Travis County Commissioners Court
December 18, 2007
Item 3
Number 3 is receive presentation from Austin recovery regarding chemical dependency programs and services.
>> good morning, judge bisco.
>> good morning.
>> Commissioners, my name is bill whitmore, the director at Austin recovery. I don't know if you all are aware, but judge Biscoe serves along with mayor wynn on our election committee, so we have a publicly appointed board of directors. We meet with our county and city representatives each year and elect a -- a new board. I was invited to come before the Commissioners to give an annual report on the status of alcohol and drug situation in the -- in the area. And also on the treatment that we -- that we provide for people. You all may be aware that this is -- this is a statistic that doesn't get reported maybe enough is that -- that alcohol use and abuse in Austin is the highest per capita of any -- of any city in Texas. The same is true for elicit drug use. So this is a huge problem in our community. When you couple that with the other statistics, that -- that Texas ranks 50th among the states, in providing alcohol and drug treatment services, you can see the depth of the problem that -- that we are dealing with. Another problem that we have is that the reimbursement rates that we receive from the state did not come close to meeting the costs that we had to provide those services. It was $69 a day for residential treatment. And our costs were running significantly higher than that. 100, $120 a day frequently. Our agency was basically losing money and we were in danger of going out of business. We -- we took a step about six years ago, to -- to reinvent our business in a way, whereby we started charging affordable rates that people could afford, so that we could couple that with the state funding that we receive and continue serving the poorest in our community. So we started charging -- we presently charge $165 a day, it's under $5,000 for 30 days of treatment. You can pair that to -- compare that to most treatment centers around the country, they are 20, $25,000. So we are an affordable alternative for people and we've had people coming from as far away as dallas, houston, the costs, indian tribes are flying some of their populations in to treat us. We are an affordable affordable alternative for people. We put those two together and actually made a business that could work. So for the last five years we have not lost money, which is really significant. But what we saw was -- was the number of people who are accessing us and paying for treatment was going to put in danger the people who have been receiving treatment for almost 40 years, free of charge. In other words our state-funded contracts, our city-county contracts. We were pushing them out of business because the other was so successful. So what we our board saw that, we are having a capital campaign to increase the number of beds by 100. We presently have 128 beds. Had this campaign is over, we will have an additional 100 beds. And that's primarily to serve the poor and the folks who have no funds to get themselves into treatment. I’m happy to report that we did this campaign in honor of edith royal, coach daryl royal's wife. The response on the part of the community has been terrific. We are presently at $4.2 million. In our $5 million capital campaign. And in -- in February we will go public with the campaign to raise the -- the additional amounts of money that we -- that we need. Another thing that's happened is -- is we have worked with the Travis County on the -- on a parenting and recovery grant. Grant. Some of you may be aware of judge burns family drug court is a new initiative. I travel to washington with many of the representatives from the county. And we were successful in receiving that federal grant. That is a $500,000 grant over 5 -- 2.5 million, 500,000 a year. Which will do two things. One it will provide additional treatment for women with children. We are one of only five or six programs in the state that brings women with their kids into treatment. This will expand by about five to six women per -- at all times. It will be about 25 to 30 women who will now have -- have additional treatment as a result of this grant. It will also help us work more closely with child protective services that those workers understand treatment better and are more successful in getting folks to come into us. We also have a collaboration going with the u.t. School of social work that is very, very exciting. Many students over there who come to us for placement, so that they can understand better alcohol and drug work. And in their professional practice. Out of that we have been able to draw on many of our staff taking kind of the cream of the crop from that.
>> they're interested in perhaps specializing in alcohol and drug treatment. Drawing from all over the country to have people come there to study that. So this collaboration is going to take several years to develop, we are really excited about it, we are meeting several times a year with the faculty over there and seeing how we can advance their understanding of the addiction for their students and help u.t. Really get a name in alcohol and drug treatment services. That's an exciting piece of work there. United way. Some of you read in the papers, they have changed their funding cycle and how they -- how they grant awards. We were very pleased that Austin recovery did.
>> we are very excited to receive an award from united way. We have been very active in supporting united way in the community. It is going to put a strain on some of the basic social services. That this community has -- has supported. I really want to thank judge Biscoe in particular in meeting with us, having a very, very strong board of directors to guide Austin recovery. Almost two and a half million of the money that we raised came directly from our board. So that speaks to the fact that these people truly believe in the cause. Alcohol and drug addiction is a tough thing to raise money for. You know, but it is one of the root causes of divorce, of separation, of what's happening in our prisons, we as a state have chosen to criminalize an illness and many, many people are paying the consequences for that. So -- so we get about 2500 people a year coming through treatment primarily residential. And this will now next year go up to about 4,000 people. So Austin is really blessed to have the -- the agency, it's been here for 40 years. This is our 40th year of service to the community. And as a result of the campaign, we believe we will be here for another 40 years to meet the needs of our citizens. So -- so on behalf of all of the people who are going to be sober this year, our thanks go out to you for your wisdom, for your guidance, for your direction. I wish other counties in the state of Texas had the compassion that Travis County has shown to those who are down and out. We appreciate it very much.
>> thank you.
>> thanks for that update. Any questions.
>> very good.
>> thank you for your patience, also.
>> let me ask you: do we have -- given the fact that you said percentage-wise bill, more than in my opinion else in the state, that -- that -- does that mean that more people come here because of our -- of our philanthropy.
>> oh, no.
>> are we a magnet in some -- in some ways?
>> no, I really don't believe that's happening. I think it's a matter of the university of Texas makes a significant contribution to those statistics
>> [laughter] in terms of the drinking population that's going on, the amount of alcohol that's consumed, the amount of problems that go on there. A lot of those kids will come out of it and not wanting to -- not wind up being addicted. It has to do with Austin being a younger city. It has to do with -- with it being a -- a -- a compassionate city. You know, that -- that is the thing. You go up to -- you compare us with abilene, lubbock, some of those Texas towns. There's large numbers of people in there, for one reason or another do not drink or drug at all, you know,? Because of our youth, because of our other things like that, it's a problem here. But, you know, it's not like we're blown away. I mean we're talking 10, six, four percent difference from dallas, houston, but it's -- it's a -- it's a -- statistic that we need to pay attention to.
>> thank you, keep up the good work.
>> thank you very much.
>> thanks for your patience, also.
>> absolutely.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, December 19, 2007, 18:30 AM