Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, March 8, 2011,
Item 12
Number 12, consider and take appropriate action on budget amendments, transfers and discussion items.
>> leroy nellis, planning and budget office.
we have a 1 that I will have deanna ramirez explain, and then we have discussion 1 and 2 that we do have judges here to answer any questions on those requests.
>> that's a 1 in the discussion backup for this item.
because the other a 1 --
>> oh, okay, I meant on budget amendments and transfers, item number 12.
the first amendment number 1.
>> okay.
>> a 1 is pretty straightforward.
it's justice of the peace precinct 2 accounting team acting for funding for pc, for a temp accounting resource that they have in their office so they can be able to actually do their work.
so it's pretty straightforward coming from the justice court technology fund which is set aside specifically for the jp court.
>> any questions?
>> d 1 and d 2 both relate to requests for funds from the juvenile case manager fund.
d 1 is justice of the peace precinct 1, and it has two requests in that.
and the first one is to allow for an additional amount of funding of $5,122 to increase the pay for juvenile case manager position that already exists in that fund.
and the second portion of the request is for an additional $33,000 to help pay part of the salary of a planner senior that is currently fully funded in the general fund and this would result in split funding in juvenile case manager fund.
and with appropriate duties assigned to the planner senior for the funding that's the juvenile case manager fund.
so that's d 1.
>> okay, now, d 1 is supposed to be for $23,163.
your explanation was two amounts.
>> they are mixed in together both of them because it's the same line items. It's the salaries line item and related benefits.
but it's two actions, two salary actions within the one $23,000 amount.
>> okay, so both of those add up to 23,163?
>> yes, sir.
>> okay.
>> my question on that I guess is just discussion, which I have no problem with any of these except in the backup it didn't say truancy.
of course, truancy is supposed to be -- these positions are supposed to actually get out there.
I guess we've had some very, very lengthy discussions here on not only truancy but also the dropout rate that's happening within our school system.
we at one time had a pretty aggressive asap program.
I'm trying to tie in all of this because at the end of the day, some of the concerns that lead into -- into the truancy aspect may lead into the dropout aspect which may lead into social services concerns that we have to address one wayer the other and some of it goes into the criminal aspect of things.
so what I'm trying to gather now is how do we measure the impact of what we're doing here with these truancy type of social workers, case management type workers, how do we set in motion a plan to actually make a big impact on reducing our truancy rate as it is now, which maybe also decrease the amount of dropouts that we have when you look at the overall big picture?
because I think it's all intertwined -- all intertwined and a lot of services that impact the county.
you know, a child not going to school leads into other things.
so I'm just trying to make sure what we're doing and with all the j.p., and I applaud the j.p.s for addressing this truancy aspect, but I still want to make sure that we have measurable situations whereby we're able to see what we're getting for what we're doing.
and it's very legitimate concerns because it does cost us money on the other end as far as the taxpayers of Travis County are concerned.
so could anybody maybe address that for me?
>> we do that, judge williams, judge dietz, we have judge evans and and judge bass that I think are ready to answer that question.
why don't we start with judge williams and then proceed.
>> judge, how are you doing?
>> fine, sir.
how are all of you.
thank you for allowing us here today.
I am judge williams. I am over in precinct 1, and I'd be happy to address that.
what I found out is looking at my docket in precinct 1, it is extremely large, and when you talk about measurable outcomes, one of the things that I wanted to -- I plan to do with a planner is to make sure that measures are put in place.
we've already partnered with prairie view university, who are going to deal with our parents for free on an ongoing basis and at the end of 120 days they want to take 30 parents a month.
obviously I'm going to ask for parents from the other precincts to make sure we get 30 parents, not that we can't muster up 30 ourselves, but at any rate the point becomes that part of the issue really involves parenting and parenting individually and that's what they are doing.
and doing so at the end of 120 days, Commissioners, they are going to give us, along with us putting our input on what we think we need, of course, outcome.
so that's one thing.
the other thing is that a planner as well as a juvenile case manager themselves need to know what's working.
right now I've only been on the bench going on three months, and I'm giving students and their parents to various programs. Quite frankly, I would like to know what they are getting out of those programs. I just know that historically we give them to certain programs. I don't have time to go look and each and every program, but a planner will.
I don't think a July case manager would have time to look at every program.
but an individual whose job is to do that will be able to do that and bring us back feedback, you know, maybe this is working, this is not work,, maybe we should start seeing people go to this program because it's all about resources.
I don't want to hog the microphone, but in a nutshell, yes, measurable standards are out there to be had and we have a program coming in doing that for free, by the way, to us.
and then secondly, yes, we need to measure the programs that we have in place and make sure that the students and parents are getting what we think they are getting, be it a short-term deal or be it a long, 10 or 18-week deal which are some of the programs that we're sending our students too.
>> thank you, judge.
>> judge, have you had the opportunity to work if the planning shop in criminal justice planning?
>> no, I have not.
and here's another thing.
I'm glad you brought that up.
the more I talk to people, the more I find out there's things out that there exist.
I used to work with judge vasquez, you all are probably familiar with him, and juvenile dockets are a passion to him.
I'm finding there are resources I've never heard of or seen nor have I seen evidence of.
that's not to say they are not out there doing something, sure, I would like to know what they are doing and who the person is doing it.
because that's another thing that I want this individual to find out.
and I found out also -- first did you know that aisd is laying off a lot of parent support folks?
well, those are people we were going to be relying on.
so the point becomes who is out there and what are they doing, and I'd like to know what those resources are and just how -- how good are they at producing what they say they are going to produce.
so yes, that's one thing I need to know about, and I'm sure there's others.
>> the idea of a case manager, though, is to get away from the criminal justice as suspect more into the social work, family counseling work, right?
>> absolutely.
my idea has been the caseworkers should work with the school counselors.
as you say, some of them may be laid off.
I would think we get bigger bang for the buck if we collaborate in that manner.
I don't know that I would encourage criminal justice --
>> it's a misnomer.
it's actually justice planning since they've also been doing an amount of work for the civil dockets.
>> but itself here when we created the department.
I know exactly what it is and I'd rather not have these kids involved in that.
one problem with the city's program is kids and parents are having criminal warrants, criminal citations filed against them, and a whole lot of them need help.
and I think you ought to be giving some of these opportunities to comply before we lower the boom on you.
so I personally would shy away from that stuff.
I'd find out something else for criminal justice planning to do, I'd work with these kids, unless they are providing jobs.
>> actually what I was thinking with regard to justice planning was to -- because one concern I had about the request is that I believe in planning, absolutely, but I'd like to see the planning shared in a collaborative fashion across all the j.p.'s so he can make sure we have a high level of service and response throughout the county.
>> I agree with that.
>> so my concern was to pool resources in identifying the best practices on truancy prevention and to identify the appropriate funding sources and also a back up-plan should some of these dedicated funs disappear also in response to what may be happening at the isd.
>> we're together on that.
I don't know we ought to unload on criminal justice planning every problem we've got.
seems to me just working with ex-offenders is a real, real big deal.
then we put mental health on top of that.
then we put the children's court, the new one on top of that.
then we put the parental deal on top of that.
we put a whole lot on criminal justice planning.
then we took the chief executive, made him part of the core team and gave him a lot of other responsibilities.
so this is one of knows areas where I think what we ought to do is aim for having our biggest impact most efficiently and part of that, though, is promoting cooperation and collaboration among the j.p.s, the j.p.s and initial judges which I thought about initially, it's hard to get that together.
but it ought to be much easier, though, to get our five -- well, our five j.p.s and our one master who is in the other truancy court to working together.
and I assume that the reason the law gives the Commissioners court responsibility for agreeing on how the money should be spent is that we are expected to work with the j.p.s as they spend it.
and so --
>> but I think the judge is also on a good -- in a good track because I think the parents are going to need to have some kind of -- somebody working with them.
because I think in some cases as well you have dropouts trying to raise children and see the value of school, so I think that's something that needs to be addressed in addition to the truancy of the kids or staying in school and all the other positive things that need to happen.
I'm kind of along the lines judge Biscoe was talking about.
I'd rather not get those kids in that age into any kind of deal with criminal justice yet.
I would like to have that separated so that if we can keep them off that track, all the better.
and so I don't know, judge, if it's the case manager who would do that.
you know, I mean I'm just -- you know, assuming that that's the proper person --
>> our criminal justice planning department is a fine, outstanding department with great leadership.
>> yes, they are.
>> judge, you know, when I looked at this, I also tried to look at the big picture format.
meaning some time ago we had something we called the asap program whereby we actually had persons that was checking on individuals who were being truant.
but what we also found out, I guess, that there were persons that the reason for them not attending schools.
some of those reasons were tied into needs, so we tried to look at a wrap-around approach before we had hhs getting involve, social service, where they couldn't attend school.
I don't want to make sure that aspect of it never goes away, and I guess the constables are still out there doing what they do.
the truancy situation is probably still just as per vased and as far as the numbers, do we know currently today what the truancy rate is maybe in a district setting like an example aisd for an example, that's just one independent school district of other independent school districts within -- within Travis County.
do we know what that truancy rate is today as far as what is the percentage of that is?
do we have an idea on that?
>> if I could answer that question, Commissioner --
>> okay, thank you.
>> I don't have that exact percentage, but I will tell you you are going down the state of missouri road I go down which is accountability and what results are we getting for this.
part of the problem with the current situation is that schools -- the mid-level official makes the determination of what court they want to take this to.
so they can take it to any of these courts within the county.
and so as far as getting to a stat for the schools that are within my precinct, it would be difficult if not impossible to be able to get to a solid number there for the students that I impact because that school official can take it to another court if they wish.
maybe tonight's municipal or say one of my schools has dealt in the past with judge williams' court prior to her coming on board.
so it's difficult under that current structure to get to the number of for each of the precincts.
as far as an overall countywide, you could get to a number, but as far as how many of those are actually impacted by those represented here today, that number is not a solid number because some of those are being dealt with in municipal court.
>> thank you.
but I guess the findings, if I can recall when there were visits that were made as far as students that were actually truant, there were some telltale signs, economic opportunities not being made available for those students.
they maybe need shoes or this and we tried to look at it from approach years ago, and judge recalls and Commissioner Gomez here, as far as a wrap-around service.
what we're trying to get is try to provide some type of relief to make sure we overcome truancy.
this is part of what we're looking at now coming from the social aspect of juvenile case management, per se, but it still would need -- as judge williams stated earlier, right now we have no measurable situations at this time, but we're striving to get those measurable situations so we can measure the impact of what we're doing.
and right now not having a number overall with all of the truancy situations that happen within a school district itself is kind of hard to project the effectiveness of a program without certain numbers to go against as far as measurements are concerned.
so that's just basically what I'm bringing up to provide some relief to overcome truancy, but in the meantime have some measuring device to see what we actually -- where we were.
>> Commissioner?
>> judge, my understanding is a pilot program has been in place at j.p.
3 and 4 for the last year.
and so I'm wondering about what you all are utilizing with regard to being able to measure the impact that the pilot is having and as far as its scalability to all of the j.p.s throughout Travis County.
>> Commissioner, as you remember, we began the case management project a year ago, and I started mine in January, I believe judge gonzales started in March.
he sends his apologies for not being able to be here today but he is doing his truancy docket as we speak.
I had my first case manager on board for about 12 months.
he went back to the city of Austin and as you know this morning I have my new case manager on board.
I can tell you we have over a year's experience.
I have some numbers I can tell you, and p.b.o.
can confirm this, the numbers of truancy filings in j.p.
3 and j.p.
4 have declined.
all right.
so what we're trying to come up with is something measurable, but that to me is a measure that we're doing something that we don't see the resituated victim.
word is getting out to their peers if you mess up, you are going to be going through court.
it's not scientific at this point.
we just procured, I think I saw cyd in here, some software, it's a web based system so the case managers can do a better job of tracking our numbers and individual cases they are follow.
they can't follow everybody who comes into court.
we're looking at those people that we think we can turn around with these services that we could try to get them to, and we do at look of heavy reofficials.
with that new product, -- referrals.
with that new product we expect this time next year we will have good data.
I had partnered before I got started with my program with Texas state, with the sociology program and intern for free, and part of having that intern was his project was to give me a baseline.
and so he went through and looked at the last couple years of data before we had the case manager on board.
so again we're trying to get quantifiable for you because I also agree that that is the true measure of the success of the program.
but just on a personal note, I'll tell you what the success of the program is, and that is when on the seniors, when they walk in in June and they show you their diplomas.
we know we have success because we actually can see some of that.
the one good number we have is I see the filings decreasing is a sign of some success in cutting down the recidivism.
because when I came on board four years ago, you would have a lost repeaters.
and that's still true, but again it has been reduced.
>> that would be my desire and I'm right there with you in the idea that the truancy docket need to be addressed.
my desire is to address it in a way that we can really measure the impact that we're having and if we have several different innovative ways of approaching it that we are comparing apples to apples on its effect so we know which program has the most effect.
because money is growing increasingly tight and so we -- we must make sure that the money that we're spending actually is moving the needle and just isn't making us feel good.
>> if I just might add, the product that we purchased is a description product and we have countywide access to it so it's available to all courts to use it so at least our reports and data will all be looking the same at that point.
>> that's fantastic.
>> any additional comments, judge, since you have the floor?
yes, sir, if I may.
I do have a short presentation and also some remarks from judge gonzales, if -- today I think I'm here because of the request by judge williams to tap the fund over and above her currently budgeted fiscal year 10-11 number.
she was successful in having judge scott put in this year's budget the juvenile case manager position.
it's my understanding that that position has not been filled as of this time, which means there's salary savings that are available.
and in her first point to request money from the fund to raise her juvenile case manager position to a higher level could be addressed as I had to address the same issue, p.b.o.
instructed me, judge, for this fiscal year, use your salary savings if you need to negotiate a salary with someone that you gave the job to.
so in accordance with what I understood to be county policy at the time you make a job offer, if you must negotiate beyond the level 1 position, that would be the time to justify that additional funds were needed, and again I believe there are additional funds available through salary savings in that position that was available to her -- I'm not sure when they became available, December, on the current case manager position.
I know p.b.o.
doesn't let you get your hands on it in November, but there would be a few months of salary savings there.
>> correct.
>> all right.
what is of concern to me is, again, the brief history of the fund is it's a 5-dollar add on fee to criminal convictions.
our ticket revenues have been on decline because the number of tickets filed have been on decline.
so if you look at the middle of the page there, our peak was in fiscal year 7-8 when we got $236,000 in the fund.
this year the projected amount is only 193,000.
now, when we started the pilot program, we were very cognizant of how big the pie was going to be and that we wanted to try to make sure we budgeted so that we could have money for five positions, one for each court.
we were talking, though, when times were looking good and the graph was going up.
and so we convinced the folks when we did our job description that we thought we could bring someone in at the level 14, and I believe that is correct, it is a good level for the position and I've been very happy with the applicants for that position and so has judge gonzales.
again, we both have masters of social work people on board.
however, since '08, the curve is going down, we have less revenue.
so at this point we have to be very conservative with how we go about using those funds.
because at this time I support judge bass' request to have a case manager put in this year's budget and that would give us four case managers.
and I'm very excited about that.
because we will have some synergy among those positions.
if I may take a moment, brief moment to read the case manager's description to you so you understand what our vision was when we put this together.
the case manager provides case management and informal counseling to juveniles under court orders issued under the education code related to mandatory school attendance.
supervisors and moniters all aspects of juvenile case related to conditions of deferral including visits with the juvenile's family and other significant contacts.
conducts initial and subsequent interviews with juveniles to explain conditions of order and assist juveniles in compliance.
teaches juveniles and parents attributes and skills necessary to achieve success and compliance with court orders.
monitors the juvenile school attendance and behavior and reports to the judge in which the case manager is employed.
participates in case management of truancy cases under the court's jurisdiction.
it was very important to me that our case managers that are paid for by our county add services to our youth.
we have shrinking in our nonprofit sector right now.
we have shrinking in our school districts right now.
I'm partial to south Austin.
when I see there's a course available and it's in north Austin, I just say, well, it could be in dallas for all I care.
my people can't get to north Austin during the workweek because of our traffic situation.
so what we have tried to do is work with our schools, and I'll just mention it's very spotty in our schools as to who has supportive services.
several of them have community in schools and have great wrap-around programs. Some don't.
middle schools may have less services than the high schools have.
but with our case manager, we can go in and we can try to work with our populations and develop programming that's necessary.
in precinct 4, sarah rigby is already conducting classes with the parent and teachers that come out of that department.
mr. Guyardo has a long history of teaching parenting for the parents who need the skills and also self-esteem for the kids.
so it's very important to me that, again, we have those resources.
what I'm afraid is with the revenues that I see, that first I believe that judge williams has the approval for her case manager position at level 1, she has her approval fully funded for her senior planner level 1.
and what she's asking you for today is to give her additional funds for positions that she doesn't have yet underway which will then impede the viability of the fund for judge bass and as we proceed down this road for precinct 5 as well.
so I'd ask to you consider that she can move forward right now, she has the funding in place for both positions, and she has the ability in her budget to move those up if needed, and under the rubric of the county's decision-making for how you increase the levels.
but we do not think it's prudent at this time to take more money out of the fund for those purposes when she has the money in her current budget.
>> you are here for judge evans?
>> I am, sir.
>> comments?
>> no, sir.
>> we'll judge read judge gonzales' letter.
judge bass, anything else?
>> I concur with judge's concern on the drain on the funds.
let me say first of all for judge williams and for any of my fellow j.p.s, I am all about autonomy, the autonomy of our j.p.
courts so long as it doesn't impede the ability for another one of our j.p.
courts to take advantage of a same or similar function such as the juvenile case manager so I am concerned that it might slow our ability in the future to use that fund as it's designed.
and so I too would favor that it would come from existing budget and not from that fund for that additional position.
>> one of my concerns, and that's why I asked the earlier question about the advent of the occurrence of truancy.
>> I've got an answer for you, Commissioner.
I just pulled it up.
the Austin independent school district currently has less than a 90% attendance rate.
for each one% increase that they increase their attendance rate, it increases their revenue over $5 million.
if in fact they had 100%, which is probably not obtainable, they would have 50 to 60 million more dollars in their budget.
so that is the answer to the question you raised earlier.
>> what that means though is they will have earned that much money subject to state's ability to pay it.
>> that's correct.
that's correct.
>> there is a difference --
>> any type of new --
>> Commissioner Davis.
>> no, go ahead.
that's a big deal though.
>> talking about sustainability of the fund.
according to deanna's backup, it indicated that all five of the j.p.s would like case managers and it sounds like the j.p.s are fairly in the belief that all five should have case managers.
is that a fair --
>> I'll comment on that because I'm not sure we need one in each court.
one concept I would -- sorry for the feedback.
one concept I would like to explore, depending on the size of the resources, is that we pool the resources much like we do for our accounting staff and have an office that can serve all of our courts.
come up with some structure.
if we have to work within this pot of money, that would be something that I would invite if it's not mr. Jeffries, judge Biscoe, someone to help us because there could possibly be some grant funding out there as well.
and I'll mention part of my due diligence for that project was I visited midland county where the judge had a fairly sophisticated case management program.
previous to him being judge, he was working for the governor's office of criminal justice and knew about the grant money coming out of that office and was able to secure additional grant funding from the state.
in this day and age, I don't think any of us should become dependent on grant money, but what I'm saying there's special programs we want to do where we might need to buy educational materials, something like that grants can come in for one-time projects and that's good.
it shouldn't be to sustain you.
but I can envision a planning session where we could come up with some model that is could serve the county and it may not be each one of us having a case manager.
>> and I just wanted to flesh out the fact, deanna, my understanding from the become-up and additional information provided today is that the fund is not receive to sustain five case managers.
it's only sufficient to sustain three.
>> based on the current ongoing revenue that comes in, like for f.y.
11, we had just under $200,000 of ongoing revenue certified.
than agents the amount we can for foresee in the near future, will be every year will be eating into the fund balance.
>> how much is in the fund balance today?
>> there's $1 million.
>> two years ago I complained that we weren't using it.
there was half a million dollars there.
not a single case manager had been hired.
if there's a million dollars there, j.p.
5 is saying I'll wait until the comprehensive plan is put in place.
now, it seems to me that we ought not hold back on something that we believe we ought to do.
there will be three or four years of funding available just at the present rate today if you add that to the fund balance.
in two to three years, we ought to know what's working and what's not.
so that's the full context.
the case manager for precinct 1 has been funded already and is in the budget.
>> correct.
>> the question is what do we do about the planner, right?
>> if judge williams wants to hire him above entry she doesn't have enough in yes general fund budget to do that.
>> unless she taps the case manager fund, which I assume she's asking to do.
>> that's correct.
>> now, if I were a j.p., my concern would be about what about my case manager, what about the resources I need for my truancy program.
what we need to see next week are these, I believe, and we think we need to take one week to respond to these.
we need to see the numbers on cases in the different courts.
we need to see what those j.p.s believe their doing right now in a one pager of bullets.
two, we need to see what additional ideas they have.
three, I guess would be if a planner were available, how would the j.p.s work collectively to use that person.
my own view is that I don't know that we ought to depend on funding for this program only.
we are the Commissioners court.
we have a huge budget.
we spend -- we spend money on programs and services that we could easily reduce to find something that's better.
assuming we can identify it.
you see what I'm saying?
so all of these really have contingencies, but my charge would be j.p.s, make the case that -- of an amount we ought to spend.
tell us what results we think we might see, and then each year or each semester, we will see whether near seeing those those -- whether we're seeing those results.
we want you to trust us, but we want taxpayers to do the same thing.
we're here trying to do the right thing.
and I appreciate each of you taking care of his or her budget, but at the same time it seems to me that a lot of this is paid on need, a lot of this is -- based on need, enthusiasm and a lot is based on what you need to do and periodically we'll sit down and see what's working and what's not.
what's working we ought to try to grow.
what's not warming, either we improve or cut it out.
with that I think we ought to take this item up next week.
>> I have three other things I'd like to have answered by next week.
>> good.
let's add to that list.
Commissioner Eckhardt, then Commissioner Davis.
>> the three things I would add to the list --
>> did you all write those down, by the way?
>> I have some of them.
>> the three things that I had to add to the list were what -- what would be the expectation for success for the case managers so that we could see that the outcome was positive.
second, who will be putting together the comprehensive plan for the j.p.s.
because that is mentioned in the backup that j.p.
5 has indicated he would wait until a comprehensive program is developed but I don't know who is developing that program.
>> I think he's wishing for one.
>> and there seems to be a desire for one.
and third, I'd like to -- this isn't directed to those sitting at the table but actually to mr. Jeffries and ms. Fleming, we have significant planning resources in health and human services and criminal justice planning, and I would like to know from them what planning capabilities might be made available to the j.p.s to assist them in performance measurements and a comprehensive plan.
>> is a week long enough to get all this done?
>> the backup for next Tuesday by 5:00 today.
so I would suggest that the 22nd would be more reasonable.
>> is that okay?
is that okay, y'all?
>>
>> [inaudible].
>> I'm just saying that the deadline for backup for next Tuesday is today at 5:00.
>> we could make that Thursday at noon.
>> couldn't we just extend the deadline for the backup and still get it on --
>> Thursday at noon.
>> can you prepare by Thursday noon?
>> I can.
>> I have a question of the court.
regarding -- this discussion began with discussion of precinct 1 and we weighed in on that.
are we saying then that the request for j.p.
2 as well will be on hold until that period of time?
>> we're asking all the j.p.'s the same information, to the extent a simple straightforward case manager is requested, I think we should go ahead and approve those.
>> I would --
>> assuming you've got a truancy caseload.
and from what I hear, all of you do.
>> yes, sir.
yes, sir.
may I suggest a moment to address that?
>> no, sir.
give us enough information when you come back in two weeks or one week.
>> for clarification, my position is being held until that period of time.
>> no, I think the case manager slots should be funded if they requested them.
>> yes, it's item d 2.
>> I think we should fund that.
I've been talking two years on getting the case managers in place so we can go ahead and produce the positive benefits that the statute that authorizes that fee envisions.
and you can't do that without somebody to work on.
now, my own view would be that we ought to start trying to work with the school counselors whether they like it or not.
now, when you talk with them one on one, they swear up and down they are enthusiastically waiting on the case manager to be filled and to show.
they've been saying basically we're ready to go.
this is one on one behind closed doors, by the way.
this is not out in public.
Commissioner Davis.
>> thank you, judge.
and I think also for the j.p.s appear before the court again, it would be good if we had information -- for example, in precinct 1 j.p., judge williams, I think it would be good for to us have information that may be related to the number of dropouts within the aisd or whatever jurisdiction that is, whether it's aisd or whatever else that comes before your court as far as those numbers are concerned.
and again is there any variance between the schools on how they report truancy.
I really don't know if there is any consistency as far as reporting truancy within the schools individually.
so I think those, those opportunities need to be unveiled and looked at.
and then have those numbers as indicated because I think there may be more in some areas and less in others.
I really don't know, but I think some of those -- the -- leroy mentioned aisd, per se, but there are segments of aisd that are within the district and it just appears to me we should have the accurate numbers of the truancy because that's what we end up dealing with at the end of the day.
I think that should be all inclusive when we come back this the time line the court decides for you to do that.
>> Commissioner Huber, hold on just a second.
we'll get to you.
>> I'm not quite sure
>> [inaudible] requested information from, but it seems to me like if we have juvenile case manager funds with a declining revenues curve in place, and still unfilled positions, I agree with the judge we need to look at how do we fill those positions in the future and it may go beyond this fund.
at the same time, it is a diminishing fund and we're looking to perhaps add another case manager.
so one of the things I would like to see is since the need may vary between the different precincts, I'd like to see what a proposal for an organization is -- structure is to collaborate and communicate on the variety of needs and services that are needed so that as we may be facing challenges in financing the program, we have a mechanism to assess those needs and accurately address them perhaps before we have big revenue pools in the future.
>> let's assume that the amount generated annually is in the 180,000 range.
still may involve a little bit more.
let's take the balance fund today, add it to the new revenue, and when this item comes back, tell us when the fund would run out of money with not four case managers but four case managers, then five.
see what I'm saying?
>> I can tell you that with five case managers, it will run out in approximately nine to ten years.
>> leroy, in nine or ten years, the world will be looking -- the world will be looking at our cadillac version of a truancy program and say how did Travis County manage to do that.
that's a long time, y'all.
>> if I may, please.
>> judge.
>> I'd like to respond to what's been responded to so far.
he had already told me that that we're talking about ten-year run on the program moneys much and his response was so we'll do this if you will agree that it stops in three years.
and I said absolutely because in three years what I envision the planner doing would have been done.
in other words, that program would have been set up.
I just wanted to get that out that I readily agreed to a three-year run on the planner position.
a two-year run on the planner position, number 1.
number 2, in terms of what that position can do, and I agree with all of you, comprehensive put all that together, we were talking about doing that and the president has been set out there for some other things that we shared as five precincts.
we could very well do the same with this.
I wanted to get that on the table that they were talking backup for next Tuesday ten-year run for the money -- talking about a ten-year run and we would readily agree to the slot leaving in three years.
>> a million dollar head start is a cushion and a big one.
>> let me correct my nine to ten years.
that was essentially at the salary levels that were based in the f.y.
11 budget.
if in fact you raise those salary levels to an amount exceeding minimum, I think that's where they were budgeted, then it could run out in between five and nine years.
>> we weren't going to hold you to that ten-year -- I can hardly wait until we bring this item up again.
>> I didn't see ten years on here.
that's why we're shuffling papers.
>> one week or two weeks?
>> one week.
one week.
>> judge, honestly I have to get information from Lake Travis also I'd like to share and I won't be able to do that by Thursday afternoon.
>> one week or two weeks?
>> two weeks.
>> one week or two weeks?
two weeks it is.
this will be back on the court's agenda March 22nd.
now, is the agreement on for the four j.p.s ready to start, as for hiring the case managers, they should be authorized to proceed.
>> a 1 and d 2.
>> move approval of a 1 and d 2.
I hear you loud and clear.
>> after the case managers for the four j.p.s who want to proceed, the motion is basically to authorize them to be able to access the case management funds for the position.
in case evans is waiting to comprehensive plan, we may have that.
>> we already have case manager positions funded this budget cycle in precincts 1, 3 and 4.
the only one that needs a case manager --
>> if there's a hold on those, this motion will lift that hold.
if precinct 2 doesn't have it funded, it would be funded.
all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
now, the problem with coming to the court is by coming to the legislature.
if you go over asking for dollar, you may leave a dollar short.
>> [laughter]
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Last Modified:
Tuesday, March, 2011 2:19 PM
