Travis County Commissioners Court
August 5, 2008
Item 5
5. Receive briefing and give direction on the following: a. Health and human services and veterans service departments strategy and community planning for fiscal year 2009; and b. Requests from area health and human services non-profit agencies for increased or new funding to meet projected increased needs for fiscal year 2009.
>> good afternoon, judge, Commissioners, sherri flemming, executive manager for health and human services and veterans service. Staff's interest today is to update you on requests from social services providers for the fiscal year 2009 budget process. We would like to note that there are no new dollars in the preliminary budget allocateed for new investments in social services. That the compressed department budget work session schedule may be of concern and so we are here today to talk with you about maybe what -- what opinions or options that you might have regarding those agencies that might want to address you regarding their requests. We do have a brief presentation to update you sort of on where we are at this point. Before we engage in a discussion with you. So -- so per your backup, the initial proposal from health and human services for social services investments was a request to the budget process for half a million dollars to build upon work that we began with the city of Austin and the united way back earlier this year. During the time that we had some realignment of funding with the united way. At that time our goal and -- was and continues to be to address the emerging gaps in human services caused by changing community conditions and economic conditions. We propose to should we have those new investments to procure specific services to fill identified gaps rather than across the board increase which has been our practice over the last few years. Just by way of an update we would like to let you know the most current information that we have from the city of Austin, they have plans to increase their total investment by 3.5% starting in January of 2009 to address key issues rather than an across the board increase with final recommendations planned for the city council public health and human services committee by August 19th. We bring forward this information because while we manage our investments separately we tend to invest in similar services and agencies. The methods for their investments are also still under development. There has been coordinated planning going on since December with the county, city and united way staff and that joint process was designed to be able to inform any potential funding decisions. We have tried to outline individual priorities for each entity to build shared framework to develop and implement short term response to new union united way funding, as you know the court did make allocations earlier this year in response to that. We have completed also the first round of community conversations, specifically 11 focus groups to help identify emerging issues and challenges for fy '09. We continue to coordinate our work and to better align our investments. For outside requests this year, health and human services and veterans service received and included in our budget submission 30 requests totaling over $3.1 million.
>> [reading graphic]
>> in terms of options for fiscal year 2009, if it were the court's pleasure to increase investments in social services purchased -- purchased from the community the department would be interested in seeing you target those investments on high needs services and populations with possible priorities to include basic needs, direct services and access or ways to improve access to federal benefits, literacy and english as a second language to overcome key barriers to accessing services, housing and employment.
>> [reading graphic] I would note there that the court has been aware there's been lots of activities around psychiatric beds in our communities. You all have made additional investments in the mobile crisis outreach. Team that is managing more of the referrals going to the police departments and the sheriff's department, we are finding that there have been little -- there has been little new investment in community based services that would prevent the need for a person to have to go into psychiatric beds. That's sort of where that one comes from. Finally an opportunity to pilot or evaluate service delivery approaches that offer more expensive and comprehensive services to priority groups and that would be for example a reentry population force by example.
>> do we have a list of -- of specific federal benefits that we think we could do a better job of accessing if.
>> well, most specifically our emergency assistance programs are sort of based on other systems failing if you will. For example an acceptable crisis to receive emergency assistance is that your food stamp application is either not approved or it is in process and we know that the state system right now is having tremendous challenges in processing eligibility and maintaining their record keeping systems so to speak. So those types of delays create demand for us on -- in terms of how our particular emergency assistance services that would be an example of what we would be talking about. There may be other barriers such as that -- are currently being created by some of the failures that we are having at the state level.
>> do we have any mechanism in place to advocate at the state or even federal level for any changes in policy or procedure?
>> other than our legislative agenda, community action network is in the process of collecting and soliciting from partner agencies various agenda items from their legislative agenda, that would be the mechanism that we would most readily utilize. We have presented testimony in previous sessions related to the local impacts of certain legislative changes that were proposed by various bills that some passed, some didn't, that sort of a thing.
>> we would also like to continue to work around the broader community plan to guide future investments. In terms of ongoing community planning, we have interest certainly in increasing the investments to meet human needs, to have broader participation and action, including broader resource participation, greater awareness and shared understanding of issues facing our community and then with the desired outcomes to be identifying key goals around with the community which the community can rally, motivate greater investment in human needs, to build systems to monitor impacts on the community. The department has been working to design a process whereby we would be able to engage the community around the specifics of health and human services needs and have the community along with our partners identify specific health and human services goals that we can then use to guide our funding decisions each year as these discussions begin with the budget each year. We have also provided you a list of the agencies that were included in our budget requests. And the requests that they made for new investments. Again I would say that our interest today would be to have the court provide direction where possible, because we do have a large number of agencies that would speak with you during the budget process.
>> sherri, have you heard anything about the ad campaign or the response to the ad campaign that came about because of the article that was written about Austin? Not giving very much money. I mean, then you -- because somebody was responsible for buying the ads saying I live here, I give here. Does anybody have any report on motivated any giving from people that saw that, do you know anything about that?
>> I don't have any data, we certainly can check that out.
>> I don't think any of us have any real
>> [inaudible - no mic]
>> isn't that what it was called. I.
>> I live here, I give her campaign.
>> I'm beth atherton with caritas for Austin, also the vice chair for the Austin area human resources association. The -- the I live here I give her campaign was the desire to -- motivate the community to give more money, as a part of that process they are trying to document the impact that it's had on the agencies and the folks who raise dollars I don't know that there are any documentable results at this time.
>> there has to be somebody that would know --
>> we can certainly check on that Commissioner and provide any information that the group has. I know that there is a website that sort of tracks the progress of the campaign so we can certainly start there. But I think there are contacts in the community where we might be able to get some information.
>> all right.
>>
>> [inaudible - no mic]
>> the impetus for their new model, it would be interesting to see what they came up with. How the debt pays off.
>> I think it's just an interesting collision as well with the economy and the downturn in our economy and how we are watching that impact us as social service agencies at the same time. Is that also I want to interject a philosophical note here, while it's fabulous for people to individually give to social service organizations, it's the responsibility of government and it should be the responsibility of government not to -- not to look to the private sector to replace our role because the tremendous amount of resources that social service providers have to put towards pulling down the individual dollars is -- is incredibly duplicative, very, very time intensive and -- and that is a -- a very good and laudable thing for government through taxes to pay for. It's a far more efficient way to fund social services than to require social service providers to go out and beg.
>> I think that's a perfect segue to our reason for being here today. It requires a lot of -- a lot of effort and on the part of the agencies to prepare -- to speak with you, any help that staff can provide in letting them know how we could be looking at this in the process could be of great assistance in terms of the time and effort that the agencies that might be speaking with you could put forward during this process.
>> it would help me to know what budget issues you plan to raise in your hearing. In your department, there is a short list of priorities, yes, sir. What you will hear from health and human services during our budget hearing, which is August 11th is a -- priority one would be the change in emergency assistance policies, chapter 72 of the Travis County code. The department came to you in work session back in February, I believe it was to talk about assistance amounts that we provide for our constituents in various assistance categories. That is the first priority. Our second priority is the request for continued investment in quality child care. The -- the court has invested over the last two years in an initiative with other partners including the city, work source, united way, in an effort to make available funds to allow child care centers to meet quality child care standards which results in them not only providing quality child care but also qualifying for larger reimbursements through the child care system. In addition, including in those dollars is stipends for child care instructors. We have seen specifically that the -- that the turnover rate among those instructors will receive the stipend is significantly lower than those that do not receive the stipend and so just the -- the continuity of having instructors who are with the programs for a long period of time add to the -- to the quality of the child care centers. There's also a request related to a vehicle for the Texas agri life program or cooperative extension. That vehicle is used for the transport of animals and other materials related to gardening and camps and whatnot. Of course the court is very much aware of some of the fleet discussions that we've had. That request is priority 3 for the department. The next priority is of course social services investment, some investment in social services is our fourth priority. And then our discussion around the public health interlocal, last week we discussed with you along with planning and budget that there was a request for an additional $300,000 in resources. Of that amount, we have been able to identify $294,000 that are attributed to -- to add administrative costs. We had a discussion a few weeks ago before the court related to whether or not it was necessary to have a policy direction from both the council and the court on whether or not each entity wants to pay each other's administrative costs in the agreements that you mutually fund for services as you do with one another. So those are the -- the priorities that the department plans to bring forward.
>> I have just one follow-up question. So do we know for a fact that Texas a&m will not purchase a vehicle.
>> we know for a fact today that they will not. They have not made any arrangements to purchase that vehicle.
>> okay. It may be helpful to note that the 3.5% related to our contracts equates to $236,970. So there's a department request for 500,000. If you wanted to look at 3.5% during the budget process, that number would be 236970. Another number that may be of interest to you is that these are January to December contracts. Which means that any new investments will become a part of the agency contracts effective January 1. So essentially there would be nine months of -- of new funding at whatever level, so at the 3.5% level, starting January 1 would be 177,728. So we have got three numbers there, the department request for 500,000, which is 7.5%. There is the 3.5% which would match the city's investment, proposed investment, which is 236,970. Then if you apply a nine month formula to that amount it is 177728.
>> as we understand the city's plan is starting in January as well, the last one that sherri provided. Nine months to 3.5%.
>> planning 7 and budget has given the department one hour for its budget work session. As you are very much aware. And so that was part of the impetus for us wanting to discuss with you today what approach you would like staff to take with regard to these additional requests.
>> realistically, it would be difficult for us to -- it would be impossible for us to fund all of these requests. It would be very, very difficult for us to -- to fund many of them. And in my view what we ought to try to do is put together some sort of strategy where we use available dollars to issue an r.f.p. Covering services that we think we need. Try to get it done that way.
>>
>> [indiscernible] the dollar amount to be distributed?
>> not to be distributed, to be used to contract the services as a result of the proposals. That way all of these agencies have an opportunity to -- to be considered, but a lot depends on the r.f.p. That's the approach that the city is taking.
>> I believe that's -- that's true. I think they will be indicating some priority. Looking at some emerging issues, there are some economic indicators that certainly we all are very much aware that in the area of basic needs, for example, that as the economy declines, the demand for those services increases.
>> what areas would you identify as those critical areas in which we might want to do r.f.p.'s?
>> I think where the -- where the planning has centered around is -- is in the area of basic needs. As we said, literacy, community based mental health, and then there is some potential for -- for identifying emerging issues. What we would mean by emerging issues might be areas where we are not currently investing, but data and trending in our community show that investments in those areas could benefit us in the long term. Much like some of the efforts that we've had over the last year in reentry, for example. You know, up until a few years ago, while we certainly could show that we were serving persons who had criminal histories and that sort of a thing, our efforts were not as targeted around the issue of reentry. But we recognized a long-term impact of being able to identify specific programming related to reentry. So that would be an example of an emerging issue. Certainly the limited english proficiency has a great impact on employability and so that, for example, is an area where many partners in the community are looking at ways that we can -- that we can bring together everyone's effort to attack that problem head on.
>>
>> [indiscernible]
>> [inaudible - no mic] so far ... December January, first dealing with the united way funding changes, try to look at what are we seeing in terms of current conditions, some of our staff spent a lot of time trying to find what are those things that are much more dynamic, much more volatile. Census data comes out once a year. What can we see now, get a much more timely picture. We have done a series of community conversations focus groups trying to get feedback from diverse -- work with
>> [indiscernible] asa thank you very much to them, the conversations with direct services staff, city and county staff, we have done conversations with priorities for c.a.n., trying to use that as a -- a way to get information. We have also looked at 30 requests that we have received at the department from outstanding funding trying to see. What we have put in the presentation right now seem to be bulbing up right now -- bubbling up right now. These are the things that right now seem to be the most prominent, most frequently brought up. Also best fit with what we do as a department. Not saying these would be the things
>> [indiscernible] as of -- as of August 5th it's kind of what seems to be
>> [indiscernible] various processes.
>> some of these are new. Some of these really represent program cuts because we funded them 07-09 but not in the preliminary budget.
>> in those cases where there were programs that were funded by one-time money that would be accurate. There probably are a few that received one-time funding on this list.
>> is that a better idea? My idea would be come to up with an amount of money that we set aside for health and human services and if we can come up, if you can give some thought to a written list of -- of priority services, between now and the hearing is on August 11th? We will discuss that list then. And -- and later act on it. When we put the r.f.p. Together. But at least that will give some indication of -- of where we think that we're headed.
>> as a reminder, when you all have identified a pot of money, for example, in the workforce area, the department has -- has, you know, gone away from the budget process and been able to meet with the providers and community partners and then come back to you with a plan for how we would move forward with the allocation of those dollars, so that would be very much in line with direction that you have given the staff previously.
>> I do think that we ought to -- to pay special attention to basic needs and try to figure out -- we added a little money. Mid year. And that is not in the preliminary budget for '09, is it?
>> no, sir, that would be reflected in the question that you asked previously about somewhat of a cut because those -- that six month allocation to those four agencies was one time money.
>> it would kind of help us to know what impact that had and whether -- whether the need is still growing as the economy worsens. I think that we know the answer to that, but we may as well hear a little bit more about it. So I'm saying I'm thinking in the basic needs area, it would help for us to hear a little bit more about that. And to some extent maybe picked up in your request, if not the question is what -- what additional steps should we take.
>> I think that -- that you will see in the department's budget presentation a little bit of information about current community conditions. Which could help guide your thinking along those, you know, what's the best route is to take.
>> so -- so now the asha entity is made up of -- of various members. So the members try to support asha, but the members also try to support themselves individually, right? But I guess it would help if we could get maybe a representative brief presentation about their perspective of need. Not necessarily right now, but -- but wouldn't that help? And I guess mr. Rhoades, do we have time on August 11th to add another hour if we need it? We start at 1:30, don't we?
>> based on the court's direction this morning to add a -- an additional day to the budget hearings, I think that we can accommodate an additional hour.
>> what day would that be?
>> we can do it on the 11th.
>> why don't we do that then.
>> I will shuffle the schedule around then. That's no problem.
>> why don't we do that. Let asha know. The other thing is for capital requests, though, there are several of them. I think we ought to get mr. Davis to give us a real good financial overview for what's available now, projections for '09 and 10, not right now mr. Davis because we ought to take a look at the requests. It would kind of help to know the full health and human services picture. That amount is limited and the question is whether we should keep focusing on capital investments or make a one-year shift and try to do a little bit more in operation. I'm just thinking those are the questions for the -- for the corporations I think. But to a great extent they really -- the answers depend on how much is available and will become available mid year. If you want to give that a little thought. Can we add that to that -- is there time for us to discuss that, too?
>> if I may, judge, I believe that the majority of the capital requests with the exception of one that I believe came in last week, the court has had some discussion of most of those capital requests. I'm looking at harvey for him to shake his head, say yes. Okay. So you actually have discussed the capital requests. The ones that you may be thinking of that's the same group of capital requests.
>> mr. Davis is -- wonders whether you really expect the court to remember those discussions.
>>
>> [laughter]
>> > we think we would have gotten some kind of written backup.
>>
>> [indiscernible]
>> information.
>> they would help to -- you want to see it? Rather than trusting us to dig out our own. If you will supply us with a copy of yours if you can find it.
>> I would be happy to do that.
>> let's have that discussion.
>>
>> [indiscernible]
>> how does that sound?
>> that sounds good much. Those directions are enough?
>> yes, sir. Just so we're clear, the -- the planning and budget will make available an additional time slot where the court will hear from a representative of the asha organization, related to potential social service investments for '09.
>> uh-huh.
>> okay. Maybe two or three speakers if they are brief. Maybe one from asha and others if they represent another group.
>> we would do our best to coordinate that.
>> then we'll have -- we'll have capital discussion after that. All this is on -- on August 11th, which is -- which this is Monday.
>> uh-huh.
>> okay.
>> thank you very much.
>> how does that sound, everybody? Sounds good to me. August 11th, looking in the afternoon, right. Starting in the afternoon, yours starts at 2:30?
>> I believe it starts at 2:30. Okay.
>> we will make sure that the time periods get out.
>> we will let you know specific times.
>> thank you all for coming.
>> thank you. Ms. Porter, we don't have a whole lot left, do we?
>> no.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, August 5, 2008 3:51 PM