Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, August 31, 2010,
Item 19
Vehicle use item next, that's number 19. And after 19, we will call up item number 10. 19 is consider and take appropriate action on the following issues, a, recommendations from travis county vehicle users committee; b requests by constables for vehicles and c, mobile radio replacement.
>> good morning, judge and commissioners. A few weeks ago, judge, you requested us to come back with you with some answers to several questions and we have done that. With the exception of number 8. Number 8, if you see on the list there, is how many vehicles are used day in, day out. That was a question we just didn't have the ability to answer. It's too difficult to find out from each division, department, area how they utilize their vehicles on a day in, day out basis. We could possibly provide you with mileage data on a monthly, weekly, annual basis, but to know whether they are using that particular vehicle on a particular day, we just don't have access to that information. So i apologize for that.
>>
>> [inaudible] not included in this list is one that i had. That was the question of the warranty on such vehicles. And as far as trying to get as much life out of that, especially if those vehicles were
>> [inaudible] warranty. One of the things that i asked, was there other manufacturers out there such as whomever that we're not using right now, we're using crown victorias and ford and stuff like that, but there are other manufacturers who have longer warranties, and if so, could they be put in the mix as far as the use of those kind of vehicles. Because that was pretty important to me that if they were under warranties, we get those services continually done under warranty and especially if they were 100,000 miles, whatever they were -- are, rather, and so i didn't see that response in here because i think during the conversation i think dodge is one of them and chevrolet was another one that had longer warranties on a new replacement vehicle other than what we're using now. And i didn't see that and i don't know why.
>> i apologize, commissioner, if we missed that. But we can certainly research that more and give that information back to you.
>> i appreciate it, thank you.
>> if you want that directly, we can give that to you directly.
>> i think the whole court needs it as far as i'm concerned. Get it to the courtney how you want to deal with it. I just need an answer.
>> i do have some information about the warranties. I would be happy to share that with you. Mike, fleet manager, t.n.r. For travis county. Chrysler has pretty much a three year, 36,000-mile burper to bumper coverage rage. And ford and g.m. You hear about these higher warranties in these vehicles, five years and 60,000 miles for ford, five years and 100,000 miles for general motors. And i didn't find any on chrysler, but these longer warranty periods were for power train use only. There were some other vehicles out there, there's a kia that's advertised i believe at six years, 100,000 miles and whatnot. Some of the problems you get into with these other brands is the availability of parts and getting the vehicles fixed. Also if they find out you are using the vehicle for commercial use or police, law enforcement use, it's not going to be covered. Under the ford, chrysler and chevrolet, we are covered even under the commercial use or the law enforcement use vehicles. We're still covered on the warranty.
>> they are covered?
>> yes, sir. And we do also exercise -- we get everything covered. If it's under warranty, my supervisors understand it's their job to see that it gets taken to the dealer and gets fixed properly under warranty so it would not be any expense to us.
>> chevrolet was one of the ones mentioned.
>> chevrolet has the best power train warranty out there and it's still good under commercial use.
>> okay, well, that was one of the questions i asked and i didn't see it address odd the list of questions in the report today.
>> in fact, we've been buying some chevrolet tahoes lately for police use because of the warranty. We're looking at the life cycle cost of these vehicles and with the added warranty on these vehicles, it does make it look promising and cost effective to use these vehicles at this time.
>> okay. Thank you.
>> okay. For questions 1 through 7, i'm going to refer these to mike. He's prepared most of this information so if you want to go question by question or if you have a particular interest in either one of these, please let us know. Question 9, 10, 11, i'll address those and that's basically the last portion of the information in your packet. And it's combined in that one or a couple of tables at the very back.
>> question 1 had to do with the breakdown of the vehicle list in the preliminary budge out for t.s.o. On primary patrol vehicles would be 72 units. That comes to a total cost of $2,772,000. There are some primary patrol motor replacement, motorcycles. There's three units totaling 85,500. In secondary vehicles are replaced with those primary vehicles that we pull out of the sheriff's department when the replacement is put on the street. There is 24 units that's been identified in secondary vehicles in the sheriff's department which there is no cost to doing that. Sheriff's department has two prisoner vans totaling 92,000. The other secondary replacement vehicles in the sheriff's department, which are considered special use vehicles, undercover vehicles, special vehicles that they may use throughout the sheriff's department and the prison system or other instances. There's two units that fell under that category at $73,000 total. And some miscellaneous equipment that the sheriff's department had were the fork lifts and personnel carrier and a mower. That totaled five units at $123,600.
>> so if the sheriff gets 72 new primary vehicles, all 72 of those that are replaced stay with the sheriff's office?
>> 72 will be the replacement vehicles that we pull out. The best ones are used in the sheriff's department to continue on their duties, and then the others that we have, we pull out the best of them and try to make auxiliary vehicles out of them which we righteous as pool vehicles, -- try to use as pool vehicles, loner vehicles, when other vehicles are in the shop we have a spare vehicle.
>> so they come to fleet management?
>> they come to fleet management, yes, sir. Then i have some constables calling me and saying, hey, i would like to swap this vehicle out, it's my mileage and stuff. We try to accommodate them.
>> okay.
>> number 2, provide the number of patrol, nonpatrol vehicles currently in each of the constable's office. Now, i'm trying to be careful with this question and state that as the policy is written, looking at the chapter 34 replacement policy, it speaks of patrol vehicles only as being in the travis county sheriff's department. With that in mind, when we were working on the new chapter 34 proposal, we tried to eliminate, first, the word secondary vehicles because it just seems to have a bad reflection on what the vehicle is, it could be a brand new vehicle. In doing so we came up with some categories of patrol vehicles, general use vehicles and auxiliary vehicles. The constables have sent us back their list of what they consider their patrol vehicle that they have purchased and got light bars on and sirens and all the emergency equipment to do their jobs. They come back with constable 1 as having 10 patrol units and two general use units. Constable 2 has 22 patrol vehicles and two auxiliary vehicles. Constable 3 has 17 patrol vehicles and three auxiliary vehicles. Constable 4 has six general use vehicles and six auxiliary vehicles. I will make mention that in the fy 11 budget we are trying to move -- four of these will be made into secondary or regular patrol vehicles type of units and should be left with only two auxiliarys at that time. Constable 5, one patrol vehicle, 33 general use vehicles, one auxiliary vehicle.
>> so when we see patrol vehicle, should we think pretty much the same and the patrol vehicle in the sheriff's office?
>> yes, sir.
>> yes, sir. Now, that's been -- their main request through the last year or so was try to get vehicles that are similarly rigged out as a sheriff's patrol vehicle with protection of all the red lights, the headlights, the overhead red light bars on top of their vehicles.
>> well, why is there such a variance in the number of patrol vehicles for constable shop? I mean, you know, you go from 22 to two to six and ten and all these different variances as far as what's patrol and what's actually used for just nonpatrol vehicles. I'm trying to understand that.
>> i think, commissioner, you would have to ask the different elected officials for that.
>> it's a big variance in that and, you know, patrolling -- and i know it's up to the independent elected official as far as how they operate their shop, i understand that, but that is quite a big gap.
>> does the vehicle users committee contemplated any programmatic criteria for the distribution of patrol vehicles versus general use vehicles? For instance, amount of unincorporated territory and -- i mean basically what i'm looking for is a needs criteria, and i will not blame the vehicles user committee if they say no, we've left it to the elected officials.
>> commissioner, yes, that's a no. It's the elected official's decision on how they use their vehicles.
>> because i would like to see some kind of -- and i think this is sort of what we've been driving at for a while is some -- some standard -- i guess what i'm looking for is an objective criteria for -- for the distribution of patrol vehicles versus general use vehicles inside the constable's offices that has some bearing on the duty distribution inside those offices. But i would understand the vehicle users committee saying talk to the constables.
>> i think that would be a policy decision coming from the court. The vehicles user committee's charge was basically to review the current -- or the chapter 34 policy as it was and make revisions as to how we purchase vehicles, what their age, mileage, that criteria and also one of the things we wanted to do was try and standardize the purchase of certain category of vehicles.
>> this raises a policy issue for which the vehicle users committee is not charged with and i know i'm skating down -- skating on thin ice here, but i think it's something that needs to be said. I don't think that from a policy standpoint the -- the travis county taxpayers can afford to have six separate -- i mean a sheriff's department and five smaller sheriff's departments.
>> yes, ma'am. We do see a wide dispersion of uses between the constables' offices.
>> back to the questions, we have number 3 which is what was the currently language in the policy concerning the primary versus secondary vehicles. It is in your backup. And basically a primary vehicle is the patrol vehicles in the sheriff's department only. It was named back in the day when the committee who put this chapter 34 together back in '92 to '93 discussed the urgency, the higher demands for public safety. That the sheriff's department was the department that provided that and named them to have the newest, safest, response time type of vehicles to get to any scene that they needed to get to. Secondary vehicles are really described very simply as those not being a primary vehicle or auxiliary vehicle. Then to tell what you the secondary vehicle; you would need to know what an auxiliary vehicle which is a vehicle that's been replaced from a primary vehicle selection and still has some usage to it. It's not eligible to be replaced. I keep the maintenance money down on them to a minimum. If something major happens to this vehicle, it's out the door. I don't want to spend any more money on them than we have to. So we keep them maintained to safe standard, and then hopefully we have some extras laying around so if one does get a bunch of miles out, one starts having transmission problems or whatnot, i perhaps have another one i can substitute in for it. Trying to keep the funding down on it. Number 4, that's going to be a tricky one also. It's talking about the number of days the tcso and the constable vehicles are out of service. Going and looking in our computer system and setup on it, because i do not know the schedule of anybody's vehicle, it's hard to come up with a pre-determined out-of-service time limit on it. If the vehicle is used five days a week for eight hours, to it's used 40 hours a week, not something the service time the vehicle is in, i cannot come up with a standard out of service time ratio to give you.
>> so in other words, and that was another question that we discussed when we had this before us, and that question is just as stated, and the point of that question was to -- in other words, we had constables say they have breakdowns of a vehicle. And of course the clock starts ticking in my mind when the vehicle is out of service. So the constable's office is not reporting the length of time that particular vehicle is out of service as far as them not being able to use, including how much time it took to repair it and get it back on the road. That was what i -- that was part of the conversation. And so i guess to fix the problem, i'm assuming that they do report to those in authority such as yourself as far as getting data back to us to let us know how long that particular vehicle is out of service? That's what i'm asking.
>> that would be well. I did not receive any such reports from any of the constables stating as such. What i was managed -- was able to do was come up with an average of hours per vehicle that is in the shop for repairs. But by no means does this give you that that vehicle came in on thursday, we were unable to get to it thursday and friday, it sat over the weekend and we got to it may be monday or tuesday. You could look and say it was down four or five days. But if it wasn't being used at that time anyway, then there's a question was it really out of service. But these are things i'm unaware of. There's a lot -- i printed up a bunch of paper, burning a bunch of trees and it was taking an exorbitant amount of time trying to find out. Looking at each individual job order for a vehicle, and i may have 15 job orders on a vehicle or sometimes less, sometimes more. But what i could reasonably come up with were the average hour that vehicles were in the shop. This is per month. And it averaged out one hour per vehicle. This is for the sheriff's department and for the constables. The high number was 1.2 hours. The low number was .7 hours. So the amount of hours that the vehicles are actually being worked on is not all that great and i feel very reasonable, but it does not show the story about it sitting out there waiting to come in to be worked on.
>> so is being worked on the same as time at the shop?
>> that's the point.
>> no, sir, it's really not. And you also have, you know, a lot of times a vehicle -- i'm not saying the constable's vehicle may be down, it may be in a parking lot waiting to get to the shop. So you have this lead time, so to speak, before it gets into the shop. And just because of the sheer amount of mechanics we have, there is a limited number of vehicles they can work on at one time. So you got to get in this queue and get in line and your vehicle, you may have six mechanics, your vehicle may be number 9. So you get those six out first and you start bringing in 7, 8 and 9 and number 9 may have to wait a little longer depending on how you get the other six out of there. So it's hard for us to know exactly. We just don't keep that data when that vehicle is clocked in, when it arrives at the shop, bang, it's here at 8:00 monday morning, it sits for three days waiting to get its turn to be repaired, it might take 30 minutes or an hour or two hours to get repaired and then it's back. We keep the amount of time that the actual mechanic works on it and that's -- that's how we work on our data.
>> let me see if i can abbreviate some of this. Rather than have you all labor through these answers, does the committee have any recommendations for the court to consider today?
>> the committee has a recommendation to go to the "or" language and to list the equipment and the categories, go to the six categories that we've listed, and also the committee has a recommendation to list the appendixes where we detail the patrol vehicle with its equipment and detail the general law enforcement vehicle with its equipment and detail the other law enforcement vehicle with its equipment and to purchase these vehicles in a standardized method and also go to the "or" terminology. And then also vehicles that are outside of that category, give the fleet manager additional authority to approve purchases.
>> i don't know that we can do that today. Ms. Rio, am i right in concluding that in all probability there are no changes that we can adopt that would impact this -- the upcoming annual budget? We have a figure in the preliminary budget already.
>> we have a figure in the preliminary budget of 7.2 million for replacement -- new and replacement vehicles, correct.
>> that figure is based on the old policy.
>> that figure is based on the old policy.
>> and the old policy is -- what's the mileage and the years? Nine years or --
>> 80,000, correct me if i am wrong.
>> were you about to talk to us about reducing that eight years down to seven or six?
>> no, i just was going to bring up a couple of points on the policy, one being that when we discussed in the vehicle users committee, and i don't think this was necessarily voted on but there was an understanding this would probably not go into effect until the fy 12 budget process. The other was to indicate to the court what i indicated last time, based on the recommendations and policy only for this year, which might be a skewed year with the $5 million increase over the 7.2 million. Also to indicate in previous years, most years p.b.o. Has made recommendations consistent with what's been in the policy. Last year was a good example where we were not able to do that and we actually made a recommendation that was less than what was allowable by the policy. The result from the vehicle users committee if it were adopted today would be more likely than not at least we would be asking the vehicle users committee in fy 12 and perhaps bee beyond to consider a reduced amount in the preliminary budget what we would be able to recommend for vehicles and have the equipment. I have worked briefly with mike and don on trying to come up with an idea to give you -- excuse me, come up with an algorithm to give you an idea what the additional cost would be if the court so chose to go to the or instead of the and and we are working through that and have not been able to complete that work.
>> seems to me that rather than rush through this, i guess we ought to conclude that i was hoping we would be able to make some of these decisions in preparation for the upcoming budget.
>> fy 11.
>> yeah. Reality, though, must set in at some point and it just did for me. I think we ought to look to the 2012 budget, which gives us an opportunity to have this on a work session tuesday. I think one challenge will be coming up with a list of the issues that we need to land on on a tuesday. That probably is a two, two and a half hour discussion, isn't it? We have a lot of basic information here. I think we have the -- the issues. If you are looking at a significant hit if we reduce the number of years of mileage, i don't think there is any way to put that in the 2011 budget anyway without exhausting all of the reserve, the allocated reserve line items, which probably is not wise to do at this time. So we have a whole lot of information here. There are additional questions to the ones that we raised in the last work session, but i think if we leave this on the front burner and spend whatever time is necessary to make this decision, by the time that we give budget guidelines, which we normally do in february.
>> january, february time frame.
>> yeah, then it would be -- we would have done a good job. I would hate to try to rush through this today, though.
>> judge?
>> yes, sir.
>> what we do in the meantime, and like i said, we did it with that work session, and, of course, there may be instances whereby, example, i think constable thomas complained about having to take oil out of his trunk of his vehicle to, you know, to provide oil in the engine for the vehicle he was driving. And, of course, what do we do in situations like that while we wait in this process?
>> what should be done in situations like that, commissioner, is there is an earmark on car reserve and there has been for several years for failing vehicles. Vehicles that are -- yes, sir. That earmark currently is 95,500. There could be an argument that earmark should be larger. However, it would be p.b.o.'s recommendation that departments that have vehicles that are unsafe to drive use resources now as correct that situation and work with mike.
>> right. And i was kind of concerned about that especially when they are out of service, they are old. You really can't do anything, and i know those aren't the ones that's on patrol. They are probably just used for general use and i hope to see no one trying to chase patrol around in a vehicle like that. But i'm concerned about that because those opportunities may just happen as we await whatever we need to do to address this concern. So my position is that i want to know what we're doing in the meantime as far as addressing those kind of situations. You said $95,000 put in reserve, but just appears that there ought to be some remedy or some solution to that particular situation. That's why i posed the question.
>> we could get with the -- especially for those doing patrol work, whether we like it or not, we could try to figure out what vehicle is their worst case scenario and try to fix that. It would seem to me if a disabled vehicle really becomes a productivity issue for you, then we would want to try to address that than wait a year. In my view we would tap into whatever funds are available to try to provide sort of an emergency fix. But our thinking would be there wouldn't be a whole lot of examples. We could look at the mileage, the condition of the vehicle, try to figure who is driving it, what that person does, whether that person's performance or productivity is adversely impacted now. So we could do that between now and the end of the fiscal year, right?
>> yes. In fact, i'm working on a memo when i get back to the office on two vehicles, and constable 1 happens to be one of the vehicles i'm going to be asking to use that reserve funds for.
>> see, we could do that on an emergency basis, try to do that. I don't know that we should feel bound by the 95,000. We should feel bound not to increase it that much because every dollar we increase that i guess we're taking from allocated reserve.
>> car reserve, yes, sir.
>> car reserve. But at least that -- that enables us to deal with the worst situations while we prepare to look at -- part of my problem is i was sitting there agonizing over what's a patrol vehicle and what's not. I may have been agonizing in vain because it looks like all the constables that want a patrol vehicle have them except.
>> and then some.
>> looks like four and five, they concentrate most of those in general use, i guess. That's because they do mostly civil and a little -- little patrol law enforcement.
>> yes, sir. But this is where the problem actually comes in is the budgeting process for it. We've been budgeting -- years ago 20,000, 23,000 for the constable vehicles. We have raised it up to 28,000 now. It's nowhere close to the 39,000 that we asked for to do the patrol cars in the sheriff's office. The 28,000 did not include couple as, did not include overhead light bars, did not include sirens. It included the prisoner cage, it included a few lights and that was basically it. So --
>> part of the solution is our realization that wherever we land on what equipment we provide, we ought to fund it is what you are saying. It doesn't make sense to fund 60% of it when we know that when you buy the automobile and equip it you are looking at substantially more. It just means that you have fewer cars that you can purchase and equip.
>> correct. That's the reality where we are.
>> that's correct. If you go to the very last table, it shows --
>> we're not blaming you, ms. Rio, not yet.
>> i'm used to it.
>> it shows you the current budgeted numbers and the usage on the different categories and the cost of your camera system, your radio and mbc. One of the things i wanted to make sure to point out, we're not asking for a change from eight to six-year replacement. The constable representatives agree the eight-year replace many time frame was fine if we went to the "or." everybody was happy with the ae time frame and that was discussed and voted on on the vehicle users committee?
>> or 80,000 miles?
>> yes, sir.
>> first of all, out of naivety, why do the years matter if you have mileage?
>> we have a lot of vehicles in the fleet that are aged and no mileage. The vehicles at del valle get very little miles put on them, but they are used day in and day out inside the campus or just right outside the campus and coming back. We have some that may be 12, 13, 14 years of age and they don't have the mileage on them.
>> does that affected their reliability?
>> yes, it does. I perhaps have more problems out of the older vehicles than the ones with more miles on them.
>> the numbers out of corrections i think maybe tells that story.
>> and also you have a lot in the road maintenance division, also they have a lot of vehicles that just don't get the mileage. I mean you just don't have them. So you've got some pickups out there that are, you know, 15, 16, 17 years old that might have 40, 50,000 miles. Those typically become a maintenance nightmare, high dollar expense. They don't meet the "and" criteria so you have a 15, 16, 17-year-old vehicle you can't replace. Mike does that at times, but the "or" would take care of scenarios like that.
>> my other question or comment is in this month's government fleet magazine, there's an article --
>> i haven't read that yet.
>> -- on utah. And by analyzing all of their data, they ended up raising their mileage from 90,000 to 105,000. Basically proving the data they were collecting there was no significant difference between the 90,000 and the 105,000 retirement. I don't know if this is apples and oranges or not but it might be something we would want to look at because it may relate to the kind of data we're keeping. Some cars may go 105 -- mine is at 185.
>> that's correct. I think when deputy constable suits was doing his research he found some around the area that had higher mile ages, they did have the "or" but they had higher mileagees that we have.
>> lieutenant shane pool, the compact security lieutenant and the vehicle users committee for the support department and the sheriff's office. Just to echo what mike and don were saying and it kind of goes to your question about the mileage, our transport vans and other vehicles similar to that and also the maintenance vehicles that are under the support bureau fall under -- well, the vans are under special use vehicle. We fall into that category where we keep them a significantly long amount of time but they have a lower amount of mileage on them because of the situation that we use them in at the correctional complex. We do have trips back and forth to downtown, but the mileage is always going to be lower. So we're going to be waiting a lot longer for those vehicles to reach the "and" criteria, the years and the mileage to the point where the doors literally are coming off the hinges on some of these vehicles. And trying to get them -- mike does a great job of assessing those vehicles in terms of how many repairs are going against them and so forth and they will come up on the recommended list, but because of the physical constraints, the recommended list doesn't get filled. We're trying to move some of those to the front burners. We will use vehicles until they cannot be used anymore. And i think we always do more with less is the famous saying around the department. And the sedans are a prime example of that. Patrol vehicles that come off line, meet the criteria, come off line are handed down to the corrections bureau and is support bureau and we will continue to use those vehicles as long as they are safe and in operable condition. But when we walk out to a line of vehicles and there's not enough of them that are safe or that will operate, that impacts our operation significantly. So i just -- i mainly wanted to come up and reiterate our support for this change this the policy from the and to the or criteria. The study that you cite, it wouldn't make any difference in our world whether the mileage went up or down because in the corrections we won't hit that mileage target. Not before the wheels literally come off of these vehicles.
>> and one thing i might add just on the mileage criteria, that mileage criteria 80,000, that's when that vehicle could be replaced. If you recall, the power point presentation we made a while back, you have a time frame of 15 to 18, 19 months before that vehicle actually comes in from being purchased and equipped ready to go for that user. In that amount of time, typically you will put anywhere from 10 to 20,000 additional miles on that vehicle so it's really getting replaced at 95, 100, 110 thousand miles.
>> are we able to creatively reduce the time of delivery?
>> we have. It's just there are some factors out there that are beyond our control. By standardizing these -- these vehicles into the categories that you see that will help specifically. If we can order them all equipped category a, b, c, d, that will help tremendously and will reduce our time frame that runs up and down. But you still have the issues that are out of our -- the manufacturer, the city of austin, there's just time in there we have no control over and it's 75% of that time frame.
>> don't we buy roughly the same number of vehicles annually?
>> no, sir.
>> no, sir.
>> it's -- it's a constant wave. Last year we had $3 million for everything.
>>
>> [inaudible].
>> and this year we're asking for 7.2 million. I think we had 35 or 42 patrol cars for fy 10. We're looking at 75 patrol cars for fy 11. It's always this big wave that's going down the ocean. Some days is higher than others.
>> but to a great extent we control that or we can.
>> it's determined -- --
>> we can.
>> it's determined by the policy and which vehicles meet replacement criteria.
>> that policy which we adopted.
>> in '94.
>> it's too old, ms. Rio, i agree with you. But i'm sitting here thinking, i mean i can decide if i have the money to get a car this afternoon, go and find one and buy one. Right? And drive home in it.
>> if you enjoy paying retail prices, yes, sir, you may do that.
>> that's what i'm saying.
>> but you may look around and find a good deal here or there.
>> seems to me our challenge should be maybe we ought to conclude that every year we buy 50 or 60 cars. We place the order early. We order a standard car. Because after we get the car delivered, we still got the put the equipment on it, right? So if we're going to do 50 cars and we have to have the money in hand, we order them and say we want delivery at this time right here. Because it looks like we are voting the money during the budget process a few months after that placing the order, what, six to eight months after that delivery. Then we put the equipment on it. I mean, before you know it, a year has already expired. But my point is that instead of ordering 30 one year, 07 the next, we -- 70 the next, figure out the average, pay for the next three, four years, purchase that number of cars, see how that works. What it means, though, is you get expedited delivery on only what you order. But we could always order in addition to that. I mean there are ways to -- for us to put policies in place that better serve us, i think. One way to do that is try to figure out what your problems are and how to address them. I can hardly wait until the next work session.
>>
>> [inaudible].
>> i like sitting up here just kind of opining like i do. But i do think the worst ones we have, if we can figure out what the problems are, what the fixes are, then we ought to try to revisit those during this budget process. Hopefully that won't be just a whole lot of them.
>> might not be that many.
>> but impact on productivity, clearly a car that needs to be replaced, and it's sort of a emergency situation where the replacement needs to occur now and then we ought to figure out a way to address those. Mr. Suits.
>> yes, sir. Stacy suits, chief dependency constable precinct 3. One suggestion i would have just to kind of get this into a bite-sized size is maybe look at the idea of the cars that have 120,000 or more miles currently, and if you are looking at driving those another year and putting another 15 or 20,000 miles on it, they might not be worth the trouble of fixing, save everybody a lot of time and money. And specifically look at trying to -- of the high mileage cars, regardless of anything, get those out first and out of the way and then look about, you know, focusing and bringing the aging mileage down, but get the real high mileage cars that are currently classified as primary patrol cars off the road or have a good confidence level they are worth keeping.
>> that's my thought on it.
>> okay.
>> kind of like with -- with corrections, their problem is the cars don't get enough miles and they won't meet them by the way they are used. Our usage is different, we get the high miles and we're getting hung on the eight years and it's the ninth year before we get them out. I was just kind of thinking that as a middle ground, something we could do now that's kind of bite sized and doable.
>> okay.
>> judge?
>> yes.
>> i have a request just in advance of the work session. If we could address the issue of performance based distribution in these categories, because it appears to me that the cost driver is not just how many vehicles but what type of vehicles. I agree -- i agree in principle with going to or rather than and. I also agree in standardization of categories as an expedited process and also just a good government process. What i'm still hung up on, though, is the more -- the more of our primary vehicles -- what are currently primary vehicles and what under the new policy would be patrol vehicles that we have, the less total number of vehicles we will be able to afort. And that's just, you know, the pie is only so big. If -- if we had unlimited resources, of course, it would be great just to get everybody every bell and whistle and that would just cover it, but we can't do that. That wouldn't be fiscally prudent and besides that it's just not sauce stainable over time -- sustainable over time. It's not just the number of vehicles that's driving the cost here, it's also the type of vehicle. So i for one would very much like to see in the work session some discussion of performance based distribution of these standard categories of vehicles. Because it is remarkable the difference among constables with regard to what types of vehicles are selected to do their jobs.
>> thank you very much. We will have a work session on this in october. Let's get those -- the worst car list and see if we can deal with those.
>> will do.
>> thank you.
>> real quick.
>> constable danny thomas, precinct 1. Judge and commissioners, i agree with commissioner eckhardt as far as performance measures, but i need to explain about when you say whistles and all that for patrol cars. A lot of precincts like precinct 1, 2, 3, 4, i think the performance measures we have showed since i've been in office with three times revenue --
>> revenue is not one of the performance measures i would prefer to look at. I'll looking at performance with regard to the job that we do, and revenue is a secondary concern. In my opinion. I don't think that if we were to base our decision on the distribution solely on ability to -- to generate the revenue to pay for them, since revenue isn't what our core function is, you know, our core function is providing public safety and service.
>> constable --
>> let me finish first. I understand what you are saying, but each elect official here, i think the whole thing we are talking about is equity when it comes to our department, i think it's fair that we came -- we all know it's going to take a time to get here. He appreciate the "or" in the world, but also have to understand we serve citizens also and one and two and three i can say are appreciative of the patrol car. I use the patrol car with not only revenue building but do a lot of things in the community such as patrol school zones, et cetera. We're not trying to, and i can speak only for constable thomas, we're not trying to be small little sheriff's deputies, but we would like to be treated equally across like everybody else is treated as far as patrol cars. I think after all the studies gone on and the way we're going to route of the "or" and show the county would be beneficial more as far as those cars going back to the auction block, i don't want to be redundant about that, but i also -- the numbers are wrong for me because i have 12 deputies and two administrative cars, and out of the 12, commissioner, those officers
>> [indiscernible] which my deputies should have fleet cars. But we deal with those issues, but i just want to let you know that's part of our job is revenue, but we do more than that, we do a lot of patrol and the citizens of precinct 1 is very appreciative. When i came on, it's sad, like the oil in the trunk, believe it or not. I got one doing the same thing. But i'm not here to complain about that because we'll deal with those issues, but i always want you to realize revenue is one thing. I think that's what help runs the county. I think as far as precinct 1, we have done that. But we've done more than that. We've done even
>> [indiscernible] that brings refuse in in also. I just want to let you know that.
>> and i agree with you, there is definitely disparity and i think performance distribution mechanism.
>> when you talk about performance, on precinct 2 when we're out there working, and when i say working, it's not just we do civil. We are peace officers. If anything was to come down the pike, we're there ready and able to perform our duties as peace officers. You can't categorize us as saying you are just going to work civil and that's all you are going to do. And we're going to work a civil paper, someone is going 100 miles an hour down the road and he stand with our hands crossed what do we do. When it hits another vehicle, what do we do. Someone is being stabbed, what do we do?
>> but we have to take into consideration overlapping law enforcement. For instance, in precinct 2 we also have the Pflugerville police department and the apd covering most of the territory.
>> and they can't be everywhere.
>> that's correct.
>> now, when we have the extra eyes and ears, you can rest assured that citizens of travis county, and more specifically my precinct, they feel a lot more safer knowing that we're out there protecting them.
>> but i think the --
>> we need to have the tools.
>> let him finish. Give him a chance to finish.
>> i think we have --
>> did you finish?
>> yes.
>> have to recognize between precinct 1 and precinct 2 the amount of unincorporated territory would be one of the performance based criteria we might look at with regard to the number of patrol cars because there is considerably more unincorporated territory and therefore less law enforcement overlap in precinct 1 versus precinct 2. Just as an example.
>> constable mccane.
>> travis county precinct 3. I think getting hung up on these titles, the part is one of my deputies is hurt doing an execution, doing a warrant, i want to be able to respond to my fellow deputies just like my other deputies want to respond. Nobody has the right to tell me or any of my deputies they can't respond to one of the other deputies in a crisis. I don't need to depend on another department to back up my fellow deputies. And you get into one thing about performance, there's only one -- a group of people that judge my performancen that's my constituency. That's whether we start getting into performance is if the people of travis county do not want me in there, they will vote me out of this office. Just like any of us in this room currently that are elected. That's when we look at the performance. That's how we judge performance. When the people vote us in here, apparently they have faith in us. I have faith in my community. I have faith in them and i give them what they want. That's why i think we get hung up on this patrol. What is the name patrol. It's not even about patrol, it's about being able to respond, having the equipment to do your job, it's about safety. Without the proper safety equipment an officer can't do his job. Just like the road and bridge. We can take away our pavers and all that equipment, what are we going to do, they can't do their job. It's the same thing, you are taking away equipment from a deputy and he can't perform his job or if he does is it a safe job. Being able to do your job. Having the tools of your trade. What we're asking for is simply tools of our trade. Thank you, commissioners court.
>> yes.
>> i was just going to reiterate, we're here to serve. We're here to serve the citizens of precinct 1 and i know it says discrepancy or some people don't maybe understand what all we do. And like i said. It's not just patrol, it's school zones, it's going to ptas, whatever our citizens ask for, we provide. But i would like to say we are law enforcement officers and when a crisis comes, they don't care if it's a.p.d. Unit or sheriff's department unit, if they see that uniform and that car, they want to you respond. So i just want you to just consider that.
>> chief deputy morales, constable 2. Basically constables here gave a big picture of what we actually do in the community and just to reiterate that it's a primary job function. It's not secondary job function.
>> okay. Any final word, commissioner eckhardt?
>> that's all.
>> thank you very much.
>> thank you.
>> thank you all.
>> we'll revisit this before the end of the fiscal year with an eye to addressing whatever we can immediately and then a work session forum after october 1.
>> thank y'all.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, August 31, 2010, 2010 2:30 PM
