Travis County Commissioners Court
January 23, 2007
Items 24
We have representatives from the sheriffs office with us, so let's call up item number 24, which is to consider and take appropriate action on administrative supervision reorganization proposal for the Travis County sheriff's office.
>> hello court.
>> good afternoon.
>> good afternoon, judge, Commissioners, michael, planning Commissioner sheriff's office. We sent a proposal to to do some internal restructuring. The sheriff feels it's prudent to do some movement to assist with some supervision, spanning controls issues that we have and move some of our functions from kind of the core corrections area into the add minimum support bureau that we have. As you may be aware we divided base nad thee brewer breweros, law force, corrections and administration support. It kind of puts like apples and apples and oranges and oranges together. We have met with p b o and county hr on this, found both the sheriff felt to the most cost effective solution to the problem. I'm not so sure that we're quite willing to give up the $604 on it yet but it does result in a basically neutral budgetary impact to the sheriff's office as well as the county.
>> questions?
>> the move will not, looking at the portion on this, I guess, dealing with looks like the majority of the move coming from the correctional offices, going up to the administrative support area, and just as you stated earlier, apples and apples, oranges and oranges. So farce--as far as job class fist case, a lot of that will just basically stay intact. And of course getting your captains associated with this. And as you mex the span-- span--mention, span of control, this is something you have gone through, sure it's not any negative impact especially when looking at the correction the end of that. I guess the duties and responsibilities and also the job titles of that movement from those personnel up to the administrative support, and with the captains that would be associated with that, is something that organizational structural wise is something in the best interest of sheriff's department with those three categories.
>> Commissioner Davis, that's correct. When you look at it, we don't feel it's the en ensolution but a step in the right direction to assist with some of the span and control issues the sheriff would like to address. The individuals that would be moving under the administration and support command are individuals that provide a support function currently for that corrections bureau but does allow each core bureau to function on their statutory responsibilities and allow the administration support bureau to focus on the things that support those two core functions.
>> again, as you stated earlier, having apples go with apples and oranges go with the oranges. My question is, how does it get displaced anyway? I see what you are doing and I can understand why you are doing it, but especially in the corrections side, how did that get to where you have persons that are doing, under corrections arm of the sheriff's department but they actually could actually fit into administrative support of that, which doesn't have any, of course at this time, any leadership as far as supervisory as far as captains are concerned. I'm not criticizing, believe me, I'd just like to know how that could take place and we we are doing will be the relief factor that we need to provide you guys as far as reorg as it currently you know, as far as what you are doing presently and going along with this particular recommendation of this reorg effort.
>> Commissioner, I can answer that question.
>> can you da that for me, please.
>> I'm marriage darren along with the sheriff's office and I'm in the administration support bureau. The sheriff came to me a couple of months ago and was looking at evening out the responsibilities and work loads of the three bureaus so this would be more or less shifting about 150 folks from the corrections bureau underneath the administration support bureau and a lot of those unit work directly with fiscal as far as purchasing commodities and that. So it's just a re redistribution of the workload and kind of evening things out.
>> okay. And would that, the two, I guess, captains, that would be associated with that, where would they come from? In other words, do they already exist in are we just moving around, how would that work? In other words, since they didn't have captains before in the administrative support end. It wasn't there before. Of course, but we needed that type of supervision there. I guess my question is, where are they coming from. In other words, are these going to be something--
>> these will be converted lieutenant slots, one from each bureau and then re reallocate the the resources and turned into nonexempt command staff personnel under the administration support bureau.
>> okay. I just wanted to get everything clear in my head on how that would work. Of course, reducing the span of control to where it can be managed, more of a manage manageable typesetting in the reorg situation here. Now let me ask this question question. Based on what we have here today, and I'm going to be quiet after this. Based on this reorg, is there a setting that we can say, well, this is the way it should work and this is the efficiency and the effectiveness of this reorg? Is there some type of measurement device out there that we can look forward to looking at and say, hey, that particular reorg was the thing to do, it did actually deal with those concerns that we wanted to address, especially the span of control issue? Is this something that can be measured in a certain length of time if the court decides to go ahead.
>> I think it's time will tell. I believe it will, with the redistribution of 150 folks into the administration support bureau.
>> right.
>> I believe it will relieve some of the duties to the other three corrections captains, the two nonexempt captains under the administration support bureau would take on, and maybe have some more time to look at each area and make sure we're doing everything internally as effectively as we can be.
>> okay.
>> Commissioner, I might add to that, again, as performance measure, this is one of those proposals that as far as reducing span and yol is instantaneous. Once those positions are creating and filledrb then the correctional captains will no longer have the responsibility to look after and manage x number of individualsindividuals. So we'll see some degree of instant relief on their side side. Again, it will shift it to these new individuals who then it becomes their responsibility to manage and control.
>> okay. So, okay. Thank you.
>> if you simply look at table 3 on page 3, you will see corrections staffing going from a 928 current level to a new level of 776. I'm mindful of the mame mamee-mail I received from the--e-mail I received from the sheriff as office yesterday reminding me the population was just under 26 hundred.
>> no, these numbers are shifting ancillary individuals. People in charge of warehouse, laundry, who provide a very valuable service but do not provide direct supervision of our in inmate population.
>> this is like support for corrections.
>> absolutely. These are the people who work to keep the ship moving forward and afloat on a daily basis.
>> okay. I feel better now.
>> my only question was the conversion of some of these slots into the major slots. Are you not going to miss those later ?
>> we have worked out, under the sheriff's directionrb we have worked out ways. It does involve se re reorganization in the other individual bureaus but at the sheriff's direction we have done some movement to accommodate the changes in this proposalespecially the crime lab supervisor--
>> especially the crime lab supervisor.
>> the crime lab technicians I used to work in major crimes, they work hand in hand on a daily basis with the major crimes detective. The allocate, the sergeant over major crimes will be over the crime lab too. They work hand in hand. And those major crimes detectives and those crime seen technicians work hand in hand on crime scenes. It only makes sense that they are supervised together together. That's why we do that.
>> we might add on this one, it kind of is historical return to business. In my 20 years, that position originally was a sergeant position. It was civilianized at one point many years ago. Very well in that position -- performed very well in that position. Looking at the market and ability to hire for similar one with the amount of funds that ee have, we felt it more prudent to stay within budget and to promote from within and basically wait the way to do--the way to do that is to look at the sergeant levels, individuals who do have that expertise.
>> no obvious and traceable fiscal increase as a result of the organization as proposed.
>> that's correct, your honor. We met early on with pbo on this matter to make sure they were satisfied. In fact the figures you see are the courtesy of mr. Barry and his calculations. El I see he has arrived to assist.
>> in actual ty this results if in a minor reduction which we are remove from the ny '08 tar get.
>> we would not think of leaving it there, would we.
>> no.
>> we tried, your honor.
>> it's pretty important in the hundred million budget.
>> move approval.
>> second.
>> anymore discussion? Questions, comments?
>> thanks for working, thinking outside the box.
>> really looks good. I'm really impressed to see how things come out in the reorg. If it reliefs some of the things we have to deal with now, I definitely support. I think the mex.
>> thank you very much.
>> nal favor. That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you.
>> thadgethank you all. Good luck.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, January 24, 2007 7:48 AM