Travis County Commissioners Court
August 26, 2008
Item 6
Now let's call back to order the voting session of the Travis County Commissioners court. We have a few items that ought to be pretty quick, beginning with number 6, consider and take appropriate action on memorandum of understanding between Travis County taskforce on indigent defense, Texas department of state health services, andrew mcintosh Texas a&m public policy research jiewt, a proposed evaluation of the Travis County mental health public defenders office. Afternoon.
>> afternoon. I'm roger jeffreys, executive manager of justice and public safety. I have (indiscernible) with me from the mental health public defenders office. She's one of the attorneys with the office. We're coming to Commissioners court today to ask you to approve a memorandum of understanding among Travis County, Texas a&m policy research institute, the Texas taskforce on indigent defense and the Texas state department of health services in order to share data so that an evaluation can be complete odd the mental health public defenders office. In your backup, we have a copy of the mou and the provisions of the mou. The signatories on the mou include the sheriff and the county clerk, and according to the county attorney's office, the folks that own the data that need to dprea to share the data along with the county judge. The -- we will be working with the Texas a&m public policy research institute along with key i. Ti stakeholders here in the county to guise a plan to actually do the match. The agreement in summary calls for us to share data and to abide by any policies and procedures that would guarantee the confidentiality of the client records. And then to participate in the dissemination of the valuation once it's complete. Travis County is one of three counties that will be evaluated by Texas a&m and the Texas taskforce on indigent defense. Going to be evaluating our public defenders office as well as the public defenders office in dallas, two mental health courts, one each in tarrant and dallas counties and then an intensive case management program in tarrant county.
>> so we put in the work to gather the data and send it to them and we have a copy of the evaluation.
>> yes, sir. We'll be working with them to extract and do the match and put the random identifiers on the errors. We'll give that data to the Texas a&m who will work with the department of state health services to do the match on the medical errors. And then they'll take that data, produce the evaluation and I believe the time line says the evaluation should be complete late next year.
>> don't forget the huge sum of $4,000 that's available.
>> yes, sir, it is. There's going to -- we don't have the the details yet of how it's going to work. Probably will come back with you at some point with an amendment to this mou, but they will be providing up to $4,000 to the counties for costs incurred for extracting the data.
>> I started out asking for four million dollars. We worked out way on down to 4,000. Questions?
>> it's pretty straightforward, judge.
>> and the departments have concluded that they can participate.
>> yes, sir.
>> attorney sheer, you don't get over here that much. You may want to say something.
>> I think it will be a great study. It will be helpful to us because they're going to tell us what the best practices are and it will really help our office too.
>> well said. All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. See what your remarks did?
>> thank you.
>> joe, by the way, we got two boxes of materials delivered over the noon hour. They are fema maps.
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Last Modified:
Tuesday, August 26, 2008 8:37 AM