Travis County Commissioners Court
March 4, 2008
Item 21
After the next item we will announce for executive session. 21 is to consider and take appropriate action on electronic agenda pilot program with rfp depot and discuss future update to Travis County code chapter 1.
>> tell them the good news, cyd.
>> well, I got an e-mail, I guess last week, from Commissioner Gomez and Commissioner eckhardt, who after our work session, I had sent y'all an e-mail that we night have another opportunity to try this e agenda for a lot less money than was initially proposed. As you know we currently using rfpd to send out electronic solicitations. They have a module which they have actually been improving over the last year from when we originally looked at it. And so they are offering to allow us to use it for a testing period, three to six months, and then thereafter if we wish to implement it would cost us a one-time sum of $3 thou --000 for them to train us and implement. And then it would be a one-time cost for us to use and maintain the system. We are excited about the opportunity. We know, we have met with the county clerk, jill, and some of the clerks, the staff, to see how it works for them. If it works for them, we also are going to work with the judges office and Commissioners office and some departments that would like to also be part of the test. Since my office does so many agendas, we're going to start processing. If anybody want to test with us, we want them to. So that's the lan. I think that we want to get started and see how it works so that if it does work we can put the funds in for next year and go ahead and implement.
>> can we run by i.t.
>> i.t. Has been involved with us. We met with them. They were involved earlier.
>> if anyone was to ask the question, Commissioner, how much money will the county save in this initiative, paperless verses paper, are we going to have any tangible numbers that would suggest not only the, decrease in time as far as preparation important the agenda but also the paper, the actual cost, I guess, as far as what's being saved on the other end, in other words a comparison. Is that going to be part? I know this is a test per se right now. But if things move along, is that going to be something that can be analyzed later? As far as money is concerned.
>> well, I think that we did some looking at time side, which one of the things is not having to add additional staff as our workload increased. So that's sort of a cost that you canel calculate. But we know that's a cost savings. I know its looked at some savings in paper, notes on the cost.
>> this six-month test then that we are looking at, is it any way set up in that time frame that will allow us to look at cost savings within the sick months?
>> Commissioner--
>> mig.
>> anything set up sm.
>> we looked at this several different times. To me and to its, think, the best way to look at those statistics, and hopefully those will be things we gather as you go through the pilot, is to have a cost effective look at the automated process. Because our process, what my staff tells me, our process may be a little bit different than other counties. I know that the kind of surprising but it's true. So even if there's one step that's a little different, it's a cost, it costs additional staff time. So the pilot is probably the most cost effective way. You're going to get an opportunity for $3,000 for training to gather those statistics. We were in a process, let me tell you where we were, we were in the process of analysis, looking at other counties were doing and how much they were spending and that's what we presented. We gathered some information about two years ago when we looked into e agenda but that information is probably not accurate today. I would probably not give it to the court today. I think this is probably for the court and for Travis County the best approach to determine additional specifications. Really the only requirement we had had determined, we were just still in that gathering stage, was that it would be beneficial for this system to integrate to the county clerk system, to eliminate redundancy. That was like the only real specification that we had written down. We were working towards having specifications for a rfp or for how were we procured. If you can put this pie --pilot in place and track those statsfor the next three to six months you will have a much grasp of the cost savings and what cost savings might have to be implemented. This is really a great opportunity.
>> you would suggest in that process, part of it is already down on paper I’m sure you all have other element that would be good to measure. But to the extent that we can, to measure travel time for paper agenda, gap used during the travel time, the use of paper, toner, printing time and storage for paper agenda, and other labor that goes into paper agenda that would no longer be in necessary. I’m sure you all know other elements that would be good to measure to the extent that we can.
>> I would think cyd would want to take those back to scott. I would think the system would have a way to pump out transactions so that we could take those and determine if they were hand carried or if there was travel time involved. That is something I know from a project management standpoint is the analysis, probably something scott will be doing.
>> that would be wonderful.
>> are offices at airport boulevard going to be part of this pilot?
>> we kind of started off with right now, since purchasing is used to the software, something they already have, purchasing, I mean they routinely put together really big packets.
>> right.
>> they would be someone who would want to do it. Then the clerk's office, they submit every week minutes. It's open to whoever want to participate.
>> that would be a good measurement for us.
>> we felt like tnr, maybe someone from airport to kind of gauge the travel time.
>> yes.
>> purchasing has taken this project. Whether we would suggest is kind of what melissa is saying. For a pilot you don't want necessarily to implement across the whole enterprise but select certain areas.
>> of course.
>> --to be the pilot user groups.
>> also it would be perfectly, actually would be quite sensible to have those would aren't actively engaged in utilizing the pilot to be the control group to see how much time they are spending without using pilo.
>> exact my.
>> right.
>> melissa is going to be the super user. So we have to have her involved. We had the to have the clerk involved. Jude kwee --judy kept saying purchasing is taking the project over.
>> that's not truewe.
>> we need its but we don't want to force people to do it. We have a core group and we will see how it works and work with that.
>> we would love to sit down maybe with y'all and figure out what our role is, what y'all's role is, what the user groups are, what the control groups are and we'll be glad to do that.
>> intuitively, I have to tell you, just like the electronic on the, once we get used to it, I mean like the constable, this week we had the issue on the rfs that we wanted the constables. Now we can just send the whole agenda package to anybody and everybody out there instead of doing it by paper. We are already sort of doing it electronically but now it will be a neater package. Intuitively I just know we're going to save money in the long run. We can try to keep those numbers for you and make our best estimate.
>> we can bring you soft dollar cost staff time. As Commissioner Davis said, staff time from a group that is main --manual and a group that is electronic and that will hel.
>> we will still do a dual process for a while so there might still be paper printed that might not be when we all catch on. This thing is so user friendly that at some point if the Commissioners court was willing, you can actually vote up there on the dias when you raise your hand and take the vote, you can vote and it can be recorded.
>> I like raising my hand.
>> we have to start slow.
>> when I see capability in the bullets, what should I see.
>> efficiency.
>> should I think that this system can do this today? If we use it? Or do we have to make other adjustments to make that possible?
>> I think we can use it as is. There might be some processes we're used to that we might have to the look at, but I think we can use the den ton county has been using it and working on you the bugs.
>> fra work flow process standpoint and specification standpoint I don't know that we can say that we know everything that you might want in the system, like cyd said. This is a system and we're saying okay, we're going to try this. It's kind of like any packaged system that I’ve ever been associated with, judge, and that's a valid concern. What might we have to add to work the way we workwe already know that we might have an issue with, rpd will keep all our data and back it up. There could be an issue with the clerk because of her legal responsibility to hold document. So they are also looking at document management systems. So this sort of tie nooze a system that they are already looking at.
>> that was the only specification we had, it was that it would be beneficial to everyone to integrate on interface the e minutes so that we aren't scanning two different places.
>> move approval of the six-month pilot with.
>> second.
>> with a report back date of 60 days for us to look at progress, figure out exactly what we are measuring and the progress. How is that?
>> sounds goo.
>> sounds too good to be true to me, but fit works, fine. I agree with y'all, in six months we ought to know. Seconded by Commissioner Gomez. Anymore discussion?
>> thanks for your incredible work on this.
>> thanks.
>> good idea. All in favor. That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you all.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, March 5, 2008 8:09 PM