Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, September 7, 2010,
Item 28
28 is consider and take appropriate action on notice from the Texas department of criminal justice regarding decision to modify agreement with Travis County regarding smart beds.
dr. Nagy?
we will call up item 15, the formula one item next.
in my view, that is probably all we'll be able to do before lunch.
>> good morning, judge Biscoe, Commissioners.
I've just given you a simplified handout from the one that you already received.
it just ex-trap lats the most important information and removes redundancy.
I'd like to use that handout because it's a little bit easier to follow.
as you all know by now, we have sh in the works a plan to expand the smart residential treatment facility.
it was a 76-bed facility.
we had been approved for a diversion grant from the Texas department of criminal justice for some time.
and we're proceeding forward.
then unexpectedly on August 3rd we received a letter from the Texas department of criminal justice stating that they intended to fund contract residential beds for other counties and we will not receive all of the funding that we had expected.
so we'll get about $1.1 million less, which means that for the planned smart expansion we'll able to expand it by 40 beds and not the expected 72 beds.
so what we're doing is we have options on how to proceed.
all of these options actually involve building the full 72-bed facility.
the least that we will have to pay to the county will not change.
and before I get into the options I'd like bob clay pack, our budget analyst to explain the provisions of the lease.
>> basically on the lease as we were negotiating about a year and a half ago, getting the lease for the existing building and the new building, what we had to do was stay at a level that the state has basically funded for us since the inception of the first smart -- the lease went down in 2004 a little bit as we renegotiated and got a better interest rate and stuff.
they historically are set at a level of about 15,000 per month on a payment for a building.
which the current lease based on now through April 2012 is approximately 1500 -- 15,000 per month.
and then in may of 2012 goes up just a few hundred dollars.
so I want to point out that the state is used to funding at that level and it will be the same level even with the increased beds.
so the options that gerald dean is going to present here, there is no increase in cost to the county.
their bonds and so forth are paid off.
that is the prime purpose of the lease as it was negotiated.
>> so when we say these amounts will continue, what we mean is we have not heard otherwise from the state.
>> right.
I did smed send an e-mail to the director of c t.j.
and I got a response.
basically I asked her what -- would the lease amount are reduced.
and she said that's an agreement between us and the county that they felt that the county would not lose anything from this change in funding that -- this notification that we had a change in funding, that we would still pay that lease.
>> okay.
>> okay.
so I have three options here.
option 1 is the recommended option.
this will be beneficial for us at the cscd in a number of ways.
and you have two pictures here in front of you for option 1.
one is the existing smart facility, and at the bottom is the picture of the dorm area and the programming area for the expansion.
and basically what we would do if you went ahead and built the full facility as planned is that we would move all 72 beds -- 72 of the residents would all go into the new facility.
that would leave 40 in the old facility.
and the advantage of this is that it would free up a number of the larger group rooms or dorm space in the old facility that we could now use for group rooms for continuing care.
when we planned this building, we thought we could provide continuing care for the smart residents, that's the second face of the residential program.
we felt that we could do that in mckinney falls, precinct four, but as it turns out, we have more demand, we have a community provider that just recently said that they can no longer do intensive outpatient, so we're going to have to do that in our available space that we have for counseling in groups.
and this would provide us additional space for the smart participants that go into that second phase.
so in other words, we could have continuing care in this building, whereas previously we had planned to put it in mckinney falls.
so that would be a real advantage.
in addition, we could have a g.e.d.
classroom there, an existing building, that would free up additional space at mckinney falls that we could then use for group room.
and one of the major advantages of this is that if there were a change in the funding for the state, and we were able to go back to our planned capacity when we gave this proposal or something close to it, we could quickly just change those rooms that are in the existing smart building into dorms again and work that out.
so there wouldn't be a need to build anything, we could just repurpose them again.
so the advantages then are that we can expand our capacity for continuing care and also our counseling center by repurposing space and working with the mckinney falls location.
and we can then expand our g.e.d.
services.
disadvantages would be the initial cost of the buildout because you're building out the entire thing.
roger I think is going to speak to that.
do you want me to go through all three options or do you want to just go to --
>> so is one dramatically better than two and three?
>> I think so, yes.
>> I mean, I don't know.
do we want to hear a whole lot of detail on two and three?
>> I think cost is really the big driver.
>> in terms of lease payment, we have every reason to think it would be the same.
>> right.
>> that we've heard for the last year or two.
>> yes.
>> what about operating dollars?
>> the county would not need to provide any operating dollars?
we will just have to reduce the capacity by 32 people.
>> cscd would be able to absorb that?
>> yes.
>> so the third-party intensive out care contract, if that third party basically stops doing it, we have been paying for that service anyway?
>> we've been paying for that.
now, we've been contracting with them, but we will have to bring it in-house.
and we're trying to squeeze those folks into the existing area for the counseling center at mckinney falls.
and it's a real challenge.
>> we use those dollars to fund our internal program.
>> yes.
>> so really the only difference at this point between -- I mean, clearly option 1 is the favored option of cscd.
and so really the consideration goes to the cost of the buildout, I would think.
>> good morning.
roger el khoury.
director of facility and management department.
we emphasize the recommendation also that option number 1 is the most feasible and most economical at this time to move forward with.
for so many reasons.
first, we do have the budget to construct, and now the project is on the street and we're going to open the bid on the 15th.
we have about 52 people attending our prebid conference.
out of the 52 we have 21 general contractors and the rest of them are subcontractors and some staff.
so the project is on the street and this is very unusual to have so many general contractors right there attending the prebid.
so people need work right now.
and option number 2 is to delete about 3200 square feet, which is about like 32 bed.
I don't recommend it at this time because right now it's good to go ahead and (indiscernible) the whole thing.
and especially from the perspective of the design and the construction because if I have to stop and rouse the buildings, then I have to renegotiate with all my outsource consultant.
we have a civil engineer and landscape architect in one contract.
there's going to be a renegotiation for the scope of production and some time for them to redesign and also with the mvp, mechanical, electrical and plumbing engineers and also we have a similar situation with the civil engineer, all of them will have an additional services and add a little bit more cost on the design.
>> have we quantified that?
what I'm really looking for is the straight up price comparison, a quantified price comparison.
>> sure, we did a lot of working on that over the weekend and we quantified that if you reduced 32,000 square feet of bed, which is option number 2, that will reduce about $550,000.
500 to $550,000, which is about $178 per square foot.
if you deplete option number 3 and delete -- use option number 3 and delete 16 beds, that's about 1600 square feet.
that would reduce about $250,000 from the budget.
if you construct it later on, one year, two years, three years from now, it will cost you more than that.
and not to say about we have to rebid the project.
it's going to take two months to rebid from the time I turn it in to purchasing until the time it's awarded by the court, then going to be negotiation and redesign by the consultant is going to be about two months.
and the city permit -- we do have right now the site plan permit.
so I have to have the modified -- I have to modify that for a few more months.
so total impact on time, on skid is about five months -- on schedule is about five months.
>> the redesign, the scope reduction, the time lost, you believe that that is -- that the cost of all of that would eat up the 500 to 550,000-dollar reduction in cost?
>> if you build later on also, the increase of dollar amount under construction, let's say in two years or three years when the economy goes up good, then you might have to put that -- it might eat up at that time.
because right now you have lots of general contractors right now who are hungry, want to do the work and there's a lot of competition to do it.
build it and shelf it right there and do what later on you can open it, you have it if you have the money to operate.
>> and the $1.1 million that we're losing from state, that was to go to the capital improvement.
>> that was for operations of the facility.
>> okay.
so what -- essentially what's changed is the lease hasn't changed and the agreement with the county hasn't changed, but that facility will serve 32 less people.
and they -- people isn't quite accurate because they -- a bed serves more than one person in a year, but 32 fewer beds.
so we have operational funds for 32 fewer beds.
>> so option 1 is just shelling out additional space for a day when the state will fund --
>> no.
option 1 is fully utilizing the new building, but then some of the space that's vacated in the existing smart building, we will use for groups because we don't have our continuing -- we don't have space for our continuing care for this new group of folks there.
so we'll -- so if you'll look at the diagram, f, g, h, d and e will all be used either for g.e.d.
classes or for groups for the continuing care folks.
that's the second phase of the program.
we were going to do that at mckinney falls.
now this gives us the opportunity to actually do it here.
continuing care for the existing part of the program, the original 72 beds, that was already there.
now we can include the other folks that we're going to provide continuing care for these other 40 folks.
that's going to be there.
>> just in plain language, losing the $1.1 million from the state means that we lose what at the local level?
>> 32 beds.
>> so the ability to service a certain number of people through the program.
>> right.
but I do want to be clear that one of the reasons why we so strongly recommend option 1 is because we can use that space.
we'll just move -- we can't do it in existing building because the rooms are too small -- in the new building because the rooms are too small, so we'll move people from the old building to the new building, fully fill those dorms and then we'll have some of the larger dormitory rooms that we can use as group rooms and for a g.e.d.
room.
which we desperately need because otherwise we'll be coming back to you asking for some sort of provision to provide those kinds of group rooms. There's not enough at mckinney fall at this point in time.
>> so you have operating funds for the people you're moving over there?
>> yes.
yeah.
>> unless there's some dramatic reduction in your budget by state officials, you believe you can fund operating costs and pay the county the 15,000 a month lease payment, which basically means that you internally absorb whatever costs there are to continue to operate.
>> right.
>> and from our perspective, roger, you know, what we -- for the capital investment, we issue the debt, do the building, but get reimbursed 15,000 a month through lease payments.
so if that is true, then in a year's time, 10 times that would be -- that's 150,000.
so annually 170, $180,000.
10 years 1.8 million.
so in 20 years roughly it would be $3.6 million just on lease payments unless that changes dra at that time likely -- dramatically.
any other questions or comments?
>> she's the expert on the -- she's the one who worked on this plan extensively over the weekend and Friday.
I know this is a very complex situation, having been immerse understand it for several years like we have.
when the expansion portion of the program was originally designed we wanted to keep costs down, so we did not include space for the continuing care phase.
so our thought was we would use space at the mckinney falls location.
once we sighted the counseling center at mckinney falls, and remember there was a lot of issues about where was the best location in Travis County for that program.
>> we still thought we could handle the flow of people from the smart program continuing here at mckinney falls.
then we were hit with an unexpected closure of one of our primary outpatient vendors and through an r.f.p.
process we lost another primary iop outpatient vendor.
so we're trying to absorb referrals from two community based vendors in addition to the population from smart continuing care.
there just is not enough space.
and so we really --
>>
>> [inaudible - no mic].
>> and the vendors that we lost had served four populations.
one was our d.w.i.
court population, one was the population of probationners who go to safety units and then return back to the community.
one afs population of people who needed intensive outpatient treatment.
anyway, there were all substance abusers who needed then to be served by our department.
we had no place else really to refer them.
so in looking at how we could repurpose existing space, we determined if we can use the total expansion facility, maximize those 72 beds, that will allow some flexibility at the exist existig smart facility to repurpose some office space that counselors are in by turning those into group room space and to move the g.e.d.
location from mckinney falls to smart, which would increase our ability to serve smart clients.
and that would free up space at mckinney falls that we desperately need, which is the location that we are primarily focusing on to serve outpatients.
I hope that clarifies that.
everything just kind of converges into a perfect storm within the last couple of weeks.
>> but the lease payment is 15,000 a month.
>> yes.
it's 15,378.
>> okay.
through April of 2012 and then it increases to 15,631.
>> we have been given every reason to believe that will continue.
those payments.
and roger, if we go with option 1, what changes, if any, do we need to make to the bid documents that are now on the street?
that's what cid and I want to know.
>> none.
moving forward.
option 1 is as designed as as bid right now.
>> I guess one of my questions, though, is --
>> that's option 1.
>> and just to let you know, this building also is registered in the green building registered.
and we are moving forward the leed silver certification upon constructing.
as is.
if we -- the building will also take some time right there.
>> as the county continues to grow and the need for more beds of course continue to grow.
do we have any indication if there's anything on the state's radar screen to assist -- of course we did fare out too good this year.
is there any indication at all for financial support from the state of Texas, especially with this upcoming legislative session?
has there been any inroads because this not only affects Travis County, but there are other counties that's involved in the same type, similar situations.
so my point is has there been any collaborative effort across the board in the next upcoming legislative session to let the state know that this is a critical concern?
and of course, when you don't have enough beds, you don't have enough beds, but then how do you structure yourself to make it work?
we have been fortunate in this particular situation, but still beds are still a critical issue.
so my question is, as I stated, what has been placed on the state's radar screen with this upcoming legislative session that is in place to let them know how serious this matter is?
that's my question.
>> and I think that our Austin delegation knows about this issue.
I think they're very supportive.
I've been in discussion with most of them.
and certainly I'm going to continue my efforts to work with tdcj and the Texas probation association and other folks.
I'm meeting with the legislative committee this week, September ninth, if that's this week.
I'm losing track of my time here.
a couple of days.
so yeah, there will be an effort to communicate with folks at the legislative level about this issue.
>> okay.
thank you.
>> I just wanted to reiterate a statement that you made and I believe in no uncertain terms to tdcj that they kind of have us over a barrel.
they're taking $1.1 million away and if we go with option 1 as we predicted to them that day, they have us over a barrel.
they'll take the money away and we will continue because they're Travis County, to expand capacity to provide successful jail diversion programs even as we lessen the state's burden in the prison system and improve the outcomes for our residents.
so we're picking up the tab because it's the right thing to do.
some may call us suckers for that.
>> [ laughter ] that's what we're going to do.
>> I wouldn't call you that, Commissioner.
>> well, cscd is the state, right, at the local level?
>> well, we're a judicial district.
>> a state judicial district.
>> we're not -- well, okay.
>> [ laughter ]
>> so we're still -- what you explained today is that you will be able basically to manipulate your funding in such a way that the county is not adversely impacted except we continue to take the risk of making the capital investment for the building so that we will have facilities for the programs and services that Travis County residents so desperately need provided by adult probation.
that's why I move approval of option 1.
>> second.
>> and this will mean that we leave the bid documents on the street, on the street.
>> right.
>> discussion?
all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
thaj y'all for working -- thank y'all for working so hard over the past holiday weekend.
>> I have a quick question.
when do we anticipate breaking ground on this building?
>> roger, that's your question.
>> breaking ground?
right now we have -- it's on June of 2011.
>> there's a few different options.
breaking ground would probably be late October.
>> I'm sorry.
finishing the project is in June.
that's what I'm saying.
I'm sorry.
breaking ground, when we get the bid and we have to work through it, probably eight months or so.
>> thank you.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, September 7, 2010, 2010 6:54 PM
