Travis County Commissioners Court
September 30, 2008
Item 56
Number 56, consider and take appropriate action on request from Travis County efficiency committee to recommend efficiency in jail reduction docket utilizing video teleconferencing and other strategies.
>> good morning.
>> good morning.
>> I'm roger jeffries, executive manager justice and public safety. Rodney rhoades planning and budget and kimberly pierce, the criminal justice planning manager. We may be joined by darrin long from the sheriff's office as well. We're coming today to request that the Commissioners court sanction a work group that would look at the utilization of video teleconferencing and possibly the use of the courtroom at del valle for court proceedings. This idea has been talked about quite a bit lately and particularly in the efficiency committee, and we thought it would be worth looking at. With the goals in your backup, you see the goals that we're trying to achieve through this possible use of this technology is to reduce transportation costs, reduce personnel costs, increase staff productivity, reduce possibly the average length of stay of some populations in the jail, particularly increase security for inmates, staff and the community by reducing transports to and from downtown, and reducing the burden to court system. Apparently there's been a history of this in use of video teleconferencing in Travis County. Maybe it wasn't so successful in the past, but we would like to relook at it given the improvement in technology that's available now. And also in a very methodical way that would bring all partners on board to present recommendation.
>> before you go there, let me interject this at this point. Years ago, I don't know how many years exactly, we looked at this issue of video conferencing. And, of course, during that time and dealing with the sheriff's department and folks like that and at that time I recall, to the best of my ability, that former Travis County sheriff frazier indicated to me that by doing something such as a video conferencing, we would save Travis County about the sum of total of about a million dollars. I really don't know if this is really something that we've been able to put our arms around because when you say million dollars, what does it all involve? Maybe it does involve some of the staffing, the transportation, the security, all these things that you spoke about as far as goals are concerned, maybe those moneys of savings, cost savings would be attributed to that. However, not knowing exactly what triggered this statement of a million dollars being saved by -- you know, as far as the cost out of the various departments probably, that may -- that's something that still needs to be investigated, I think, to see what the cost savings would be to the taxpayers of Travis County. And, of course, money could be used maybe for something else. So this is something we've been pushing for a while from this court. Even to the point where we invested significant moneys in purchasing the necessary equipment to allow video conferencing to take place. And it has been utilized to see small scale. But again, I think this needs to be -- I think the court also agrees with me that this probably needs to be revisited, and I applaud the efficiency committee for bringing this back before the court to see what of these recommendations or these scenarios that you have put before the court would fit to capture, to capture the necessary moneys that may be -- to bring about efficiency but also cost savings. So that's basically as far as the public is concerned of how we got here today with this particular issue. Thank you.
>> yes, sir. And as a matter of fact, what we're asking the Commissioners court to do in addition to sanctioning this work group is to give us three charges. One is to develop a cost benefit analysis that would show the benefit to the county given various scenarios utilizing this technology and again possibly the courtroom at del valle. The second would be if warranted to develop a viable operating plan that would describe how the technology would be used. And concurrently to study the technology that's available for this use. So we would be coming back to the Commissioners court at some point down the line with with recommendations based on what comes out of the cost benefit analysis.
>> I have one question regarding the charge. I think this is spot on with regard to the proposed stakeholders as well as the mission statement for that -- that group. My one question goes to developing cost benefit analysis. I think it would be important and I wanted to see if that was included in your thinking that the costs explored by the subcommittee would also include investigating any kind of degradation in the legal of defense service provided to the clients. I want to stress this is only being looked at at the misdemeanor docket level and only for the jail call type cases is my understanding.
>> that's correct.
>> so these would be on voluntary pleas, but I think it would be good to stress that there are is one of the costs that will be examined by the committee is any kind of -- where they've done it in the past if there has been any perceived or measurable degradation in the level of service to the defendants.
>> okay. That's certainly been raised so we would certainly do that in our analysis.
>> roger, I guess the only question that I would have is that I understand that there seems to be some resistance to the defense
>> [inaudible]. If that is something that's sort of in place, should we be asking to try to get them to respond to where they are at least willing to entertain -- and the point is that if you got somebody that is very integral to this thing working, and if they are saying, guess what, we're not interested, then what -- I mean, are we going through the motions for something that, you know, if they are saying, okay, we want to know more, we want to know contactly how we could get comfortable with this, then it's great. I mean, it's easy for me to vote for this thing and say heck I can't, this is -- we're looking for efficiency. I mean, this is real process improvement kind of maneuvers. And so -- but what are you hearing?
>> well, I think in conversations with one of the representatives, there are some clear hurdles that we're going to have to address that they've raised. But -- and they have agreed to come to the table and join this work group and at least hear out what the proposal is and see if we can address some of those hurdles.
>> on top of that, during the budget hearings, during the process when we dealt with the attorneys that were engaged indigent attorney fees, for example, we did discuss this issue at that time during budget hearings. And according to one of the representatives that was one of the attorneys, I think, if I can recall correctly, did say that they were willing to participate in something we're doing here now. I haven't heard any opposition per se from that to let them be included at the table so we can move forward. And so I was kind of counting on that to make sure it's still true. And Commissioner Daugherty, that's a good point, but during that discussion at budget again, the attorneys -- the attorneys that was here that day didn't have any problems with being included at the table as we try to get more efficient here in Travis County.
>> well, I don't mean to say that they have indicated they are not -- they don't wish to be at the table. I think they are and I think you are right. But if you -- but if you talk to any of them or if you -- I don't know if they've put anything in write, I think if they haven't, they are about to, but, you know, it's stuff in there that there's a list of here's the reasons we don't think that this thing can work. But I think that they are willing to come to the table.
>> that's the only way to find out what's on your mind is at the table.
>> right.
>> judge, I move approval of this.
>> second.
>> we think we have the
>> [inaudible] on board also?
>> we have, again, I think it's one of those situations where they are willing to hear us out. So --
>> so long do you think it may take?
>> I'm guessing not because the work would take so long but just getting people's schedules coordinated, I'm guessing six to ten weeks.
>> okay. Any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thanks you all very much.
>> thank you.
>> and hopefully we can get this thing done. Thank you.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, September 30, 2008 3:05 AM