Travis County Commissioners Court
August 14, 2007
Item 7
Number 7 is to consider and take appropriate action regarding the grant requirements and application to the Texas department of criminal justice for the state jail community resource program to be administered by counseling and education services. We did discuss this last week. The deadline for the application is when?
>> the 17th.
>> Friday of this week.
>> good morning, carol coburn, counseling and education services director. And we're happy to be before the court today seeking approval for a state grant application to provide substance abuse treatment in our travis state jail. And I have here with me to my left mark spate, counseling and educational services manager, and vinny Davis, for criminal justice planning. And I would like to take just a moment to thank a select group of people that have worked very hard on this grant application the past three weeks. It was a short turn-around time and we had staff, mark as well and tyrone campbell, theresa goff, criminal justice planning staff, kimberly and as well as mr. Davis here. We also had cscd was involved, dr. Megy and marsha helped out as well as darla gay with the d.a.'s office and reentry round table. Penny rayfield, the chair, she helped alert us to when this grant application was available. And we also had some input and help from mhmr, abraham me. Nares and laura smith. It was definitely a group effort to get us to this point, but we feel good about it and we would like to get it approved to send in as soon as possible to the state.
>> the good news about this is that this is 100% state money.
>> yes, sir.
>> the bad news I guess is it does come with state requirements, meaning our way or no money, basically. But we have -- we have prepared a proposal that we think will work for us, and it's the state's call as to whether or not they will fund it. Right?
>> correct.
>> and the thing I like about it too is that if we leave in place the county dollars, we will have an opportunity to provide some things that the state dollars don't, like after care. And I guess if we want to lengthen the treatment program for some of the Travis County confinees, we are free to do that, but the state has locked in time intervals for state funding. Let me let you all talk.
>> you are doing a good job. You pretty well had it nailed. The state will fund 30 or 60 or 90 days. If someone was sentenced to a longer length of stay, there is possibility -- we have a longer program out there, the commitment to change program, that we could also have people in. There is no
>> [inaudible], but we have after care going for the commitment to change program. We are partnering with the probation department. There's a couple probation officers that will be involved in this project that will provide after care. What the state is not providing, the after care, one of the most important components we are picking up and leveraging resources and providing some of our own. It does come with state requirements, but we have written a grant we think is a picture we can live with. It's -- a lot of times they will look at the bottom line. This is not going to be the cheapest proposal they've ever seen, but I think it's very reasonable. It comes in at a per diem that is less than dhs pays for residential treatment and also less what they pay for felony abuse probation facilities. Our per diem covers everything we think we need to do this correctly and have a program that we feel would work and have integrity, and I still think it's cheaper than some of the other programs the state is currently funding.
>> these f.t.e.s after they are hired will be grant f.t.e.s.
>> yes, sir.
>> as a sort of back drop, the state does not have a good history of leaving money in place if it's not used. So I think all the urban counties really ought to try to submit proposals to use this funding, and I guess at the end of the funding period be able to show the state that it's had a positive impact. Otherwise my guess is that when the legislature comes back, there will be some pressure to take
>> [inaudible].
>> I believe that's correct.
>> clearly this is an area we've been sort of complaining about for years, lack of funding, lack of treatment services in state facilities and for state parolees. This won't do all of it, but it will certainly do part of it. Those in our state jail.
>> yes, it will. I think for travis -- for the people in the travis unit, it will provide some treatment, some after care resources. In some ways something is better than nothing. I think if we follow it up appropriately, that will be the key is to figure out how to follow these folks when they come out. There will be grant funded positions. We've applied for -- you have to apply for a two-year base period and three option years. Like we talked about last week, at the end of the two years, if there are things we're seeing that are working and not working, we may be able to go and negotiate when we negotiate for the option years to see if we can get any change out of them at that point to maybe try to get additional dollars for after care or for whatever other are there. This does encompass a mental health, actually two to deal with mental health, deals with occurring disorders that don't get a lot of attention. They get counted and put on a waiting list, but they don't get a lot of actual services and this proposal would allow them to get services.
>> that's a good move. Questions?
>> I want to thank staff for getting back with me on a lot of the questions that I had last week especially when it was talking about the persons who actually end up serving in the facility, no more beds made available. I did e-mail and got a lot of good feedback on questions laid out there so I want to appreciate you all for responding on a lot of this so I really appreciate that. I gave you a lot of questions. Thank you all.
>> thank you, Commissioner. We do feel good about the majority of people in this program will be Travis County residents.
>> and I was very pleased to see that. Very pleased to see that. The number count on that. But again, thank you for these answers.
>> you're welcome.
>> I have a couple of questions. This is an amazingly fast turn-around for such a big r.f.p. This is really incredible. I was wondering about just using our standard form and my usual beef, I'm like a broken record, on -- I'm well aware this is a state program with state money. And I'm wondering what kind of measures are we going to be looking at to see its success and how to integrate it into our more comprehensive program so we can monitor it. I don't see that reflected on the grant summary sheet, although it is referred to in the backup materials. I confess I can't find it.
>> I know what you are talking about.
>> the d-1 of the r.f.p. Is essentially monitoring our administration of their money, not so much the success of the grant that appears.
>> the performance measures they gave us and they dictated some performance measures, and they all begin and end at the gate of the prison. They are all things that will occur there. How many people will complete successfully 90% completion rate. How fast you will get your individual treatment plan. They are all things that go there. What's -- when we mention in here is that we will have an after care piece. We did not include the after care measures because they are not paying for them. We will have after care measures in our after care piece to look at things like recidivism or relapse rate or the meat of what we're interested in looking at.
>> I am thrilled to hear that because this appears to me to be a -- appeared to me these are measures of activity that the state is requiring of us. And I am very thrilled to hear that we will be doing the measurement of actual success of the programs through our after care programs. I'm very happy to hear that. I'm just gratified as heck that you all are out on the cutting 'em and Travis County residents are being so well served.
>> thank you. There's a method to the madness for not including them in here. We would be compared with all the other people that are doing this so we want to be compared on exactly the same things.
>> compared on apples and apples.
>> right.
>> too bad these are crab apples.
>> right.
>> it would be nice if the state were using measures that actually indicated the success of the program rather than just the activity paid for by the program.
>> these are actually more outcomes than true performance measures, but we will provide that back to them so I believe we will compare favorably with everybody else that is running a similar program, but then we will separately keep track of what we think is really important issues, particularly recidivism and relapse. Relapse is harder to measure. Recidivism is fairly easy to measure. Housing and all the things we know are critical for success and reintli.
>> thank you so much for that, for going beyond what the state requires.
>> you're welcome.
>> any other questions? Thank you all very much for working on this. We know you added these duties to your full plate at the time, but when these came in I guess under some time pressure. We think the state will make this decision before the beginning of the next fiscal year?
>> they have 240 days to make a decision, I believe, according to the grant. I think -- I've heard that they may make a decision in October or November so I'm not sure -- and I think they are actually -- and this is hearsay, but I think they are looking at January or something like that to actually start it.
>> don't hire people until we get final word on the money.
>> absolutely.
>> there's a time frame they give us, after we get to work we have a certain period of time to get things in place.
>> move approval.
>> second.
>> any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Thank you all again. Appreciate it.
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Last Modified:
Wednesday, August 15, 2007, 18:30 AM