Travis County Commissioners Court
July 25, 2006
Item 3
Item number 3 is to consider and take appropriate action on request to approve the proposed space program for the expansion and renovation of the precinct 2 office building affecting justice of the fees, constable of precinct 2 and the community supervision and corrections department north unit office.
>> I have with me leslie strickland working also on this project. I would like first to give you a little background about this building. This building right now under lease and we have about -- we are about to purchase this property. And the plan is to go ahead and put the second floor. The building was designed to have a second floor. We did extensive program layout facility management, jp 2, constable 2 and cicd. And the result is going to be and the result will be presented to you in numbers. What we're trying to do here is move jp 2 up to the second floor after it's built. This way we'll have this will -- this will allow us to have the existing jp it and expand the cscd into the existing constable areas. The cscd has lots of offices and all what we have to do is just expand the area on the jp.
>> and the three affected departments are in agreement with that?
>> yes. And we have signatures from all of the three department and we have on attachment number five six and seven from (indiscernible), not from judge bembry, not from attachment number 6 on constable vance, and from the cscd on attachment number 7. Just to give you an indication about the existing area rates right now with the justice of the peace, they have 3,449. When we're going to move up to the second floor they're going to go up to about 13,567 square feet. And the constable right now, existing right now as we speak, is 2,367. Just let me remind thaw the constable has more area on this. He gave up his conference room for -- to add more space to the fy '06 expansion of jp 2. And also the training room was given up to have four offices for the cscd. So the existing constable right now, he took the space, 2,367, and when we do the renovation, that space is going to go up to 4,431. The cscd existing is 10,844. After we are proposing to go up to 13,240. Those numbers are on attachment number one. I will let leslie go ahead and talk about specific programs for each department. And after leslie's presentation on the building space, and which we feel for management and the rest that we have enough room to expand the three departments. And then the second part I would like to talk to you about the parking swais. Leslie?
>> thank you. The quotes for all three departments through 2012 has been accommodated in this space program, and the growth projection of the users and of pbo are consistent with each other. They lined up. So roger mentioned jp 2 will move to the second floor. We have space of course for the current 24 staff, which is the judge, our office manager, a senior accountant, clerk financial and 20 other clerks. In the expansion staff, we have counted 23 more clerks and one court coordinator. Currently she has a visiting judge and there is a desk that that visiting judge is using. We've allowed in the space program to make a standard judge's office for that visiting judge. If that visiting position turns into something else, the space is there. We're covered for that. The courtrooms, there will be two courtrooms the current precinct 2 business and the growth of that business. Courtroom a will be sized for seating for 50 and courtroom b slightly smaller, seating for 35. Those courtrooms are sized according to the latest fm space standards, which have been aligned with national court space planning criteria. So those courtrooms will be somewhat larger than what we have been using for jp's in the past. There will also be two jury rooms for each courtroom. And additionally after detailed discussions with the jp on the size of her dockets, Monday criminal docket, Tuesday civil docket, lots of people coming through, and I've discussed this with belinda with pbo and she thought that was a very practical idea and the judge was interested in it also and that is to create an overflow waiting room that separates all the bulk of humanity waiting to come before the judge, separates them from the busy lobby where there's need for people to do business at the service windows without a lot of background noise and also to keep that crowd out of the courtroom also where lots of noise and distraction is not a good thing. That extra court waiting area can be used to set up flexibly for other group meeting purposes located on the second floor with access directly from the public lobby. We think that's going to be a very practical use of space. That's the summary for the jp's space program. Roger gave you the total figure. Gross departmental area, including hallways and all expansion areas is 13,567 square feet. If the visiting judge that I mentioned before becomes -- should become an elected position, we have -- we would want to add a little bit more space to that to provide the judge's restroom and closet and a slightly larger office area to make it equivalent to the space standards for an elected jp position. Then do I have any questions about the jp space program? Constable space program. He has currently 19 f.t.e.'s, that's the constable, chief deputy and six clerks, including the receptionist and office manager and the rest and various officers. The growth factor is for that constable position, constable staff to double in the next five years. So we're providing space for a total of 38 staff.
>> so what is that projection based on?
>> that projection is based on pbo's methodology of statistics for county staff projections based on past history and an understanding of what's happening with the growth in that precinct area.
>> so the constable staff has doubled over the past five years.
>> I cannot give you a specific break down on pbo's mth dolg, but we can get more information from them for you on that they sent us one and I didn't analyze the formulas. But the constable's internal projection based on his knowledge of what's been happening and what is going to happen with his duties in his precinct just from his own knowledge, he came up with the same figures. So that is what we based our work on. We can get you that additional information.
>> we defend on projections from f.t.e.'s in the Travis County departments and within those numbers and assuming those numbers are the correct ones and are moving forward. Those numbers are accurate and that's what we looked at those numbers and ran our profile.
>> so the f.t.e.'s will go from what number today to --
>> from 19 to 38.
>> from 19 to 38 until 2012. This program that you see right now is for up to 2012.
>> so five years from now we expect that to double? 19 f.t.e.'s to 38? Based on your projection.
>> based on lots of work load they have. Based on fy '06, the jp added 10 more f.t.e.'s and also the constable added some in fy '07. And expected to be added in fy '07. And also jp two is going to be adding more f.t.e.'s in fy '07 according to the projection. So there's lots of growth in this area.
>> just from another perspective, jp 2 isn't the same as Commissioner 2. It takes in all of the Lakeway area. It's got then all the traditional things you think of as Commissioner 2, which is a good portion of north Austin, all the wells branch area and it picks up all of Pflugerville. So they have got some of the highest growth areas out there. It's got some things on the other side of the river that are not included in Commissioner 2. The other thing is that that's -- a lot of that is occurring in what is considered to be open as opposed to closed space, and therefore if the growth projections hopefully slow down a little bit, it means that the needs of these departments won't be a 2012 issue, it may spread it out. But as we found on many of our buildings, the most expensive thing to do is these hard shell buildouts. And we will have a flexibility to add on stuff in that building as it's needed f it slows down, great. It just means that the life-span of this building has just been elongated.
>> the spreadsheet that pbo sent us shows the history and projection of constable two growth. In 1998 there were 12.5 f.t.e. In '99 through 2001 they were at 13 f.t.e. 2002 went up to 15 f.t.e.'s. In 2003 went up to 19 f.t.e.'s, where they have been. We often see growth limited by space.
>> so your information was not pbo's?
>> I accept that.
>> if we need the space, we need the space, but the implication that the workforce will double in five years in my view is not correct unless the Commissioners court then is a lot more generous than we've been over the last five years was my point. And if it doubles there, I mean, every other department probably can make the same case for doubling its workforce. I mean, so the space is fine. That statement, though, hit me the wrong way because I don't see the court voting to double the workforce there. I mean, there are other departments with the same squeeze. And I don't see us doubling them either over five years is my only point. But it's not y'all's numbers, it's pbo's.
>> that's correct. And a big piece of that is for 2007.
>> we will have this space anyway. The question is how do we use it. We're building a second floor over the first.
>> that's correct.
>> and the second floor will be roughly the same size as the first.
>> exactly.
>> okay.
>> that's the constable 2 program and he will regain his conference room that roger mentioned before was sacrificed for short-term space for jp. And also training room, which will be located on the second floor. Cscd space will accommodate their current 55 staff at that location, which includes division manager, three unit managers, 41 -- 44 probation officers and support staff. For the expansion space we are providing an additional 24 office spaces. Three of those will be for staff relocating from erb due to staff reorganization at cscd and the other 21 are -- I'm sorry, that's a total of 21, not 24. And the other 18 are additional staff. So they're relocating three, adding 18 for a total of 21 projected new positions over the next five years. That new growth projection is for adding another unit of officers. Currently cscd in precinct 2 has what they call one service unit and they expect the state to authorize an additional unit, and that's how they grow. A unit is 14 officers plus a supervisor, a unit manager, and then there will be a few support positions associated with that. And they will continue to have a lab as they currently do and a few conference rooms and support spaces.
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>> renovation or the -- did we land on that or is that a 2, also?
>> no, we are going to -- not going to do that for us.
>> in house?
>> in house as a management of the program. We did the program right now in house. The plan to show -- somebody designed to -- design development, at that time, we are going to hire a consultant, move forward because -- because stretch thin thin on so many products. But we still have to manage the -- the -- the design and the construction at that time.
>> because the -- sealed front, this building is under lease at this time, we cannot do that front, do anything until we acquire the building. That's why we move forward, something in house, need a program to come back, speed it up a little.
>> we receive projections for acquisition. And projections for construction. [indiscernible]
>> right.
>> in the price range that we are working with?
>> that's correct. As a matter of fact, in fy '06 we have the budget to -- to expend on the second floor, renovate the first floor, also product in a budget request for -- for an increase of a construction cost for -- for fy '07 and beyond.
>> the only item that's not currently budgeted is the ff and e associated with this expansion.
>> we need to lay out the buildings and the floors and the room to see on what existing furniture we can use, what -- what we can't at this time. So -- so really it's -- if we want to just put the number on the table for budgeting, that number is based on [indiscernible]
>> let's put the warehouse on notice, cyd.
>> please do not go back to item no. 5, judge.
>> the second part that I was -- that I would like to discuss is the parking situation at the precinct [indiscernible] facility. I did sent a supplement, this spread sheet to you all. And what we did facility management did very extensive data collection on July 10, 11, 12, 13, also July 17th, two Mondays, one Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. As you can see, what we did, we have an entry for all of this data, we did analysis of the data, as you can see, from this percentage, on every hour, we went and -- and collected how many space empty and how many space occupied in this facility. And plot them over here. As you can see, there's no -- not even one time exceeded the 50 to 60% of the available parking over there. So -- so our indication, as you can see, every one hour we have a bar showing the -- how many cars was -- was occupied space over there. We have total 223. So the total is about like 50 to 60% of -- at one time. It's -- it's occupied -- occupied all of those spaces. Therefore, we believe that there's a parking capacity for the increase for the future five years. And this is based on the data. This is one survey. We did another survey, also, as you can see there's only one entry, one exit for this property, this one over here. I get to staff, facility management, also -- also they can -- taken at that time for every car coming in, for every car going out. And there's at no time that in and out that exceeded the 141 stored at the site. So I think we still have some room right there for expansion on the parking lot. And right there speaks for itself.
>> I think that you have done an excellent job on this particular item. But when I look at the big picture, when I start looking at growth in the future, looking at the projections of where we need to be as far as space allocations are concerned, I'm just wondering when, I know this may not be an answer for you today, but I need to find out an example, this is pntd 2 building, but -- precinct 2 building, we have got precinct 3, other buildings throughout the county that we are going to have to deal with projected growth. And also accommodate space allocations. So kind of concerned, this is a five-year deal. Well, I could ask the same question, what's the five year, 10 year deal for precinct one on this building for the growth that's happening in this area. So I hear what you are saying, but I am still kind of concerned about where we are going when we deal with this stuff. One thing that we have got to have, f.t.e.'s the whole different cat gore for this stuff. But -- category for this stuff, again I'm hearing you, concerned about how we are going to get around, deal with growth in the county as far as the -- getting it with space. But I think you all are doing a very good job on this thing.
>> thank you, Commissioner.
>> all of this is county parking today.
>> correct.
>> we require the building, we --
>> and parking.
>> yes.
>> okay.
>> does anybody have any questions?
>> I would like to move for a motion on approval.
>> I sure am.
>> I move approval.
>> since we share.
>> discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, July 26, 2006 10:34 AM