Travis County Commissioners Court
July 8, 2008
Item 23
23. Consider and take appropriate action on the following: a, receive update and statistical comparative analysis on electronic agenda pilot program with rfp depot; b, request to pursue an electronic agenda solution for Travis County and establish a budget for the project; and and, c, issuance of request for proposals for the purchase of a Commissioners court meetings system for the county clerk and an electronic agenda system for the Commissioners court.
>> good afternoon.
>> good afternoon, hi.
>> I'm melissa velasquez, in the county judge's office. Back in March, we asked the Commissioners court for approval to begin a pilot program with a piece of software with a vendor rfp depo, that the purchasing agent already had. So part of the motion along with the approval from the court was that we come back and give an update on the progress that we had made. And so we're back with an update. And with additional information to the court. And a request to pursue an electronic agenda. We concluded the pilot, it was extremely beneficial to us. It provided us with the opportunity to really hone, you know, what we were looking for in a system for Travis County. Provided the ability for three of the departments that submit most of the agenda requests to get a feel for what it's like to submit agenda requests electronically. And to get some feedback from them. And, you know -- the -- the particular system that we tested, you know, allowed us to clarify our needs and realize that not all of them, you know, were adequately met by that particular system. But it did kind of -- did kind of solidify our belief that it's probably in Travis County's best interests to look at an electronic agenda system for the departments and for constituents and, you know, ultimately for the court. So -- so in -- when we finished our pilot, at the same time that we were doing our pilot the county clerk's office was already pursuing a replacement for their document management system. And so -- so, you know, what we did is once we made our conclusion that we thought, you know, we really should look for an electronic agenda system, we went to the county clerk's office and asked if -- if they could just hold off for just a few weeks and see if we could catch up to them and, you know, piggyback on their -- their r.f.p. To try to find a solution for all of the Commissioners court records. What we began as departments when we submit the items, it then goes to the county clerk's office and becomes the official records of the court.
>> right.
>> so -- so -- were you able to get from Commissioners court members a description of what -- of what we think we need from the system?
>> we talked -- we were able to talk to either the Commissioners or the staff of all of the offices. The actual Commissioners for the short time period that we had. Now, I know that -- in a Commissioner eckhardt's office got to sit down and talk with Commissioner Gomez, you and I have talked. I talked with staff in Commissioner Davis' office to kind of get an idea of what they are looking for. But in the whole process, I really tried to keep my ears open to see, you know, what were the needs that were kind of being conveyed all along, so that if we did go out for an r.f.p., we would put that in our r.f.p. And say "these are the things that we're most concerned with", you know,.
>> did we intentionally exclude Commissioner Daugherty's office.
>> no, actually, martin has been a part of this like from the very beginning. He has a really good eye and, you know, I've been talking to martin, i.t.s. Has been getting feedback from martin. So --
>> I didn't feel like left out.
>> I believe you and martin have had conversations.
>> we have.
>> so but -- one of the things that i.t.s. Was able to do, they were able to kind of get a cost analysis of how much we spend electronically -- to do the annual process that we have now in paper, labor and mileage time, versus how much it would cost those -- the same individuals to submit those same agenda requests electronically. And so they came up with an approximate savings of about 43 -- let's see. $43,000 a year. So I -- of the first memo, that would be the -- the fourth page of the memo from the -- from the electronic agenda committee, that's the -- that's the -- our estimated cost of what it takes to prepare manually versus electronically. And so -- the majority of those costs are going to be in -- in time.
>> $43,000 translates into how many trees?
>> [laughter]
>> I can tell you that -- I can tell you that every week that we do, you know, our agenda packets for, you know, the five of you, the clerk, the county attorney, the media packet, we use about a real every week just for our packets.
>> wow.
>> so ...
>> holiday weekends are always -- holiday weeks are always better. But it's usually a real of paper every week.
>> so at a minimum 52 reams a year is what we'll save.
>> at least.
>> so the clerk's office wants to give you an update on what they've been working on and then we can get to our requests.
>> judy pitsford i.t.s. The analysis that they did was not on the entire process, the savings was based --
>> only on the 8th copies, 8 copies. Not really the 8 copies but the copies it takes to produce the packet.
>> I mapped out what I thought there might be additional savings in other processes, I mapped out the process from the creation, we didn't really touch that. From a creation standpoint, the backup from a previous agenda item is available, it will save retrieval time. So there's a time savings there. And then on the back end, once the court has handled it or the court has gotten the agenda, there's retrieval time in each Commissioner's offices as well as department's offices retrieving backup that's associated with a continued agenda item. I think of the agenda item that was on the agenda this morning. It's been in court since --
>> since 1988.
>> since 1988. So the retrieval time for history and back up is a bigger savings that we didn't measure. We measured -- it's a substantial thing. Just wanted to mention to you guys that there's additional savings.
>> okay.
>> go ahead.
>> yes, I will, thank you. If it please the court, I will move through all three of these. All of them if that's all right with you. What we are asking the court to do today is to grant permission for us to offer an r.f.p. Into the public so that we can get information back on both a minutes and agenda system. This actually is two r.f.p.'s the way it's been structured. We have learned some lessons. One of the r.f.p.'s will be for a -- a -- basically a -- a dmf which is a place where you store all of the documents that you have. We have about 1.2 million documents that are in the court's -- I'm a custodian for the court's documents. We will need to convert those into a data base along with whatever the new system is. And then the second system is for automated minutes and the -- and the customer basically interface part of this at the internet. I so appreciate what -- what judy and melissa have done in not only focusing on us trying to get our jobs done and repairing the official record of the actions of the court. But also ultimately what we are trying to do here is make this available to the public. Our ultimate goal is, you know, let's share this with everybody else. You all are -- y'all are members of the hit t.v. Show, the number of hits that you are getting on your website for the work that's done in here is pretty remarkable and is growing. For example, one of the things that is being done right now that we would like to make the transition over to make it available to the public both intranet for ourselves and internet for the public is the idea of let's say the balcones canyonland preserves plan this morning perhaps a person, you know, someone from the league of women voters or perhaps a resident in that area would like to check this out. So they find the agenda item on the agenda, and then right next to it the way most of these systems are designed, you click on an icon and it has the way the systems are, it will bring up cued the tape or the videotape of what the presentation was. So that whoever is at home watching this can actually see the entire presentation. Now, we do that for internal purposes right now. But it takes practically a whole day to do one week's worth of meetings for i.t.s. To cue it to flag it so that you know this agenda item began at 1:49. You can bring it up right then. What the new systems offer today is a much more automatic way to do that. And the clerk's office could take over that function and because it would be pretty easy for us to do. The system that we have right now was purchased in 1999, we got an add-on to the larger
>> [indiscernible] indexing system that I bought which was our first digitized automated index. The minutes came along with it, but that was 1999 and now the -- this system is really seeing the end of its useful life. It's been fabulous, we've loved it. But it's time to get something a little larger for your library, something with more thought about how we're going to get our business before the public. So that's what we're really trying to do today. The writeup that we prepared for you includes the budget amount that is already in the clerk's budget, we started working on this last year. We've had to go in and revise that budget number. We have confirmed through p.b.o. That we have additional funds, the original estimate is not going to be sufficient to do both a dms and the automated internet features that we believe are really the heart of what we're trying to get at here. I have given you the dollar amounts for what we believe will -- this will cost once we float these r.f.p.'s out there. I have also given you what I believe will be an estimate for the purchase of the court's portion of the e agenda, of this, and it may be less, it depends on whether or not you need to purchase servers to go along with this or not or whether it can be resident on another one. I don't know that yet, but that's one of the evaluations that we will make as part of the r.f.p. Process. The other thing that I think is crucial for us as we go forward with putting these two pieces together, the preparation for the court's agenda as opposed to the minutes portion which is when you are finished is that we will want to have password protection, if you will, or segregated data bases. The law anticipates that the judge controls the agenda, so he would want to have exclusive access to that portion of the system. Whereas the county clerk in the watch dog position has authority for control over the minutes preparation and we would not want for each other to be able to be granted access other than to read those portions and the systems that we are asking for will be expected to do that and the good news is about buying a system nowadays is that they already include many of these features that -- that we have determined are really what we need to make our jobs go more quickly and more quickly make your votes and actions available to the public. I'm available for questions for you. Basically today we want to go out for the r.f.p. To ask.
>> what would the conversion, what would your guess that the conversion costs would be? Since you've got 8 million or whatever you just said the number was.
>> right. 1.2 million of records in our library so far in growing. If we purchase the new d.m.s. Which has a broader capacity and do the conversion of the old documents, really the larger part of that project, I think the whole thing will come in at $60,000 which is close to what we thought we were going to have to pay for the whole system. Now it looks like we're going to have to pay more for the minutes and the internet part of it. But the conversion part seems very realistic, very easy to do, since we are already digitized from the benefit that we got in including it in the recording operation for so long.
>> indeed -- you need no f.t.e.''s for that.
>> no, sir.
>> in order for us to achieve optimal efficiency, has do the Commissioners court need to prepare to do.
>> melissa has done a great job for you to far in getting everybody organized to talk about what your specifications arement since you have gone through the depot example, I think it really did help crystallize not only what you need to make your agenda and meeting work right, but what you need for the flow through as well. It does seem to make sense to move forward together. I have tried to slow up my time frame to give y'all the chance to catch on to this. We have asked in here so that the court maintains its flexibility in what it wants to do in these r.f.p.'s they basically give us three kinds of bids on this. One with the cost of the system with the agenda function as if we were going forward with all of the pieces together. A cost if we purchase the systems separately but still from the same manufacturer potentially. In other words give us the cost on parts of it. Finally what if we bought the dms and you decided stand alone would work for you, you will be getting that quote as well.
>> who can answer my question?
>> I think what we're asking for the court to do is to, you know -- to actually adopt the concept of going with the electronic agenda.
>> not in this item today. Once everything is set up. Say we purchase the best equipment available, we set it up, you still have the five of us putting the agendas together, meeting with the managers to for the agenda setting meeting. We would have to change our way of conducting business basically.
>> not -- the five of you, no, not necessarily. I mean --
>> we would have the option of whether to bring a laptop down or --
>> do we achieve optimal efficiency if we conduct numbers the same way after we implement the electronic agenda?
>> the majority of our efficiency is achieved at the department level since they're the ones that do most of the work. They really are besides, you know, when I -- when you look at the numbers, our piece of it in our office is about $17,550. That's just for our office and the judge's office to number all of the packets and distribute them to the court members. The copying is done by the departments which is, you know, like which is like the -- the $61,000 piece of it. Most of the work is done in the department. The departments will see most of the benefit from, you know, not having to make all of the copies, not having to come down to our office.
>> as long as I get my assistant to work with me, I can keep conducting business the same way that I have in the past.
>> exactly. I actually did do an example if we did do everything the same way we are doing it now, I put together like a 700 page packet. All that I had to do was staple, it took about 11 minutes, our packets are not that big.
>> I have question. Does the -- does the amount of savings that's projected, the 40 some odd -- $43,000 worth of savings, does that also include the amount that we spend on storage for our agenda items and our notes from --
>> it does not. It's just solely for the -- to make the copies to submit the -- I guess I did -- I misspoke earlier actually. Our piece of it in the judge's office is only $2,866. It's not -- it's not 17,000.
>> [laughter]
>> we thought that you had rounded off.
>> oh, no.
>> so for instance if I wanted to go back and see what the -- if this had been in place, if I wanted to go back and see what the budget discussions were regarding precinct 2 j.p. Constable office building over the life of that building, I could access that electronically?
>> uh-huh.
>> yes. Just the same way that the clerk can do it now, we can do that at our own desk.
>> currently the way it works now, if I wanted to access all of the agenda items that pertain to that, I would have to go to the clerk, ask them to identify each one of the agenda items and then go find the paper copy and provide me a copy.
>> that would be the most accurate way. It's very hard to do it -- some people can do it. I find it difficult to use the search engine that we have. It's basically just a google search and when you search on our website you get more than you want.
>> I can testify interp neal if I want to -- internally if I want to go back and see what I myself noted I have to figure out what agenda it was on, thumb through files or request files from storage.
>>
>> [indiscernible] the difference would be you can only enter in one criteria, whereas the other you can enter in multiple like precinct 2, j.p., budget.
>> so if -- if a resident out in the county wants to find out how much money I spent in precinct 2 on the capital improvement of precinct 2, they, too, could do a bullion search on the internet.
>> that's what we're asking for in our requirements.
>> the new systems do that.
>> we think these requirements are achievable?
>> yes.
>> for vendors.
>> absolutely.
>> I have seen the requirements, you know, in real use by the different counties in different cities. Some of them have, you know, more of these requirements; some of them have less. But, you know, we want to go out and ask for everything that we could possibly want and then, you know, see what the vendors have to offer.
>> we have identified a source of funding for 70,000. The balance of this would have to come from allocated reserve or is there --
>> alicia and judy, any additional comments?
>> no, sir. We are prepared to support the item and the concept of the e agenda. We do think that it would improve
>> [indiscernible]
>> okay.
>> ms. Porter as the clerk for the Commissioners court, what's your recommendation and would it be the same?
>> [laughter] would it be the same if dana were not present today.
>> the answer is yes
>> [laughter] she would have a recommendation for you.
>> I mean the clerk -- one good thing about -- if it really does come, you know, come all the way through is that the clerk's office has to do what they need to do. If we do nothing and stay the way we are, it creates more work for them. You know, they will have to resecret the agenda basically -- recreate the agenda basically. But you know there's a benefit to us. Loading in all of the information. Actually that -- that really helps them a lot. They are one person. They are -- Commissioners court minutes is one f.t.e.
>> I move that we approve a and let's move forward.
>> a, b and c.
>> a, b and c.
>> second.
>> any more discussion? Somebody will put together the r.f.p. I guess we will have a chance to -- will we see it before it's issued?
>> what's your usual proceed? Is it yes?
>> I do think it would be good for us to see it. Even though it's incredible efficient without our participation, I wish that the court would participate.
>> we can could that.
>> I'm visualizing a Sam Biscoe using electronic agenda myself.
>> me, too.
>> that brings up the question that -- we're going to go through a training period, aren't we? Where we have to make sure that we have all electronic --
>> yeah, you will love it.
>> -- items before us instead of paper, right?
>> that's listed in the requirements, training for users and training for super users and admin and then also manuals are asked for.
>> I guess the only other thing that occurred to me does Commissioner Davis need to have something that accommodates his needs as well?
>> its priced that display, we will be sure that gets into the r.f.p.
>> great.
>> we have worked with staff and we have gotten the arrangements I think --
>> good.
>> -- satisfies my requirements.
>> okay.
>> thank you. Thank you, Commissioner, for your concern.
>> good job.
>> in regard to the general public accessing this, will this be the same or better or worse for individuals who are hearing impaired or visually impaired? I'm sorry, will the ability to access this information by internet will it increase the access for people who are visually impaired or hearing impaired?
>> we would have to get the vendor to respond if their program allows that. There's a similar program that was implemented out at the tax office that does work for a.d.a. Very well.
>> that's what made me think of it. They have done wonderful work there.
>> it would need to be one of the functions.
>> it is anticipated in the notes that we have that wed. There's text variations, there's cap variations, those are anticipated, yes.
>> I know that we hope to get together with the clerk's office and we'll just wrap the standards that i.t.s. Always wraps around it, we'll add that.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Good job.
>> thank you, have a good day.
>> thank y'all.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, July 8, 2008 1:51 PM