Travis County Commissioners Court
March 3, 2009,
Item 35
>> now we've come to the legislative item, number 35, consider and take appropriate action on legislative matters, including -- we said this morning we'd postpone item a until next week.
b is update on legislation relate willing to juvenile justice issues in the 81st Texas legislature.
c, Travis County position on strategy regarding legislation relating to, one, appraisal reform including hb 2, hb 133, hb 134, hb 1038, hjr 22, hjr 36.
sb 678, sb 721, and sb 771.
c-2, appraisal caps, and we have listed all of those, including hb 17, hb 46, hb 127, 700, 701, 711, 1018, 1092, 1575, hjr 12, 15, 21, 42, 43, 44, 51, 55, sb 218, 299, 700, 10 and -- sjr 10 and 13.
and c-3, revenue caps including hb 1576 and sb 402.
and c-4, tax abatements, including hb 88, 703, 773, 1127 and 1127 twice.
let's save d and e just in case we cannot get to it this morning, plus I'm out of breath.
>> [ laughter ] b?
>> good morning, judge.
judge Biscoe and Commissioners, nice to be with you this morning.
first of all I'd like to just as a preliminary thing ask, judge, we have pulled item a already.
we're going to ask you at the appropriate time to pull item e as well.
i'll make that notation to the court.
just some preliminary comments before we get into item b, we've now -- you have a new set of legislative statistics.
this will be included in your packet every week with respect too the number of bills.
we're now over the 3,000 mark on bills that have been filed with the legislature and we are over the 530 mark in terms of the number of bills that are being tracked by Travis County.
so about one-sixth of all the bills that have been filed are being tracked by and viewed by Travis County, and we've now done analyses on 300 of them.
we are tracking them.
committee meetings have begun in earnest this week.
we've already had hearings on some of the bills we're tracking, none of which have been brought to the court yet, just because the recommendation at this point was not to take a position on them.
but just by way of advising the court of how things are picking up, there are 35 of the bills we're scheduling -- 35 of the bills we're tracking are scheduled to be heard within the next week.
so the legislative session really has begun to pick up.
there are 91 days remaining in the session.
that's the overview.
as you mentioned, judge, this is based on a request for a briefing about issues relating to -- I guess we're on b now, which has to do with issues relating to juvenile justice and the -- we have with us roger jeffreys.
let me just introduce him and I'll let him introduce our other presenters.
>> roger jeffreys, executive manager of justice and public safety.
we're honored today to have judge jean murr and head of the Travis County juvenile probation chef stella medina.
and we're here today to provide you a briefing on juvenile justice issues before the state legislature in general, but specifically about I think the big one around town is the sunset commission's recommendation to consolidate the Texas youth commission and the Texas juvenile probation commission.
and in speaking with judge murr and jeff medina, they -- and chief medina, they have thoughts on that and actually some innovative responses they would like to tell you about.
>> thank you, roger.
did morning.
jean murr with the Travis County juvenile probation.
we have sent you hopefully you've had a chance to read it, a pilot project.
as you may know, the sunset commission in its report also stated that it wants sometimes to create pilot projects for counties to see if we could stop sending kids to tyc or create innovative ways to reduce the populations in the Texas youth commission.
now, we historically in Travis County have not sent a great number of children, and that's by choice, but on the average we have sent anywhere from 150, 125 over the years.
when the Texas youth commission had its upheaval in 2007, as many of you, most of you know, we kind of shut the doors to the Texas youth commission for our children as a result of concerns that they would be receiving the appropriate rehabilitative treatments and programs needed so that they would come back to our community in better fashion than when they left.
now, as a result of that, you also know that our budgets are being crunched, so we are having a significant cost issue because we're not sending these children, and it's been difficult.
in 2007 we only sent 54 children.
and in 2008 we sent 14.
to date we've sent five.
when they were talking approximate merging tyc and t.j.
pc, aside from many other issues, one of our concerns is you're merging two different areas, one which of is oversight, t.j.
cp, one of which monitors rules and regulations and makes sure our systems are all up to code, and it's also a system by which we receive state and federal funding.
that's how that mechanism works.
tyc of course is an institution.
and it is a service oriented institution.
we are greatly concerned when you merge those two the competing interests and whether the counties would continue to receive the share of the funds because the counties serve 95 percent of the children.
tyc gets five percent of what the counties send to them basically.
actually, the counties handle 100% of the kids and tyc gets five percent of that 100% in general.
as we've progressed, what we did is we started saying, you know, we knew that tyc was closed off to us and so we started tracking the kids that we would have sent to tyc, but for our concerns with the programs there at the time.
they were eligible, would have gone, but we chose not to go.
so we started doing that in 2007 and over those years it has proved very fruitful because we've had to start developing programs to keep these kid.
they're more splfsed programs, more intense programs.
we're using more placement dollars.
and there are other things that we are doing in order to create programs to keep these children in Travis County.
and you're going to see good results from that because as you know, we are able to keep our children here, work with our families.
we're going to have a better result in the long-term rather than sending them away for nine months to 18 to two years and then receiving them back into our community.
we are committed to that, but recognize that the cost cannot be borne by the taxpayers because you will see in your packet, tyc's cost, average daily cost for a child in the Texas youth commission has over $270 a day.
and if you multipled that by 365 days, that's $91,000 per year per child to give you an idea of what it costs in the Texas youth commission for their children.
we have tracked our costs.
we have tried to figure this out.
and we have come up with a pilot proposal that we have presented to senator bhit meyer and the governor's office and it's being received well.
under this pilot project, what we did is we first determined how many kids we would have sent to tyc, but have not.
and came up with our target now being 119 children we would send to tyc but are not.
we also then decided a cap of kids that we actually have to have tyc for, because of either the heinousness of their crime or the dangerousness they are to our community, needing absolutelily long-term, secure confinement.
we determined that cap based on just what we worked with so far to be 10.
under the pilot proposal, what we would do is we would have 10 slots at the Texas youth commission.
the other 119 kids that were eligible to go, but do not go, the state would pay us at a daily rate that we keep our kids.
because we have taken a measure of what the lowest state paid daily rate for children is, which is $122 a day, and the highest state paid funds, which is 222, we averaged that and came up with $175 per day per child for an annual cost per child of $63,875.
we multiplied that by the 119 kids and you get seven million some-odd thousand dollars is what you're going to get on an annual basis.
we are asking the state for that amount of money in the biennium for first year of the biennium.
for the second year of the biennium we're going to ask for that same amount, plus an additional cost for after care that we have figured in all of our support services and after care for an average daily cost of $22.44, so that we would get 180 days for 119 children at 22.44 a day and that comes up to approximately $480,000.
that would mean the second year of the biennium it would be about $8 million in funds that we would be asking from the state for a total for the biennium of $15 million for diverting the 119 children each of the two years.
>> what we do is pay back the slot that we -- that they gave us money for.
and we felt like that's responsible.
the idea would be is that over time if more counties, especially the urban counties, but if more counties were commit to this type of home-based rehabilitative programs or region alization of these rehabilitative programs, that tyc would truly reduce its populations over the long haul.
they would be able to concentrate on the higher needs kids that we will continue to send.
they would be able to reduce their institutional population and service that number of children in a more appropriate manner, which is what senate bill 103 had in the first place.
and would allow the counties to keep their kids, but be able to use funds from the state because we are keeping kids who would be eligible to go to the state institution.
in order for most counties to be able to do this, last year the 14 children that we sent to tyc, all but two were 17.3 or more years old.
the other two were 16.79, something like that.
so one of the things we have to deal with is the fact that the community expects these kids to be under supervision longer than six months because these are your more difficult kids who may have committed more serious crimes.
the reason tyc gets these kids is because they can keep them until 19, whereas the county can only keep supervising them until 18.
recognizing that we do not want to expand the county's jurisdiction in a mandatory manner because it's too costly to the counties, in order to implement this, if we want to implement this, the one thing we would need to do is have concurrent jurisdiction with tyc for those children the county wishes to continue to work with.
that's discretionary jurisdiction over these kids up to the age of 19, concurrent jurisdiction with tyc.
and those kids will also be the ones that the state would be sending you money through that time period as well.
but otherwise the community is not going to be receptive that a child who commits a serious offense, gets a slap on the wrist and has three months in our locked facility.
we have to have a longer period of time.
so that's in a nutshell where it is going.
dallas county has submitted a companion proposal, pilot proposal and is on board with doing this.
the other urban counties, they're interested.
i don't think they are quite at that point yet.
they're considering it and mulling it over.
we do have another interest in this from the southeast region of the state for the juvenile justice of Texas, which is 23 counties, that has submit add proposal that mirrors ours.
senator whitmire asked us to do this and everyone seems to be climbing on the train very fast.
if it works, what we will have is texan opportunity to truly -- what we will have is an opportunity to change the philosophy of how we deal with young juvenile delinquents and if we show we do it better, do it cheaper and we have a long-term success rate that is higher since you're not sending them away.
and to the state -- for the state in this and why they're somewhat thrill bd it is that if we don't send these kids, I believe our bill shows that it's about a six-million-dollar savings to the state.
and the southeast region was a five-million-dollar savings to the state.
because tyc's cost is so much more than our cost is.
and so that's where we are, that's what we're looking toward doing.
we are along going to lose about two and a half million dollars in funds this year as a result of the $40 and also some $800,000 in grant funds.
that's a significant hit for us and we're very concerned about t the infusion of this money would make sure that we can continue the work that we've been doing because it makes sure that the budget etcetera are in a bad way rie rite now.
we are hoping that this is a way to partner with state to keep our kids and to effectively work these programs.
>> judge?
with the other possible counties, whether they be urban counties or non-urban counties in the state of Texas, how long do you think it is made available for a decision I guess by the senator with this particular bill that's in place and stuff like that, for us to maybe realize and hopefully the state accept this proposal as far as partnering with not only us, but other counties that have the same common interest as we do, as you have laid out here today?
is there a time line that has been made available and this is part of the decision?
>> well, as far as a decision, it will have to go through committees and be voted on.
it will be out this session.
>> go ahead, I'm sorry.
go ahead.
>> it would be out this session.
it's moving fairly fast.
they're working right now in senate finance.
we have some meetings with house directions and we will have to go to work sessions and all of that.
so we're doing all of the work and the footwork and the groundwork we need to do.
it has a lot of support.
it does have some concerns.
we've talked to the Texas juvenile probation commission.
they're concerned we're not asking for enough money.
we've talked to the tyc people.
they're concerned that it will adversely affect their budget and that maybe we're being too idealistic, which I've always believed that being idealistic is the only way to have good outcomes.
we are having some issues we need to deal with, but Commissioner, by the end of the session we will know one way or the other and hopefully we will know before then.
>> okay.
thank you.
>> I might add, Commissioner Davis, by way of response, there are relatively modest statutory changes that would need to be made if we were to go in this direction either just in Travis County or in some of the other counties, but a lot of what the judge has described can be done in the appropriations process where a budget rider.
so we're hopeful that the mechanics of getting the legislature to do this will not be too daunting in this session.
>> okay.
thank you.
>> the scary thing about pilot programs at the legislature is that sometimes you don't learn until the 11th hour that the funding to which pilot programs are tied iser either greatly reduced or eliminated.
so we have made it clear that this pilot doesn't work without the money.
>> if you notice in your packet, judge, it says that the pilot would be front end funded, so it's all funded at the front end.
there's a no loss provision so that even if you don't spend your monies, you can't turn them back.
and there are no restrictions on the use of the funds.
>> I haven't seen that yet because I only got this at 2:00 yesterday afternoon.
i haven't had a chance to drill down it.
it sounds great, though.
>> we made sure -- the idea is here.
we're not sending the kids.
that's all our obligation.
we save you the money by not sending you the children.
if we send you the children we give you back the money.
so everything else is don't put any restrictions on me.
>> they also suggest that you do this projection for two year and at the end of those two years you do another one.
so -- and then you can open your doors back up to tyc.
if you feel like this partnership is not working or whatever else, but that's kind of what we've started it with.
i share your concerns.
the legislature is ever changing and evolving.
at this stage we thought this would be a good way to go.
and as much as we have already started working these programs with current budgets that are being strained to a great extent between the number of kids we've really kept as well as the number of dollars we've lost and the 4-e dollars, we are on a very strong shoestring, shall I say right now with regard to holding off -- we've got hiring freezes.
we have not filled positions.
we are cutting back in order to maintain because we recognize in these economic times the decisions that this court has supported, which is to keep our kids at home, considering the circumstances at the Texas youth commission are difficult.
but they are the responsible way for us to act.
given that, it is the responsibility of the state to pay for those children inasmuch as they were eligible to go to that state institution.
>> judge, do we know at this point whether or not -- I guess this may be a question for (indiscernible), but whether or not the council of urban counties and also the Texas association of counties are on board with this particular --
>> I don't know, Commissioner.
i don't think that we've had any -- we have not had any discussion with the counties.
we have had discussion with the county probation officers.
the chief juvenile probation officers --
>> within those, yeah.
>> we have had meeting water and wastewater them.
>> there is a platform plank within the conference of urban counties platform that supports appropriate funding for juvenile are justice issues as well as a discussion that specifically pertains to the sunset provisions saying that the conference of urban counties is not in favor of consolidation, but was in favor of other recommendations, which go to this kind of thing.
but they're not yet aware of the specific proposal.
there is a policy meeting of the cuc later on this week.
>> it would be good to propose that to them at this point.
and I guess the juvenile probation resides within other counties, I guess my concern is all the urban counties of Travis County -- of the state of Texas, el paso, dallas, tarrant, harris, there and on down the line, I guess it would be really I think important for them to be -- if they're not aware.
>> they are.
we had a meeting with dallas, tarrant, travis, bexar -- not bexar.
harris counties.
we've had meetings with them and we've had meetings with the rural chiefs as well.
and chief medina is the president of the juvenile justice association of Texas, and so she has a great -- she did send out these -- they know what's going on.
>> okay.
that's good.
>> Commissioner Eckhardt summarized the conference of urban counties position very well.
the Texas association of counties I don't believe has taken a position on the issue of consolidation, although they have expressed concern that consolidation not result in exactly what judge murr warned about, which is the notion that the funding streams that are going towards the local programs would be reduced as part of the confusion that occurs when you merge two agencies.
>> right.
>> okay.
>> sounds good.
>> thank you.
if you need any other information, please let us know.
>> that's really a good approach.
>> we're hopeful.
>> thank you.
>> appraisal reform?
and appraisal caps?
>> once again I'm pleased to call upon people with greater expertise than mine.
and let me just introduce rodney rodes.
>> we wanted to provide you with the information, answer any questions you might have and provide any feedback.
>> one of the things that we thought since I've been the warrior for this on the court for the past three sessions is that the bill are all coming out.
there's a lot of them with little pieces of this and that.
and maybe a smart strategy would be for us to come back with things for you to vote on that says these things are things we can support and these things are not.
one of the things to remind the public, people who are watching; that there already are revenue and appraisal caps for Texas counties.
there is an eight percent roll back rate, which is the revenue cap, and there is a 10% appraisal cap.
so we already have caps.
some of the bills are dealing with the issue of are the current appraisal practices fair?
are people's properties being fairly appraised and does the appraisal district have enough information to fairly assess it?
i think that's one issue.
and my recommendation would be that we support that.
we support fair appraisals and information that allows the appraisal district to make accurate appraisals.
it's hard not to support that.
with regard to appraisal caps more than the 10 percent -- and we've done a fair amount of analysis on that.
in a general sort of sense, what it does in the effective tax rate environment that we have is it's like a balloon filled with water.
that is that if you push -- if you cap some people's taxes, other people pay for that.
and so it kind of all together and it's just who pays.
in a general sort of sense, it is not good public policy; however, having said that -- you've heard me say this before and it's so important that the legislature did not put an effective tax rate on the school taxes.
and so whereas we, our taxes have an effective tax rate and taxpayers are protected by that, they are not with school finance.
now, if you are in an area of declining value, that really benefits you.
if you are in an area of increasing values, like we are in Travis County, or have been, then what happens is that truthfully there is appraisal cap creep.
and the more the values go up, that fixed tax amount hits that and people in our county, in school district taxes, will pay more than their share.
and that money all goes to the state and then they send back each district a certain amount per student.
and they keep the rest.
so from that viewpoint we really need to consider -- although we have not supported appraisal caps in the past, do we want to given the lack of effective tax rate on the schools?
it really does make a difference if that's the biggest tax rate that's out there for people in this community.
so that's something else for you to think about.
on roll back rates, and that comes to the revenue, that definitely will mean less money for government to work on.
there's no question about that.
that one is not really a matter of policy.
that's a matter of dollars.
someone said the other day, and I thought it was apt, that the states that have had revenue caps are in free fall disaster right now because now that you've got needs for more and more services, they have cut their fund balances, they have cut their ability to tax and they're sitting there with no funds and no capacity to respond to what is happening.
so many of the bills on revenue caps have formulas or vote on this, vote on that.
and they will restrict our ability to raise revenue.
one of the things to think about is that it really is a matter of who people elect and the philosophy in a community and local control.
those that want revenue caps if the people in their areas really wanted that, they could elect officials that never ever raise taxes.
taxes.
they can do that.
that's the election process.
if another community wants more services or different services, then it allows the local control to take that over and the elected officials who are responsible decide what they're going to do.
so the other thing about revenue caps is they cap the schools on revenue and it went to election.
the idea, well, let the people vote.
now, people in this area did vote.
what was the consequence of that.
well, one, we had to pay for the election.
not free.
and the other one is because we couldn't collect taxes until after that election, the whole tax collection process was delayed.
that means all jurisdictions got their money later than they would have and we had less money to invest and less interest revenue.
so there was a cost to that.
that's not free.
it doesn't say we shouldn't do it, but it's not free.
so there's a cost to laying those things on the ballot, particularly when you bring that down.
the other thing that is discussed in some of these bills is will there be a trade-off?
would counties or cities trade off sales tax for property taxes?
and of course we don't get any sales tax here.
i know I've heard people from the city of Austin talk about the fact because they are a sales tax collector, that if we raise our sales taxes here, then what we can expect is that people will do somewhere else to buy, buy more on the internet or go to another county.
so if in fact property taxes or sales taxes in Travis County were more than -- let's say they were eight and a half or eight and three quarters, you might say I won't pay that.
i will go to Williamson county or dallas or whatever.
and so I know betty dupgerly spoke -- betty dunkerley spoke about her concerns on that and that's something you might consider as well.
i guess we wouldn't care if others wanted to choose that, but it is not without a consequence for us to consider.
the other thing that's out there in these bills is revenue would be capped at a combination of population increase and cost of living.
and I went to county fairs the other day and heard a very extensive presentation by the state demographer and he talked about the golf of Texas, where the growth is taking place and the nature of that growth.
and it kind of reinforces what we had discussed before, and that is that if your growth is in a population that requires more services, that's not like groith groatdz in a population that doesn't.
and so population growth on its face is not the same.
i mean, it needs to be analyzed and the population growth that we are seeing in Texas, particularly around the urban areas and in the urban areas are populations that require more of the kind of services that we might be providing.
so that would be another issue just kind of philosophically.
i don't know if you like that approach.
there's one of these babies popping up every two or three weeks, specific, more revenue caps, more appraisal caps.
if you are more comfortable with a philosophical approach where you decide if the bill says this we support this or we don't support this, or you would like an individual analysis of each of the bills, it's really up to you.
and right now we'll put our heads together and give you what you need.
>> a couple of things that I wanted to point out is we have a number of bills that are out there, as susan mentioned, that increases the sales tax in lieu of reducing, I should say, the rollback rate.
now, I've included in your packet a chart that gives you some information on a history of sales tax for the city of Austin as an example.
it's not unlike any other city sales tax throughout the state of Texas.
i think it gives a good illustration of the volatility of the sales tax.
i've provided that to you.
one other thing that I want to point out is we do have, as susan pointed out earlier, a cost to any election that takes place on a county wide basis.
that cost runs anywhere from 750 to 800,000 or so.
and so those are real dollars that have to be spent for elections.
and so there are -- again, what we are not recommending at this point is a position to be taken.
we've given you a list of some general principles that might be considered as it relates to these bills.
susan and I have been in contact quite a bit over the last couple of weeks, especially talking about a number of these bills and others that are out there.
and so we are not necessarily recommending action today, but we're really seeking guidance from the court in terms of how you would prefer that all of these bills be brought before the court.
or a position that the court might want to take as it relates to any of these particular areas.
>> do the bills typically focus on the one issue that -- like in an appraisal reform bill, would it basically focus on appraisal reform or would there be in the bill other matters that may be impacted?
>> the appraisal reform bills -- if you want to jump in, please do so.
the appraisal reform bills do primarily focus a lot of attention on sales disclosure, revamping the appraisal process, which all seem to make sense, at least to myself and my staff and I think susan would agree, appraisal reform does seem to make sense.
so jumg, to answer your question, it's really directly related to price disclosure, appraisal reform as it relates to the appraisal district, things of that nature.
>> judge, are you asking is it kind of mingled in another bill?
>> yeah.
my experience has been that the devil is always in the details.
>> right.
>> so the problem with adopting a general philosophy is that's good, but when it comes to specific provisions is it requires that you look at the bills almost individually and land on them.
>> yes.
>> and most of those authors, if you say we like this, but we don't like that, they want you to take the position for or against.
>> for or against in totality.
>> yeah.
>> that's what we've done typically.
it's easy for us to look at a particular bill and say, you know woarntion on -- you know, we oppose this one and here are the reasons.
>> the rules that are constitutional requirements of legislation pretty much limit a bill from having, for instance, appraisal reform and revenue caps in the same bill.
>> sure.
>> the legislators --
>> [overlapping speakers].
>> it's not broad enough to fit all that into it.
we've not seen that yet.
>> legislators have learned a way to circumvent that after being here a week.
>> yes, sir.
>> [ laughter ]
>> what would be valuable -- because so many of these bills are filed -- really it is sort of a buckshot method.
what would be most valuable to you, greg, as you're surfing all of these bills?
would a statement of principles, things that we would sign on to and other things that would be deal killers for us?
or some -- or some method to go through these bills and say, this is a thumb's up, this is a thumb's down?
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>> approval, that would give -- that would give our legislative consultant, you know, direction on -- on -- for either 30 or 40 different bills, which would be very helpful at this point.
>> in there are 10 bills dealing with the same subject matter, don't the committee chairs or the leadership at some point try to get them all sort of together in one committee for consideration?
>> what tends to happen is they will be assigned to the same committee and out of that -- will usually emerge some vehicle which is going to be "the bill".
>> so bills that will move and bill that's won't.
>> exactly.
>> then there's tac, cuc and the cities.
they will be landing on appraisals and revenue caps and stuff like that for sure because they have done it like us -- I guess every session for the last 10 years.
>> yes, sir.
>> they will take a leadership role in -- in those fights.
>> seems to me if a bill starts moving, you almost have to give it immediate attention.
if it's languishing in one of those committees or subcommittees, just hope that it dies.
especially the ones that we deem to be not good for us.
>> yes, sir.
>> that's what -- it amazes me that a whole lot of those bills kind of quietly go away.
but you have to keep on the alert for the bills that may be quietly moving.
and that's not always clear early on.
>> which is why the statement of principles is so helpful because as the session intensifies and committee schedules get abbreviated, we may be in a situation where there's a bill that we have not had the opportunity to present by name to the court, but it has some of the concepts that the court has already discussed.
if we've got direction from the court with respect to that, then we have at least an initial indication that we can tell members of the Travis County legislative delegation committee staffers, so forth, that we support or oppose the bill.
>> will your feelings be hurt a whole lot if we can't agree on a statement of principles?
>> my feelings will not be hurt at all.
>> bring them on.
mine either.
>> we will work on those principles for next week then and then -- and continue to monitor these bills, some of which have -- have -- have already been assigned to specific committees.
for example, there have been regarding appraisal caps, the ways and means, there's one crazy bill that's been -- that's been assigned to --
>> how do you feel about that one?
>> crazy --
>> yeah.
assigned technology and equipment development for whatever reason, but it's there.
so we'll continue to monitor those and -- and report back on an as-needed basis.
but we will work up the principles for next week.
>> judge, would you also like us to work up a number of bills based on the principles that we would hope the court would adopt, we would be prepared then to recommend either support of or opposition to?
would you like to go --
>> if that will help you?
>> I think that will help us, yes.
>> we can do that.
>> we voted on principles last session, right?
>> yes, sir.
>> yeah.
>> it may be helpful.
>> our stance hasn't been that complex judge, you're right.
>> maybe a good starting point.
>> yes, sir.
>> anything else under c?
should we have these pretty much the same language next week that we have under 35 c?
>> yes.
>> okay.
are we ready for d.
e you said postpone for next week, same worked next week.
>> same wording next week.
>> d us highways bill 1284.
>> yes, sir.
this has to do a court records preservation fund.
the purpose of the fund would be to assess a 10-dollar fine against all convicted defendants in the criminal justice system.
which money would go to a fund in order to preserve court records.
this would be either both paper preservation of records and electronic preservation of records.
this has really been inspired by the damage that was done to court records by hurricane ike.
representative craig from galveston island filed this bill.
our executive manager, I think shaun malone is here from the tropical wave administe operations and steven broberg to create a source of funding to preserve court records, important records.
>> I have an issue with this bill.
i wanted to raise.
the state has in many instances loaded a fee on to convicted individuals in order to skirt appropriately funding necessary governmental activities.
in my opinion, continuing to load yet another fee on convicted individuals is really a -- a way to tax those who are least able to -- to pay for government services.
>> that's my take on it as well.
>> I'm all over the idea of increased funding for court records and maintenance, but the source of this revenue seems to be -- just -- it seems to be inappropriate -- yet another inappropriate loading up.
>> yet if we don't do this, where else would they go?
for -- for the revenue that they need for preservation of those court records?
which I know is also important.
>> judge, Commissioners, currently if you look at -- if you although at the funding models that are existing right now for -- for -- for mostly what we're talking about is digitizing of current paper records.
and if you take just one department that the district clerk's department, we have a backlog of -- of about 12 million document images that -- that still require us to digitize.
we have contracted for some of those services and you may remember we've had a five-year plan that we'll be bringing back to you again during the budget process.
but our current rate inside our own internal imaging operation is about a million documents a year.
this funding, just this funding would increase that and allow an additional two million documents to be digitized.
now, if you -- if you take just the district clerk's office and compound that with the d.a., county attorney, the county clerk is fairly well done.
there still exists a significant backlog of documents that require the digitizeization.
>> but I would be interested to know, perhaps we could talk to -- to the sheriff's department, the courts, courts administration and clerks about this.
my fear is that we will add this additional 10-dollar fee on, be unable to collect it from specific defendants and there be end up picking up the defendants on warrants for failure to comply with their probation terms or whatever other terms.
so we will be just taking money from one pocket and putting it into the other and cycling it around.
speculation on my part, but I would like to know from our various departments the touch on this, whether this really is the way to fund what is obviously a need or whether we just end up paying out more in -- in -- picking individuals up, processing paperwork for failure to pay and keeping people in the system longer.
because of yet another fee.
>> I guess it would help me to know what other bills would impose new fees on criminal defendants.
i know the constables have one to increase the --
>> warrant fee.
>> you know, it is not like we collect 100% or 50% of these fines and fees anyway.
the collection rate is just incredibly low, plus it's even lower during times like this.
the other question would be do we spend all of the money in the other records preservation funds that we have.
>> yes, judge.
we may have a -- a small preserve in one of the funds, but there are -- there are several different fund fee mechanisms that are in place in the county right now.
there's one that exists for the county clerk's office only, there's another one just for the district clerk's office and there's a third that you administer through us for records preservation initiatives.
and so there's a small reserve.
but we are pretty well spending it.
>> I think a couple of the legislators are giving us a hard time, giving us meaning constables, pretty hard time on that fee increase for warrants.
>> yes, sir.
>> those can be labor intensive.
some -- some, you know, I guess two or three are real easy, then one or two just real, real difficult.
but let's see that.
i mean, is it pretty easy to find out what new fees -- are being recommended?
>> yes, sir.
we could do a search of that.
i know we're tracking several bills that have to do with increasing fees or creating new fees.
>> yeah, then in house, Commissioner Eckhardt's question.
>> I would ask also that as we look at that, not to load you all up with too much.
as we look at those fee increases, some really do go to a fee for an activity that would not have to be done but for -- but for the person who they are picking up, like a warranty.
this, though, the -- this is not a user fee.
>> this is the maintenance of criminal records is a benefit to the entire community.
not just a benefit to the individual whose criminal record is being maintained.
>> have this back on next week?
>> yes, sir.
>> now, we have been asked by the county attorney to postpone items 41, and 45.
this morning we announced that we would postpone 40.
so that's 3 of the executive session items that have been postponed.
>> okay.
>> move that we recess until 1:30.
>> second.
>> all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, March 3, 2009 2:17 PM