Travis County Commissioners Court
December 19, 2006
Item 13
Number 13. It's to consider and take appropriate action on selection of one of two proposals submitted in response to r.f.p. Number po 60285-jt for mental health public defenders grant program.
>> good morning, judge, Commissioners, said cyd grimes, purchasing agent. I believe we have some guest water and wastewater us today. I'll let you introduce -- yourselves.
>>
>> [inaudible - no mic]. Head of our mental health mental retardation practice here here in Austin.
>> how you doing?
>> I believe last week staff briefed y'all on the process. We issued an r.f.p. In accordance with a grant riments from the Texas taskforce for indigent defense. As a background the county will be receiving a 500,000-dollar multi-year discretionary grant and that requires that we go out on proposals. There had a team or evaluation committee comprised of members here in the county, public defenders office, and the committee reviewed the proposals and are coming back to make a religious to the court to go with the criminal justice planning of Travis County. The court needs to give us direction on whether that's the option that you choose. And then if not, that option then we would have to go into negotiations with rio grande to come back with a contract. So the committee's recommendation is to go forward with an internal or in-house public mental health defenders office.
>> as a member of the committee, I thought that both proposals were outstanding. And in my view the difference is that whether Travis County likes it or not, we are a critical part of the process. Each year our commitment is $125,000 more. First year 125,000, 250, 375, until it's Travis County's phi years down the road. The two other things, secondly in terms of mental health programs and services, I think that more than ever it's important for us to communicate, con rate, collaborate with the health care district, Austin-Travis County mhmr, city of Austin and the hospitals to provide health care services. During our budget process we saw the Travis County funds probably five or six pilot programs for mental health clients in our community, many of whom are in the Travis County jail at some point. And the other thing is that we have talked about whether we ought to have some sort of public defenders program for adults. Last time we looked at it, we concluded it was post probative, but this was -- prohibitive, but this was eight, 10 years ago. Over the last eight to 10 years, state requirements have mandate that had we do certain things that really cost a whole lot more money, so we spent a lot more money in that arrest and we ought to take a look at that. This would represent a smaller version of the same pilot program in my view. The committee was pretty much divided, though, on where to go with it. So I don't know that there's a right or wrong. And I'm happy with either one of them. Those are the reasons why I think that in-house makes more sense to me.
>> and I was on that committee too and I thought that the two proposals were very good. They were I thought pretty close. My view on where I thought that maybe the rio grande proposal was just a tiny bit better was the fact that historically the core mission of legal aid has been to serve indigents. And then the other strong factor that was involved was the networking that is already established throughout this state of Texas on the ability to communicate and coordinate and collaborate on the needs that adults would have. And therefore I thought that your network was very strong throughout the state and you can draw from all of those resources that would be available. I don't know why you couldn't perform according to the contract that -- the grant that we have gotten, and so I scored them pretty close to each other. And I think the other thing that was very strong in the proposal was the track reported that you have. And so -- the track record that you have. So that's why I felt -- and I think you also have the ability to operate lean and mean, which I always hope that government can do that as well. And so instead of giving bureaucratic and growing out of proportion, but yet concentrate on the service that people in this community need, much more than anything else. And so that was why I had my scoring the way it was.
>> I think for me there is without question that legal aid is tremendous. You've done wonderful things for us, but I think what flipped it over to me for keeping it in house is the in-house record that we've got related to our juvenile public defenders office, which has been serving us so well for more than a quarter of a century. And we have zone that that kind of an in-house operation can work. When you look at the side by side in terms of, okay, where do the dollars go, etcetera, the 84 head costs on keeping it in-house because we already own the space, they can co-locate with the juvenile public defenders office and share a lot of those resources by having to outsource it we are by virtue of it going to have to pay for overhead related to space that we wouldn't have if this were not in-house. I also think on a start-up kind of a program where we want to be probably more hans on and a little -- hands on and a little more micromanaging, we will have a greater ability with our own folks who are on the county payroll and accountable to this Commissioners court and to everyone else within the Travis County system to say, we want you at these meetings, we want you to do this way as onsed to a contractual relationship -- as onsed to a contractual relationship and by the nature of that it's all a matter of a contract and everything is extra unless it is not specifically accounted for. But clearly I want to make it extraordinarily clear that the representation piece, there is without question that legal aid would do a tremendous job, but for me I want to see as much money as possible go towards the actual services and the overhead is something that there is a distinct difference between the overhead costs and again the juvenile public defenders track record is impeccable in terms of an in-house operation.
>> any additional comments you would like for us to consider?
>> your honor, members of the commission, I think what we bring to the table that the county proposal does not to the extent that we can, is that we can bring you the bang for the buck. Our salaries are significantly lower than what our proposed are -- what are proposed in the county proposal as I understand it. And that's historical and it's unfortunate in some ways, but in despite of fairly low salaries, over the years we've been able to attract some very high quality talent to this program. We've been able to get people who are there because they are committed to be there for the clients. Our program is populated with a lot of folk of that nature. We have have a network of recruitment already in place. We're out recruiting at all the major law schools from the east coast to the west coast and certainly here in downtown Austin as well. I think we can attract the kind of people that you're looking for to give you the kind of program that you're looking for. This program is going to start off and require some immediate -- assuming that the county is inclined to have a program that starts immediately. You're going to need that kind of infrastructure in place. I'm not sure that the county has that right now. That's not to say you couldn't develop it over time. Because you have already a juvenile defender office does not mean that you have the structure out there to get up and get running immediately. We signed a contract earlier in val verde contract in April. 30 days later we had a full blown public defender office handling felonies, misdemeanors, juvenile cases in 31 days. That was because we already had in place the infrastructure. If you want to put something together quickly and put it moving -- and get it moving soon, then we can do that for you. The second phase that's critically important in this particular operation, I think, and the thing to me most excite being it is the ability to innovate and create, which a lot of people in this community have come together to talk about and to plan for. And I think we're in a position because of our existing infrastructure and network that Commissioner Gomez was just talking about. To really help facilitate that. We have arrangements already in place with Austin Travis County mhmr, with advocacy, inc. Which is one of their primary focuses is on this particular clientele. We have a number of connections here in town that allow to us do that part of the critical planning process. And we will see six months to a year of really experimenting on how to deliver legal service s to this clientele. Leading up to be able do it efficiently and effectively over the long haul. One of the things that I think we can do because of the way we operate, because of the kind of salary structure we have he,, is that we can provide a lower cost per case because of what we can put into play almost immediately. We don't have to hire somebody to set up a case management system. We own the case management system. We can make the case management system that we have available free of charge to the juvenile defender office here in Travis County. We can develop those long-term links and networks. I know at the last session, judge Biscoe, you were talking about the prospect of this becoming a regional kind of esurprise, assuming a few other counties could throw in some money. I'm very excited about that. This could be 'the lynch pin for a very robust program for a lot of counties around Travis County that couldn't begin to do something like this on think own because of the sheer size of -- the lack of size in some of those counties. I think there's some exciting prospects going forward that we would like to share. However you decide to do this, our commitment, because it's the same clients that we seven on the civil side, our commitment is to work with you to make sure that this gets done well. That's our only concern here. We're offering this to you. I think that we can do the job you want to see done. But however you want to go with it, our commitment is with you to make this work.
>> any brief comments on on the other side?
>> no, sir. Criminal justice planning, judge Biscoe, is excited about this opportunity and whichever the way the court decides we're very supportive.
>> I move that we bring it in-house. And that would be basically to make the award to criminal justice planning department and see how that goes.
>> judge, I'll second that.
>> seconded by Commissioner Sonleitner. Any discussion of the motion? All in favor of the motion? Show Commissioners Daugherty, dave, Sonleitner, yours truly voting in favor. Voting against Commissioner Gomez. Thank you very much. Also a big thanks to the selection committee for its work on this matter and also purchasing. And I'll get legal counsel's name?
>> jim collins.
>> oh.
>> [inaudible - no mic].
>> okay. He was not on the clock with us, so we certainly appreciate that service.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, December 19, 2006 8:51 PM