Travis County Commissioners Court
August 19, 2008
Item 29
>> the 29 is to receive briefing and take appropriate action on the Travis County sheriff's office's driving distance analysis for take-home vehicles and appropriate policy changes.
>> morning, judge, Commissioners. Michael hamby, Travis County sheriff's office. My unit conducted this study that you have before you. We have been requested to look at some issues as part of the efficiency committee is where this came from my office. And it's a fairly lengthy report that basically looks at analysis of the driving distance of the vehicles that the sheriff assigns to individuals to be in their care and custody as part of their duties. Without getting into 20 years' worth of history of the program and how it came to be, the conclusions basically that we reached were that a change and a policy would certainly have ramifications on the sheriff's office. And I'm also wanting to say that the change is always possible. Again, we were asked simply to look at the data and to see what the results of that were. To educate people on the main focus for our operation with assigned vehicle is in the patrol sector, of course. And what we're really concentrated in on were those patrol districts which are in each of our precincts officers assigned to that district. Some things that have changed in my 21 years here is that we used to have show-up and show down, things like that. We no longer have those. Those have been continued. Officers report from where they drive the vehicle, which is generally at their residence, straight to their patrol district. So they hit the ground running in their patrol district to take care of the citizens and to 911 calls. You all are aware that we have 10-hour shifts in patrol, so we have overs. Those overlaps though is us to cover peak times to make sure that -- and generally those are during our peak traffic times when we've looked at analysis for our 911 calls, traffic patterns, so that we have double coverage. That also makes sure that we have coverage in those precincts when someone has to take someone into custody, take them to jail, do things of that nature. So that is a large factor. We still run three shifts with overlap shift. We have heavy days, we have light days on it. We focus our heavy days of course on the Friday, Saturday time frame where we concentrate our workforce because those are peak times. Again, the study, hopefully you've had time to review and if you might have any questions of what we be at. Looked at.
>> I one question. Can you tell me the amount of money being saved here, how is that equated? Was it a combination of maybe gasoline, time element from when they -- as far as the analysis is concerned, leaving the vehicle there as opposed to driving the vehicles there and back and forth and stuff like that? I'm trying to get a sense of where the savings are there as far as the factors of it. There may be two or three factors involved in that savings. And whatever the savings is as far as after this was analyzed, it appears that leaving things as they are would be the best thing to do other than the alternative. So could you basically explain to me what are the factors in the savings, money savings of this particular analysis?
>> absolutely. On page 9 of the study, which is really probably the crux of the study, were the questions that have arisen. In trying to address those, the factors that we looked be at were if we were to make a policy change so that officers would not go straight to district, but to go to command station and then have to travel back to district, that means that they would start their day at the command station instead of starting their day in district. So we have travel time and we have mileage as well going from that district. We did 18 national sis looking at the center point of those districts, distance road miles, to the command stations and basically we have two main east and west. What it would take, how many additional miles or were there any mileage savings. And we had a few areas where it would be shorter and what this study showed is it would increase the mileage. Not do we have mileage increase, that mileage equates to time because that officer is going to start their day not in their district. So if it takes them 15 minutes to get to district, then that's 15 minutes in my opinion of lost productivity. If it takes them 30 or 40 minutes, that's 30 or 40 minutes. Now, multiply that out and that's what the study does. In a snapshot is to say that 30 minutes on each end. They have to begin their day not in district and they have to end their day early to get back to the comant command station the vehicle. Multiply that times the number of officers out in the field, times 24/7, 365 and we start to see that number grow. Again on an individual basis it doesn't seem like a lot. And again we took it down to bisector. So you will see in that chart that you were provided, there are some that are a little bit of savings, some that are larger. I know that on the patrol side that we do work very hard to try to assign individuals to the patrol districts closest to their residence. That saves us not only the employee driving time, but it saves the agency from road miles that are out there. That's not always possible. We don't necessarily hire people based upon where they live, we hire them on their capability to do the job. We don't require them to live within their district. We have a lot of factors that deal with this part of the county, that part of the county, cost of living in various parts of the county. We have rivers, lakes, things that get in our way. But we've really looked at again were that differences. We did see a few areas that I that major burros and his staff have already made some improvements on to make sure that we do that. We also have to look at balance. If we hire the latest set of new recruits and they all happen to live in a certain area, it does not mean thattally we should move seasoned deputies out of that area and put all new recruits into that area. That will be irresponsible on our part. So we always have to keep a balance of seniority regardless of where they live. But again what we saw in the study was those few miles of additional distance multiplied out by the number of staff we have on duty, 365 days a year, actually started to be quite a large number of road miles. Again, the road miles if you take an average speed that they might travel, it starts to equate to time, it all equates to money.
>> right. During the public hearings, budget hearings, I think there were some things that were asked, and I think I asked the question at that time, particular unit looking at the person that's driving the unit, the unit meaning the vehicle and how much it cost to equip that vehicle and you threw that all together. It comes to be a substantial investment that we make here at Travis County for not only the personnel, but the operation and maintenance and also the preparation of preparing a vehicle to hit the road.
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners] something catastrophic can occur and we see that as a possibility. You know, not high likelihood, you know, the risk of vandalism is out there every day for all of us. Certainly marked patrol units are not immune from anything else. In fact sometimes they may be the focal point of that, some may be disenfranchised with the local law enforcement community. But by dispersing units we do receive some efficiencies in response capability. Some units don't have a possibility. The pager goes off, for most of our staff, in the middle of the night, whether they were supposed to be on shift or not on shift, they are required to get in that vehicle and respond to that situation. We have seen that through the years of Travis County for various tornadic events, hazy hills was one, several years ago that required such a thing. Flood deployment. We have issues sometimes out in precinct 4 where roads become impassable. Even for our units. In other words, they have to -- if we have units on the other side of the creek they can respond, whether they are on duty and/or we have to bring them on duty. Where normal units cannot get to them because of flooding situations. We've had a lot of flood improvement through the years and I think that we have seen a decrease in that occur. But it still does occur. I agree with your assertion, again it being one of the founding pillars that this program was built upon.
>> hopefully short series of questions. The report was very good. And very persuasive on many points. My question goes to -- particularly persuasive regarding the protocol having individuals driving, they come on duty as soon as they hit their district. Not when they hit their command. My question doesn't go to a change in the protocol so much as the valuation of the benefit to the officers. Since all of us, the majority of us have to drive to work on our own dime, I just wanted to make the distinction with law enforcement. We're not on duty until we hit our desks, whereas you all are on duty as soon as you hit the county line, is that a fair statement?
>> no, it really isn't. We're able to respond, but the clock really doesn't start until the officers actually are in their district.
>> but in terms of one's arresting authority, that is county-wide.
>> right. And we do see, particularly during -- towards the shift change for officers en route on their districts will stop and investigate an accident they roll up on, serve as a backup or something like that during shift change periods.
>> but that same authority doesn't exist outside the county line, correct?
>> that's correct.
>> in the report, one piece of data particularly instructed to me, I wanted to make sure that I understood it correctly, the average distance out of county is 7.2 miles, that's the average distance from county line to out of county garage location.
>> that is correct.
>> I wanted to make sure that I understood that. So as I was looking at it, I was trying to come up with a value of the take home benefit outside of the county. On the -- on the premises, I wanted to just explore this with y'all, on the premise that that would make it more like other employees, kind of make it an apples to apples comparison, because unlike all of the rest of us y'all can be call you willed to duty anywhere in the county, but not outside the county.
>> I think that's a fair asment, scott burros, law enforcement major, also a value to the county by having those vehicles out there, also. We didn't think that going into the study. There are also substantially reduces the number of miles put on the fleet.
>> I agree. That's not what I'm going to. I'm not going to a change in the protocol. I'm going to say, for instance, this is just a possibility to explore, if one were 7.2-miles outside the county, if you were to value that based on the federal tax reimbursement rate on the use of a vehicle, which is roughly 58 cents a mile, that's on average for those who have vehicles who say garage outside the county a benefit of about $42 a week, if they worked five days a week. Based on a round trip. What I'm getting at is -- like I said, I think that it's very persuasive that the procedure that we have been utilizing was a dispersian of vehicles it's very persuasive that that procedure maximizing or more to point minimizes gas usage and maximizes the time on the clock. But what I'm wondering, if there might be a way to -- to put a value on the out of county travel for valuation as a benefit to the employee, that is not a -- that is not a law enforcement benefit to the county.
>> all right. But --
>> keep the procedure --
>> I'm not sure that you can exclude the two. If there was no benefit to the county, then clearly that would be a solid argument. Especial --
>> I'm only talking about -- talking about the miles outside the county.
>> I understand.
>> excluding all of the miles inside the county, only looking at that average 7.2 miles outside the county.
>> I understand where you are coming from, I'm not sure that I'm making my point clear. The point is that it's more efficient for us to garage those vehicles from a county perspective, it saves the county mileage, even if they are outside the county line as opposed to housing them inside the county.
>> I hear that. What I'm trying to do is have our cake and eat it, too. Frankly.
>> this is not a new issue, certainly again we have been -- at this juncture before, at the -- because of the shape of the county we have some oddities, we can certainly have someone up off nameless road that is two or three times the travel distance of that seven miles outside to their duty station. We try to not let that occur again through placement of staff. But as I explained earlier, but just -- we have a v shaped county. In the shape of that county it causes us issues, if we have a circular county with a county seat in the middle --
>> again, I'm not talking about changing the traffic patterns or the protocol of how people report. All I'm talking about is whether or not we could place a value on the benefit of the out of county travel. Not to change the driving pattern or even the requirements of how people report. Only to put a value on that for discussion of how to handle that. Do we treat it like a benefit? Just on that portion that's out of county? Or not.
>> again, I think that that kind of gets off into territory that probably would be best answered by legal counsel. You know, not us. We have had that conversation through the years. Again, they might advise you if there's any current or newer case law dealing with it. Again we're going to approach it -- to answer your question can a dollar figure be attached to it, certainly it can be. Whether it's based on i.r.s. Regulations and mileage, from an operational standpoint you know we're looking more at what is most efficient for our agency. Several of our people who live within that range outside of the county are much closer to respond to their precinct --
>> I'm not quibbling with that. I agree with you. That's why I said that I think that the -- that the -- that the efficiencies and the procedure that you lay out are very persuasive. That's why I'm not even looking at that. I'm only looking at that 7.2 miles outside of the county. Same procedures, same organizational efficiency, the same benefit of disbergstrom, but only how we treat that average out of county benefit.
>> how was the data collected?
>> the data was collected, we did two surveys, verified them against each other. Had supervisors check mileage, did spot checks to make sure that we were actually getting good data. Verify that against your average systems out there. We used map quest for some of the things, which is what the state comptroller office uses to verify some mileage. We had some supervisors actually go out there and roll it and make sure that we weren't, you know, don't get me as the crow flies, that doesn't help me. Making sure that people were taking the most direct route and/or normal route that they would to and from work. We did it through an employee survey and we got 100% participation.
>> when sheriff frasier was here, she adopted a policy for employees at the time of the policy and then those hired afterwards.
>> that's correct.
>> five and 15 is what I recall.
>> that is still in place.
>> is that policy still in place?
>> yes, sir.
>> we try to follow it.
>> we again law enforcement bureau, we have supervisors who check on that. To make sure. That's again why I encourage where you get your data, if we do a run against what might be the payroll system which would be the home address, because of that policy we have numerous people who park the vehicle, law enforcement, fire, other merge service agency and then take their personal vehicle if they live beyond those mileage limits. We have to watch how we run the data, if you run against the wrong data set, you will end up with anomalies out there. We do require supervisors to spot check employees to make sure that they are abiding by our policy.
>> let me clarify it in the interest of full disclosure here. We did find some people that were not in compliance.
>> how should I interpret the last statement on page six at the bottom, over 15 miles out of county.
>> that is correct. Of the 8 vehicles, that is what -- we had come across, I think we had a situation where an exception had been granted because we have an individual that runs an 11 county task force, including Williamson county and it was more efficient for that individual to actually be based a little further up there. But it was -- we were eight individuals who were of that. I know that his staff --
>> also the policy is based on a -- as the crow flies mileage and the data we ask were actual road miles. So sometimes the vehicle may be housed within that five miles as the crow flies. When you add the highway miles to it, actually travel more than five miles to get to that location.
>> what does the policy say about that?
>> based on the geographic route to -- to where the house, the garage, the crow flies mileage, not based on road mileage.
>> if we were to try to identify those hired after the effective date of the policy, the five mile rule should be in place.
>> that is correct.
>> somebody checks that periodically or at the time of hire.
>> it -- at the time of the vehicles are issued, the officers sign-off saying they will be in compliance with these policies.
>> we are required to do quarterly inspections of the vehicle, we are required to also list where that vehicle is garaged and that data is verified.
>> was there ever a time when we did not have a take -- take home vehicles?
>> yes.
>> when? I'm just curious.
>> prior to 87.
>> 1989 is when the policy was first -- the policy fairly loosely back then. When the practice was first put into effect, if you recall, 1989, was when the sheriff's office and the county general really started growing it, pretty rapid rates, tyj and other things, at the time we only had the courthouse square to park vehicles on, and quickly as you can imagine we are outgrowing that. Tried to come up with some new. At the time we didn't have an east command, west command, we didn't have command stations. Policy we set that this was the most efficient way to operate. One of the things that -- that again was I think that struck me through the years is we have built 20 years of infrastructure around a policy, I'm not here to say that policy couldn't be modified or changed. But that's what we have built through the years. We didn't have a 24-7 garage, we didn't have a lot of parking in facilities and still don't have that issue or that luxury to fleet vehicle, so we have done some comparisons with the police department, other agencies, such as how they operate. We send individualizeds to fleet conference management to do that. But in that time with the rapid growth that we were seeing, the court that was sitting at the time and I think in the sheriff's office was instrumental along the constables and other entities that was the best decision to make. For the -- for the efficiency of the county was to move to that policy. Because again the -- yes it costs us miles but what we find in studies are that it -- if we were to make major modifications it might cost us more mileage.
>> what's the average number of days days an officer is on duty.
>> a patrol officer four day schedule.
>> four day schedule?
>> yes, ma'am.
>> on an annual basis how many work days does that translate to?
>> four times 52?
>> [multiple voices]
>> > knowing there's training, what -- what is the average number of work days per year?
>> about 1680 hours, so was that 168 days?
>> probably be about correct?
>> 168.
>> any other questions?
>> I have a comment. I want us to go back to why we -- why we looked at this to begin with. It was about saving gasoline, that's all it was about. If this is predicated on you have to go from your home to your command, I think this proves up what you said it would probably prove up, it's probably not beneficial to look at. But if you are to consider -- but if what we are trying to do, y'all, is find a creative way -- because I don't know -- I mean in the six years that I have been on this court, this is going to be the toughest time to get more officers on the street, to give raises, to buy, you know, new financial systems, to do everything in the world. And a gallon a day is that what we're after is not going to get throughs. You need your -- get us there. You need your cars, I understand that, but I'm looking for ways to where you can say we can make this thing work and we can do it this way. For example, if somebody works in west command and they live in buda, because I don't think that everybody that works for west command lives in western Travis County. I know, you know, we all know that they don't. So what I'm looking for is how do we get -- how do we find a spot to where let say you live in buda, you work at west command. I mean obviously the closest place en route to probably from buda to west command is somewhere 1626, brodie lane, somewhere in there. Is there a place where we can find that we could put a vehicle in a fence, you know, what if somebody is going to vandalize a sheriff's vehicle, they are going to vandalize it at your house. If somebody has a problem with doing that you are not safe just by the fact that you are not in a centrally parked area. So that's what I'm looking for y'all. I'm looking for a way how can you really get to a spot to where we can cut down the costs on these miles? You need your cars, I'm supportive of that. We have got to find a way to get efficient. The most efficient way to get efficient is to put people in a spot to where you know what, you see where they're trying to get. Quite frankly I need to help them out, I need to help them do this. I do think that they are probably -- there are some people that live within west command, so it fits for them, I mean,, you know,, I mean, maybe the rule is if you live within 15 minutes, you know, or whatever miles of your work then you don't -- then it's not a matter of okay you have to pay for 3.1-mile every day of travel. I'm lookingall for ways to find some savings so that I can apply some of those savings back to some areas where I know you actually need them and we need more cops on the street. But I cannot do this budget. I mean I personally am not going to be able to sign-off on a lot of this budget because that means I have got to continue to raise taxes. That is not what we're trying to get done. I'm looking for help where somebody can creatively say this is not unsound of what we're asking because I would venture to say that most people think that since all of us paid to get to work, whether it's by bus or whether it's by our individual cars or whatever, we all pay to get to work. I think most people say I think cox should do that some cost in there, whatever it takes them to get to the driveway or whatever. Some that we can really benefit because somebody is going to say quite frankly you know what, I want to live close, heaven help you if your wife gets another job, says guess what I need to move to Round Rock because my wife is going to pitch a fit because she works at dell, she has got to take care of the kids, do all of those other things, we're going to live where it benefits her the most, I'm going to have to do this. Y'all that's what I'm looking for. This justifies if you go from home to your command station then, you know, it's a -- it's an easy read, you go yep there's no use in looking for that. That's not what I'm looking for. I'm looking for a way to creatively come up and be able to show that we can save some money and I think that we can do that. I do think that we -- that we need to work harder at it. And determine, you know, I mean for example I might like to know where do all of west command, what are there, 70 or 80, scott, people who work at west command.
>> 103 sworn.
>> 103. I mean it would be nice to go, you know, where do they really live. Let's take a good, hard look at that, if that's what we're looking for. Y'all, I mean I wasn't putting you through the exercise because I thought you had some idle time. But I do think that kind of missed the mark on what I was looking for. It's not your fault because perhaps, you know, I wasn't as definitive about what I was really looking for. So I'll work with you on that, I mean, I would like to see what that number is.
>> I can address part of that, you know, one of the things that did come up in discussion was that, you know, we can do the calculations and show you savings or efficiencies. Once locations once locations are identified. What we identified are county facilities because that's the only thing in our opinion that the county had control over. You know, you use a great example of 1626. I think what it shows is how times have changed, you know, when the policy was that when we used to park cars south to do what you are trying to achieve, we parked on manchaca fire hall. We're talking about two cars. Understand that two cars are two cars 24/7 because it's your personal vehicle as well as the county units. Now that was many moons ago when this was a much smaller town and county. And that, you know, we didn't have some of the the issues that we have on the vehicles, things like that. We also had a propose tore at the time that -- proprietor that was okay with one or two cars. If I went to that proprietorship today and said would you be okay with 50 or 60 cars.
>> by the way if we went out there and said that, that's county owned property we probably could do it. We know we're not talking about 50 or 60, we're talking about a few locations where you might be able to put two or three cars. But two or three cars in five or six, seven locations, you start getting to more than one gallon a day real fast. And more than one gallon a day is what I'm looking for because a gallon of gasoline, I mean, next year is probably going to be, you know, I don't know what's it going to be, 3.50 or $4. It's going to be a bunch. Multiply that times the 160, 180 days, whatever, we are talking about finding several hundred thousands of dollars, that gets me closer to having 20 cops, I mean, at least lower, you know, narrows that gap of the dollars that I'm looking for to get you on the street. I think that's when push comes to shove, that's what the community wants, police presence, that's the way to get it done.
>> I would also suggest that you look -- I think that's a good suggestion. I think that we should also look in tandem with that at the idea of what the benefit is to the employee outside of the county, because I think just running the numbers right quick, based on 168 work days, and 7.2 miles out of the county, that's roughly $200,000. In benefits. If we were to work together on establishing some kind of a policy, either on, depending on what created the greatest efficiency for Travis County as a law enforcement organization, I think that we might see a reduction in the overall miles traveled by our vehicles, resulting in lower fuel consumption, resulting in less wear and tear on the vehicles and a longer life for what is substantial county investment in law enforcement vehicles, also.
>> I understand what you are saying, but I'm not sure that you fully understand the impact. You are talking two or three cars, seven or eight locations, 15 or 16 cars. We're talking probably, if we just dealt with the out of county cars, 100 vehicles. Now we are looking at 50 locations with two or three. That kind of goes back to what mike was saying earlier about the infrastructure.
>> I'm willing to get with you, scott. You see where I'm trying to go. Quite frankly you're right. There's sometimes that you can show me oh, did you know this? I go oh, well I didn't know that. That's what happens with all of us, we don't know your business as well as you do. What we have is we have ideas, sometimes they are hair brained, you kind of go uh, let me get five minutes with you, I will item you why you're a nut to think about that. I'm happy for you to show me where where I might be a nut.
>> we've had these discussions certainly. Maybe it's a matter of changing policy instead of having two substations located centrally east and west, maybe we go to four substations centrally located.
>> do we also -- do we have any historical data on odd meter reads? So that we can see an increase in number of miles traveled per day on a vehicle?
>> I know that the fleet management system calculates mileage when vehicles are refilled. I don't know that that -- that's a t.n.r. Kind of question. I don't know that system has the capability by day or what time frame it does it in. I know that we have recently requested and are working with t.n.r. On having a little better reporting system. Our supervisors on usage a few usage so instead of fleet monitoring gallons used that we in the law enforcement community can do a better job of making sure that we're monitoring because in the past we have not been provided that data.
>> okay.
>> we'll revisit this. I won't say when.
>> all right, thank you, sir.
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Wednesday, August 20, 2008 8:37 AM