Travis County Commissioners Court
October 20, 2009,
Item A4
A4.
consider and take appropriate action regarding the Travis County vehicle use policy, including: 1.
equipment on constables vehicles; 2.
modification of vehicle replacement schedule; 3.
assignment and use of new and auxiliary vehicles; and 4.
composition of vehicle use committee.
by the way, we will need to discuss this item in executive session with legal counsel so we will have a clear understanding of the authority of the Commissioners court regarding the constable's offices and the constable's offices authority regarding the Commissioners court and equipment and funds.
>> good afternoon, judge, Commissioners.
last week in the work session we had a discussion regarding the standard equipment in the constable vehicles, we talked about the replacement schedule as it relates to the recommendation.
there was some recommendations laid out in terms of -- of what -- what the staff's recommendations were.
for -- for the replacement policy and the -- and the equipment to be included in the constable's vehicles and those recommendations I will just repeat once again.
recommendations as to review the entire policy, utilizing the vehicle users committee and making new policy recommendations in 2010 to be implemented in 2011.
to utilize the failing vehicle funding to address any vehicles that -- that were deemed to be failing during 2010.
>> what was the first part of that now?
>> the first part was to review the entire policy.
>> okay, next one.
>> using the vehicle users committee.
during fiscal 2010.
with the implementation of the new policy to take place for 2011, to utilize the failing vehicle funds.
>> okay, that's -- sorry.
failing vehicle fund.
>> yes, sir.
>> how much money is in that fund.
>> I believe it's about 250?
no.
95.
95,000.
>> that's about what we budget annually.
>> that's correct.
>> that money is used for what now?
>> when vehicles are deemed to be -- to be non-repairable or if the repairs are such that it would -- that it would -- would be more than the value of the vehicle than typically it is, it's replaced using those funds.
then finally, the -- the request for the reimbursement resolution to be approved, which is on court item no.
5, I believe it is, yes.
item no.
5, to allow for us to expedite the purchase of the vehicles for fiscal 2010.
and then to -- to reimburse once we get the proceeds back.
we will be happy to answer any questions that you might have.
>> okay.
but the amount said fourth and five.
>> yes, sir.
>> has the constable vehicles equipped in what manner.
>> the amount in 5 has the vehicles equipped at the $28,000 level.
which was page number 8 in your backup from last week.
i apologize, I didn't run extra copies, but they were -- they were basically everything down to the light bar.
and the equipment that would typically be put on the sheriff's vehicles.
as you recall during the discussion, there were two packages included in the budget.
package for constables which was about 28,000, then the sheriff's patrol package which included sirens, speaker, headlight, taillight, flashers and a few other additional pieces, including the camera system.
>> so the total would be how much?
>> the sheriff's, the total of the sheriff's eye owe.
>> 37.
>> 37,000.
>> last week we quoted about 39-2, but it's 37.
we went back ---- that would come on a sheriff's vehicle that is not included and is currently the constable's package.
>> right.
it's about a $9,000 -- excuse me,.
>> not 9,000.
>> $9,000, excuse me.
>> and what would be the cost just to -- to add the cameras.
>> the cameras are --
>> [indiscernible] lately, extended warranty on them, up to -- up to -- warranty for five years, is about $5,010, I believe, was the last point that we had.
it may go up towards the end of the year, prices go up sometimes.
but right now it's about $5,010.
>> so it's the largest ticket item in the list of add-ons.
>> yes.
>> so just laying out options here, there's a constable vehicle package currently at 28,000 that we just added the camera, rounded up to 6,000.
that would be 34,000, or if we did the complete sheriff package, that would be 37,000?
>> yes.
>> correct about that?
>> yes.
>> so the -- so the item no.
5 is -- is door number 3, which is 37,000.
>> that's correct.
>> [one moment please for change in captioners] there's two vehicles for constable 2.
there's four vehicles for constable 3.
two vehicles for constable 4.
and seven vehicles for constable 5.
>> okay.
so how many of these do we have cameras included or would we have to add the cameras if --
>> you would have to add the cameras to all of these.
>> wait, I thought you were saying the $37,000 packages which includes the camera systems.
>> the cameras are included in the sheriff's vehicles, not the constable's vehicles.
so if you wanted to include the cameras in the 17 constable vehicles, that would be the additional 5,000.
>> I'm confused then.
the item number 5 was the resolution to pay for those 17 cars at the $37,000 level, right?
>> 28,000.
>> no, the 28,000.
>> the 28,000, that's correct.
>> sorry, my mistake.
>> so the 28,000 --
>> if you add the cameras then you have 33,010.
>> you've got 17 times $5,000.
>> right.
>> so a $28,000 vehicle comes where what equipment?
what law enforcement equipment, I guess it would be?
>> that includes the pursuit package sedan, spotlight gun rack or shotgun rack, center console, fire extinguisher, security system with armor protection, rifle rack.
in the trunk, front bumper guard, flashlights with charger, computer docking station and g.p.s.
antenna.
>> flashlight with chargers, is that flashlight on top of the car on in the governor compartment.
>> hand-held flashlight, it would go inside the vehicle.
>> that doesn't include a siren, does it?
>> no, sir.
>> but it includes the cage, correct?
>> yes.
>> but the light that's on top of the vehicle --
>> there is no light on top of the vehicle on these cars.
>> all right, but the light on top of the sheriff's vehicle, is that on top of the car or in the grill?
>> both, but --
>> what's the cost of that light bar?
>> a light bar, which is about $2,250.
>> hmmm.
the light on top of the car costs $2,000.
>> it comes with the controller and a siren.
>> so the 2250 covers the light bar, controller and sirens.
>> yes.
>> three items.
>> okay.
>> so really when we -- if we just were to add cameras and light bars, we would have to add $7,000 per car.
>> correct.
>> and that's where we arrived at the 35.
>> at the 35,000, right?
>> see, it's 35 to get to that point.
>> okay.
so the vehicles that the constables have right now have -- okay, some have cameras but not all of them.
is that the situation?
and some have the light bar but not all of them, or do all of them have the light bar on the current -- current cars?
>>
>> [inaudible] precinct 3.
chief deputy.
in 2002 and 2003, constables' offices 1, 2 and 3 applied for a grant through dps and at that point in time all three of the offices got cameras for their cars under a grant.
100% grant funding.
those cameras are now seven years old, and as I said in weeks before, we don't want to put old, obsolete cameras into our new cars.
>> okay, but after you receive the grant funds, all of the vehicles in those three precincts had -- cameras?
>> over time -- we've got two sitting in our closet that we're using for parts for broken down.
>> after receipt of the grant funds, did all of the cars in those three precincts have cameras?
>> to my knowledge, yes, sir.
>> not all in precinct 2.
>> [inaudible] not all vehicles in precinct 2 have cameras in theirs because of that grant process, it's my understanding that some of them did, not all of them did, so there are some of the vehicles that we have that do not have cameras, but I would say the majority do.
and that's because cameras were purchased with moneys that were used out of the budget but not out of the grant.
and that's what went ahead and put cameras in the vehicles a few years ago.
>> so today some of the cars have cameras, some don't.
>> yes.
>> some of the cameras work, some don't.
>> yes.
>> and these cameras are not the ones that we last approved for the constables.
>> I think we probably have -- of the new cars, we might have one vehicle or two that have the new cameras in there.
>> okay.
yes, sir, precinct 1.
>> dan thomas, constable precinct 1.
precinct 1, they were the cameras under the grant.
some of them work, some of them don't work.
we don't have any updated cameras in our cars.
>> okay, but the constables would like to have cameras in all of the cars that execute warrants and serve civil papers and do patrol and whatever else you do.
>> all nonsupervisory.
>> I'm sorry?
>> nonsupervisory.
i don't see the need spending the money for the chief deputy and -- in our precinct, speaking for our precinct, and the constable, when our own deputies don't have adequate equipment.
we're not going to, you know, make that a priority to have supervisors that make traffic stops or get involved in incidences on an infrequent manner when we have depend fist out there -- deputies out there every day coming on collisions and traffic stops, executing warrants, serving their process.
>> okay.
now, when I look at the vehicle advisory committee, if we take out the -- well, I guess we can't do that.
but I see five, ten, 15, 20 -- I see between 25 and 30 members.
it's my view that the committee would get a whole lot more done if it had six or seven people.
because what we're about to ask the committee to do is to look at our policies and how we take the primary use vehicles and secondary use and auxiliary cars.
i think what we need to do is revisit policies ma we put in place more than a decade ago, right?
>> yes, sir.
>> frankly, I don't see 25, 30 people getting the work done.
the other thing is we kind of have every department that uses vehicles with member on a committee, right?
looks like every constable precinct is represented.
my recommendation would be that there would be one representative from the constables and that you all rotate the membership annually or biannually for fair representation.
i see several from the sheriff's office.
for them it seems to me that law enforcement and corrections, I mean it's easy to get to six or seven.
the charge I have in mind really is for this to become more of a working group than before.
and the goal is to be fair to everybody that -- all the vehicle users.
now, I don't know how the rest of the court feels on this, but this is not the kind of situation that -- I mean it would take this court an agenda item every week for three or four months to get the work done that I think we ought to get a good working -- not that the other one was bad, I just think it's too large.
it was so unwieldy, I don't know how we expect them to get a good job done for us.
last time before we got the policies in place we allly did a whole lot of work on it.
we did enough work to kind of make us uneasy about bringing it up again.
but with six or seven people charged to do it and given authorization to do it right, I mean I think we can all take a fresh look at vehicle use here and maybe try to put in place policies that actually serve us well today.
so we've got the vehicles use before us recommended by the committee, which based on what we do about equipment, either we leave the same or increase the amount, then I think we look at the composition on the vehicle use committee, and there's nothing magical about six or seven, but I think when you get more than tenure inviting problems that -- ten, you are inviting problems that you have to deal with.
just the assignment of new or used cars, I entered that last work session with different ideas than what we really have in place today.
and I don't know whether my recollection of the policy discussion years and years ago was faulty or what, but I think this -- you know, a lot of members of this court were not on the committee -- on the Commissioners court when we put the old policies in place, so a good understanding of a new policy may serve all of us well.
the other things that I do think we ought to look at, the vehicle replacement policy and the schedule and try to put in place something that is workable and that we can fund.
i'm just kind of speaking off the cuff after looking at this and kind of mulling over it a couple weeks.
>> in the last work session, one suggestion or recommendation that everyone seemed to embrace at that time and the recommendation coming from the constables and something that appeared to have some cost savings and that was the suggestion that they look -- we look at the -- the year and mileage combination on the vehicles being six years, 90,000 miles.
now, I don't know the full scale of what cost savings that would be looking at that other than what existing policy suggests.
i haven't had a chance to make a full comparison.
i'm just wondering would the committee -- whether it's made up how many, seven, ten, whatever the numbers may end up being, would they also get a chance to look at the cost savings as recommended by the constables as far as saving the county some money in the long term by looking at a six-year, 90,000-mile policy.
and has that actually been scrutinized closely to see if that is really the case, and if so, how much would we probably save?
>> we ran the numbers on if the policy was changed at six years and 90,000 miles, we went back and looked at all of the vehicles that were -- that were eligible under that criteria, and it actually is about $4.1 million more than the current policy.
now, that does not take into account the maintenance costs for those vehicles that might fall within that eligible.
that's a little bit more research that would have -- would have to take place.
but in the time that we had to kind of take a look at this and -- and analyze it, it looks to be about $4.1 million more, if it were fully funded.
so --
>> and I guess what you're suggesting is that the deductions that would be applied to that amount, the total amount, deduction meaning the expense of maintenance and upkeep, hasn't really hit that figure, it also costs us this additional dollars because of the -- of the years of service and mileage that these particular vehicles have.
is that what you are --
>> that's right.
do a vehicle by vehicle analysis to see what the annual maintenance costs are for each individual vehicle that would fall under that criteria, and then discount that against the cost to purchase the new vehicles obviously because there would be a savings there.
as a result.
but if you were just looking at a straight purchase to purchase comparison, you're about 4.1 million.
>> 4.1 million?
>> yes, sir.
>> also,
>> [inaudible], precinct 3, you also have the cost of loss of work by the employee, the productivity of an employee with the vehicle being down.
you have a big cost to our environment and these cars that are shooting oil out of the reend and dumping oil on our streets.
so there's a lot of costs here that are also in effect there and the cost of a deputy going, transporting a car, two deputies replacing cars.
so I think, you know, just the productivity part alone and the cost to our environment running old raggedy cars around, to be blunt about it, I think that's a big impact that we don't know to show as an example to the community and especially --
>> constable in precinct 1, danny thomas.
also what we were talking about in the work session that I think -- I don't know if it was you, Commissioner, I don't want to quote you, Commissioner Davis, but it appears I understand 4.1 something, that's just if we change the year and mileage.
but as far as we're going to do it all the way across, we need to figure out how much more money the county would save if that vehicle came off at 80 to 90,000, and then auctioning that vehicle off, how much more money would go back into the funding.
i would think it would be much more money saved that way as opposed to a car sat 80-some-thousand at auction block.
i think might look into that because looking at 90,000, you get more money for that opposed to 180,000 that's smoking and whatever.
i would think that would be the cost savings for the county also.
i still say purchasing cars in bulk for everybody, I haven't heard them say that in a cost savings, opposed to buying so many for the sheriff's department, so many for the constables office at one time.
i think that's a savings, should be a savings there.
also, the venues like you brought up might be cheaper to go that round.
but I've experienced friends that have taxi cab cars that buy cars from auction, they don't buy many cars that have $180,000.
>> but we buy them all at one time, we just buy county vehicles?
>> not always, judge.
there's sometimes it gets spread out.
sometimes I don't have all the funding in place to purchase all the vehicles so it does get spread out.
but that doesn't really matter.
we buy off a co-op purchasing system, either the state or buy board or hgac out of houston.
the dealers already have a government rate that they are going to be charging the government entities.
it's already bulk buy to its max.
i do not see getting much better on the purchase values unless we start talking about different vehicles.
if we start talking about a lesser vehicle without a frame underneath it and some other options that we could go to, we could get a lesser vehicle, but that's not what I advise.
>> well, we ought to look at that though.
here's what I have in mind in terms of a composition of a committee.
constables, one person.
sheriff's law enforcement, one person.
t.s.o., corrections, one person.
and I give them two because they typically operate kind of separately and have different needs.
transportation and natural resources, one person.
that's four.
county attorney, district attorney and others that need investigator-type cars, which would be juvenile justice, et cetera, one person.
that's four.
mike joyce has to be on the committee whether he wants to or not.
you are on there now as a nonvoting member, right?
>> yes, sir.
>> the question is whether you want to become voting.
p.b.o., one person.
that's six people.
who else do we need?
purchasing?
purchasing, one person, that's seven.
>>
>> [inaudible].
>> no, i.t.s.
needs to be picked up -- unless they have a whole lot more people down there than I think, they ought to be covered by one or the others, I'm thinking.
>>
>> [inaudible].
>> the county attorney, district attorney, juvenile justice, records management -- I don't know why one person wouldn't be able to represent them.
>> do you want to include i.t.s.
for the technical aspects, especially with those cameras.
>> I wouldn't do it, but they probably will want to make their case so I suggest we approve this tentative list, bring it back next week for final action.
because next week we ought to bring back a charge to the committee.
in my view, we ought to have funding, how we fund presently and what we think funding flaws are.
my view is that if we need to go ahead and place the order by a certain time, then we need to creatively figure out a way to have that funding back up so we can approve the order whenever we need to to implement that cycle, right?
our goal ought to be to get delivery a whole lot sooner and there's been a funding problem for us so we ought to deal with that.
kinds of vehicles, I think we ought to look at that.
any possible cost savings, actions we can take, I think this committee ought to look at that.
and I think everybody with an idea ought to get it to us between now and Friday so we can include tonight the charge and ask the committee to look at it.
when the committee comes back with this work in terms of trying to implement whatever we approve, I think the size will matter a whole lot less.
but I'm hopeful that we can put in place a charge and a committee where the real work can be done and recommendations presented to the court mid-spring so we can include whatever we need to put in the budget, right?
preliminary budget for action in 2011.
now --
>> judge, just for point of clarification, were you talking about all of them being voting members?
>> so far is what I would do.
>> I agree.
>> I know it's not fun coming to all these meetings and working as well ago everybody else and -- as everybody else and not having a chance to vote on it.
if we come up with seven, everybody has a chance to vote, right?
if we do that and we look at how to modify the replacement schedule, we have taken care of b and c.
i'm sorry, b and d.
but b would be in the charge, and I've just thrown out some ideas that I think should be included in the charge that I really heard today and during the previous work session.
so I'm thinking that if we can all provide input, say by Friday of this week, and next Tuesday we can take action.
so if you have ideas that you want to make sure the court considers for inclusion in the charge, by all means get those to us.
but I think we ought to get -- try to get the right committee in place, turn them loose.
all of these are subject to fiscal constraints that we don't know at this time, so I would just act like they aren't there and recommend what I thought ought to be done and, you know, we may have to implement it over time.
but if we have a plan that we want to implement, we at least know what it is.
that's what I'm thinking.
>> and judge, I have no problem with that per se.
i have a concern, though, I guess as I stated in the work session is the interim.
i continue to hear the concern about if vehicles break down and persons are not able to perform their duties as constables because of a shortage of vehicles or whatever, my concern is do we have enough adequate fund to go take care of whatever that is to get that vehicle up and going or to do something to get something there where the services that's rendered by the constable will not be prohibited or limited.
to some degree.
so I would like to maybe visit that while we're doing all these other things to make sure we don't have a disruption in services that the constables provide.
>> well, you got only # $5,000 now and that would be less than for the cars, but we do have the ability mid-year on an emergency basis to respond accordingly.
and we do have reserve funds available to take care of any sort of emergency.
>> okay.
>> now, there are requests before us which we need to address after we chat with legal.
and the other thing is c, assignment and use of -- I think that will be part of the charge.
what we need to do is get legal advice and act on what is in item number 5, right?
and 6.
>> yes, sir, 5 and 6.
>> 5 and 6.
and in my view, we ought to hear from legal before we do that.
the problem with hearing from legal before we do that, it will take, in my view, one hour to cover executive session, and in the past every time I've taken one hour, it's taken two.
so we'll see if we can come back closer to one hour.
are we ready for executive session?
then we will take this item into executive session under the consultation with attorney exception to the open meetings act.
and it will be back up -- that was a 4.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, October 20, 2009 1:40 PM
