Travis County Commissioners Court
March 21, 2006
Item 25
25. Receive briefing on status of implementation of plan for compliance with senate bill 1863, criminal fines and fees collection and take appropriate action.
>> I have with me today dusty knight from the Texas assessor collector's office, my staff, travis gatlin andy ana ramirez. Let me say this has been a group effort. Everybody worked extremely hard, the j.p.'s, constables, all of their staffs. The tax office, auditor's office, its. The good news is that the office of court administration has actually looked at the plan that you all approved for us to submit and I’ll let deanna kind of brief you on -- a conversation she had with the office of court administration.
>> the collections specialist for our area came down also and was at the tax office to do a site visit late last week. They have reviewed the and feel that our plan meets all of the requirements of the senate bill, they believe that we have done a great job, very happy with the progress that we have made. We are all set with them to get started.
>> the credit card-- the staff being trained in the j.p. Today on the credit cards, we would hope by next week, maybe even the latter part of next week, that the j.p.'s would start taking those credit cards. We would ask that if you have any modifications or corrections to the press releases, that we are going to wait until the staff has had a chance to -- to work on the credit cards for a day or two before we send the press releases out because we are announcing that the credit cards are in effect in those press releases. You all are still working with the details of the -- as I indicated in -- in item no. 7, we have got a couple of details that we are working between the hamer system and the unisys system, we will be working those out with the jps. The good news is we believe that we will be compliant with the office of court administration by April 1, which is a good accomplishment by all of the team members.
>> some type of compliance acknowledgment that we are in compliance, in other words if this particular program is in compliance as far as collection of fines and fees, stuff like that, who is the official persons to tell us that yes we are in compliance, in writing that you are compliant because this is something that all counties --
>> the next [multiple voices]
>> the next step that is the comptroller's office will come in and do a preaudit to come up with kind of a baseline and we anticipate that in the time frame of April or may, go back and look at 18 months prior to April 1 on collections. Then in a year, this -- you know, April 1 of '07, after that period they will come in and do an audit to see if officially we are in compliance. So I think that everybody has worked real hard to meet the minimal compliance level. I have to say that, you know, without the tax assessor collector stepping to the plate and agreeing to take on this additional duty, we would have never been able to get there in this time period. So -- so we do appreciate nelda and dusty stepping to the plate on it. And their staff.
>> okay. Any action required today?
>> no, I think we are fine if -- if the court -- well, if the court could approve us -- the press releases or do you want to -- to take some more time to look at that? We do need to get it out at the end of the week.
>> why don't we individually look at that press release, if we have comments that we get -- that we think are important get them to mr. Nellis. Unless they are earth shaking you can just move on them as far as I’m concerned.
>> that's fine.
>> we have several excellent wordsmithers on this Commissioners court, so you may have a recommendation or two.
>> we -- we do welcome any comments.
>> thank you all.
>> thank you for helping us remain a law abiding Commissioners court.
>> motion to approve the press release.
>> second.
>> discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, March 22, 2006 7:57 AM