Travis County Commissioners Court
July 15, 2008
Item 4
Number four is to consider and take appropriate action on request to authorize fee increase for services provided by the counseling and education services department.
>> my only concern on this, these victim witness sons and services are incredibly important, my only concern, and I wanted to hear from you all, the demographic of those paying the fee verses the demographics of those receiving a service and a concern that perhaps we were in some cases just rearranging deck chairs. And a concern that perhaps I was assuming that hot check fees were probably the highest percentage, and assuming and then I saw on the back up that inmost of the victim witness services are going for family violence issues. So out of a concern that hot checks defendants are subsidizing family violence services and the appropriateness thatch might be okay but I wanted to check with that.
>> just confirming that is true, if you look at the distribution of the sources of revenue from the different classes that are taken, the bad check classes generate approximately 42% of the revenue of the amount that goes to the crime victim's fund. The rest is approximately 17% for the chemical assault and shoplifting. The felony multiple offenders is about 22%. And the rest is, the rest of those classes. I might have to defer to carol a little bit, I'm not sure when the funds were initially determined they would go to crime victim allegation funds programs if it was a dollar for dollar transfer. In other words, was it contemplated that the bad check fees would go pay for programs for people that write bad checks. I think it was a larger picture that the fees, a portion of the fees from these din classes would being a gaited and put in -- aggregated and put to crime services program.
>> that's correct, it has always ban percentage of the revenue that comes in from these classes. It usually was determined, pbo would sit down and look at it and determine what percent we could use, what percent we could put in the fund for next year. In '07, the crime victim's fund moved from a special fund into the general fund so we've really just been trying to increase it by 5% which is a lot less than we used to increase it when we had our own reserve with a special fund and that is what we're here to request today, we would like to increase it another 5% and it was recommended by pbo that we do that by adding an additional, we have $2 $2 to the fees for the classes.
>> the expectation is this is the last year we would be raising fees in order to meet the 5%.
>> yes, ma'am, we will sit with pbo and work out a process to increase the numbers in classes and things like that because obviously we can't continue to increase the fee.
>> in terms of the juvenile classes on which the fees are generated, I assume the parents are paying those juvenile classes.
>> I would assume that as well.
>> do we know what percentage of the overall 400 and -- I'm sorry sorry. Is it, I think I wrote to down here wrong. Was it 41,000?
>> the proposed budget for f fy '09 is a type-o in there.
>> you're right, it is absolutely a type-o. What did I do here. $161,416.
>> right.
>> and so how much is that coming off of juvenile fees?
>> approximately the youth misdemeanor classes generate about 10% of that and the juvenile competency class generates about 2% of that.
>> okay. And I know we have the demographic data on who is paying the fees, of course there are defendant populations, I'm wondering if we have any demographic data and I would not be at all surprised if we didn't. I'm not flagging you all for not having this if you don't, the demographics on the recipients on the crime victim's services.
>> actually we don't, you're right. We have information about the gender information of clients, we don't have that overlap. We would have to get names from the crime victim's programs and do a match and see if there is an overlap.
>> I would be interested in seeing seeing that from a policy perspective, my concern, I have no basis for it at this point and that's why I'm asking for the future data, if we can get it. My concern is the demographics of those paying the fee and the demographics of those receiving the service will be frightening similar and that we will, we may be in a circumstance where people who are in a poverty situation are subsidizing over people in a portfolio situation and chasing our tales but I think that might be a good thing to look at to see what kind of resource shift we're affecting in that.
>> okay.
>> we're actually having our quarterly meeting this week with all of these agencies so we will discuss at the time and send out a request to get some demographics on the people receiving the funding.
>> great, I really appreciate it. You all are an incredible shop providing incredible situation. I use the word incredible, it is credible.
>> we have a sliding scale.
>> yes, we have a sliding scale that we use.
>> my question went to waiver of the fee. If, in fact, you cannot pay it and you notify staff of that, we basically will collect the information to acquire for a judge whether to consider to wave all or part of the fee.
>> yes, sir. We will do fee adjustments down, you know, a couple of dollars if that is what it has to be, but in order to wave it, a judge has to do that. But if they just will sign something stating that we do get a fair amount of those coming over from the courts then we will wave the fee totally.
>> we're increasing check writing fee from $72 to 74. A total of all these increases is $7,800, basically.
>> that's correct.
>> so is that 100% pass-through to the services agency?
>> the amount of the increase is 100% passed through, but the total amount that is collected I believe is about 359. $359,000 for these classes so there is a portion of it that goes to crime victim fund services, the 161, then the remainder, it is my understanding, goes to the general fund.
>> there you go. I guess the theory of the law behind this is that those who commit the crimes owe a debt to society. Part of that debt is to assisting victims of crimes.
>> that's correct. It is a broad restorative justice program, if you would, and that's exactly what it is. We have a same that goes before -- statement that goes before all of our clauses that people are told a portion of their fee goes to the crime victim's fund. We have agencies that are funded and we get a very good response from our clientele in our classes they seem to feel good about that which is part of the heal process, and so it has worked out very well for the past 21 years. We're in our 21st year this year.
>> is there any indication of record keeping to determine recidivism of persons having to come back through the program maybe more than once? Is that pretty much looked at also?
>> they haven't done that since about 2000, is that correct?
>> yes, we haven't done a recidivism study, however, I would say the curriculum we use from ntci is based on research that has been proven to reduce recidivism specifically for criminal justice population.
>> the reason I posed that question was basically continued on hopefully the answer that I would be receiving where a person would not be coming back through that again, if that is definitely a reduction, that means there has to be some effectiveness of what you're doing so that is why I posed the question as did.
>> I understand on a broader level we are looking at applying a recidivism definition and matrix for all our probation services.
>> certainly for the programs that we're administering under criminal justice planning, we certainly are looking to do that, yes.
>> if we do research into these services, why don't we plan our fees compared to other fees.
>> yes, sir. We do that every couple of years, but we will do that again.
>> okay. Any other questions, comments? Motion and a second to approve. Discussion of the motion? All those in favor. That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you, sir.
>> thank you.
>> thank you so much. Are we ready for 18?
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, July 15, 2008 1:51 PM