Travis County Commissioners Court
February 3, 2009, 2009
Item 25
25. Discuss internship opportunities within Travis County government and funding options for Austin community college students during the fall 2009 and spring 2010 semesters. And I did, mr. Young, is here. Along with -- with mayor, Commissioner, prominent local citizen todd.
>> judge, members of the court.
>> good morning.
>> good morning.
>> good morning.
>> judge?
>> yes, sir.
>> y'all posted the item. It's our pleasure to be here with you.
>> okay. We met with -- we met with several members, unfortunately one member we haven't had a chance yet, but I think that has to do with her being a new member and getting her schedule. Our center has had the fortunate experience of having paid interns with the county for one semester last year. And from our perspective it was a very successful relationship. What we're seeking to do now is to set up a program for the next, not this, but for the next academic year of '09 and 10 to again have paid interns with the county, specifically seven of them out of a group of 15, which were authorized by the coordinating board. For two semesters. We need to be able to
>> [indiscernible] that so we need preliminary authorization that you all are going to do that now. So that we can get it in the catalog. We will work out the necessary details between now and next September with staff about the details of the program. But we have to be able to have the thing in the book. The process is that the county pays $15 an hour, four hours a day, five days a week to the students. The maximum would be for 16 weeks, but realistically by the time the students are assigned and interviewed it's actually using -- we found about 14 weeks the student would actually work. The students' work, you have a memo from -- from mr. Gatlin with your planning and budget analysis indications that places where the students worked before here at the county. The -- we simply ask that they be assigned to something productive to do. That was certainly the case the last time. Our students, with one exception, reported a very positive experience and so did the county folks. That was true with the city. We now have the lcra also involved in the program for the next academic year. And so we would appreciate y'all's agreeing to cooperate with us again. We will -- we are here to answer any question that's the court has or take any comments.
>> okay. How are you doing? I had just a couple of questions and it was the time that is necessary to do the advertisement to make sure that these persons that will become interns hopefully working within one of these county departments, what time line is set for that to make sure that if the court approved this today, then there would be enough adequate time enough for you to advertise if understanding it will be something in February or --
>> we have to publish our catalog, so I basically need to get this in the catalog. I have basically this week to get that into the printing process. For the entire college catalog so it's there for students to sign up for it for the next fall semester. That's not because of this course particularly but because of the process of printing a catalog that will be distributed for a school to have 35,000 students involved. So it's -- the catalog printing process is pretty elaborate. And the deadlines for getting that set, proofed, have been printed and set up on our -- both online and in hard copies is pretty substantial. So I'm pretty much on a deadline to get that done this week to get us in there so that the students can have access to it when they go to look at it.
>> is this the first mention of that deadline.
>> that deadline really is for us. The faculty would like us to have done this sooner but because this course is an established course they want us to give them an okay, the faculty wants to give an okay to the folks that do the printing by the end of this week.
>> well, that's news to us, we haven't heard that before. I'm glad we set this item today.
>> with those deadlines, with that deadline, this is basically going to be a two phase type setting to make sure that the number of students I guess are accommodated. Would this particular advertisement satisfy the need for both semesters?
>> it will satisfy the need for the first semester.
>> there will be another one in what January? We can deal with the second semester if you all want to at a later date.
>> strictly for the first.
>> first time around.
>> yes, sir.
>> okay.
>> you can vote on both semesters, of course, that would make it easier for us, but if you don't have to you are not required to.
>> I just want to say -- go ahead.
>> go ahead, Commissioner.
>> I would just like to say thank you for this fabulous program. The reputation of it precedes you here. I am interested, even though we haven't had the opportunity to visit yet.
>> right.
>> thank you.
>> great opportunity there for the community.
>> we are looking at an internally funding these interns as we did previously so that those departments who are interested in internship must find the funding from within their budget, which is -- which will evince true equipment I think. But additionally, we had discussed previously, I wanted to put this out to the court, we had 8 interns participating last time, I asked mr. Young if we could -- if we could review resumes in advance so that we could craft the most meaningful internships. Around the skill sets that were being presented by those who are interested, as well as to do a -- to do a post internship review of -- of the internship both by Travis County divisions, reviewing their experience in the internship and the interns reviewing their experience of -- of their Travis County internship so that we could maximize the information for next time. And build this program.
>> I have talked to the professors that's in charge. The second half it's not a problem at all. He's enthusiastic about that. He already has a -- has a debrief process which I participate in in his class for this. I was at the debrief for the first step. He would be happy to extend that to a process that included administrators for the county, city, lcra, however we want to structure that. He will be happy to work that out. That's not a problem at all. He already has a class time set up for everybody reports and basically debriefs and as I said I participate in that, the first one of those we did. As far as the resume situation, what you were working on, on that, is how we do that because you need to understand as he explains to me how this works, this class is always popular. Doing this with the city and county is new, doing this class is not new in the sense that previous -- the center's creation he had this authorized every two years for the legislature. So it's known in the college as something that exists. He has 15 slots authorized by the coordinating board, but it is a -- a class that you take at the end of the process for getting your degree in government. And he has usually as many as 50 students approach him about being in this class. So he basically prescreens his 15 students before he ever accepts the 15 that get to be in the class. That -- that is done and then he -- he pick his those students and then those students sign up. The lead time for you all to see resumes probably wouldn't be more than about a week, but by the time he finally figures out who they are, they sign up, we start school, which is which actually we would have the process begin anyway for you all to do interviews. He and I are talking about, we need to do more talking, he's involved in running his class at the legislature about how we get you all any advance look because you need to see the ones that are actually going to end up working for you potentially, not the 50 or 60 that want to work for you. Because that doesn't do you any good. The way he does it is that he waits until -- because frankly a lot of our students are on jobs, especially during the summer, they will let him know before they leave and then go off for the summer and come back. If they want to be in the class. He takes the summer himself to choose so students aren't around. For a sent course all of this is done over a few days, you know. You get picked, you don't get picked, you get picked, you don't get picked. He notifies them, then they sign up. We're trying to figure out how that process will actually work. So essentially what the Commissioners asked, so is he, we vice-president figured out a process -- we haven't figured out a process yet. Normally what we end up with, 15 students he clears, they are the 15 resumes we have available to distribute. We don't leave you the impression that we know in advance who those are, even he doesn't know very much in advance who they are. More than about a week. We can take advantage of that week, but we need to work that out so we can and get everybody set. One of the things that we need to be careful of, in our first program, we picked 15, 14 showed up much one student said they wanted to, we told them they could we never saw him again. Never showed up, signed up for the class. One of the other problems that we have is that our students a lot of them are part time, they get a job offer, they have a family crisis and they think they are going to take one of our classes, something intervenes.
>> that of course is understandable. And similarly from our end since we are asking departments to internally fund this and an intern, the cost of the intern is 5,177, we want to make sure that it's a mutually benefit relationship so that we want to make sure that it is both an internship that's meaningful to the individual but also that's meaningful to the department and worth the expenditure of $5,000 from there.
>> let me stress one thing. The professor and I said this to the judge when we set this up. These students will be sent to you all with the clear understanding going to a job interview. This is not a placement process. We don't send you a student with the understanding that you have to accept it. Commissioner you went through this yourself. We do the best we can at the -- with the professors. Screening the students and sending hem to you on the theory that we think this is going to be a good fit. That doesn't necessarily mean we are going to be correct. If the person doesn't interview well, we expect you to send them back and we'll send you another one. We will keep doing that until we get it right until the agency or the office is satisfied with the person. And having gone through this once now, we place all 14 of our people, but we didn't place all 14 of them in the right slot the first time. Right now he's busy with his students, he sent one person to some legislator that didn't match, now he's sending them to another legislature and getting that fixed.
>> so good -- I hired -- so you all know?
>> but on the other hand we are -- we have confidence from our experience that -- that out of 14 the ones that were hired, 13 of them went well together. One of them sadly the -- the personalities just never measured but -- one here at the county. The other 13 when we finally got everybody together it worked. That's at everybody's discretion, if at an agency, we send and have -- somebody to an agency, they say this isn't the right person we are going to send them somebody else until they get somebody they are happy with.
>> it would be good in the future. Because when I first there was a lot of research that had to be done, the amount of research that was being done was to determine and find out what department in Travis County was actually involved in internship program with a.c.c. Of course that took a lot of research from the folks in p.b.o. Also hrmd. Once that was determined okay these departments were identified of course internal funding is something that was -- is required, it would be easiest, I think in the future, to keep a track record. We have this now these are the particular departments that were maybe -- will go through the process of this particular internship program. So I guess what aim trying to say is that basic -- what I'm trying to say is basically to keep that tracking mechanism available where you did it last time, are you willing to do it this time? That would be really helpful for me so -- so we'll have to start from scratch again. Because there are some that -- that did it last time and -- for one year, not interested in doing it this time around. For an example --
>> Commissioner, I agree with you. That's one of the reasons we hopefully can establish this as a program with y'all over the semester and maybe hopefully permanently. Though in fairness I talked to mr. Gatlin about for instance one person who said they weren't interested right now. The reason they said that is right this minute they didn't have anything that required the help of an intern, no short-term project. They specified to him they were not opposed to the concept of having interns, they just didn't have any kind of work that was the kind of work that you could assign to an intern. One of the things they said to him I found interesting travis said to me, they indicated to him that may or may not be their true in sent. But he called and asked where are you now they didn't know of anything now, therefore they answered his question where they were this morning. That's the situation that we found setting this up. Working with the judge and working with h.r. The departments that took -- that took initial interns were departments that had a slot where they could take somebody that could work for a semester, short term projects. So -- again if we get y'all's sign-off on the concept, there's a good deal more work to do between myself, my professor and judge's office and your h.r. To find the departments who when the time comes have an opportunity to advantage of it. In fairness to your department, some of your departments may, some of them may not and we're going to work with them to find the ones where that's going to be positive for them. And, you know, we're not -- at some particular moment, doesn't have a project that fits, you know, bringing in an intern.
>> the point is I'm just looking at the other educational institutions that we have, such as huston tillotson, saint ed's, concordia, u.t. If there's room for all, all would be recommend. Internship regardless of what educational institution you attend, it's definitely an asset in the real workplace. So those are the experiences that young persons are -- are aspiring to educational -- aspirations are able to to garnish, able to actually hold on and move forward through some good working experiences. So I would like to, you know, maybe in the future even see it expanded. Not a.c.c., just concerned about those students at the other educational institutions that may want an opportunity to -- to have internship programs --
>> [multiple voices]
>> work with those other places once we get this up and running, I want to be sure our kids get it up and running. I will be happy to meet with them about how we get this done. What I want to do is thank the county because of the three agencies that we work with, the county has been the most cooperative and positive about working with us and trying -- their staff has been the most receptive to working with us in trying to get this done.
>> [one moment please for change in captioners]
>> he really -- you need to understand that most of our students -- first of all, the median age of an a.c.c. Student is 27. A lot of students in this class, they are completing their degree plan. It takes three and a half years for most of our students to complete a degree plan. The students that I saw in the first group were the oldest one was in his 50's, but most of them were older 20's, early 30's and have a did deal of -- a number of skills besides the ones we trained them in, okay? From other job experiences, from backgrounds in other areas. So the trick is really -- this is the Commissioners idea of looking at resumes makes sense, it's just an idea of getting them to her before you set up the people who interview. The trick is you will find with these young people, I've already found, all kinds of talents, all kinds of abilities, and it really kind of needs to match what you need done because we've got some really able folk that can do a lot of good work and have done a lot of good work already the first batch we've sent out have done some really good work. This is not -- people asked me when we started this, isn't this 18, 19-year-olds? There's not anybody that young that we had in the program the first time. There just isn't.
>> so I would move --
>> there is a problem with the motion, the wording of the language.
>> let's continue our interest in partnering with a.c.c. For the internship program and have it back on the agenda next week for more specific action. And we need to work on this between now and the fall semester. So unless there's objection, the continuing interest will mean basically we know that we will be listed among other entities, I guess, as a partner in the internship program.
>> and I have permission to go ahead and post this?
>> yes, sir.
>> we'll be happy to work with you as much as you need.
>> I fall on my sword for not including action in the wording of the agenda.
>> that's fine.
>> you didn't have much to say, mayor, former Commissioner, prominent citizen todd.
>> thank you very much, judge and Commissioners. Let me say that for the center this is one of the most positive programs we have because it affects the lives of these -- I keep calling them kids, but young adults, in a very positive way. I started my work in Austin as -- it wasn't called an internship at the time, but a part-time job which got me through college. And I don't think I would be sitting here today were it not for that opportunity. I think the same is true for the interns you had this last semester and will the next. It is a learning experience. Of course, that's what they're here for. But it's a growing experience in terms of them understanding how the real world works and more importantly how the government works and will affect them whether they're employed by government, whether they simply vote, or affected by government in any way. So it's been a greatly positive experience in the past and I'm sure will be again. Thank you.
>> I want to thank you all for joe hahn. You'll sent me ridiculously capable 30-something who was in the midst of a career change and I got to take advantage of that. And I can't tell you -- joe, I know you're listening out there. He's just tremendous, really tremendous.
>> great.
>> my experience was outstanding also.
>> thank y'all very much. Thank you for your time.
>> thank you.
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, February 3, 2009 2:36 PM