Travis County Commissioners Court
February 16, 2010,
Item 9
>> now, we have several staff people here on an item that's required by law, number 9.
consider and take appropriate action on establishment of and appointments to the Travis County local data advisory board as required by chapter 60 of the Texas code of criminal procedure, as amended by house bill 2730 passed by the 81st Texas legislature.
>> I'm roger jefferies competitive managers of public safety.
what we're asking you to do or the Commissioner's court to do is to establish what's called data advisory board which is required by the house bill 2730 whose any county whose disposition completeness personal is below 90%, and that is the case with Travis County.
there are statutory mandated participants including the sheriff, district attorney, county attorney, district clerk, county clerk, police chief of the largest municipality and a representative of what they call the county's automated data processing services, which for Travis County, that would be our i.t.s.
department.
you should have received an amended backup Friday.
we have names associated with those office wes're asking you to commission.
sheriff greg hamilton and osborn will be representing the sheriff's department on the advisory board.
for the district attorney's office, rosemary landburg and vicky skinner.
for the county attorneys office, david escamilla and steve coppell.
district clerk michelle brinkman.
county clerk naomi bailey.
police chief of the largest municipality, obviously Austin police department is art acevedo and colleen waters and from our county i.t.s.
department is joe harlo.
sort of the layman's definition of the disposition completeness percentage, that's basically in the criminal justice system, all the information that accompanies a charge from arrest to disposition as divided into the total number of charges filed in a county.
for Travis County, our percent is 32 percent as reported by d.p.s.
and the charge of this group would be to deliver a plan by June 1, 2010, that would outline a plan to get our disposition completeness percentage up to 90% and maintain 90% by January 1, 2013.
>> so that's 90% during what period?
a year or five years or --
>> I think it's one year.
it's one year.
>> is there a reasonable expectation we'll ever get to that point?
>> I might defer to our experts on this.
take a stab at it, jeff?
>> Commissioner, steve coppell with the county county attorney's office.
the 2013 deadline is for reporting years 2010.
in 2014, it will be for the reporting years 2011 and 2012.
they go on a calendar basis.
the percentage of reporting, the sherrif's office establishes the gross total number of cases in any given year that are filed, because they report the arrests, and I will say the sheriff's department is, according to d.p.s., somewhere above 95% in having all those cases that are reported.
then it goes to the prosecutors and either the district attorney or county attorney's office files the case and that's another reporting step in the process.
finally, the courts have to do the disposition, but the courts don't report it.
it's the district and county clerks that do reports open behalf of the courts for the final dispositions.
the statute passed requires this to be done on a yearly basis, and it anticipates that, for each year, you will be required to match that 90%.
i don't know whether that's ever going to be possible, and I think d.p.s.
even would indicate that, simply because most cases are not disposed of in one year, in either court, county courts or district courts.
so you will always have some lag in the positions.
when we began meeting in November or October -- October or November of last year, when this came to everybody's attention, with regards to the requirements of this committee, there's been an ad hoc committee meeting already of most of the people here when trying to figure out what the situation is with regard to the reporting.
even though the d.p.s.
indicates the reporting percentage is approximately 30%, that's the total percentage.
as I said, travis captain sheriffs is above 90% and then the prosecutors' reports to put them all together after that and arrive at a full county percentage.
as we've looked at the problem, as you know, we have been converting to various data processing systems for about 7 to 8 years, and we are getting rid of the cases above a 30% rate in our courts.
that's not --
>> thank you!
>> that's not what the statistic is.
it's the reporting of those completed cases that is the gauge.
and we've gone back and looked at the bill history, and there was some discussion about the bill at the time of its passage, and the way they viewed it is we've always been required to report to the d.p.s.
regarding the the statistics, that's always been mandated.
but the passage of the bill was to encourage counties to find better ways and quicker ways to report those statistics.
we have been attempting to do that and have now, I think with the help of i.t.s.
and a lot of the other people involved here, have reached the point where we kind of know what the problem is, and part of the problem is getting some of our machines to talk to -- in the appropriate fashion to d.p.s.
we can talk in certain ways but not in the most expeditious.
in other words, there should be some electronic means where the data is sessionally sucked out of our -- essentially sucked out of our data database once it's input and sent to the d.p.s.
that's not happening on the prosecutor and court level as it should, but we have been working on that problem and we think we know what some of the answers, are but that's part of what this plan will be.
we anticipate having a plan where we can focus on getting that report done and get it done and meet the deadlines.
i don't know whether we'll be at 90% or not, and I don't think d.p.s.
knows that or not.
but that's what -- where we're going and where we see the problem is mainly a data reporting problem, not a production of completed cases problem.
and that's what we're going to work on in the committee, and I think we're meeting this week again.
so we have been meeting every week for the last couple of weeks, going through, figuring out what the problem is.
so that's where we are with regard to this.
>> two or three questions.
the plan is supposed to show how we will dispose of 90% off the -- of the cases.
>> that's correct.
there are issues with regard to their language and definitions we might want to take up with the legislature in the next session of what that is, because there is some issues from a legal standpoint about whether they can do that or not.
>> yeah.
now, before we do that, this article expires September 1, 2013.
that was a good question, by the way, we should improve the (inaudible).
>> that's for you to decide once we figure out what the plan is.
>> speaking of the court, now, we missed our deadline for appointing appointing the board or the committee.
however, the plan is due June 1, 2010.
it says a local advisory board established under this article shall submit it to the department.
so this board that we are about to appoint is supposed to submit that plan.
do we think that implies that the Commissioners court is supposed to approve that or should y'all just put it together and file it in a timely manner?
i do not --
>> I do not think that just by the board being appointed that we have abdicated your responsibility to make or approve that report.
i think we have been meeting in the anticipation that we would do what we could, and that's why we have been meeting ahead of time before the official appointment of the board by the Commissioners court to see if we can ascertain the problem before budget cycle to see if there are implications in the budget with what we may or may not need with regard to that, come up with a plan that, in mat process, would be presented to the Commissioners court that would say we want your approval of the plan to be submitted to the d.p.s.
>> the fiscal notes have no significant monetary impact, right?
>> I think that's what the fiscal note said.
having worked there four sessions, I'm not sure a lot of thought went into that.
no physical note attached to the state.
i would say that would be true.
>> that's true.
>> I don't know whether they're required -- in that statute, require that they be informed what that physical note means to each individual county.
>> I think should be prepared to enlighten them on fiscal situation of Travis County.
do we have county people involved when the legislation was being considered by the legislature?
>> I don't know.
>> came to my attention a week ago.
>> judge, actually, this piece of legislation caught us by surprise as well.
it was part of an omnibus bill regarding the department of public safety that represented load core course carried and this snuck in before we knew how it would affect Travis County.
>> you have six to eight departments impacted.
it would be unusual for there not to be some fiscal impact.
>> the fiscal note did say they anticipated no significant fiscal impact to local governments.
>> I remember seeing that a few days ago.
we taught to try to monitor that as best we can and if there is fiscal impact, significant or not, we taught to let them know what that is.
typically, you wouldn't have that many county departments offices involved without some fiscal significance.
but if we have to do this, we have to do it.
that 90% completeness for urban counties does seem to be, you know, difficult to reach.
still, it would be good information to start collecting, it's just that you don't do it easily.
but I happily reviewed the drop dead date for the legislation as 2013, you know, which is kind of unusual for the legislature, too.
>> in way, in addition to requiring that this committee be established, they also said it was supposed to be on it and that's what we're doing today.
>> I have a couple of questions about it.
is this the first time the state has set a standard for disposition rate across the board?
do we know?
>> I don't know.
>> my recollection, Commissioner, is that's true for a specific percentage.
they've always required us to report to d.p.s.
and there is some specific requirements with regard to the statute, with regard to how soon the sheriff's department or the 24-hour law enforcement authorities have to report an arrest and how soon the clerk's office has to report dispositions so many days after the final judgment in the case or the sentence in a case, and, also, some disposition rates for how fast the prosecutors offices, whatever flavor they are, can review the cases.
but I don't think that there's ever been a specific percentage of the reporting or percentage of dispositions that have been required by the state.
>> okay.
and do we have a bead yet on what the conference of urban counties may be doing, a coordinated response to implementing this legislation?
>> I think they are trying to find out from their other member counties whether -- what their concerns are about this as well.
i think this caught them by surprise as well.
>> all right, I would imagine.
does i.t.s.
have any interface with the conference of urban counties' technology department?
they are looking at coordinated responses on many other issues like this.
>> director of i.t.s.
yes, we meet with counterparts and review the activities of the tech share program program that cuc operates.
and as indicated, there was nothing on their radar about this.
>> they were sort of caught by surprise.
>> right.
>> by this omnibus provision as well.
i agree with the judge's statement that, in general, in theory, this is a good thing, that a reporting standardized across the state so we can see what best practices are.
but it does concern me we have a 32% adult disposition rate at least according to d.p.s.
at this point.
what is the juvenile disposition rate?
>> 9 #% reported in January for 2007 data -- 96%.
>> perhaps this is speculative at this point, but do we know what the temperatures between those two data sets is?
is there a gigo (phonetic) aspect to it or are we disposing of juvenile cases more rapidly?
>> the juvenile system reports their data manually and ours is automated.
it is several databases that interact with each other and that need to interact with the d.p.s., whereas the juvenile system is manual.
so sounds like it provides for a better reporting average, per se.
>> do we see any kind of uptick in speedy trial allegation that would indicate that, from the defense bar's standpoint, we are slow on our disposition?
>> I can't speak for the district attorney's office.
i haven't been familiar with them on a while on that.
but I don't know very many defense lawyers that want a speedy trial.
>> good point.
and could you speak just for people who are listening, from a prosecution standpoint, it's very advantageous for us to move these cases as quickly as appropriate for many reasons.
one is the availability of witnesses, another is the freshness of evidence.
the third, of course, is cost, overall cost.
>> the district attorneys probably have a little bit different situation, since they have longer investigations on a lot of their cases than we do on the county court's level.
we have some that have investigation, but most of them are "investigated on the street" except for maybe family violence and some of those areas.
so our investigation time is very short.
once we get that, it's just getting all the videos, the digitals, the offense reports, the results of breath and blood tests altogether in one packet so we can get that full information and on both levels have open file policy.
so everyone gets to see what it is.
it's a matter of disposing the cases and get it on a doctor.
so we've got the doctors, as you're aware of, that you've helped fund with regard to jail call reduction doctors and other things where we're actively moving those cases as fast as we can.
once they're in jail, they move real fast.
if they're out on bond, there's an issue with regard to lawyers getting paid and people having enough money to do that.
so we haven't seen a big slowdown, but there's that taken into account.
we can move the cases as fast as the courts can hear them.
>> and then conversely, we've also approved specialty courts, which I imagine, you know, from a public safety and justice standpoint, it might not be the best thing to move the case swiftly.
we might want to keep the case open for a while in order to have a hammer to make the specialty courts operate optimally.
is that an appropriate --
>> I think so.
i think, actually, we were talking about that earlier.
that could be part of this.
>> okay.
ultimately, as we're looking at this, do you all anticipate that the advisory board will look at abilities to split out this data by court and division so that we can take an informed look by court?
again, if it's a regular dwi doctor, I could see us wanting a fast disposition rate, but if it's a specialty document where we're maintaining somebody in a program, withholding final disposition --
>> joe could speak on this more at breakout, but we could do that now.
the problem is not telling the court or anybody else that wants to know how many cases are in each of the county courts at law, or there may be a little bit in which cases have been pulled out to the jail reduction doctor, or they're assigned to a court and it's just a special docket on top of that and that's the way we operate, so those statistics would be available for the courts once we pull it out.
it's a question of once we dispose of them, as eved by the juveniles, there is a lot less numbers.
they report it manually.
we can or report it, too, manually on all levels to the d.p.s.
with 35,000-plus misdemeanor cases filed in travis captain each year, that takes a lot of fte, full employees to manually do that.
so that's why we count on the machines to talk to each other and have an automated reporting system.
that doesn't seem to be happening as efficiently as it should.
>> are you finished?
>> mm-hmm.
>> thank you.
just a couple of questions and I'll be as brief as I can.
but I'm still trying to wrap my arms around expenditures as far as cost is concerned, dealing with the omnibus bill that we have to comply with.
i'm still trying to see what it would cost to share this information.
and I know that joe and other internet people in the different departments have to funnel the information through some mechanism whereby it's available to those who have to have it.
i don't know where the appendages are of where the information is going.
once I have my arms around that, then there has to be some costs associated for providing this data to those that have concern over this particular omnibus deal.
do we have any, inkling of the cost magnitude as far as making this data relatively available to those who need to have it for compliance?
>> I'll defer to either one of you if you have information, but I think one of the charges of the data advisory board would be to develop a plan to improve our percentage, which, you know, may require additional resources.
i'm not sure we know exactly what that would be right now.
>> look, tas young man said earlier, I'm trying to look beyond the plan, meaning that there may be some moneys associated with that.
so within the plan itself, in my opinion, it aught to be some outreach as far as locking down the money aspect as far as what's coming back in the plan.
that's basically where I'm coming from.
>> I would say this, is that once we determine where the data incon -- inconsistenties are in the data prioritying ro seases, it's slicing and dicing it to report it to who requested it.
the committee is looking to the processes, is the data in the right place and consistent, so we have to do that before we can put a dollar figure on anything.
>> I guess under the umbrella of a question mark, as far as the dollar amount or the dollar figure --
>> yes, sir.
>> -- but, we know that, in my opinion, it appears there will be one dollar amount.
there will be one.
all right.
thanks.
>> we'll appoint the individuals identified in mr.
jeffreys memo dated February 8, 2010, there be establishing the local data advisory board as required by state law.
discussion?
all in favor?
passes by unanimous vote.
thank you for volunteering to serve.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, February 16, 2010 2:15 PM
