Travis County Commissioners Court
May 5, 2009,
Item 8
8.
ratify grant application by civil courts family drug court program to lubbock county for pass-through grant funding from the criminal justice division, office of the governor, for a training stipend to attend specialized national and -- let me indicate that intention to call up item no.
-- number 31 next.
but now we are discussing number 8.
>> this is more in the nature of a -- of an update.
>> okay.
>> I知 passing down notes from a meeting that occurred yesterday, another cross departmental meeting.
that -- that was very productive.
and saw that -- that there was -- there is benefit to the cross departmental meeting already coming through, which is very nice to see.
I would have gotten this to you sooner, but of course the meeting didn't adjourn until 4:00.
it went on for two hours.
just blocking it out, suggestions and concerns procedural versus policy questions, in recognize that the policy questions wouldn't be addressed by any sort of procedural clearinghouse, the proposal that is being considered as a clearinghouse with cross departmental needs.
but of the procedural suggestions one was that the clearinghouse effort must not slow down the already existing process.
another was that the clearinghouse efforts must not short circuit the already existing and well vetted process.
although all were interested in finding ways to streamline the process where it would not -- it would not -- negatively impact the -- the various hoops that we really do need to jump through to make sure that -- that a grant is appropriate for us.
the departments -- our veteran grant applicants should aid those newer to grant application, there are several departments who have a long history of grant applications and then several departments that are really rather new to the game and when you consider the large amounts of money where the grant pools -- pools could stretch over more than one department, there's an opportunity for those who are veteran departments to really aid those who are new to the process.
so -- one of the deliverables that was discussed for the clearinghouse and for the cross departmental meetings was a shared database, either a shared server, shared drive I知 sorry or some sort of intranet that was shared by those who do grants across the department to include the database of the arra grant opportunities of Travis County pursuing, to include a library of departments grant manuals so that the departments that don't yet have grant manuals can borrow from the best.
to include the budget rules, excellent budget rules that are already in use regarding grants and also to -- to include a contact list of individuals in various Travis County departments who work on grants as well as their counter parts in other governmental entities such as aisd, a.p.d., city of Austin, and various others, lcra, you name it.
also,
>> [ 8.
consider and take appropriate action on procedure for coordinating grant applications from various county departments.
] identify as soon as possible databases dealing with -- all ra dollars.
it came up during the meeting that different federal departments have different databases.
one that was discussed was the -- was said connect that apparently is attached to -- to the department of energy.
whereas there's another one for the department of justice.
and -- and in both instances it requests that you -- become registered and have a point person in Travis County that -- that -- that I suppose a -- a number is assigned.
so -- so we discussed that and -- concerns with purchasing being possible the point person for all of those or some of those.
another procedural suggestion was to identify -- to identify an individual or group of individuals who administer the clearinghouse and to facilitate the cross departmental meetings and then the final procedural element that came up was to identify procedures for forwarding grant opportunities to other entities that are situated to take advantage of them, identifying opportunities for coordination with other entities, and identifying conflict and resolution with other entities' efforts.
if we and you another entity that was also going after the same pot of money but we recognized they were in a better position to take it, that we would stand aside.
those were the procedural issues that came up.
the policy questions that came up were -- were how aggressively should Travis County pursue competitive grants as distinguished from formula grant.
how should Travis County address conflicts between divisions of county government seeking the same grant.
how large of a grant is necessary to justify additional f.t.e.'s, additional infrastructure and/or the creation of new programs. Should Travis County adhere to the supplanting rule, federal money can't supplant already identified local money.
in some instances arra grants would -- many in the meeting expressed concern about that, they may waive it today but it would come back tomorrow.
many were advocating that we stick with the supplanting rule, irrespective of what the arra waiver may be.
also is Travis County interested in loans as opposed to grants and if so under what circumstances.
so -- so these -- these were -- this is a list of suggestions and concerns that came up that I will -- that I will e-mail to all of those who participated yesterday.
as well as anybody else who is interested to make sure that we have a comprehensive list.
I just thought that I would provide that update.
there's no action in it.
it just that good things are happening.
>> these are excellent points to a policy perspective.
everything that's been mentioned here.
I致e been kind of wrestling with some things, I wanted to make sure that the stimulus package money is utilized.
I wanted to make sure that
>> [indiscernible] that is one-time money.
the public makes sure this is still just one-time money.
I think as stated before that our intent is to make sure has one-time money can be used for ongoing affairs.
and saying that I wanted to make sure that we -- that we are able to monitor and track what -- what this money is being used for.
and how it's being used.
because it appears to me that -- that we -- that we are about -- about trying to make sure that we also make people whole.
and -- and in my opinion part of this is that in my opinion still part of the job market.
and of course this -- whatever is necessary in looking at the departments, dealing with grants all of these other kind of things we provide services with this particular money but there may be also opportunities that we look at it as far as -- as far as making persons whole in the community whereby the job was any other way of making them whole.
>> [one moment please for change in captioners]
>> who do we have identified?
because I知 looking for the long-term effects or the ongoing effects also as far as what we're doing here.
so there are some things that we're doing and I want to make sure folks understand it.
>> that's what I did was I was reminded of some of the things that we consider important when I saw that long list on item 7 of all of the grants that we are applying for and I would assume these go through the existing structure we have for executive managers who know what is occurring in your function and what would be helpful in terms of a contract.
I mean a grant.
so we can kind of fall back on the process that we've been utilizing.
for instance, the one big issue that always comes up is the monitoring of these grants and making sure that the auditor, purchasing, the county attorney, i.t., any department that provides support to the grant being utilized in a function so that it has the good results that we expect.
and so in addition to that, I sent some comments to Commissioner Eckhardt and I printed those out and I致e given them to you so that we can kind of consider all of these things.
I will assume in all of this that the department requesting the grant has done some planning for themselves to see what their expectations are of the results of the grants.
and I知 assuming we will improve the lives of constituents with these grants and yes, it is one-time money, so we want to make sure that we don't get caught in -- and if we're going to have really good results from one-time money, it's going to result in a permanent program.
woapt to make absolutely sure that we know there will are some additional costs for the major program if it becomes permanent.
then as well when we have -- we advanced some of this money from the general fund and I guess pbo, you would need to look at this issue.
there is some interest lost by fronting this money.
so that's just another factor that we need to take into consideration when we think about how to match -- to provide the match for some of the programs. The other thing is when we look at the bungts when we consider funding or applying for grants, is it a statutory requirement that county government has?
that's been very basic to everything that we do.
and so the duration of the grant and everything we do after is very important to us.
and the grant amount, is it sufficient to do its intended purpose.
we need to look at those things very carefully.
I would assume that calls to pbo -- that falls to pbo to consider the costs, anything in terms of costs.
that's why I think the executive manager really needs to be involved in this.
and in addition to that, we know the drill.
we have to go to the auditor, you have to go to the purchasing, you have to go to county attorney.
and for signoffs on all these applications to make sure that we're all on the same page.
and those are just kind of a few of the issues that came up for me as I looked at that list of grants and what we want this money to do for our constituents.
so it's just -- this is just the beginning.
we need to keep working to make sure we have people on the same page.
>> another meeting is scheduled.
dietz, would you like to tell us about the next meeting that's scheduled so we can make sure we get all the appropriate people around the table?
because yesterday was quite good.
there was a tremendous number of people around the table of those who had gazillions of war stories and an incredible depth of experience with grants and those who were completely new to the issue as well, but had simply seen that there are arra opportunities that apply to what they do.
>> judge Biscoe, members of the court, deeks eckstein from governmental relations just here as a resource witness.
we've had two meetings so far and have planned another one for next week.
we keep out growing the room that we schedule our meeting in, so I think we're going to try to get the expo center for next week.
but there is a lot -- there's obviously a lot of interest and effort being put in by all kinds of people all over the county.
I think as you mentioned earlier, one of the big themes of yesterday's meeting was to recognize that we're in this situation where we have extremely complex grants that we're trying to go for.
in spite of the media sense of this is just a lot of money being thrown out, all these grants still have federal and sometimes state requirements with them.
certainly all the reporting, the auditing, all that sort of stuff is still there.
and at the same time they're trying to get applications in and decisions made as quickly as possible.
so that's really the intention that everybody in the county is working under.
we had people there representing the auditor's office, purchasing and the coark's office yesterday -- the county attorney's office yesterday.
and one of the themes was meeting was as soon as you're thinking about from a departmental perspective about applying for some of this money, you have a project you've got in mind, talk to those people, the auditor, the county attorney, and purchasing.
and then of course, you know, you may have some needs in terms of facilities management or i.t.s., equipment, that sort of thing.
but the thinking being bring people into that process as quickly as possible so that we all really put our stories together quickly as possible and can bring a complete, thorough, vetted application to the court as quickly as possible.
and I think everybody in the room was committed to that.
>> are they executive managers at the table?
>> if I remember correctly, we had two of the executive managers at yesterday's meetings, but if not them, their deputies weresort of the key persons in their department were at the meeting yesterday.
we had a very good cross-section of that and plus representation from some of the other elected officials' office.
>> I just have a question.
there are quite a few procedural and policy items here.
some of them sound more pressing to deal with than others.
I知 just curious about the urgency of getting our arms around these items and what kind of prioritization may be needed to deal with that.
I mean, how is that being looked at?
>> well, I think the good news is our executive managers are so up to minute on this stuff and they're moving very, very quickly, and because -- in many respects because of this cross-departmental meetings, these two cross-departmental meetings and the continuation of them, things are moving very fast and a lot of the procedural stuff I値l submit to you all.
but it seems to me in many case that a lot of the procedural stuff is being handled by the executive managers as well as the various grant professionals in the other elected's shops, the sheriff's department, juvenile justice and that kind of thing.
so for instance, just picking one out of the hat in regard to identifying as soon as possible.
this is one that was very, very pressing, identifying someone as soon as possible for a point person to be responsible for each of the federal databases.
purchasing stepped up and said it will be us and if not us -- sorry, cyd.
at least in terms of connect it seemed appropriate that purchasing was the said connect point person.
and there was discussion about around the table the consensus was it would be figured out amongst those who were participating who should be the point person for each of these federal databases.
and then that information would be disseminated to the others who also fell under that same federal department.
but what do you all think?
>> I think that's a really great question, Commissioner Huber.
because for health and human services, we are dealing with formula funding that is coming, which means the money is coming.
and so the changes that we will have to make in our delivery mechanisms in order to be able to get the money out and be used in the way that it's intended is very critical.
and the money I知 speaking about is related to weatherization funding and exponential increase that health and human services will be handing out in response to a conduit we work with every year.
so there are some things we know based on the policies and procedures of the grant anyway, and then there are a few things that we don't know.
those funds through the state department of housing and community affairs are up for public community right now.
so there may be a few things that change.
so we have been in touch with our brothers and sisters to talk about this is what we expect and here's what we expect the work load to be.
however, the critical decisions will be how many positions can we tolerate to be able to more efficiently engage the community around getting homes to actually weatherize.
I致e been using the example that we normally do 120 homes a year.
we are looking at doing potentially as many as 700 homes in the next two years.
so you can see that that brings with it an incredible resource issue not only in the evaluation of the applications of folks who might be interested, but all the way through to the actual performance of the work.
so we are in the midst of our planning around that and expect to be back with you in a couple of weeks to give you some idea of the impact.
the other thing that we know about this grant through the years is that we've only had five percent admin that we can draw from this grant.
as far as we know right now that's all we will have.
so we're looking at about three and a half million dollars and five percent of that.
we'll do our best to work within that number, but depending on what it takes to get the money out, we may have some additional needs.
>> and this goes straight to Commissioner Gomez's concerns northwards to it -- concerns in regard to it being one-time meeting.
the difference of one-time money through a formula that basically puts an existing program on steroids for a finite period of time versus one-time money in a competitive grant circumstance and whether or not we go after those because of the evaluation difficulties and just those sorts of issues.
>> and with this grant particularly what we do know is that we have not been able to spend even the straf dollars on anything that would be -- the administrative dollars on anything that would be considered to be permanent, no permanent employees, no permanent fixtures, if you will.
so that creates sort of the challenge of how do we get the work done without leaving a footprint so to speak.
so just an example in response to your question.
>> any other comments from any committee member?
>> the next meeting, would you tell us when the next meeting is.
>> 2:00 p.m., and I知 not sure if we've confirmed a location, but we will broadcast that on the county's e-mail and website and we have now an extensive mailing list of people who are participating in these meetings and we'll make sure that get it out.
it will be next Monday, may 11th at 2:00 p.m.
>> I was not at the meeting, but Commissioner Huber,, I think your point is a good one on prioritization.
there is no question that there is a limit right now as to the infrastructure we have to support these.
and if you do not prioritize them, then it becomes first come, first serve.
and whoever gets there then first, whatever capacity we have, we take care of them.
there is no more.
so I think it is very important for y'all to really look at what we want do do and which ones are most important programmatically.
just that weatherization one has got a lot of problems already.
we're having contract issues.
they're not going smoothly.
they're not meeting time deadlines.
and then the money comes and you don't have a contract in place.
I mean, all of that has to be in place and it doesn't just happen.
so I think that the court really needs to look at prioritization and I think it's more than just coordination.
I think, you know, -- I hate to lay work on anyone else, but perhaps planning and budgets, since they're the planning office, this needs to sit down and pull all this stuff together, what it's going to cost to administer them, bring them into priority, which ones will require ongoing money, which ones are just one-time.
all of that becomes important because if we inadvertently enter into grants that require any kind of match or for us to continue those programs, we really need to be sure we've got the money to do that and that it doesn't conflict with programs that we already don't have enough money to administer as well as we would like.
so that would be my only suggestion, if you don't prioritize it, it will be first come, first serve, which wouldn't be fine.
>> so as a final document, should we expect to see a list of recommendations?
I guess I知 looking for more recommendations than questions and concerns.
>> I think that at this point the cross-departmental meetings are really working and in some regard, like I said, many of the procedural issues are being figured out among those who are participating.
however, the policy issues are things that in most instances fall at our feet, but again, those who are sitting around the table in these cross-departmental meetings are developing -- they're developing a muscle for saying yes, this is a policy issue.
and for those of us around the table at least, and it's a pretty well represented table so far, with the inclusion of the auditor's office and purchasing yesterday and I imagine more will come, that there will be recommendations.
it's nice to see all these people who are so in the trenches doing this everyday.
ultimately they will provide us guidance as far as what their recommendations will be on these policy issues.
and in some cases the policy questions are different based on the departments and the types of grant money that's coming down.
it's a very complicated and fascinating train.
so I guess the short answer is yes, there will be some recommendations that come out for our consideration, but right now we're still just trying to figure out who has got what and what it looks like.
>> do we have a written description of the current -- of our system today?
>> pbo has budget rules in regard to grant applications as well as especially manuel in the auditor's office, correct?
>> we start with those and basically we want to refine those, improve them if we can?
make changes that would enable us to deal with a larger amount?
if we need a different -- if we need additional f.t.e.'s, I don't know how you tell the public we turn money down because we didn't have people to process them.
but if I had a department with a limited number of employees and I thought I needed two more, I壇 ask for it.
and some of this stuff too, like the weatherization deal, it seems to me there's no way to do that without contracting it out.
then the question is what kind of monitoring staff do we need to do that right?
and this is sort of historic for us, but I don't know that we can make any progress without specific recommendations.
>> there are actually -- as I see it, judge, Commissioners, there's actually kind of three pieces to this thing.
there's that front end coordination piece of what's available, whether we're going to go for them, some of those questions that have policy issues.
there is the financial reporting piece of the ongoing piece, which pbo has historically done and will continue to do.
we actually spoke this morning about how we're going to refine what information comes to the court with the long-term -- the long-term commitments that are required on the part of the county.
so that you have a clear picture as we've talked about before.
and then of course, susan's piece from the standpoint of reporting and insuring that the funds are being spent appropriately.
and that also ties, of course, to the purchasing piece as well.
so there are a number of pieces that are in there.
the guidelines do give a good description of the process in terms of who the players are in the current grant process.
it's that front end piece that appears to be where we need the -- the concentrated effort, if you will, especially with the number of dollars that we're talking about.
and that is prioritizing what we're going after, when the deadlines are and how that occurs.
and so I think those are the things that at least from my perspective we need to identify.
>> what I was going to suggest is that I think that the auditor has asked a number of very important questions, some of which ultimately become policy questions for the court.
for instance, if a grant is based on the notion that we're going to spend a whole lot of money and then get reimbursed at the end of some grant period, it may be that there's a policy decision the court wants to make about it whether we want to even participate in that given whatever kind of cash flow that the county is looking at.
so I think it would be good to try to compile a list of all those kinds of questions that just help us in our thinking about and our reviewing of potential grant opportunities.
and what we can do is in our -- in the meetings of this working group, this interdepartmental working group, we have talked about the grants in those kinds of -- in those terms. We recognize that there was some grants that were based on reimbursement or that were only loans that would have to be repaid or that required some kind of a match.
we could at least compile that information so that the court as it looks at the landscape of what's possible out there, it understands that here's some money that's going to be in a grant situation, there will be some -- these kinds of reporting requirements.
here's some money that we're really going to try to do a match on and here's what the size of the match is going to be.
it seems to me that that information would be valuable for the court in giving us some policy guidance to the departments about which we want to pursue and which we don't.
and I壇 like to work with the auditor's on trying to figure out where are some the questions that we can pretty much discern from the outlines of the grants of the opportunities so that we can begin at least assembling that information.
>> city of Austin also has applied for some money also.
I知 quite sure that they have several needs that they're considering.
and I recall earlier about as far as what we're looking at here is looking at those particular governmental entities that are probably seeking money and providing a service and whether we should yield to the city or the city should yield to us.
I was thinking about the employee assistance program that sherri fleming brought up, the increase of that type of service to the community and the increased numbers going from where we are now to another high number of service providers.
I知 just wondering does the city of course -- they have similar steps, but I知 just wondering are they -- I guess that's one of those questions we'll have to answer as we look at all of this, that's probably another example of another governmental entity maybe the umbrella doing similar things.
we need to contract with us or interlocal or whatever.
there may be some opportunities like that.
I知 just kind of fleshing things out to see how it intersects.
the pieces of all of this.
and that's -- and prioritization I think is key.
>> two comments on that, Commissioner.
one is there's already been one meeting of a sort of interagency, intergovernmental group consisting of the city, the school district, the a.c.c.
and up, and rodney attended that on behalf of the county.
that group is going to meet again and presumably continue meeting.
so we're hoping in as many of these situations as possible that we're -- we can coordinate or collaborate with our intergovernmental partners.
the other thing that we did recognize yesterday and that you alluded to is the notion that it may be that some of these grants we think are great ideas, but they're not for us to do.
so we actually developed a category of grants where our initial response at least is that Travis County won't pursue the grant and we hope that meals on wheels will or some other service organization that really is -- would be the direct provider of those services so that we in a sense get out of their way as they decide to pursue that funding opportunity.
but maybe can offer them whatever assistance we can in terms of information or that sort of thing.
>> somebody will let us know when to put it back on the agenda?
>> if you don't mind, let me synthesize three things.
one, there was consensus around the table that the current rules are good.
I didn't hear any substantial complaint around the table yesterday that the current procedure has any -- has any problems with the exception of complaints about, you know, how many people you have to contact, but so what?
we all recognize that's simply the deal.
but there was also consensus around the table that coordination across departments is poor, but this is helping.
and that prioritization due to the unusual nature of this arra money in coming so fast and it being so so much.
so problems that we identify around arra may not necessarily be problems that will continue when we go back to the normal -- the normal grant world.
yes, we will continue to work through these cross-departmental meetings and let the court know when it needs to be agentized again.
>> did I also hear that we need to stick to our current practice that we have followed in terms of grants?
>> if we think we can improve t.
>> the monitoring, the money?
>> that was the consensus that the rules are good, we just need to all work -- it was the coordination issue.
for instance, there are a couple of dprants out of -- there's a couple of grants related to criminal justice -- one related to criminal justice that I know of and one related to the department of energy that I知 aware of where multiple departments are looking at the same pot of money.
and they'll need to coordinate.
and if they can't come to consensus about how to go for the grant together as Travis County, then they'll have to come to us and have us decide.
>> and so, judge, do you want to see a list of priorities then as recommendations and priorities?
priorities.
>> I think so.
>> continue --
>> I hate to see 12 or 13 people working feverishly and bringing it back to the court and us starting from scratch.
>> I think that would be good.
>> I think we would be a lot more sufficient if we respond to certain recommendations.
if we think that our current procedures are good for standard grants, then I guess the question is should we have a special procedure for federal stimulus money.
it would shorten our discussion.
the other thing is that I thought this was a grants issue.
when I heard loans I thought that somebody had attended the wrong meeting.
I never thought we would be borrowing money.
I thought we would take advantage of grant opportunities.
so if you take loans off the table, you shorten your meetings, don't you?
>> at least a little.
>> yeah.
>> I知 not only on the -- I知 not on the committee, but if I were, I would take a good look at our current procedure.
and if I could improve it, I would try to do that.
if not, I would just leave it in place and then the question is how do we -- with the huge infusion of federal dollars, what do we need to do differently?
and I know there would be a greater accountability issues than we're used to dealing with just because of the amount of money.
the other thing is if you look at current county staff, a serious question is do we have enough people to do it right?
and if not, which steps do we take?
I may come to one of those committee meeting fz someone is going to be absent.
we'll have it back on at the appropriate time in the future.
how's that?
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, May 5, 2009 5:42 PM