Travis County Commissioners Court
April 17, 2007
Item 31
31. Consider and take appropriate action regarding options available to address potential inmate population increase during the summer of 2007. When we call up the legislative item I think that will probably get us until lunch.
>> good morning, david balance large I can't, sheriff's office, balagia. I sent you all each a powerpoint presentation. We won't go through it. It had a serieof options. I'm sure y'all have had time to look that over. Real briefly discuss them. This is really a follow-up to our February 22nd work session. Where we let the court know what we believe is going to happen in the next 18 to 24 months while we are under construction at our correctional complex at del valle. With our new facility. The only building that has been taken out of services is building 4 with which its variance capacity had 96 96 beds. Our capacity is down by 100, what has happened here lately that is that our overall cop planning commission over the last month and a half has been outstanding. It's been very low. Much lower than our projections, but the thing that alarmed us was those projections that we had provided each of you at the February -- February work session. What we believed was going to happen, I still believe it will happen to an extent. Of course to what extent I don't know at this point in time. Is that our population will increase between four and five months this summer, again in the summer of 2008 and we will have to address those population increases before the new facility comes online. The new facility as I understand it is not scheduled to come on line until December of 2008. We have our two summer months in '07 and not months, but years in '07 and '08 where we are going to have to deal with this influx of inmate population. So the options real quickly I put in the powerpoint. You can go out of the county, you all did put money in a reserve for that. It just depends on where we are in our population.
>> another option we could ask for more variance beds. We could -- building taken out of building 24, we could ask for 120 more variance beds. The majority of them would go into building 1, excuse me, which is an already severely overcrowded facility. But -- but it gives us a lot of flexibility in our classification options because it's a medium security facility. And that's where we see a lot of our growth in the summer. We believe we will be handle maximum security although we are asking for additional 16 maximum security beds. Other options are we could literally order modular facilities at 14 beds a pop. We would have one-time costs, we would have a -- we would have to sign a lease agreement with the companies to bring them in. And then you have a staffing issue. You either staff them with overtime or you hire f.t.e.'s. I threw a couple of other things in there. There's -- I don't think it's something that we -- we probably could do any time soon. But just -- just to let the court think about day reporting centers, we do have a -- a fairly, you know, good portion of our population that are sitting here on technical probation violations where they are not charged with the crime, but they are just here sitting on -- on a violation. I did a snapshot for bill here in p.b.o. For a couple of the previous months and it was I believe 170 people a month. That's, you know, when you are talking about our population, every time that you have -- that you have an increase of -- of a 50 or 100 people, it impacts us severely. So -- so you know if we could divert some to those people, that would be helpful. So day reporting centers are something to look at. Of course they come -- they come with costs, I have not done that analysis yet as to what the costs would be. Bill's done his analysis of the -- of the different options and he can report on those.
>>
>> [indiscernible] could we request them as needed or request the whole 120 and just use as needed?
>> I have to get them approved.
>> as a number, 120 but you would still just use them as needed.
>> yes, ma'am. That's the commitment that we would make to the court and to the -- to the jail commission, when speaking to bill about this, the one area that really does impact us with staff is that beds that we would add at -- at our work release facility. We could admin beds. We lost 24 minimum beds out of four when we closed it. So the proposal is to add 36 beds -- at our cca building. That would have a staffing impact.
>> but if you did that, that would require adding like to keep the ratio still up there. We would still need to hire somebody if -- if the variance bed went over the 48, right?
>> well, Commissioner, builderryberry with planning and budget. I actually priced the cca piece, 36 beds I'm doing off the top of my head to a certain extent. Because in reality that would be since -- especially since there are minimum beds, they would be effectively a peaking type of activity. I talked with -- I worked with -- through all of this and I -- I would say considerable detail with major balagia. You wouldn't really have to add staff. You would have to add overtime. Because it would be summer months that you might need it. I'm not sure that you would even need it based on our current patterns. Actually the patterns would be less than what I used in this balance probably right now based on what we are seeing right today for instance. Only for one month this year. For the following year when the assumption of 2800 took effect, you would have four to five months. So you would have four or five months overall five and a half months roughly of overtime related to that cca piece. And I separated that out deliberately because I wanted to see how -- how those extra beds affected and if it made sense to even ask for those 36 beds. It does. Only if you use it as an over-- in an -- over time and peaking thing. Major balagia committed that he will only use this as a targeted peaking thing like -- like electric utility will use for -- for the summer. That's not the maximum a real problem on -- so -- so p.b.o. In this, in our memo, as you -- as you recommend the 120 bed variance option, I think in fact strongly because -- because it is -- it is -- you are simply doing nothing, shipping folks out. In fact given the number of, given the capacity that we have with the limestone county thing today, it's what 100 bed, 100 folks, it's not even a sure thing that there's a practical possibility of shipping upwards of 300 plus people any time you get into the summer of '08.
>> first come first serve, correct?
>> I'm sure that it is.
>> it's privately operated.
>> no. It's limestone county.
>> county contract with --
>> you are absolutely correct.
>> we are also trying to -- to-- to do a couple of other contracts with them for some of their other facilities. Because they have told us they don't think that they can provide service at limestone.
>> with other
>> [indiscernible]
>> with -- with the one that's they are operating in mclennan county and falls county.
>> you know a little -- looking into about -- about some of the rural -- rural corrections facilities, being -- having a -- having a problem with -- with keeping officers hired because of the rural location and of course people aren't willing to -- to do -- to hire on because of that location and isolated in -- is this one of the counties that -- that -- that are having problems as far as having the -- having the proper number of correction officers to deal with the -- with the inmate population?
>> not that I am aware of.
>> I did hear that.
>> they still fall under jail standards. So they get in the private run facilities are still inspected by jail standards, they would have to adhere the 1 to 48 ratio. I have not heard that Commissioners.
>> the question that we have limestone county, one of the -- one of the rural facilities --
>> Commissioner, I remember a story that I saw in -- in -- yesterday I think that was more about the state prison.
>> state system?
>> and there -- their pay levels to a certain extent. This is right next door to waco. In fact all three of these counties are right by each other.
>> we have certainly folks to limestone county. It has been some years. Our experience with them as pirl because I had -- we through them then was quite good.
>> more state related than county.
>> that's what I heard.
>> thanks.
>> judge, I would recommend that we -- that we go with -- with p.b.o.'s recommendation of the option 2 a actually versus just the option 2 gives us 120 beds.
>> second.
>> I have a couple more questions, if I could.
>> where else are these modular units used.
>> I don't -- I don't really know who -- who uses them. We have talked to jail standards about them and of course in describing this, this is -- this is mark stefano our engineer, he probably could tell you more about them if you have a specific question about how they are constructed or whatever. But in talking to jail standards, just going over it with them, they said they didn't think it was going to be a problem. As long as you can ensure fire safety issues and audible communication issues they are going to be okay with it. Where they are used in the state of Texas, I don't even know if they are Commissioner.
>> as far as the day reporting center, and the possibility of the Austin state hospital to rent for a day reporting center, can you give me more detail on that?
>> well, where that really came from is when we had been talking with mhmr in the past about other -- other issues, unrelated to -- to our population issue. Just mention that they have empty facilities. Just casual conversation it was, well, how long have they been empty, you know, what kind of condition are they in, you know, the answers were well, they're fine, but they have been --
>> started shopping.
>> and it's so -- so there's been no formal, you know, I'll give you a proposal for a lease agreement or anything. I wanted to bring it to your attention, if you all thought it was even worth the effort, we would look into it. Get those --
>> something, you would look into this irrespective of which option that we chose here.
>> I'm still going to look into it, because I think hate a lot of value. I have traded some e-mails with dr. Nagy. She's in her plan that she submits, they are asking for, not really day reporting, treatment centers, but it's kind of like that. So we are kind of sharing information, I'm going to talk with them. Sure we are going to pursue it. Modular stuff just to see what is the real bottom line cost of doing this and what -- what are the benefits.
>> sure.
>> what's the definition meeting schedule?
>> it's actually the second Thursday in may, I thought it was the first, so it's may 10th. I have contacted them -- pardon me?
>> the jail standards meeting.
>> the next day after that?
>> the July -- it would be August -- whatever the first Thursday in August is.
>> the first Thursday.
>> okay.
>> August.
>> we think that -- that our next big increase in terms of jail population would occur when? Do we know?
>> the current projection with the 2700 would have us sending people out of county in June with the drop of building 4.
>> the
>> [indiscernible] beds is any problem. When the new beds come on, if you substitute new beds for variance beds, you don't have any kind of gain. I think we owe it to ourselves to try to pursue these options here where we try to keep the jail population down. You are talking about 100 or 200 people. The variance things that we can do. It just they won't happen alone and -- and the stated jail option may well be one that we need to take it. I wouldn't vote to do it today. But I do think that we have to make that call before the may 10th meeting. It doesn't make sense to wait until July. On the 170 technical violators of probation, you know, I talked with dr. Nagy about that, see what kind of dent we can put it. If she thinks that it would be unrealistic to assume that we can greatly reduce that number, I wouldn't bank on doing it. If she says yes we can do it, I mean, it's her call. 170. The population in the last few weeks has been going down. It's easy to say let's figure out ways to keep it there. If we don't put it on ourselves to do just that, it certainly won't happen.
>> I agree, judge. In defense of probation and even parole, we have been dealing with bo of those entities with, we do a very, very good job. The people that usually end up in our system that are technicals because they are absconders. They just haven't been showing up. So rightfully so they are here. How we can deal with them once they are here I absolutely agree will be -- we will be having those discussions with dr. Nagy and her staff to see what we can come up with. Judge, your rule seems like your continued reticence on this. If we throw in the towel and get these variance beds then we kind of, you know, say well rereally got
>> [indiscernible] versus making every effort in the world, I'm with you.
>>
>> [indiscernible]
>> whatever efforts. If there needs to be, you know, some attachment to the motion where -- where they have to come back to us before they actually utilized any of the variance bed, I'm fine with that. Because I am on the same page with you. Whatever it takes to use every measure that we can to keep from using the variance beds, I'm very supportive of that.
>> well, then I have to --
>> we have to act today. That's -- that's the question. In other words what we have seen before, all of these different options stuff like that, is it necessary for us to take any action today.
>> you don't have to act today. But I have to as the lieutenant said I have to --
>> before may.
>> before may 10th. Now I can -- you know, I can go to jail standards and say you do not support it. When I say that, they probably won't approve me. But going back to what you said, though, Commissioner, that is very practical for me to come back and ask you before I'm going to use those beds because of the way classification works, I just don't have that luxury. , you know, if all of a sudden somebody does some kind of sting operation, I have an increase in my population overnight of 50 people, I just do not have the luxury of not putting them in a bed. It has to be there.
>> I understand that, david. You understand what the judge --
>> oh, I understand what the judge is saying absolutely. We are somehow trying to apply every bit of pressure of every spot that we can to say eats utilize these other measures.
>> I don't disagree. As I have said 100 times, I will probably say it 100 times again, the person that has the least control over who is in jail is the sheriff. You know, only judges put them in jail, only judges let them go. The judges rely on attorneys, evidence, on and on and on. In other words I agree with you.
>> you didn't have people in beds that the sheriff does not have.
>> pardon me? What, judge?
>> if we create additional capacity, we use additional capacity.
>> absolutely, sure.
>> if we accept the pressure of keeping the jail population down, which we should, then at least we are working in that direction. And I agree with you, otherser making the decisions that -- that get people in jail.
>> the sheriff is sort of on the receiving end. If we don't talk with the people making the decisions, how do they know?
>> we are talking to them all the time, you know, we are -- we are talking to them all the time. But, you know, you all heard last week about the problems that we are having getting the drug tests back. You all are taking action on that. That's great, that's great. But that's just an example of -- I don't know -- I can talk to the d.a. And the d.a. Is working, just absolutely as hard as they can. Unless they have cooperation it doesn't work.
>> the d.a. Is the one -- the d.a. Is the one that brought up the delay as far as the drug testing and stuff like that. That -- that poses a problem. That we keep them first and then that -- that situation, whichever one of those that -- that is -- that is -- that is drug related type of test results, they are staying in jail a little longer because they don't have
>> [indiscernible] results. That accumulates to a lot of days, a lot of money. That issue hasn't even been resolved. Look at what we are dealing with them as far as judges another way of relieving the jail population. Since you brought the d.a. Up, say hey we need to get da-da-da, just told the facts. Of course we are looking at that now as far as maybe getting another --
>> that was just my way of illustrating that we have these discussions behind the scenes all the time. Trying to do whatever we can to get our population down.
>>
>> [indiscernible]
>> do it today.
>> well, you know, I just --
>> so you want us to come back?
>> well, I this I what the judge is suggesting -- I think --
>> [multiple voices]
>> what other -- do you want any other detailed information other than what we have already provided? Or ... I don't know what else I could get you in a week.
>> talk to some other people.
>> we have --
>> let me talk to some other folks outside of the sheriff's office.
>> being o. We will be back here next week.
>> maybe we need to do this anyway. If so back on next week.
>> thank you.
>> thank you, david.
>> thank you, bill.
>> that motion and second were withdrawn. We will have it back on next week, okay?
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, April 18, 2007, 8:34 AM