Travis County Commissioners Court
April 13, 2010,
Item 3
Item number 3 is to approve proclamation recognizing mary moran in criminal justice planning for being honored for outstanding leadership in offender workforce development by the national offender workforce development partnership.
>> judge, commissioners, good morning. I'm executive manager of justice and public safety and i'm hear with kimberly pierce who is planning manager for criminal justice planning and ms. Mary moran. We are here to support the reading of a proclamation honoring mary today. She was -- this was a great investment, judge, i know you made about three years ago, to help people find employment. Mary has been in the position three years. She's placed over 1400 -- to date, 1446 ex-offenders in jobs in travis county. She was recently honored by a national organization -- mary, help me with the name.
>> national institute of corrections.
>> honored her. She is one of nine honorees nationally. She was honored in dallas last week and we thought it was appropriate that we honor her too here in travis county and are here to support reading of a proclamation that recognizes her work with offenders in travis county.
>> many of ms. Moran's colleagues, friends, supporters and families are here. If you all would like to come forward. Maybe stand around the table there. Ms. Moran says that if you keep working hard, you may receive a similar award at some point in the future.
>> [laughter] so get close to her. Should i read the proclamation?
>> yes, sir.
>> it reads: one in 15 people in the united states will serve a prison term during their lifetime and one in 31 individuals in the united states is currently in prison on probation or on parole. These numbers are staggering and continue to increase with 7.3 million people currently involved in the criminal justice system. Whereas having a meaningful job is known to reduce the likelihood of reoffending; whereas the travis county commissioners court funded the offender workforce development administrator in 2007; whereas mary moran was hired for that position in april 2007 and has worked tirelessly to reduce the barriers to employment based by ex-offenders. Whereas ms. Moran has made it her professional goal to place ex-offenders in meaningful jobs with a livable wage. Whereas ms. Moran works with employers within the community and travis county to place men and women coming out of prison and jail into productive employment. Whereas ms. Moran works collaboratively with governmental, faith based and nonprofit organizations to enhance community involvement with ex-offenders. Whereas ms. Moran developed a 12-member team that participated in the national institute of corrections offender workforce development certification. Whereas ms. Moran's team has trained and certified over 200 offender employment specialists and have assisted over 1200 ex-offenders in travis county. 1200 or 1400?
>> that 1200 was through fy '09. To date it's 1436.
>> i wanted ms. Moran to know i didn't cut her short 200.
>> [laughter] on april 7, 2010, the national defendant offender workforce development partnership presented to mary moran the national outstanding leadership and workforce award for individuals who have demonstrated leadership in creating and promoting offender workforce development partnerships, programs, policies, practices and/or legislative initiatives. Now therefore be it resolved that the travis county commissioners court recognizes mary moran for her contributions in offender workforce development and finding meaningful employment for travis county ex-offenders and congratulations her for her national defendant offender workforce development award and i move approval.
>> second.
>> [applause]
>> do you want to say anything?
>> speech. Latch laugh.
>> i want to thank the commissioners and judge biscoe for their boldness and vision in creating this position and also my people that i work with and especially my bosses, my two bosses, kimberly and roger, for their trust and support in this allowing me to develop this program. And i also want to thank sheriff hamilton for his support in allowing ms. Borego to work closely with me and it's a great collaboration and i really thank sheriff hamilton for that. And i also have here my family, my husband, bennie, behind me. And then my daughter adriana, and also my team of offender workforce development specialists that have really played a big part in helping me in this endeavor. As well as my colleagues that i work with in my office. Every one of them have been instrumental in helping build this program and i am so excited and honored because i also have some ex-offenders that are here today to support me in what i've done with them, and i continue to help them by putting them in activities, special projects that having out in the community to provide supportive services for some of our offendsers that there's a gap. But i really appreciate this award and i am also proud that i was the only female to receive an award at this event because it's mainly a man thing.
>> [laughter] it's mainly a man thing and i was honored to have gotten an award as the only female. So that's another thing to be proud of. And i thank you so very much for this honor. Thank you.
>> well, thank you very much.
>> thank you.
>> [applause]
>> this is a big day and i know there are probably other folk that would like to speak in support of this, but for many, many years this commissioners court has tried to wrap around its hand around a major league problem which we're actually trying to get ex-offenders reinstated back into the community by supporting them with services that would make them whole and be strong participants in society. And i'd like to, number one, i'd like to thank the judge for his leadership in this. Of course, i followed his lead, but we were both pretty aggressive in this entire court. We're pretty aggressive, commissioner gomez and those that really came here on the early settings trying to get a handle on how do we address this type of situation. And, of course, we have made a lot of progress when commissioner hueber and commissioner eckhardt has come on. And travis county could be very proud of that it's doing assisting ex-offenders. We need to give travis county a big applause because i think it's a role model to what we're doing that other folks are looking at us and saying, well, how is travis county doing it. And another good example, judge, i'd like again to thank you for your leadership on this because it's been a heck of a road to follow. Now, what i did ask, though, i recall, judge, when we kind of looked back and we said, well, we're asking employers out there in the community to hire ex-offenders. And yet, you know, we didn't want to exempt travis county from this at all. And, of course, judge during that time we said we would like to see if travis county can also hire ex-offenders as we're asking other employers of the county to do. And, of course, that has been done, so i asked roger jeffries to show numbers to see exactly what travis county has done as far as hiring ex-offenders, because i wanted to stick my thumb in my suspenders like everybody else and this is what travis county has done and roger jeffries sent me some information and, of course, through this effort, judge, i understand there's 60 travis -- have hired 60 ex-offenders for travis county. And i just think that's great. So employers out there can say, well, travis county is doing their share and we have done that. So i think we have something to really hold on to to reduce recidivism and things like ,but also make folks whole. And this effort has produced over 1400 employers -- ex-offender positions throughout all of travis county. Over -- i think it's 1446. But anyway, that's what this effort has done is to give ex-offenders a second bite in the apple to make sure they have employment opportunities. This organization, again, has done that county-wide to ensure that these ex-offendsers have an opportunity to work and, of course, to in the intent to reduce recidivism by making them whole by a lot of services, but not only that sustainable jobs to continue this effort. So i think, you know, everybody in my opinion ought to be a big applause, employers and everybody else.
>> [applause] i'm excited. It's been a long, long road. It's been a long road and we can kind of see some light at the end of the tunnel.
>> thanks so much again.
>> thank you all.
>> [applause]
>> spend your huge cash award wisely. Keep up the good work.
>> [laughter]
>> thank you. Keep up the good work.
>> we know that many other assisted, thank all of you for all that you do.
>> thank you all.
>> thank you.
>> [applause]
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, April 13, 2010 1:53 PM
