Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, October 25, 2011 (Agenda)
Item 23
23, consider and take appropriate action on budget amendments, transfers and discussion items.
>> good afternoon, dana ramirez with planning and budget office.
we have a long list of budget amendments and transfers and one discussion item.
I'd like to just go through real quick and see do you have any questions in the amendments?
>> that would be a 1 through 3.
I don't have any problems of those.
>> move approval.
>> second.
>> discussion on the motion?
all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
>> and on the transfers, t 1 through t 5.
the most unique one is the request from the criminal courts to transfer the program for adult drug court to pretrial services department and all the affected departments have been involved in the discussions and to our knowledge there are no disagreements or concerns about the --
>> I didn't have any problems with that, judge.
>> it's the same amount of money budgeted for the drug court which answered to court administration, they transfer that to tscd basically.
>> move approval.
>> second.
>> take your pick.
>> were you able to distinguish the motion from the seconder?
sound like they were sing to go me, miss porter.
discussion?
all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
>> okay, and the last items related to justice of the peace precinct 1 and our discussion items. And the first two items, d 1 and d 2, are for the continued funding of special project temporaries through the end of this fiscal year for the precinct.
they have been funded for the last three or four years in this precinct and then two other precincts also this fiscal year through the budget process, the preliminary budget, we didn't see that we had sufficient funding to recommend funding those on a continuing basis and the facts project was on hold so p.b.o.
didn't recommend funding at that time.
subsequent to that Commissioners court approved funding of one month for those special projects temps, two positions in precinct 1.
so those positions will end at the end of October if this action isn't taken to continue them through the rest of this fiscal year.
it would be the ticks did of one time funding because every year with special project temps, if they are only approved through the year, during the next fiscal year we take that money out and those positions end.
>> judge williams.
>> good afternoon to all of you.
one of the things you asked me to do the last time we were here was come back with more information about the toll cases, which is some of the things that we're taking on.
my information was that actually these people have become very, very integral to the workings of our office but we're also taking on toll road cases and the question what did that really mean.
we've met with the toll people and discussed it with a couple of judges who are more -- who have done more of them in Williamson county.
and they can send us, they want to send us about 40 cases a month.
here's what that means.
an account, let's call them account, a case, is actually three files because that's the way the toll people have actually packaged them.
and you all got some of that information last time.
so if they send us 20 a month, that ends up being 720 on year but we're really talking 40 a month and 1400 cases a year.
they can send us up to 60 and they gave us the figures on those.
what we talked to the people in georgetown and we found out that the average clerk there takes about at least half a day, five days a week processing.
one of my clerks put -- within of my more experienced clerks who does tickets put them in a few of them and it takes her about 30 minutes.
again, she's the most experienced person on the staff.
it takes her 30 minutes to set up a file, for instance.
and so that sounds about right that they are dealing with about half a day's of work one day a week.
now, these cases are also going to generate phone calls and a certain amount of file pending once they start coming in too.
but we also saw that we ought to make it somewhere under $200, I think it was 170 per case that we ought to be able to get off those fines once we start processing them.
so I have the figures here.
I have them in the form of emails.
like I say, they are chomping at the built.
we have files literally sitting on our desk, but we're telling them we're not obligating ourselves until we know we can cover them and they've been asking us to do this since before I was sworn in.
so with all due respect, if you since found some money and I've got these folks who have become a very integral part of the office, we're taking on the toll cases, to the opportunity of 40 a month.
keep in mind that's three times 40 when it really comes to the actual case numbers.
we request that you leave these folks in at least for this year.
and if you want to revisit this then next year, then we can.
but certainly for this year as we take on these -- the toll cases.
>> and I don't expect either one of y'all to have this -- have an answer to that question, but I think it's a question we should probably endeavor to get an answer to with regard to the cost of toll road prosecutions versus the court costs collected off of them.
because my understanding is it's a civil action in the nature of -- in the nature of trespass.
it only becomes criminal after a certain number of violations.
so perhaps we could talk to justice planning about setting up some sort of system through which we can track the costs of this kind of prosecution so we could at least go back to the legislature and say hey, this is a cost, txdot, can you help?
>> sure.
sure.
>> at least to figure it into their overall idea on this.
because we've been expecting this for a while since I believe it was 2007 the legislation was passed to --
>> yeah.
>> -- to bring these cases through the j.p.s.
>> we need to shy away from criminal cases.
pursue them as civil matters is what I think there was a
>> [indiscernible] in harris county.
they are convinced if your goal is try to recoup some of the revenue to cover the cost, then you want to pursue them civilly.
>> yes.
>> and harris county has a separate court, a separate docket just for these kinds of cases.
>> oh, yes.
>> were they utilizing a magistrate, a special magistrate to do them?
>> I don't know what they were using in harris county exactly.
I know the one I was looking in mind they told us to look at more the way we are processing our evictions in terms of the amount of time that's going to be involved with what we're doing and the setting up time.
>> it might be very similar to our hot checks mechanism so we might want to look at a centralized mechanism just for toll road cases.
that way we know how much they are costing us, they have their own procedural universe and we might want to take a look at that for the future.
>> I agree, Commissioner, and there are going to be so many of them.
>> right.
>> that they are really going to merit their own little universe.
>> and it's a lot like a hot check case.
>> yes.
yes indeed.
>> we should be findful too that part of ---mindful that part of the tolls in precinct 1, the tolls in precinct 4 as well as precinct 2, right?
smaller stretches, but my guess there will be tickets generated there too.
>> yes.
>> and most time the -- toll jumping in precinct 3 as well.
>> so it will be in every precinct at that time.
okay, so this is the -- this is temporary people who are working on the facts issue.
>> that were originally working on facts and now they would be working on the toll road tickets and other worry load the office is experiencing and it would be one-time funding.
>> okay, we transferred savings from temporary positions.
>> correct, and that's -- right, and we were -- I was treating that separately under the backup that p.b.o.
submitted.
I was trying to -- to separate them and try to get them just nice and simple, you know, decisions on each one of them individually.
the second part, the $30,000 that was one-time money that Commissioners court approved that judge williams originally was requesting to use for salary increases, she has asked today if we could pull that to another time so she has a little more time to look at it and to work with h.r.
and try to figure out what's going on and make sure that, you know, everything is all right on that one.
I think for now the use of that $30,000 is off the table for the time being so we would just focus on the special project temps.
>> questions, comments?
>> judge, if you are willing to entertain a motion, I think that -- I mean I'm mindful of what we've been anticipating for some time, I would move that we fund the two temporary positions through September of 2012 and task justice planning and the j.p.s with looking at models to handle the toll road cases.
>> second.
>> you second, okay.
do we want to task criminal justice planning with that or have you talked to them already?
>> y'all have been going gang busters on the records management stuff and my understanding was that justice planning at least was sitting in the background watching.
>> yes, well, but I don't know exactly what their thoughts are, but we are meeting, yes, with them, yes.
>> the juvenile case manager --
>> let's indicate our intention to do that but touch base with them.
how is that?
>> uh-huh.
we can work with them.
>> if we can get it done that way, then fine.
>> probably the county attorney's office should be involved as the prosecutors in those cases.
>> we're trying to get all the stakeholders.
>> any more discussion?
all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you so much.
>> thank you very much.
thank bolt of y'all for your patience.
that does it for item 23?
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.
