer a Travis County employee.
>> any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. B?
>> b we separated b from the other categories of total loss vehicles at the direction of the court. You wanted to discuss this in detail with possible reimbursement from the tsco for the damages to both the third party and the --
>> wrong b. You're on a different b.
>> oh, other b.
>> we just approved what I understand was 2338.
>> okay. I apologize. Item 8-b was is tso deputy that was responding with sirens and lights when he drove over a wet portion of the roadway, collided with a pole. The resulting damage to the vehicle is a total loss. The amount of the replacement would be $20,914, of which $13,600 would come from the risk fund. $6,041 would come from the car fund.
>> judge, I’m ready to vote on this one. This is clearly course and scope of duty and one of the things that unfortunately happen when somebody is doing their job.
>> second.
>> move approval.
>> discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> why don't we do it this way. Do we have any issues with the a through h?
>> yes.
>> let's pull on you the ones you have issues on. What about c? Issue? D, issue?
>> yes. All right. Let's discuss d.
>> would you lay that one out for us please, dan, so everybody is on the same page?
>> this is an accident and damages to a tcso vehicle. The deputy was northbound on farm to market 620, was not keeping his eye on the roadway, his attention was diverted to a mobile on board computer and he veered off the road to the right side and dropped off the roadway, drove through some trees and barbed wire fence and ended up the damages were a total loss. The amount of replacement is $26,609, which the risk fund pays 14,900 and the car fund $470,041.
>> judge, the question I have on this one, because I was willing to when I saw the reference to the mobile data on board computer to say, well, something was happening, but I notice that the disciplinary action was really quite severe and I was going, was there something else going on here? Because I’m willing to say this one was course and scope of duty, unfortunate, but I was really surprised by the disciplinary action and I thought I would just ask the question, should I be asking a question here? Can somebody help me on this one?
>> rick white, sheriff's office. I was directly involved in that one and there was not any other issues going on, it was just a failure to pay attention.
>> so you wouldn't call it course and scope of duty because there was a reference there of, well, thenc% in the car. I’m trying to be helpful here, and I did not shore up my question on this.
>> the computer is in the car and they do things on the computer while they're driving, but it wasn't the issue in this case.
>> thank you. I appreciate your candor. Is there some reason, which is the question that will be coming up on a later one, that in the same way that accidents assess blame and assess shared responsibility, that the responsibility for repaying and getting this car paid for should not be shared by the rifg fund and shared by the sheriff's office? Can somebody kind of weigh in on that one for me? Shade responsibility. Of where the money comes from.
>> on that particular one I would say the 20 hours off without pay is part of that.
>> well, that's for that individual person, but that's not for the department. The department still had to pay for everything and probably might even had to pay for somebody's overtime. So I’m just wondering why the cost of the replacement vehicle is not where it ought to be shared?
>> I’m not saying that it shouldn't be shared. One of the things that I would like for you all to understand is that we looked at the corrective measures that we're taking on a lot of the different fleet accidents that occurred. And by looking at the county policy, Travis County is much more harsh than what the county policy calls for. One of the things we need to understand is that Travis County sheriff's office is a 24/'operation and we're constantly in the vehicle. And that doesn't relieve the responsibility of driving safely and not trying to what I call mix paint with other cars. We need to hold our people accountable, but I believe at the same time in the particular fleet accident that you're talking about, one of the things that was brought to my attention is that we do take out with that overtime job there is a portion of the monies that go toward liability insurance, and we feel that by doing so, taking those steps, that that should be covered out of that portion of monies.
>> okay. You're saying in terms of the hourly charge. That was unfortunately part of the mix and that's the appropriate place for it to go.
>> that's correct.
>> I i do appreciate that suggestion that that's really where it really is imbedded in the cost that people are paying to get that product.
>> and as I was walking up here, often times these fleet accidents do not get to greg hamilton, but I did look over the information that was provided me and I instructed my supervisors that we're going to take a closer look at the corrective measures that we are vetting out to address these particular issues.
>> I guess the problem I have is that I don't know that these cases should turn on my subjective judgment or the driver's driving ability at the time of the incident. The other thing is that I think that it would be more appropriate for us to put in place a policy to govern this. Right now our policy does not cover what comes from the risk management fund and what comes from the department. All of it comes from the risk management fund, doesn't it?
>> risk management fund and the car accident in the case of total losses.
>> so it's charged against the department. I suggested this once before. If we want a policy change, then I think that we ought to formulate one, put it on the agenda and adopt it. It gets real subjective when I start looking at whether I think this punishment is fair, that punishment is fair. We can't change the punishment. The law gives that to the sheriff. Now, we can change the source of funding, but we ought to do that by policy and not sitting here subjectively on a case-by-case basis doing it. The other thing is that we've got staff that are supposed to be looking at these, reviewing them, applying county policies to make the recommendation with the understanding that when they come to court we will play policy. So I wouldn't back door it here. I would put me a policy in place, share it with the departments that have cars and also with risk management so though know exactly what we're going to do. The recommendations would be different if we were to say, okay, when you find this degree of negligence or fault by the driver, then here is how we want the funding to be conducted, then you send that to the sheriff's office and then you have to send it to tnr and the other departments that have a lot of employees that drive. I have no problem with that from a policy prospective, but I do have a problem with us sitting here going through eight or nine different cases here and playing different standards. I’m assuming that if you were negligent, you did not intend the accident, you just could have exercised a 8b,wéore what the conditions werement I can read these reports here, but whatever I do is pretty subjective. So I don't know that we're being fair to the risk management staff that we views these or to the different departments, and I’m really fearful that we'll play one standard to the sheriff's office and another standard to tnr, maybe other standards to the constables. If it's a source of funding issue as we seem to be headed for, then we ought to have a policy covering it. I mean, that's my position on it.
>> and judge, I’m extraordinarily comfortable about it. We've been talking about this for a number of years and this is not a new issue. Margaret and I have been -- I won't use the word harping, but having positive discourse about this for a number of years. These are not new concerns. And I have to tell you that -- it's not just the sheriff's office, it's not. Tnr is number two. Constable five is number three unless the numbers have changed. And others do fall out. But what I’ve also found is this, is that the public discussion of certain ones, things that are course and scope of duty, good grief, no brainers, settle it, thank you very much. Let's go. Weather related, I’m sure we'll have more from December 7th and subsidiary December 8th. Not even an issue. But sometimes a public discussion about safety and letting everybody know that this Commissioners court or at least this Commissioner takes safety extraordinarily seriously and that there are avoidable --
>> we all do.
>> judge, may I please finish?
>> we all take --
>> I appreciate that, but --
>> we take public safety seriously.
>> but when there is a positive discourse come frg this Commissioners court it enables departments to go back and say, y'all, they're serious. I don't want to ever this this up there for discussion again. This is meant to be positive feedback because I have to congratulate you. Your numbers are substantially down. We used to have so many more of these, and these are now down to a precious few, but until we get it down to, you know, perfection, you're never going to hear me not say, may we please try and do better? That's all I’m trying to do. And you have a message to take back saying they're still stuck on this or at least Karen's still stuck on this. And please, let's pay attention on some of these things. The other thing, and this, judge, is relevant. And I appreciate, captain, the e-mail that you sent me in terms of can we put this all into context. You have done an amazing job, but the one thing that bothered me was that you all had to concede that your disciplinary records were not updated in 23 of the accidents, including 11 where the employee was at fault. And what that means is that the action that you all thought was appropriate didn't wind up being in the permanent school record. And that is serious and it just shows that we need to just close the loop on these things. That's what it's really all about, close the loop.
>> and just for clarification, it is in the permanent school records in the employee's files, it just wasn't in our database.
>> and that is really important because if there was a serious accident, the news media would say where is that employee's driving record. And you may not know you have an issue with a certain driver unless those records are updated. And I appreciate the fact that you said we found something and we're going to fix it. And I know that you are people of your word and you shall.
>> and to clarify another point, when we review a fleet accident, we consider all the parameters. The judge mentioned awhile ago, and those are taken into consideration in the discipline and in most cases, almost all cases, our discipline is stronger than what's in the county policy for other drivers.
>> I’m glad to hear that. I guess just an update of these kinds of accidents. And sheriff, I guess I just need to tell you that since you are new and we have dealt with some of these in the past, where I’m coming from is that I have to vote on raising the tax rate or not in order to have the revenue that -- to deal with the needs of all departments in carrying out the mandates that county government has. The top one is public safety. And I want to provide the sheriff's office with all the tools that it needs in order to provide that service to constituents all over Travis County. My concern is -- and I’m very uncomfortable when it comes to seeing the accidents come in. And yes, risk management can cover it, but that's general fund money that comes from taxpayers, so I’m still in my uncomfortable position of, you know, I know accidents happen and I know that they'll happen one time, and if you do something about it, they won't happen a second time. So my interest is prevention. Of spending money on wrecks if people don't learn from that. And I would rather have the money available to have raises for either your employees or county employees in the other departments, and so I just have that thing about wanting to prevent the expenditure of money for something that we can learn from. And so that's been where I come from.
>> and I would like to say that nobody is as serious about being safe and cautious and trying to prevent these collisions out there because one of the things, if we did have to put money back into there, we are pretty tight budgeted already and we're going to have to come back and ask for money in other areas. So we're going to put policies in place and practices in place to try to alleviate that. But I want to let you know that there's no perfect system. We're going to have to keep on trying until we get it right and I think my command staff is willing to do so. And we will put the work and the effort into trying to address these particular issues.
>> the sheriff brought up something and I need to get charity, dan, in terms of how we have been trying to calculate the per hour cost on off duty. And the sheriff may have mentioned that, well, when thikz happen, that's kind of part of that reimbursement, but the one accident that we talked about today, that was not an off-duty accident. So my question is when you were doing your calculation on per hour, are those off duty jobs taking in all accidents that may involve the sheriff's office in terms of the calculation of the risk number or just the off duty ones?
>> just -- well, what we do is determine what the cost of covering a patrol car would be if we were purchasing insurance. And that's the base figure we use to come up with the hourly rate.
>> so that would not matter then whether its on duty or off duty, just the matter of covering the vehicle during certain kinds of exposure.
>> that's correct.
>> okay, I’m happy with that. Thank you.
>> the sheriff does not have a vehicle damage line item. Even if he had one, it would be general fund taxpayer money. Money: so there are no separate sources of fund here for the risk management of the sheriff's office and certainly we would not expect -- I think we would expect something to be done to call to the attention of the driver that negligent driver of a county vehicle that results in damage is not acceptable. And in this case the deputy got 20 hours without pay, 60 days, no take home vehicle, so his unit was taken for 60 days, and he was required to attend defensive driving.
>> at his expense.
>> at his expense. So that's three and a half items against the driver. Then the question is well, what about the vehicle. And we have not come up with an option that is non-taxpayer, non-general fund money. That's what I have an issue with, I guess. Anyway, is there a motion on this, Commissioner Sonleitner?
>> we didn't take a motion on c yet.
>> if there are no issues on them, we may as well group them together.
>> I’m just asking how you're going to do it.
>> there is there a motion on d. Move approval that we settle d.
>> second.
>> discussion? All in favor? Show Commissioners Davis, Daugherty and yours truly voting in favor. Voting against, commission Commissioner Sonleitner, Commissioner Gomez an straining.
>> no, no.
>> going against, Commissioner Gomez also. E, unit 1810. Any issues? F, unit 2125.
>> issues? G, unit 1946.
>> someone else's fault, no, sir.
>> issues?
>> nope.
>> any issues on the next one?
>> h. Move approval of c, e, f, g and h. Discussion in all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> judge, can I ask, dan --
>> I apologize for cutting you off awhile ago. Commissioner Sonleitner is right. It would be nice if we all had an opportunity. It would be nice if we rotated it also.
>> dan, have you ever done a comparison of the other urban counties? You determine what criteria you use, miles traveled, whatever. I’ve never gotten the impression that we are beyond a normal amount of accidents, but maybe I’m wrong. The reason I never get overly worked up about these is because I do agree that they come out of whichever pot it comes out of, it comes out of the county pot, and I would only be concerned if I thought that tcso was different from, you know -- pick the six urban counties and say here's what the deal is and I would imagine that they're probably all fairly close. But if you wouldn't mind, if you haven't done that, if you would try to do a little work on that, I would like to see just for my own edification.
>> we did it. It's been probably three years ago that we did this. And there's some dynamics in Travis County that maybe don't exist in some of the other counties. Travis County is very urbanized today compared to five years ago. And with the sheriff's office, the sheriff said it's a 24/7 operation. There's other dynamics. The Travis County in Travis County, Austin in particular, is very heavily dense. It's terrible, to be frank. Where other cities may have comparable operations, we can certainly compare ours to theirs, but we want to factor in some of the traffic issues as well.
>> I’ll give you a caveat, but I would like to see it.
>> we'll do it again.
>> but the density, Commissioner, is what adds to having very little reflex time to do anything, to look away from the road. And -- because I’ve gone through that myself, and I guess the traffic is so congested, you really do not have any time, a split second is enough to have you just veer off. And so I think that our conditions are going to be different.
>> if you take the six major urban areas in this -- urban counties, we're no more dense than harris county is with houston, bexar county is with san antonio, tarrant county is with fort worth-dallas county. You would have a hard time convincing me of that.
>> but the more congested, the less time you have for reflex. Even a split second in any of those urban areas, they can't look away. Before you know it, you're up on somebody's bumper.
>> and we have a very special road and you notice I voted for the settlement of that claim, had to do with lime creek road. Even if you know lime creek road exceptionally well, and when that was part of my precinct I like to think that I did know where the curves are. That is an unforegiving road. And if you do -- if you exceed by one mile an hour, it cuts you no slack. And so I voted for that one because I get it, that that is an unforegiving road and that was an unfortunate -- that happens to folks who live on that road. It is there unforegiving and that can happen. There is no road like lime creek down in harris county. That's a tough one because of the elevation changes and quick curves, and it just -- it's all over the place.
>> b?
>> again, b was separated from the other total losses for the discussion I think that's been taking place. This was a vehicle accident and it happened on westbound highway 71 when the driver attempted to -- this is an off-duty accident, by the way. The patrol deputy was working off-duty, made a u-turn at the crest of a hill and a vehicle coming the opposite direction was unable to stop because he didn't see him, and it caused a total loss of damage to the Travis County sheriff's vehicle. Loss replacement is $19,819, of which the risk fund will pay $7,150. And car fund pays $12,491. That's due to the age of the vehicle.
>> okay.
>> and the discussion --
>> we are very lucky we didn't have not one dead officer, but two, because the other person in the other vehicle was an Austin police department officer. And this is on highway 71, and we have been hearing a lot of testimony related to the sweetwater m.u.d. And many other issues. It is a very dangerous road. And this one is just a real hard one for me. And again, it is meant to be positive feedback that we need to be extraordinarily careful in the same way that we're trying to tell everybody else out there, be extraordinarily careful. And the circumstances of this one were troubling. It wasn't a weather thing, it wasn't a deer thing, it wasn't a course and scope of duty thing. And so it's just meant to be a message back about the circumstances so that you can carry the safety message that this one was a troubling one and we're very lucky that we didn't have serious bodily injury on this one involving not only one, but two law enforcement officers.
>> [inaudible - no mic].
>> can we call this one preventable?
>> by all means? Yes.
>> the u-turn there should not have occurred.
>> right.
>> so is this the one where we voted to replace the car? But the question today is source of funding?
>> I don't believe the vote to replace the car was taken previously. I think we were asked to bring this back. It was the third-party's vehicle that we paid for.
>> so what disciplinary was taken against this employee?
>> written reprimand.
>> [ inaudible ].
>> what page is that on?
>> it's on the --
>> okay.
>> to clarify, judge, the u-turn could have taken place, but it could have been done safer.
>> what page is this on? It's a large package.
>> 83. You have to kind of go down to the bottom where it says 83.
>> do we want to talk -- I guess this is a policy issue. Clarify some differentiation between when these accidents happened -- when these happen on off-duty versus when they are in the line of duty? I mean, has the court talked about that before in any kind of detail? Because that was the first thing that got my attention. I mean, so it's a non-issue then if people are on an off duty deal and they have an accident in a county vehicle, it should make no difference to us?
>> to me the issue is the county vehicle. And if an individual has an accident in a county vehicle, we need to address that issue the same way as on duty because they're still holding themselves out as a peace officer.
>> the discussion did take place a couple of years ago about why we would cover that. And it's because the vehicles are titled to Travis County. We are the owners of the vehicles and therefore responsible for the insurance.
>> then that's the obvious reason to do it.
>> as a matter of policy, any time we want to review any of our policies, we can do so. But my recommendation is that if we can be a lot more objective. If we want to educate the county workforce members that use the vehicles, that we expect a certain level of conduct in a way different than what we do now, the best thing to do would be to put it in a policy, get input, adopt it, educate on it and basically act on it.
>> I would be more interested in the education of it. We have all kinds of laws on the books, but if people don't follow them, then nothing is going to happen, but I think it's the education part that I would really stress. I think y'all do that.
>> I think a policy would be a lot more uniform than sitting down with five members of the court and then sitting down with the sheriff and his people.
>> I can tell you the onus is on me as it pertains to the Travis County sheriff's office and I plan on doing something about it.
>> onus on you, funding on us.
>> yes, sir, that's exactly right.
>> would a citizen receive a citation for doing what this person did with making a u-turn?
>> oh, yeah.
>> I realize if you're a law enforcement officer -- I guess he saw something that was being done improperly and that's what he was responding to or he didn't I just left my wallet back at the utotem?
>> he had his emergency equipment on and making a u-turnment they were paving highway 71 west and he made a u-turn with the construction equipment and just miss judged the turn. But his emergency equipment was on and yes, a private citizen minus the emergency equipment would have probably gotten a ticket. But the vehicle is there to protect the road crew.
>> where is this car now? Has it been replaced?
>> I think that's what we're here for today.
>> so the answer is no.
>> yes, sir.
>> so what is this officer doing?
>> he's either driving a pool car or been issued another car.
>> so the work goes on. If we don't replace this car, nothing bad happens, or does it?
>> it hurts our fleet long-term.
>> and this car would have been due for replacement anyway due to age this year. Even without the accident.
>> related to our notes, some of the departments, I’m thinking the constable offices have very set policies that if you have an unfortunate incident that it's not within the course and scope of duty that that person is not rewarded with a new car. They wind up getting the older thing. Could you just reconfirm for us --
>> we do the same thing.
>> thank you. I appreciate knowing that.
>> for those reasons and others, I move approval.
>> second.
>> discussion? All in favor of the motion? Show Commissioners Davis, Gomez, Daugherty and yours truly voting in favor. A consistent Commissioner Sonleitner voting against.
>> and a feedback of positive discourse that we can do better. Thank you.
>> as a feedback of positive discourse. Number c, speaking of feedback, discussion and take appropriate action regarding the auto liability claim recommendation for state farm insurance and stacy keeton.
>> this is a third-party physical damage claim. A sheriff's deputy and the person was driving an okay acura. The deputy was unable to stop and the other car ended up being a total loss. State farm had the loss and they are subrogating the county. We do believe we owe the $16,800.02. We're requesting to pay state farm.
>> stacy keeton is really the insured?
>> yes.
>> and we think this action that was caused by defective equipment on our vehicle?
>> well --
>> the sheriff's department believes, the brakes were determined to be faulty. The bus has been traded in and it's no longer in our possession. It was an older bus.
>> so the question is whether you pay state farm insurance and the insured?
>> that's correct.
>> and in terms of the proactive maintenance, because that was the one that troubled me, and I am going to vote for this one, is that related to the brakes, because we don't want anything happening even when you're just stopping at a stop sign or a signal, what are we doing to make sure that brakes are being checked on a regular basis because many times they've got lots of folks on board when it's a bus.
>> we are doing regular inspections and I would like to note this did not happen on my watch.
>> I’ll tell margot you said that.
>> okay.
>> tnr has very strict maintenance parameters on our vehicles that are mileage based that we follow.
>> okay. But this one just fell out of the --
>> move approval, judge.
>> second.
>> discussion? Any more discussion? All in favor? Show Commissioners Daugherty, Sonleitner, Davis and yours truly voting in favor. Commissioner Gomez abstaining. Thank y'all very much.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, January 18, 2006 8:13 AM