Travis County Commissioners Court
May 23, 2006
Item 22
We indicated our intention to call up -- 22 at 1:30. That is to consider and take appropriate action on request for funding. Of the case management component "project recovery" for misdemeanor mental health offenders.
>> good afternoon, I understand that you've had a very busy day. I’m going to try to be as brief as I can, I want to make sure to address any concerns that you have. The funding that we are asking from the county is funding for a piece of the project recovery treatment model. It is a forensic assertive community treatment piece and mr. Menharas has the -- has the financial numbers. My role here is to give you just a little perspective on why I think this is an important program and what we are trying to accomplish and why we need your funding. I presented you with -- with a document, I’m not going to go over each of these with you because of the amount of time. One of the things that I need you to understand that I don't want there to be any kind of misrepresentation that this is some kind of a jail overcrowding program to reduce jail overcrowding. That's not the primary goal of this program. My hope is that that is a positive result of this program. But I believe that we need to look at criminal justice trends in our community and try to address them appropriately. And I believe that this program is -- is a way to begin to address a problem in our community, that problem is folks that are arrested repeatedly for public intoxication. And in '99 the law was changed so that those offenses could be enhanced to a class b misdemeanor. I ran some numbers with the help of tonya mills and because I was frankly curious about what we were really looking at. What I have given you is a real -- it's a sampling. What I did was I had the names of folks from 2004 who had -- who had been convicted of p.i.'s, class b. I took those who had more than -- five or more convictions that year, and I did a snapshot of what their history was from '99 until 2005. And what the costs associated with that were. I do need to let you know that there was one error that I corrected at the bottom in terms of attorneys' fees, they had added attorneys' fees for the class c's, but we don't pay attorneys' fees on class c's, that's why that number has changed. This is the amount of money that we have spent just on these particular individuals. This is not all -- and it's an estimate. It's an estimate of jail costs, attorneys' fees and booking fees. It's just to give you some perspective of the scope of the problem. I would be happy to give you more significant numbers at some point in time because this program is not going to address all of the people that are arrested for pi.
>> I believe that the -- I believe that the fact team is critical to the success of this program. We have tried to get funding from other sources and those sources were not forthcoming. I attached a memorandum for Geraldine nagy expressing her support for the fact that a piece of this program, I think that it will increase our ability to have -- to have a successful program.
>> [indiscernible] what time line are you going to allow us to review to see what the progress of the program is at this point? Is there --
>> in terms of performance measurements?
>> exactly.
>> mr. Menharus has developed a series of things that we are going to measure during the project. We are -- we hope that it will start July 1st and then what we can do is we can bring reports to you periodically. If you would like to see reports every three months, I will bring them to you every three months. The thing that you need to know, though, is it's -- you know, because it's a long-term program, the first nine months we may not have a lot of statistics because it's a three-month program for these individuals that come into the treatment. But you could -- should be able to see something and we are interested in giving you that -- that information.
>> I’m very interested and I guess everybody --
>> I am, too. I think all of us need to see where we are going.
>> right.
>> where we are spending money, how we are doing, stuff like that, so --
>> this is a new ground breaking project. For that reason we do need to monitor it and see if it's the best use of your dollars.
>> okay.
>> we do have a commitment from the city for two years, unfortunately we are almost to the end of the first year. And so we do have a commitment for next year for them as well.
>> all right.
>> we are asking for you to give funding for the balance of this year and for next year.
>> okay. Now, we have some other people that are in the room, I need to introduce to you. That are in support of the project. Mr. [indiscernible] the money is being routed through the community court for monitoring. He's got the same charge of giving those that information to the city if we want to -- to continue funding from them. Mr. Bill brice is here from the downtown Austin alliance. Darla gay who is with the district attorney's office. Deborah hale just walked in from court administration. [indiscernible]
>> [indiscernible] [laughter]
>> he's with budget. The money is going to be -- we plan for it to go through criminal justice planning in terms of who manages the contract. With mhmr. Because that is who we are intending to contract with to fill these positions. Judge crane is here, also. And one of the things that I have -- that I feel it's important for me to say before I leave is that this is only one part of mental health funding that we need from the court. And it's my intention to come back to you this summer and explain to you how we have done in the -- and the other things that you have already fund and what we think would be appropriate for you to fund in addition to this. This is important to do today because the city is concerned about it. They know that -- that you are going to hear this today. They would like an answer as soon as possible and mhmr would as well because it -- obviously if we are going to start up July 1, it's important that we get a decision as soon as we can.
>> I’m ready.
>> move approval.
>> second. For the record, charlie betts also just walked in the door as well.
>> oh, good. Charlie.
>> the commitment we make today is for the rest of this fiscal year. This would have to be --
>> [indiscernible]
>> this would have to be a budget item for funding for next year.
>> that's right.
>> we have chatted several times before. Is the information that you have given today different from what we have discussed?
>> no.
>> any discussion of the motion? Questions, comments? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you very much.
>> leroy, I guess the recommended source of funding for this would be allocated reserve for the rest of this fiscal year.
>> thank you.
>> thanks.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, May 23, 2006 1:12 PM