Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, August 9, 2011 (Agenda)
Item 8
Now, we did indicate to a group of our close friends and colleagues to be here at 1:45, and that is on the technology item.
what number is that, roger?
>> no.
8.
>> no.
8, approve the following interlocal agreements with Texas conference of urban counties for participation in the urban counties techshare program for the adult case management system phase 2, a, criminal courts module, and b, prosecutor module.
>> good afternoon.
>> afternoon.
thank you all for your patience.
>> no problem.
>> I'm roger jeffries, county executive for public safety.
and here joined at the table today by joe harlow, who is a county executive for its and ricky skinner, who works with the d.a.'s office but she's also the chairperson of the integrated justice system steering committee.
we have don lee, who's the executive director of the conference of urban counties and we have charles gray, who is the head of their techshare program, and we're here today to propose to you an exciting opportunity, we think, to join some of our fellow counties in a program to develop a new adult case management system for our court system and for our prosecutors.
the potential new system would replace fax for the court system and the prosecutor's information management system.
did I get that right?
>> yes.
>> we want to take just a minute to give you a brief overview of the whole project.
again, it's been a fun process.
joe is going to give you a little history of facts and why we are at the point we're at.
he's going to talk a little bit about the integrated justice system steering committee and how it's going to help guide this project, and then the folks from the conference the urban counties are going to talk about the you will project itself.
>> -- about the actual project itself.
>> well, I think it's appropriate that we take this to help look at the next generation of software for our court systems and for the prosecution modules, and there are a couple other modules that will need to be looked at as well.
our vendor has changed ownerships two or three times, and have indicated to us that they will not continue to add new enhancements to this -- to these packages, but we'll support them as long as we continue to pay maintenance, so that keeps it it from being a fire drill we have to jump into, but we need to be looking at the next generation of software.
you know, we -- first court went live, I guess, in December of 0u 5 -- -- '05, oh 4, I'm sorry, so we brought all the courts forward with the exception of jps, which I understand we'll be addressing those next week.
and it's just a time that we need to -- we need to look at what we're going to do for the next generation of software for courts and pims.
>> the integrated justice system steering committee has been in existence since the mid-'90s, and at that time very few of the justice departments had automated systems, and those that did have them, they didn't talk to anybody else, they were on their last leg, so those of you that were around then remember that the sheriff system, we were very concerned about because it was not y2k compliant and we had to get something that was going to work when we rolled over to the year 2000.
the committee consisted of representatives from most of the area for the justice system, and it's hung in there throughout the past 15-plus years and has served as the major communication forum as these different modules and systems came live.
we formed, really, terrific collaborations within the group, and they've served a wonderful purpose in helping troubleshoot and solve a variety of problems that have come up over the years.
but it's time for us to replace a number of systems, and there's been expanded interest in the committee.
we now have representation from all functions of the justice system, the auditor's office, planning and budget, criminal justice planning, purchasing, records managing, and as a group we requested -- or asked roger jeffries to help us to serve as our project ad row cat, or project liaison and provide executive leadership to the group, serve as a liaison to the executive ijs committee, Commissioners court and the conference of urban counties and he graciously agreed.
>> they're paying me.
>> [laughter]
>> he doesn't know what he's getting into.
>> okay.
and we'll give you again a quick overview of the project itself, and I think the folks, don and charles, are going to help us out with that.
>> judge, Commissioners, thank you.
I'm really here today just to say on behalf of your other colleague counties around the state and the urban, thank you, thank you for your past historical participation in the urban counties.
I want to especially thank Commissioner Gomez when she served on our board, and Commissioner Eckhardt since you have been at the -- at our policy committee meetings from this county, and all the members of this court that have been so active in the association over the years.
we appreciate it and we're very proud of the program that you created a number of years ago called techshare where counties come together, collaborate on projects like this one.
we try to keep track of what that means in actual real dollar savings to participating counties, and we believe using conservative estimates that over the time of techshare now participating counties have saved $42 million on it projects, and that includes the 14 counties that participate in the cgis project that shares the enterprise license agreement with tyler for their odyssey program.
it includes the counties that have participated in building the juvenile case management system that is going live as we speak in dallas and tarrant county, and planning is under way to add more counties into it, and now we are here at the ground floor of an adult system, an adult system that will result in counties controlling their destiny, owning their software, having capacity to manage their software, grow their software, have it grow with the times and save money and do it cheaper than any of the counties could do on their own because they're doing it collectively.
that's the vision of techshare.
we appreciate your support for that in the past and in the future, and charles, here, is the day-to-day person who runs the techshare program and can tell you about this exact project.
>> thank you, don, thank you, judge and Commissioners.
I'm charles grave, conference of urban counties and I'm here to describe a little bit the project that we're about to enter into, and we ask you to consider joining.
I'm going to do a little bit of background.
last fall a couple of counties came to us and said, you know, it's really time to look at the next generation of software for criminal justice, and one of those, of course, was joe harlow from your county came to us and told us about the situation here and said, wasn't it time for us to really look at the next generation, because about in 2004 we did a collaborative project in which Travis County participated that resulted in a contract for software that's provided under a traditional license agreement.
but this is something different.
this is -- the vision here is software that the counties can own and control going forward, so that if a vendor goes out of business or in business or changes leadership or ownership, we can still control our destiny and move forward in a collaborative way to support the software that we own and operate.
we've implemented that model on the juvenile system, and now we want to move that model over to the adult side as well.
we entered into a strategic planning project last fall, and Travis County was a participant, and there were eight counties participating and we did three things.
we really looked at the state of justice software and we did a strategic plan update for our own vision of how county justice software should operate.
we drafted some rules for the Texas supreme court, collaboratively, as counties, for how criminal matters should be filed into the court electronically, and we submitted those rules to the supreme court where they're under consideration.
and then we initiated these project proposals that you're looking at today for two projects to move forward collaboratively.
one is for criminal court system, as roger said, and one is for a prosecutor system.
in this next phase what we're going to do is a detailed plan for how to move forward to acquire and operate and develop that software.
we're not going to have software at the end of this phase.
what we'll have is a contract to build that software or bring it into the counties and implement it for you.
so it's a short step, it's a step by step approach, to get a new system for the counties.
we will do an rfp, of course, a traditional solicitation, and we will do a competitive process to arrive at a supplier to help us build that software, but the co difference between this -- key difference between this and what we did in 2004 is that we'll require that the software be owned and operated bit counties, just like we did on the juvenile side.
so that's the difference in the model.
it's going to be a county owned, county operated software system.
the projects run in parallel for about five months, starting in September and wrapping up around the first of the year.
at that time we'll come back to you with a few things.
one, a business model and a set of requirements that you could use on your own if you wanted to go forward independently and get new justice systems on your own; two, a development plan so that we have a detailed plan for moving forward to acquire and build the software; and three, an implementation plan for your county so you'll know exactly what it will cost to go forward with the project, not only for developing the software but to put it in place to divert your data, to train everyone, to do all the things it takes to put a software system of this magnitude in place.
those will be the deliverables from the project.
now, you'll be sharing the cost of this project with some other counties.
this morning tarrant county approved participation in the project.
dallas county considered it and they'll court order it next week.
they have a two-week cycle, but there was discussion and no objection to moving forward.
bell county, which is up the road a piece there in belton, Texas, is going to participate, so it's a wide range of sizes of counties.
cameron county in brownsville has decided they want to be part of at least the prosecutor piece, which they can.
they can choose if they want to be in one or both of the projects.
and we suspect that going forward these projects will gain momentum and more and more counties will join.
the total cost of the two projects is around $800,000, and I think your share is something like --
>> 183.
>> -- $183,000 for both projects.
so one of the things you get is that you get value, things you would have to do anyway.
you'd have to do your requirements, you'd have to do your solicitation, you'd have to decide your direction, and you get value because collectively the counties will fund that project and collaborate with you on that effort.
and what we've learned through this process is not just that they share the cost, but they share the knowledge.
the it departments really are bigger and stronger because they're working with each other across the state, and they're working under the direction and guidance of experienced leadership at the urban counties.
so we ask you to consider the projects and we're open to answer any questions today.
>> yes?
>> I wanted you to, charles, perhaps -- or don, elucidate on having drafted proposed draft rules for the Texas supreme court?
because one big dividend I see in participation, not only is there cost savings, not only is there a higher degree of efficiency and ability to collaborate with other urban counties and swap information, but there's a third kind of sweeper dividend here is that if the counties ban together to establish a standard for data collection and reporting, then we also stand a much improved chance of controlling our destiny with regard to legislation in data requirements and sharing.
and I -- I just wanted you all to give us a little information on that.
>> well, if I may, Commissioner, I just draw the analog to the juvenile system where -- and I think this is a county that has historically struggle with the tjcp to change some of their definitions that threw your systems out of whack in getting information to the state.
they would say we're going to withhold grant money.
they drove a process that was haphazard, and that's changing completely through the juvenile project we've had going for four years now, and I think that's settling down, and now counties are -- I wouldn't say driving, but we are clearly at the table with tjpc on these things.
>> and it improves our ability and the state's ability to compare apples to apples and see what programs are actually working and what programs aren't, because we'll all be sharing a common database and the way of reporting out.
so I see it from a -- I mean, it seems to be a no-brainer from a cost perspective, but also from a policy perspective.
>> I 100% agree with you, and I'll tell you, your board, as they have talked about techshare over the years and one of the reasons they have been so enthusiastic about it as we actually view it as not just a cost-saving device but a key component to the intergovernment relations strategy over the long-term.
we as counties have to get better and better with information technology in order to be trusted by the legislature with resources and policy discretion, and this is a way to do that, and that's going to mean counties working together so that their data is meaningful across -- across counties.
so I'm 100% on board with you on that.
>> if I could add to that, I'll draw a parallel to when Texas on-line first came on-line, about eight years ago, and techshare didn't exist, versus what happened last year.
when Texas on-line, electronic filing for civil cases came on-line, there was no standard set of rules, there were no standards.
it was each to his own way, and that was controlled and operated by the state, the department of information resources, with little regard, really, for how the counties would interact with the system.
this time we were actually invited by the supreme court because of the success of techshare to get involved in that rule-making process before criminal e filing can be really implemented across the state.
so you're right, we proposed a standard based approach where counties can share data, can have choice and can maintain the flexibility but at the same time exchange information in a meaningful way.
so I think that actual experience of -- as you brought it out on e filing is a perfect example of how techshare makes county it stronger.
>> that's a long list of county departments on page 3.
as a backup.
all those departments aretively engaged?
>> yes, sir -- are actively engaged?
>> yes, sir, they all have representation on the ijf steering committee.
like vicki said, we've recently established an executive committee that included the appointed and elected officials that are represented on the ijs.
we actually had a meeting where money many of them showed up last week so that we could brief them on this project and we'll have a follow-up just to make sure we've answered all their questions.
>> and I see judge steed here and representatives from other departments, I guess, pbl auditor and court administrator, and those on the back row, baptists, probably.
>> [laughter]
>> I move approval of the interlocal agreement for both the criminal courts module and the prosecutorial module.
>> in anticipation of approval of this we approved the money this morning as part of our --
>> [laughter] regular
>> [inaudible].
court is always a step ahead.
all in favor.
that passes by a unanimous vote.
>> thank you.
>> thank you all very much.
thank you for your patience.
>> good to see you all.
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