Travis County Commissioners Court
April 10, 2007
Item 35
We have an item which is posted for executive session, but there is an open court part. And in the executive session part john hilly will be happy to learn I wanted to ask some questions about the central booking interlocal. But the item is 35, consider and take appropriate action regarding Austin police department drug lab staff. And we did share with you backup that kimberly pierce prepared for us, and we v. Several individuals owe and we have several individuals over on this item this afternoon. And the first question is just what is the problem?
>> good afternoon, judge. Kimberly pierce with criminal justice planning. I think what the problem is is that in the 15 year that the a.p.d. Has had its drug lab is that it's had five chemists when they first began the drug lab in 1993, 1994. Today they still have five chemical mits. They now are down two. It is backing up the rocket docket cases for drug cases. And I have here george coronado who will explain exactly how the rocket docket is affected?
>> Commissioners and judge, thank you for considering this today. My docket is 90% of the rocket and missile docket. I handle that. Commissioner Daugherty has visited with us I guess it was a year ago regarding that docket. And our job has been to move these cases as quickly as possible, mostly drug cases on the rocket cases. There are other cases on the missile docket as well, which are non-drug cases and auto theftable burglary cases. But the drug cases are the rocket docket cases. The missile cases have been moving consistently since we set this program up and getting that docket, but the rocket docket cases, which we attempted to get these folks in front of me within two to three week of arrest and then disposed of. Many of these cases are pled out in front of me and the lawyers would have an offer and then they would work with their clients and get these cases disposed of in less time in the jail. Over the last year and a half the disposition time has increased significantly. And there is no doubt that this is due to the lack of staffing at the a.p.d. Chemical lab for testing this. And as a result we're now having to sit our first appearances -- to set our first appearances, rather than put them on a bus and bringing them to us within two or three week of arrest, to four weeks with the hope that they would get the lab results there and the lawyers would meet with their clients and get an offer worked out. But the lab tests have not been coming in in even four weeks. So they're now taking seven, eight weeks before we're getting a lab test in so that the lawyers feel comfortable going ahead and working their cases out. So the amount of time has exponentially increased. The lab has lost several employees through retirement and through attrition, and so they're down to I believe three chemical mits over there -- chemists over there currently. And they had started by staffing it five, and I believe if you look at the number of cases that they had back in this 15-year history, that's almost an increase of 150%, the number of cases they're handling with the same five person staff. So they don't even have that full staff right now. And this is costing us -- I guess we're paying about 50 50 bucks a day to house these folks individually, so it's costing the county quite a bit to house these folks waiting for these lab tests to come in from a.p.d. So we're asking that somehow the county hire a chemical mit working with the city and have them work in the a.p.d. Lab for our specific docket, those cases that's basically to move these rocket cases out so that we can dispose of them quickly and have these folks housed in the county for shorter periods time. Whether they're placed on probation, sent to the state jail, whatever, or if they do not want to take the plea bargain offer, go ahead and being indicted and moving to the trial court. But in order for us to move our dispositions quickly, we need this assistance from the a.p.d. Chem lab.
>> the lab results basically confirm the arresting officer's suspension that the substance was in fact an illegal drug?
>> yes, sir, that's exactly right.
>> and without that proof it's kind of difficult to just assume that it is and it would be be unfair to the defendant.
>> and there are cases dismissed bus these folks have been -- because these folks have been buying non-narcotic on the street that have been purported to be narcotics. Folks are selling white powder. So these cades, officers may -- so these cases officers may stop someone in possession of that and these folks will not plea without knowing exactly what they are in possession of. So the lawyers don't want to plead their cases out. So that's exactly it. In order for us to dispose of these cases we have to have lab tests.
>> have we ever tried to approach u.t. Or -- I realize you need a chemist. I mean, approaching the chemistry department there with grad students or whatever. I would think that this is something that if you're a graduate student in chemistry, it's kind of like saying, hey, you might be available to get some hours here. Because this is really simply a deal of how do you get chemist he mists hired over to -- to do the job. Bates not like you have to him a registered whatever. If somebody says, guess what, I made a b in organic chemistry, I can do this. Is that even possible?
>>
>> [inaudible - no mic]. The certification process is very lengthy. It takes like a year. So even if we were able to get new folks on over at a.p.d., this problem is not going to be solved overnight. Claire and I also asked that question. Can we not get intern from u.t. Or from whenever to help us out during this transition or interim phase and that's the answer that a.p.d. Gave us.
>> there are also cases out there where then they have to go back and throw cases out because of the lab tests. They have to be certified and they have to be done correctly.
>> when y'all came before us in a work session, the question came up during that time when the presentation was being made about the rocket docket and the drug testing that need to take place in the shortly fall of not having the chemist, an adequate number of f.t.e.'s at a.p.d. To actually end up decreasing the number of days that we end up retaining somebody because of the lack of the test results. My question is at this time, it may be buried somewhere, but if Travis County elects to get involved in hiring an extra chemist, how many chemist they need, I don't really know, but just say an extra one for the time being. Can you tell me how much money would Travis County save by doing this because cases will be able to be disposed of in a quicker rate than what currently has been demonstrated. Is there a big money amount figure laying around somewhere that will kind of determine the number of f.t.e.'s with the reduction and retention rate so that we could dispose of cases a lot quicker? Is there any relationship as far as monetary, money?
>> can I answer that? I'm not sure how much the chemists earn, so I don't know how much their salaries are, but before I came over here, I think that this would help from the county's perspective is I had our tech staff do a query of facts to show you actual disposition, so rocket cases that have been disposed of in the past. When they had the chemist functioning. So if you look at March of '06, there were 118 people at that time disposed of. They were spending an average of 67 days in jail. If you take the same month at the bottom of that chart, March of '07, you have almost 200 people who were disposed of, but they were in jail over twice as long. They were in jail for 141 days.
>> and how much does that cost us per day? In jail?
>> I hear sometime between 40 and $50 a day.
>> I think you mentioned earlier, but I would really like to know what would that really cost as far as per day? What's the closest amount of money per day that we're actually spend to go have somebody be incarcerated while we're trying to dispose of cases in this particular regard?
>> I'd be glad to work with debra on this information. The difficulty of saying -- if urn to take the average daily population and divide it by corrections it would be 45 to $50 a day. The problem is a whole bunch of corrections isn't affected by population, it's affected by the fact that we run a jail. It doesn't go away because we lost prisoners. Medical costs don't go away. So right now depending on where you are in your population at capacity, the answer to your question is somewhere between 27 or 28-dollar to 45 to $50. This is because we are at the edge of our capacity. When we reach our capacity, it's absolutely $44 a day for out of county costs. But when you are at some point when you're saying, okay, 47 prisoners means a certain amount of costs, 48 means a certain amount, but once you go across 48, then you have a whole different kind of costs incrementally. But I would be glad to work with debra to get this information and give you an idea of the sense of scale. I am pretty sure that whatever costs this may be, even with the increnlts that we're talking about, the edge increments that the cost of a chemist is going to be funned easily by something in between, this is an important and critical piece of the path in the criminal justice system right now.
>> I'm glad you brought that point up. I think during the work session that we had, we actually ended up discussing a critical aspect of this, and I'm just basically trying to gather in my mine what the actual savings would be by going forward with this, knowing what those numbers would be. And I guess even looking at what other folks may be doing as far as sending their -- looking for their theirresults through d.p.s., and I think a lot of people use d.p.s. To try to get test results back, but I understand that that is a real -- a longer process than what this is even demonstrating. So just the fact that I just need to lock down some numbers -- I'm not saying I'm going to ons anything here. I just think it would be go g. To know what the cost statements would be with the money of the f.t.e.'s, that if the court decides to go in that direction, whatever it would be. That's basically all I was trying to get to at this point.
>> they're requesting 69,000 #- hupp dollars in -- $69,900. 118 people if you were to keep them 141 days as we're doing now, that's 74 more days than we were last year. So that's 28,660 additional dollars for those 118 people this year as opposed to last year.
>> just another way of looking at it, Commissioner, is if it's 74 people, that's nearly two posts. Even one post costs $259,000.
>> which is significant.
>> so just off the top of my head here, that's certainly a larger number than 69 they're talking here.
>> I'm let you get the numbers, bill, but I behavely posed that question because I think looking at this we have to realize what we're doing, is there a cost saving and trying to reduce of amount of expense it costs the taxpayers and when it comes to dealing with these situations as far as jailing and having people in jail. Thank you for that information. Thank you, Commissioner.
>> I will mention that next week there will be an item on next week's agenda on capacity and inmate housing which may be able to help with understanding. I've just done some pricing along those lines.
>> how long is this chemical --chemist problem been with us?
>> it started late spring, early summer.
>> of last year.
>> but what is the proposal by the city?
>> the city would like for us to fund one f.t.e., one chemist at 59 six.
>> but they'll continue to fund the five. For a total of six.
>> for a total of six.
>> they had had five for a whole decade. We have a whole lot more drug cases now than 10 years ago. And our strategy is on some of the drug possession cases we really can move faster to get them expedited, and that's especially important if the defendants are in my custody. And from a justice perspective, though, it seems to me that we not only will want to know whether the substance that we're holding against you is in fact an illegal drug, but the sooner we know that, the better. The other thing is we get on our court appointed lawyers for not moving these cases, and really the few lawyers I've chatted with told me that it's close to unethical conduct to move on these cases without a lab report that says in fact this is a drut.
>> definitely.
>> so there are other issues -- money is important. We know it's costing us. We may have a difficult time quantifying it. But from a justice perspective and efficiency-- a system efficiency perspective, it seem to me that we need to do better. My question for legal will be two fold. One is what is our central booking interlocal say about who should pay for this? And the sec one is from a legal perspective, who is responsibility is it to get this report anyway? And I can wait and get the answer in executive session. Those are pretty potential questions. My guess is when we get in executive session wealthy of a few other questions also. But from the judge's per spikt active, I know this has been pretty important because we've been getting e-mails over the last couple of months. And if I were a judge who hears cases, my guess is I would feel a little uneasy having numerous defendants in our custody preindictment without us knowing really whether there's a lab report that exists that says illegal substance.
>> that's it, judge. It's delaying justice. And at this point it's not only costing the county, but it's a question of holding people in custody who may not have committed a crime. They may have been in possession of something that's not an illegal substance. And the lawyers have a right to get and request that thop lab reports be there. And we've been asking for relief from the city for awhile, and for whatever reason they've been unable to add to their staff with their current resources. So we're asking that the county help out in this regard. And the other urban counties in Texas do it. They have some resources like this. And I think there's a benefit to us in that we're not having to create a lab, we're just creating a position and going to contract with the city to work in their lab. And I'm hoping that we would contract with them, whatever contract we built up, to ask that these rocket cases be given first priority because that's really going to be the tax saving and for the justice issues for our county prisoners.
>> so when the arrests are made, what is the (indiscernible) of a.p.d. As far as these particular cases are concerned? Dwhiewj that percentage is? -- do you know what that percentage is?
>> probably roughly around 90% of the cases are a.p.d. Cases.
>> I'm sorry?
>> 90% at least are a.p.d. Case.
>> at least 90% of a.p.d.?
>> of these drug cases.
>> yes, sir.
>> that's what I'm trying to find out. Okay. Thank you.
>> I think last year the numbers that we looked at were the sheriff's office only sent 300 cases to d.p.s. As opposed to 3100 that a.p.d. Had, drug cases.
>> you've got a lot more drug in town because the overall booking is about -- is in the 70% from a.p.d. Versus the 90%, but you're saying drug related that it's 90%.
>> and that I think could be attributed predominant throi the fact that app has street patrol and tcsd does not.
>> let me understand. So our funding one for the city, does that only take place once they reach five? In other words, they're going to get five chemists and we're going to get a sixesth. Are we only going to do the sixth once they get to the five or are they saying hey -- because right now there's a problem with hiring apparently. So is the city asking us, hey, why don't you go ahead and fund one immediately, which means that we may be funding the third or the fourth one versus the sixth one, because I think our intent, we need it regardless of what number it is, I suppose. It's going to benefit us. But is that really what they're saying is, hey, throw some money into this thing and pick up one of these and let's not wait until we need the sixth person.
>> I have not spoken with them in person, but I know claire has. Last week they had interviews and they were hoping for a pool of three qualified people so if the county were willing to hire that sixesth or whichever fwhun that equation, if thesh willing to hire that person, then they would be fully staffed. So they were trying to get a pool of at least three.
>> it may not make a difference, but it is an interesting dwoa me. If we are only going to hire five, then we're fixing to pick up 20% of something that the city had already been paying for.
>> I think we ought to say we will cover chemical mit number six.
>> well, that's where I was headed. I mean, not to say that we don't need chemist number four and five funded. You could probably back us into a corner where we would go, okay, fine, we'll fund four or five because we need it to cut these days down.
>> but they have budgeted for five, haven't they?
>> that's correct.
>> they have budgeted five forever. Midyear the question is do we fund number six? And I think our position should be, when you get number six, funding available to cover that.
>> I have an alternative. Is the concern covered by saying that our f.t.e., regardless of whether it's shrolt four, five or six, is triaged to handle rocket docket? I think that way regardless --
>> they've been doing rocket docket and iferk else with five. They have had five for 10 years. We wonder whether that's been enough. It is clear that it's not enough today. It's not enough to say it will be enough two years from now. But to get us over this bubble it seem to me that we ought to step up to the plate and say we will fund six. And really we should know the impact in six to 12 months.
>> what perng of the drug lab cases are on rocket docket?
>>
>> [inaudible - no mic].
>> yes.
>> I could find that out.
>> is it more than 20% rtion less than 20%? I'm assuming those on rocket docket drug cases can't find out.
>> that's correct.
>> so I suppose the quick proxy number is how many cases do we have on rocket docket that are drug cases versus drug cases versus the whole universe of drug case snz what I'm getting at is if it's less than 20%, then triage the rocket docket cases to that f.t.e. In effect, is it one-fifth of those cases, one quarter of those cases? I don't know.
>> well, 100% of the drug cases that a.p.d. Arrests (indiscernible).
>> yes, thoarz the rocket docket cases that are suffering.
>> I would keep it real simple. You've been doing five. You think we may need six. It's your lab. You're having a hard time keeping five. Weefl fund six. We'll fund number six, $69,000. And the way that breaks out, everybody who does this is pro rata f we're midyear now, you're looking at six months of 69,000 a year. Next year it will be the whole ball of wax. But we fund six. I'd say look at it a year from now and see what the situation is. Any more open court discussion? We'll have a few more questions with you, jim, in executive session. We'll take action after executive session today. My guess is that will be about an hour from now. Y'all don't have to wait until you want to.
>> thank you, judge.
>> since there's nothing for you to do over there and you can't get any drug cases out.
>> [ laughter ]
>> thank you very much, Commissioners.
>> thank to coming over.
>> you bet you.
>> appreciate it.
>> so we'll discuss 35 further in executive session under the consultation with attorney exception to the open meetings act. We will have some legal question for jim connally, attorney at law in the county attorney's office.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, April 11, 2007, 8:34 AM