Travis County Commissioners Court
April 28, 2009,
Item
23
Speaking of policy changes, 23.consider and take appropriate action on procedure for coordinating grant applications from various county departments
>> this was an item -- this item only applies to -- to the scheduled stimulus money and is in response to -- to the question that was originally generated in the community action network in regard to greater coordination between the governmental entities locally on -- pursuit of federal stimulus money.
and the proposal laid out in the memo would not change the actual identification, decision making process, or -- or execution of grant applications.
the proposal laid out by the memo only creates what amounts to a clearinghouse function in the intergovernmental relation director's sphere in order to -- to essentially treat it much like our legislative efforts have been treated over the last several months.
that the intergovernmental relations officer would act as the -- as the repository of information coming from our various departments and electives who are pursuing federal grant dollars so that one individual or one individual and those who work for that individual could be the point person to other governmental entities or service providers interested in knowing what county government, what Travis County government is doing in pursuit of federal dollars and how we can greater coordinate.
i understand that a meeting was had yesterday with those varies departments who -- various departments who have traditionally been very grant motivated in order to inform this process, I hear it went very well.
perhaps we could hear from mr.
rhoades about that meeting.
and whether this proposal needs to be tweaked.
worked on more or whether we can move forward with it today.
>> the meeting did occur yesterday.
i think it went very well.
one of the things that we talked about was some cross collaboration between the departments to make sure as it relates to the stimulus money of folks -- of getting the most bang for our buck, so to speak.
i think we had very good dialogue.
>> federal government is getting the most bang for its buck.
>> that's right.
>> one of the things that we did discuss, I know susan has great concerns about this, and should.
>> [indiscernible] we -- we did talk about the -- the -- the need for -- for administrative oversight, including the reporting structure.
no, ma'am in the auditor's office but also in the -- in the outside user departments.
>> [one moment please for change in captioners] department lines and outside the county.
and I'll share with you a meeting that I attended last week in just a minute.
but we talked about that and the need for the administrative oversight, if you will, and the reporting pieces that go along with it.
something that at least my perception of what came out of that meeting was the realization that we might need to put our heads together, gather collectively and come up with some policy recommendations as it relates to the stimulus money in terms of, you know, what types of money is available, how it might be used, the players in terms of how it would impact the community just so that the Commissioners court is aware of that ongoing versus one-time dollars, the administrative role, all of these things become really policy-related discussions that I think will require a great deal of collaboration between departments to ensure that all interests are met.
in addition to that, I will share -- last week I attended a meeting with the city of Austin, Austin isd, community college -- let me make sure I got everyone.
i think that was all that attended.
the effort there is again more of an intergovernmental collaboration of efforts to ensure that as a region we're receiving his much as we can -- as much as we can in terms of stimulus dollars to make the most impact to the community.
so it was a very good meeting, lasted about an hour and a half.
and we intended to have that meeting again and on a regular basis.
and so -- and expanded out to the health care district.
we identified the health care district, cap metro and some other entities as well that we're going to expand this to.
and so it was a very good meeting and I think we'll provide great benefit, but from an internal perspective, really understand's meeting was more to try to identify opportunities that are coming up, and what we tried to do is break it down into two sections, those opportunities that have a very narrow window of time for application and then those opportunities that have a larger window of time so we get out in front of those other opportunities and figure out what would be the best in terms of the use of those dollars.
and whether we want to recommend that we pursue those or not.
>> but rodney, the stimulus money, when it comes down, it already has strings on it.
it has directions for us on how that money is to be used.
so I don't understand about the question of how we're going to use this money.
i think it's -- my understanding of everything I've read, it's already there.
those instructions are already there.
>> right.
>> so -- but the fact that it's one-time money, I think it's going to have to be stressed very heavily because it is one-time money.
we cannot expect that money to come down again.
>> correct.
>> and then -- but the other thing is I think also we have a structure here in county government that is being asked of like capital metro.
could you have the auditor report to the board or be as independent as possible so that there's transparency in the oversight of that money.
and so we already have that in county government structure.
so I think you're also saying that all of this collaboration and coalition, communication would fall within the county government structure, correct?
>> it does to a certain extent.
one of the things that we're seeing more and more in recent weeks especially is a growing number of grant applications that are coming through for stimulus dollars.
and I gave the example yesterday, and I tend to think about some of these crazy ideas that -- you know, that may or may not stick, so to speak.
but one of the things that I said yesterday is, you know, why can't we come together and put our heads together to come up with a soup to nuts program, if you will, where we can utilize multiple grant opportunities to achieve not only a goal, but multiple goals that cut across all of the agencies.
and you know, we talked a lot about some of the efforts that we could do as it relates to health care technology, as it relates to immunization and communication of health care records back to hospitals.
health care record communication from the sheriff's office and the jail or the juvenile detention facility back to hospitals in the event that those individuals might need to go to the hospital.
so there's a lot of this cross-communication that we talked about yesterday.
but more importantly the idea of this rush of dollars coming in to the county, how it's going to be managed, how susan is going to be impacted because obviously there's a huge impact there, but also to the other departments.
and how we manage that, how we go about dealing with those type instances, and really how we communicate grant opportunities that maybe the departments might not have been aware of.
so those were kind of the genesis of some of the discussions.
>> and I don't want us to foreget that in county government, though, there's a domino effect.
if you affect one department like the auditor, you're going to also affect purchasing because they're all central to county government.
and you're also going to affect -- I'm trying to remember the other departments.
purchasing, auditing.
what's the other department?
i'm missing one.
anyway, there's a domino effect.
and it's just -- it just doesn't affect one part of county government.
so we kind of have to keep all of that in mind, but at the same time the transparency has to be there.
those things that are called for to be in place for other agencies such as capital metro to make sure that there's transparency and that there's accountable.
>> absolutely.
>> so we don't want to undo that part of it at all, and I don't hear that happening, but I don't want to go there.
>> again, I -- yesterday's discussion was the beginning.
and really it was more of an effort to talk about these things.
and talk about the issues.
and again just my observations of the meeting yesterday I think it was very productive from the communication perspective, but one thing that did become very apparent to me is that maybe we need to ensure that we do have some court-adopted policies in place as we go forward as it relates to the stimulus money, and maybe even grants in general, but more importantly as it relates to the stimulus money so that as you guys were aware with the cops grant, for example, you know, it was very apparent up front that the cops funding would go toward funding these 12 deputies as a stopgap, if you will, to get us through the next few years of an anticipated difficult economic time.
>> the other group that would be affected is the county attorney.
sorry about that.
>> yes.
and pbo.
let's not forget pbo.
>> but even with that, rodney, and I would like to say this to you, I think you and all the other departments that are here and all the other departments that aren't here that are listening, there's a lot of questions that I can see just being generated in just the little conversation we are having here today.
i think it would be good -- I don't have anything to do with the agenda, but it may be somewhere along the line in the future or near future to maybe have it under a work session setting because you can get more out of it.
i'm quite sure those folks that have some say right now, there are a lot of things that I would like to ask, and I know -- the question I've got to ask is probably going to be pretty lengthy.
and of course, I'm trying to get to the nuts and bolts of this, but it takes questions to get to the nuts and bolts of things.
and I'm hearing little bits and pieces and we've been dealing with a lot of these grant situations for years.
even with the indirect costs.
i remember we came in and we started that and said hey, we take staff and this much time to prepare for grants, so there's an indirect cost of what we can acquire funding for the indirect costs that we associate with grants.
so what I'm trying to say is that there's a lot -- I think it's a good idea, but we're looking at stimulus package money, but we also I think need to look at investigating any grant money.
i don't care who has it.
the state has the grant money, whoever has the grant money that we can use, I think we ought to pursue it.
but of course, there's a lot in doing that, but there has to be some impacts.
what are the impacts on other departments?
the pros and the cons of all of this stuff.
i don't really know what those pros and cons are at this point.
and I know that there may be some pros and may be some cons that we need to hear.
i know I need to hear them before I can make a decision on anything.
so this may be the format to listen to it, but I wouldn't be able to hear it all today.
i know I wouldn't be.
not with all the departments here.
>> allow me to throw this out there.
the proposal for today is just to create a clearinghouse.
no procedural or policy change is intended in what's before us today.
it's an -- it's an informational conduit suggestion that the information -- much of what goes on will not be present under the federal stimulus money because that money is being pushed through already existing programs.
so those who are on the frontlines of pursuing these grants are the same folks that were on the front lines a year ago.
and the names of the grant opportunities are essentially the same, it's just the dollar amounts are much larger.
and because the dollar amounts are so much larger, there is a much higher degree of-- there's a much higher opportunity for collaboration with other entities.
the burn grant was a prime example.
when it was a much smaller amount of money, the collaboration between a.p.d.
and tcso was all that was needed and great.
now that it was a much larger pot of money, it raised issues of possible internal conflict that were happily resolved, but we should take note that that -- there could be another pop of burn money that's coming down that is available for a much wider array of things.
it's always been available for a much wider arare, it was just a smaller amount of money before, so we didn't consider all of the possibilities.
so for today we're just looking at pushing the information to one more source, which is the igr's office.
so that we can continue to foster this level of cooperation.
but I absolutely agree with you, some of the issues that have been raised go beyond this proposal.
and let me just enumerate some of them because I've gotten a lot of e-mails and phone calls over the last couple of days.
i want to put this out there for food for thought.
one concern is that whatever we do today not slow down the process.
because it does move so fast that a couple of people called me and said look, I think it's a good idea, I just don't want to have to come to Commissioners court and wait another week because some of the stuff moves really fast.
that's one issue.
another was the idea of internal conflict between different departments that could avail themselves of the funding and how the county Commissioners court would resolve that conflict, particularly if one elected individual was going after the money and another elected individual could also access must not for something else.
so that's something that we should talk about.
it's not covered today, but it's an issue.
another issue that was raised that was a very good issue for us to have further discussion on was a concern that we not chase every single dollar that looked pretty out there.
to make sure that we are only chasing those dollars which support preidentified county goals.
otherwise we would spread ourselves too thin.
then what I just heard today is we need to make sure that the county auditor as well as the county attorney's office is included in these conversations, and purchasing, thank you.
and that we stress that it's one-time money.
and that goes along with the idea of not chasing every dollar and being mindful of whether it fits with a preexisting policy.
>> right.
you're getting to another point, what my last point was before you broke in on me.
my point is that the auditor -- I don't know what her concerns are.
i don't know what the county attorney's concerns are.
i don't know what purchasing's concerns are.
i don't know what pbo's concerns are.
these are folks that we have to deal with.
but I do know that if we're going to receive run-time money, federal stimulus money, in my opinion as I stated before, I think it should be utilized for ongoing effect, ongoing impact.
you can do a few things up front, get the money, but at the end of the day you have the program to do it and this program expires when the money runs out.
so we have to be very careful on what we expect when we deal with this stuff because the community may be expecting ongoing effect on on what we're doing here.
and one-time versus ongoing, we face these challenges all the time during the budget cycle, one-time money, we understand that.
this is it, just one-time.
but those ongoing effects is the result of even some of the one-time money that we invest.
so we have to make sure of what we do here is in the best interest of what the public will be thinking in their mind when stimulus package money is received, if received.
>> ms.
pitero?
>> thanks, judge.
it doesn't feel very collaborative when I'm the chief financial officer, I'm the run that has to file the financial statements and sign them for the grants and my grants people are not told of the meeting or included.
which makes me think people are not thinking of the cost of administration of these grants.
it is something that has to be thought of.
when we did the cdbg grants, as you recall, I was given an f.t.e.
we now have six f.t.e.'s working on grants.
with the current grant work load that we have in 2009, we would need seven f.t.e.'s, not additional, seven in total, for our people to be working 40 hours a week to get -- to do this with 20% overtime we would need 5.9, which is a shade under the six, which means my people are putting in 20% overtime to handle the grant load today.
it is not fair to ask them to do more than that, so I am telling you you have to really evaluate these grants and not ignore the work it takes to administer those.
this does not include the transactions through accounts payable, through payroll, again through purchasing, and thank you, Commissioner Gomez, for bringing that up, contractual issues with these grants, and they are significant.
the problem is if we don't handle them right, it endangers our ability to get them in the future.
if the reports aren't in on time, they don't want to give us money.
so it is significant and the operating departments of course want this money.
i know that.
but the reality is on the back end there's a lot of unexcited work that needs to be done, and it needs to be done right.
and we don't have the staff for that and even if you gave them to staff we have no place for them to sit.
it's a serious problem.
so I think that we need to look at these cautiously and you need to figure out how you want these administered.
and some of it may be prioritizing.
we can't take everything.
the ones that are most important.
because we don't want to take money and not do a good job.
and as it is now, we are filing 682 grant reports a year.
54,000 grant transactions, that's just in grants.
so it is a huge work load.
so I am concerned that my people were not involved in that.
i suspect purchasing wasn't involved and I suspect the county attorney wasn't, which means a whole lot of that collaboration did not collaborate because of the people that are involved in doing the work.
so that's my piece.
>> these are very good points and you're absolutely right.
this is our first step in terms of increasing the collaboration.
and again, what's before us today is the piece in creating that collaboration.
and it's just one piece, and the one piece is basically an informational clearinghouse in the igr's office, but you're absolutely --
>> the question is whether the igr's office is the appropriate place.
>> that is a good question.
>> the committee that met yesterday, did they discuss the point person or point department?
>> no, sir.
no.
the intent of the meeting yesterday was more to discuss opportunities that were out there and then issues that departments might be facing.
as it relates to the invitation that was extended or not extended --
>> don't worry about that.
>> that became very apparent yesterday that we had more players that needed to be involved, and they certainly will be in the future if that's the court's desire.
>> I have three points that I think are important.
one is that when I think of what mr.
eckstein has to do between now and the end of June or July, I think he will be inundated with legislation.
so to the extent that the state of Texas does stuff that impacts us, I expect him to be the point person for that.
secondly there seems to me that this money is filing down from the federal government and we don't control timing of it, but we do control whether or not we want to participate, and if so, whether we file an application and how we deal with the other things ourselves.
i don't see any way to get around if there's a grant in the health and human services area, having the executive manager of health and human services involved, as well as the budget analyst from pbo, and at some point the auditor and purchasing.
so it seems to me that mr.
eckstein at some point would be in a position to do this, but the learning curve is great.
if you're talking about a grant for the sheriff's office, you're talking about that budget analyst, sheriff's people, see what I'm saying, people with expertise in the area.
the other thing is that I think that we ought to more formally address long-term impact or long-term expectation from the government of Travis County and the people that know that and whether or not we can meet them really are the executive manager, the budget analysts, and others outside of the intergovernmental office.
in my view Commissioner Eckhardt -- and if another member of the court is interested, should meet with the executive managers and purchasing director, auditor's office, maybe look at this thing and try to come back to us on something or with something.
whoever the point person or point department should be is fine with me.
so I don't have -- I really don't have a dog in that hunt.
but when I think of who should help us make that call, who is in the best position to get a sort of notice of grant opportunities, and I guess we're looking at the stimulus money as well as other grant opportunities, right?
>> I had initially only looked at it in regard to the stimulus funding because it's going so fast, but --
>> if it's the stimulus money only, that tells me that for the next 60 days mr.
eckstein may well not be available.
when I look at the other grants, it seems on some of them we really ought to be trying to access them if they are as I understand.
and it may be that from time to time we need mr.
eckstein to help us contact people in inwashington, d.c.
to get the specifics that you need in order to get the grant.
so I guess my point is that maybe we ought to try to get you and another member of the court to meet with executive managers, purchasing, the auditor and come back with us, not only with a recommendation as to who point person or point department should be, but any of the other specific things that we should be doing.
there's no way to get around the requirement that somebody has to help us comply with whatever the grant audit requirements are.
so we may as well go ahead and address that.
i am mindful, though, that some of these grants really provide for funding for administrative procedures, right?
it may be low, but if you're talking about a substantial amount of money, a low percent may well be enough to cover one or two f.t.e.'s.
and if there's a way for us to do that and we need to do it to do it accurately, then I think we ought to be open to doing it.
>> yeah.
the problem that we've seen in terms of the administrative costs, and there may be someone from one of the departments here that can address it a little better than i, but the problem that I have seen is that those administrative costs are fairly low, the administrative percentages are fairly low in terms of dollars that you can use.
and while it makes it easier for the departments to administer and report, it makes it more difficult on folks like susan to do all of what needs to be done.
>> amount of money that we get is substantial, then it may be that we ought to eat that ourselves.
we can do that.
you would hate to spend $50,000 if you're getting 50, but I see no problem with spending another 70, 75,000 if we're getting several hundred thousand dollars to meet a need that clear clearly exists.
>> judge, that comes back to prioritizing those grants.
if they're going to be beneficial to us both fondlely as well as impact -- both financially as well as impact the local community, I think we can prioritize it a little bit higher.
but if it's going to cost us too much in terms of loss of administrative monitoring and all of that, that might not be one of the things that we would put on the list.
but I'm willing to work with you on that.
i don't want to hold it up a whole bunch either.
i don't want to hold anybody up.
and so I think it makes sense, judge, to rely on the executive managers of the departments.
they can prioritize within their function and then let us know what needs to move fast.
and we can evaluate.
and -- but I think we can use our current structure that we have in place.
that's what they were meant to do.
that's the way they were meant to work.
and I would rely on the executive managers and other staff that we have in place to help us prioritize and get this thing moving.
i don't want to hold it up.
>> and I want to stress that, that nothing in the proposal that was presented for today would have changed the procedure of the individual departments or the individual elected officials in their pursuit of grant money because we have an incredible wealth of talent and also years of expertise in these lines of grants.
>> so we need to be more systematic.
i think that was the point.
there is a world of grant opportunities out there, but each one of them comes with specific restrictions and strings and we need to make sure that we know what those are and can meet them.
and I don't know that if somebody asked me how -- if a department says I'm interested in doing this grant, how should I proceed, I've always just told them, how much is the grant worth and what obligations are at the end of it?
go ahead and apply.
we can always deal with the contract later on.
but to be more systematic up front, I think it requires -- I'm glad y'all went ahead and started moving on this, Commissioner Eckhardt and the committee, but it does seem to me that we ought to have the big people there, all of them, with an eye to coming to the court with a specific policy for us to consider and act on.
and if we focus on the stimulus money, we need to know what requirement dozen does this meet and can we meet them and do we have to put in more local resources and that has to be weighed against the amount that we receive if we get the grant.
>> one of the things --
>> rodney?
you weren't here when we actually ended up doing this, but I would like to maybe revisit something that the court did some time ago, and that was indirect costs tied into the grant.
when we received the money, indirect costs was tied into that.
what is that percentage of that indirect cost that's in the grant amount?
it would be good to know that because it is being discussed here and I know we did that sometime ago.
i need to know what that is and did it change?
what is the status of that indirect cost that's associated with grant application.
>> I'll certainly look into that.
>> please look into that.
>> one of the things I was going to tell -- just mention to the court is that you'll notice over the last few weeks as it relates to the grants, you've seen discussions of new grants or continuation grants, and that is an attempt to apprise the court of the information as best we can and then also what we're trying to do in addition to that is the backup material that you get, provide some cover information that has a little bit more detail in terms of, you know, ongoing dollars, one-time dollars.
the length of the grant.
you get the f.t.e.
information and that sort of thing.
but get a little bit more detail in the information so that it provides you with as much as possible and then be able to answer any questions you might have as well as the departments.
>> ms.
perez?
>> yes, sir.
judge and court, alicia perez, executive manager for administrative operations.
and I just wanted to provide you some anecdotal experience that we've had with the federal stimulus.
as you know, there's about 2.27 million available to Travis County for energy efficiency projects.
and we've been doing some research.
and I think this is probably one of the points that perhaps Commissioner Eckhardt and rodney and dietz have been looking at because we've been asking questions.
i think right now there's still a lot that we don't know about the federal stimulus, how to apply, what the money exactly will be used for and what the approval process is.
we are in the process of learning, attending webinars, luncheons and finding out all the information that we can.
there is a need for some coordination county-wide because for example on this particular grant that we're looking at in facilities management, it asks that county be registered as a whole before you can apply to doe.
so we've been trying to find out and found that hhs I believe is registered with the federal government, so now we need to find out if that same registration is what we use for doe.
so I think it would be beneficial to have some coordination so that we don't all duplicate the same efforts that we're going through in terms of the requirements that the federal government, some of those can be streamlined.
at the same time I think that would be beneficial so that that information can also be shared with the auditor and we can work with the auditor on these grants as we are applying for them.
r.
so that the auditor, purchasing, pbo, is aware of the administrative costs or allowances that will be provided by the grant because they'll all be different.
and packaging all that and I think having some coordination would be beneficial so that all the package can come together, and we're not each duplicating the same process.
>> I move that we authorize the Commissioners Eckhardt and Gomez to work with our executive managers and dietz eckstein to the extent that he can become available, representatives from the sheriff's office, the auditor -- representative from the auditor's office and purchasing.
i think I mentioned everybody.
to put together a proposal that enables us to cooperate and collaborate and be more systematic in our efforts to access the national stimulus dollars.
that's the motion.
>> second.
>> seconded by Commissioner Huber.
and we'll have it back on the agenda next week if y'all are ready.
if not, we'll carry it to the week after that.
and --
>> I'd love to keep it on the agenda for next week just to keep the fire und us.
>> yeah.
>> and I think we've very different concerns and wishes today.
so to extent that that can be incorporated into the discussions, they would be beneficial.
okay?
any discussion of that motion?
and also to express our appreciation for those who worked thus far.
all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, April 28, 2009 6:10 PM