[This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person -- it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.]

[0:00] And then we'll have the pledges. Dear Lord, I come to you this morning and thank you for the start of another busy week and busy day.
[0:07] We thank you for your many blessings upon us in this community. I pray that you would be with us in the decisions before us today. In your name I pray. Amen.
[0:41] Next
[0:53] item we have on the agenda is to consider approval of minutes.
[0:57] this would have been our April 8th meeting and a copy of those are in front of each of you.
[1:05] All those in favor? Any opposed? Motion approved.
[1:13] Item 4, Citizens' Communication,
[1:15] anyone with us this morning that would like to bring up an item of county business that's
[1:22] not yet listed on the agenda is welcome to do so at this time.
[1:30] Richard anything?
[1:30] anything?
[1:33] All right, well, then we will move right along to item number five, which is consider
[1:40] approval of accounts payable for Victoria County and take appropriate action.
[1:44] Our accounts payable for April 15, 2019 came to a total of $495,673.18, and our supplemental
[1:55] for the week came to $133,666.43.
[2:02] Move for approval.
[2:03] Second.
[2:04] All those in favor?
[2:05] Aye.
[2:06] Any opposed?
[2:08] Motion approved.
[2:10] Item number six, receive monthly and quarterly reports from various county
[2:15] officials and departments and take appropriate action.
[2:18] This morning we have monthly reports from the Justice of Peace,
[2:20] Precinct number two, and comment on these precincts, numbers two and four.
[2:25] Move, proceed.
[2:26] Second.
[2:27] All those in favor?
[2:29] Aye.
[2:29] Aye.
[2:30] Any opposed?
[2:32] Motion approved.
[2:33] Item number seven, consider approval of bond for-fiture releases and take appropriate action.
[2:38] We haven't done this one.
[2:39] Easy enough.
[2:41] Item eight, consider approval of Citizens Medical Center interim vendor payments and take appropriate action.
[2:46] You each have the April 11th letter from the hospital showing interim vendor payments in
[2:53] the amount of $500,344.77. The ACH report on that same day of April 11th, 2019 was in the
[3:04] amount of $2,309,500.69.
[3:10] Move for approval.
[3:11] Second.
[3:12] All those in favor?
[3:13] Aye.
[3:14] Aye.
[3:14] any opposed motion approved item number nine here presentation and discuss
[3:21] possible public defender program and take appropriate action let's see and we're
[3:30] going to have let's see was it David Hall who okay yes that's right we've met
[3:37] David good to see again and then Edwin Colfax we spoke with the Texas
[3:43] is indigent defense commission. Okay, well welcome both of you. Appreciate you all being
[3:49] back here. I know we've visited before some of our district judges, county court at law
[3:55] judges, but we wanted to have the full court here to be part of this discussion and to
[4:04] have our questions answered. So appreciate you all being here. I guess I'll turn the
[4:08] floor over to whomever whichever of you wants to give us some background on this
[4:14] and then we'll. I'll go first. So I'm Edwin Colf. I'm the grant program manager at
[4:19] the Texas Indigent Defense Commission. I appreciate a chance to visit with y'all
[4:23] this morning about some of the grant programs that we offer and in particular
[4:27] on indigent defense programs that support a public defender program to
[4:31] provide indigent defense services. So first just a little bit of quick
[4:35] background about our agency. The Texas Indigent Defense Commission was created back in 2001
[4:40] by the legislature. It is made up of judges, county judges, constitutional judges, criminal
[4:48] court judges, some elected officials, and some attorneys. And the mission of the Indigent
[4:55] Defense Commission is to ensure that people's Sixth Amendment rights to have counsel when
[5:01] charged with the crime, even if they can't afford it, are honored. So we work with counties
[5:05] to provide some funding. We provide some oversight and technical assistance for counties.
[5:12] All counties are eligible to get formula grant funding from TIDC, and unfortunately that
[5:18] only covers about 10 to 14 percent of the county's cost for appointing lawyers to
[5:24] indigent defendants. That's the formula grant funding that pretty much everyone
[5:29] gets including Victoria County. Our commission has been advocating for years to be able to do more
[5:35] and provide more assistance to counties. We work with the legislature and do what we can with
[5:39] the funds that we receive. So that's kind of our baseline funding that we're able to offer.
[5:45] We have what we call an improvement grant program which is project specific grants that we offer
[5:51] and including grants to operate a public defender program. So traditionally and here in Victoria
[5:57] County, indigent defense responsibilities are met by the judges creating what we often
[6:02] refer to as the wheel or a list of attorneys who are qualified to provide representation
[6:07] in those cases.
[6:09] And then those attorneys represent the clients that are appointed after they're qualified
[6:15] as indigent, they're appointed an attorney.
[6:18] The attorney sends a bill into the court, they review that bill one by one and then
[6:24] can approve or in some cases adjust the payment and send that off to the auditor. The auditor
[6:29] makes the payment to the attorney. Public Defender Program is a different model for providing
[6:34] indigent defense. It's a little more integrated. It's more cohesive. And some of its primary
[6:40] benefits are providing enhanced oversight and accountability with respect to this function.
[6:45] So the way a public defender works is sort of like the other side of the coin from
[6:50] the county attorney or the district attorney's office. You've got staff
[6:53] attorneys who are hired when there's sufficient case volume, and certainly in
[6:58] a county as big as Victoria, you have plenty of cases to justify having some
[7:02] staff attorneys dedicated to this work. Those attorneys, staff court dockets,
[7:09] they're routinely getting out to the jail to interview the clients as soon as
[7:14] they're appointed to get things rolling on the cases, starting
[7:18] leading representation from our experience much earlier than most appointed private lawyers
[7:23] are able to do because of their competing obligations.
[7:28] And so this sort of what I would say more cohesive or organized approach to providing
[7:36] indigent defense services has a lot of benefits and our commission has kind of prioritized
[7:41] this as a model that is preferable because of the enhanced accountability that comes
[7:48] along with it. When you have a staff attorney, they are supervised. They're getting training.
[7:55] They're being, you know, their work is being looked at. The judges who have the responsibility
[8:00] of, you know, kind of providing that oversight on an assigned counsel system, they see
[8:05] the attorneys in the court taking pleas and occasionally in trial. And that gives
[8:11] them some visibility into the quality of the work and whether they're checking all the
[8:14] boxes they need to check, but that's only kind of a sliver of the work that the attorneys
[8:20] are doing is the work that happens in the courtroom.
[8:23] And so the extra accountability and oversight that comes along with the public defender
[8:26] model has made this a kind of priority for the Commission in terms of encouraging
[8:31] counties to look at this model and providing grant funding to come along with it.
[8:36] So the kind of improvement grants that our commission offers, the standard model is for
[8:42] us to just provide start-up funding for counties.
[8:45] So in a regular grant, we would provide 80% of the costs in the first year, step down
[8:50] to 60% in the second year, 40%, 30%, 20%, and then eventually have the county pick it
[8:55] up.
[8:56] For public defender counties, rather for public defender projects in rural counties,
[9:00] and we draw that line at a hundred thousand or less, the commission has
[9:06] approved what we call sustainability grants. So we would, for these types of
[9:11] grants, we'll still start accounting off where the state funds 80% of the project
[9:15] costs in the first year, steps down to 60% of the project costs in the second
[9:19] year, and then basically levels off at 50% costs moving forward. So basically
[9:26] Basically, we provide extra funding on the first two years to cover some of the costs
[9:32] associated with the transition from private sign counsel, the public funder model, and
[9:37] then level off at 50-50 state-county cost sharing.
[9:41] It's a very good deal for counties in the sense that you still continue to get your
[9:45] formula grant funding from TIDC.
[9:47] That formula grant funding, while it's only a small percentage of your overall costs,
[9:52] is based, in part, on 50% of that number is based on the county's population, so that
[9:57] part is going to stay the same, and then 50% is dependent upon the county's overall expenses
[10:03] for indigent defense.
[10:04] So you still get that formula grant funding coming in.
[10:07] You get 50% of the cost of the public offender covered in your beginning in year three.
[10:12] It'd be higher percentage in the first couple years.
[10:15] So essentially the state is able, under this kind of a model, to pick up more than
[10:19] 150% of the costs of county indigent defense, which is the best deal we have going and much
[10:27] better than the standard formula grants.
[10:29] The reason the commission feels comfortable with that and has provided these grants in
[10:33] this way or offered these grants in this way is because of that extra quality assurance
[10:38] that you get.
[10:39] You really know, you have a much better sense of what the county is getting for
[10:42] its indigent defense spending when those folks are operating within a program that
[10:48] It has supervision, mentoring,
[10:54] employee reviews on an annual basis.
[10:56] There's just a lot more oversight comes along with it, and so that's kind of the rationale
[11:00] behind why we're able to offer that higher level of funding for this type of a program.
[11:06] So the grant, we offer these grants on kind of an annual basis.
[11:10] We are coming up to a deadline of May 10th to put in a request for one of these public
[11:15] defender grants.
[11:18] I should circle back and say that counties have a couple of options on how to operate
[11:22] a public defender.
[11:23] One option is to do it just like you would do the county or district attorney's office
[11:27] and the county directly hires staff, staffs up an office and operates it directly.
[11:33] TIDC beginning back in 2007, I believe it was, started a program with B county in partnership
[11:42] partnership with Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid to operate a public defender under contract.
[11:46] So it's sort of outsourcing model that counties can use, and it's really kind of a turnkey
[11:51] operation in the way that TRLA is able to offer these services.
[11:55] So TRLA, they're a nonprofit corporation.
[11:59] They staff up to provide the indigent defense services and represent those cases.
[12:04] They'll open an office in the jurisdiction and provide all that kind of oversight and
[12:09] accountability that I was referring to.
[12:12] And for most counties, particularly smaller counties,
[12:15] the big urban counties that have public defenders generally
[12:17] choose to operate them directly in the way
[12:19] that the district attorney works, county employees.
[12:23] Most smaller counties find that contracting or outsourcing
[12:26] these services works better for them.
[12:29] It manages those kinds of, you know,
[12:32] you don't have to worry about the pension obligations
[12:34] and the health insurance benefits and all that.
[12:36] It's kind of covered by the nonprofit that contracts
[12:38] with the county to provide the services. So that's the model that we've been discussing with
[12:43] Judge Zeller and a few other folks here in the county. I know that TRLA has provided some
[12:48] preliminary budget numbers and then refined those numbers with some, based on some feedback from
[12:53] Judge Zeller. In terms of the process with the grant at this juncture, it is important to
[13:00] get a grant request into us before that May 10th deadline. However, if there are still
[13:06] questions about the scope of the program or budget details to be addressed. When you
[13:11] turn in a grant request to us before that deadline, you can just note that the budget
[13:15] is still being finalized, if you will. The main thing is that we just have a request
[13:21] in the hopper that's under consideration before that deadline, and then the details
[13:24] can continue to be discussed. If you do decide to move forward and turn in a grant
[13:29] application to us, the county is still under no obligation to move forward with
[13:34] the project. It just keeps, it allows us the opportunity to work with you to see if a project
[13:41] can be put together that meets everybody's needs in the budget that the county needs
[13:44] to see in order to move forward. So that's kind of the deadline to bear in mind as we
[13:49] are coming up close to it.
[13:52] TRLA and my agency are happy to work with the county if you would like some assistance
[13:56] drafting the application. Because it's a program that a number of counties across
[14:00] the state are using. We're very familiar with it and we could help you put together a grant
[14:04] application in pretty short order. Our application is, I would say, much less onerous than a
[14:10] lot of government grant opportunities, if you've ever waited through some of those.
[14:15] Ours was pretty straightforward. So, I'm happy to answer any questions. That's kind
[14:19] of an overview. I know that David Hall can speak to you a little bit more detail
[14:24] about the operation of his program, some of the budget numbers that have been
[14:29] provided for the commissioners. But looking at both the preliminary budget that was provided
[14:34] and the refined budget based on your feedback to the dollar, it looks like the county stands
[14:39] to save several hundred thousand dollars even after the initial step down from 80% funding
[14:45] to 50%. It looks like it makes a good, looks good from a financial perspective for the
[14:51] county in terms of saving several hundred thousand dollars on these, on this area
[14:56] representation. I'm happy to answer any questions before I turn over to David or I can just
[15:00] Let him talk about his program.
[15:02] Okay. And we do have the revised projection numbers. I don't think I've seen the revised ones.
[15:11] Okay. Yeah, well, I guess I'll point out for the benefit of the court and maybe those who
[15:18] haven't heard about this or been involved in these discussions were relatively new to
[15:26] this discussion early on in this discussion it wasn't but about well when
[15:31] did we meet originally about probably months ago thirty days ago three weeks
[15:36] ago and so I'm I'm new to studying this and to looking at this but I have been
[15:43] studying it intently because it it does have a lot of appeal to it the model
[15:53] of having the public defender office in-house and also the nonprofit program are both from
[16:02] what I've seen more expensive than doing it the way we're doing it now.
[16:07] The PERC, financially, is that this being a priority of the state, they're willing
[16:12] to put a lot of investment into it, 80 percent the first year, 60 percent the second
[16:17] year and then 50 percent in each year following.
[16:20] So that's what makes it financially a good deal, appears to make it financially a good deal.
[16:27] I know in Victoria County we've got some quirks that are different than some of the other counties you all do business in.
[16:38] A much higher co-defendant rate than normal.
[16:43] Also the dynamic of us having pretrial service department already.
[16:49] which was what I was wanting to see if it could be built into this proposal, those two dynamics.
[17:00] The original estimate we saw showed, and I really am avoiding the first and second year
[17:08] because we'll definitely save money the first two years.
[17:11] I'm looking at on a permanent basis what we could reasonably assume our cost savings to be.
[17:17] That original estimate showed over $300,000 a year in cost savings, which I thought could
[17:28] be increased, and in fact would probably need to be increased, given the fact that with
[17:34] our high co-defendant rate we'd still be maintaining a fairly robust wheel.
[17:41] And so are you able to distribute those revised numbers now or, David, are you
[17:46] able to speak to that.
[17:53] He's going in our packet or anything? No. That's all a surprise. Yeah,
[17:58] I don't know anything about it. I don't have a paperwork or I have nothing. Well, I think
[18:02] the paperwork's right here. And I don't I haven't seen this either.
[18:23] And these numbers
[18:24] came from where sir? They came from the numbers that the county submits to the office of
[18:30] Court's administration and to TIDC. It comes off of their websites, both of them are on
[18:36] their website. And with permission of the judge, this is the revised budget.
[18:44] Wonderful, wonderful. Yeah, thank you. Okay.
[19:01] Well, the first, first thing that, if it's all right, if I ask a question, is our,
[19:08] What about our local attorneys?
[19:11] We have local attorneys that take care of the district and county courted law.
[19:20] Are they able to continue to, if we went this way, they more or less wouldn't be included?
[19:28] Or could they join your group?
[19:30] Well, we would probably try to hire several of them if we can convince them to work for our salaries.
[19:37] salaries. Our salaries are fairly low, but we always try when we start up one of these
[19:43] projects to hire some local people. The best example I can give you is Star County. We've
[19:49] got a little three-county regional program with Duvall, Jim Hogg, and Star County.
[19:55] We hired the former district attorney who'd been there as the DA for 20 years, and we
[20:06] is now our chief defender in the Starr County operation.
[20:10] And we hired an investigator from the sheriff's office.
[20:15] And we have six lawyers in that county.
[20:18] So a third of them are from Starr County originally
[20:23] with experience.
[20:25] In order to operate, this would
[20:28] be a mixture of felony representation
[20:31] and misdemeanor representation.
[20:35] Misdemeanors, we normally start out with fairly inexperienced lawyers, recent law graduates
[20:40] from law school, and we train them in-house so that they can come up through the system.
[20:48] It's important to bring those kinds of lawyers in and train them from the beginning.
[20:54] It brings a new bloodstream of lawyers into your community.
[20:58] This program, because of the size of your caseload, would require about a 10-lawyer operation.
[21:06] And a good mixture would be four, five, six, that we could hire locally.
[21:12] And a similar number that we would bring in as recent law school graduates to take on the misdemeanor docket and caseload.
[21:23] Before I get any further in this discussion, I'd like to introduce, I don't need to introduce
[21:30] Ron Walker, I suppose.
[21:32] We know Ron.
[21:33] We do know Ron.
[21:34] Ron's on the TRLA Board of Directors, so he's the boss of it all.
[21:40] Robert Doggett is going to be here shortly.
[21:43] He was having child delivery issues at school today, so he's coming out of Austin, so
[21:50] He was somewhat delayed, but he'll be here in a few minutes.
[21:54] But he is the executive director.
[21:57] I'm the former executive director.
[22:00] I was there for a number of years.
[22:03] Ron was my boss.
[22:04] He didn't fire me while I was there.
[22:07] I retired honorably.
[22:09] There he is.
[22:09] And there's Robert Doggett, who came in late and dishonorably.
[22:15] Can I just take a response to the question?
[22:17] Sure.
[22:18] Mr. Jennings, regarding the local attorneys and what happens after this kind of transition,
[22:25] so any kind of public defender program can only take up to a certain number of cases
[22:29] because ethical rules prevent them from representing, for example, co-defendants in the same case.
[22:35] There's always going to be a fairly significant amount of cases.
[22:39] This is what the gazelle was referring to as the conflict cases.
[22:43] There's going to be a chunk of the cases that the public defender will be unable to take.
[22:47] So there's going to be an ongoing stream of cases that would be appointed to the same lawyers.
[22:52] The other thing that this program would not be involved with is the CPS cases, those family law cases,
[23:00] regarding parental rights and termination of parental rights.
[23:03] For most counties, that side of the appointed council business is pretty significant and growing.
[23:11] This wouldn't really touch that area of indigent representation.
[23:14] So, in terms of cases that would not be handled by this program, those are the big ones and
[23:22] fairly substantial.
[23:24] Okay.
[23:24] Thank you.
[23:25] Okay.
[23:26] So we're just talking about criminal cases.
[23:28] Yeah.
[23:29] Mr. Mayor and fellow members.
[23:30] All right.
[23:31] And if we could, since I know the court is seeing this for the first time, we can
[23:36] look at this sheet right here, Commissioner, I want the green heading up at the top and
[23:41] And look at exactly what is being proposed here.
[23:45] What these folks do is look at our statistics, our case, case, number of cases we encounter.
[23:53] And based upon that volume, they, and just use statistic, statistical models, estimate
[24:01] what they need in staffing.
[24:03] Given the caseload in Victoria, they're estimating total full-time employees, full-time equivalents
[24:12] of 16.08 people of those 10 are attorneys.
[24:18] So based on the caseload they're seeing, they would need to hire 16 people.
[24:24] And you see the cost for that in salary and in benefits of about $1.1 million.
[24:30] They also estimate their other expenses, utilities, space, telephone, contract services, training
[24:41] all the other stuff about $200,000.
[24:43] So based upon our caseload, their program contract would cost us about $1.3 million,
[24:53] which certainly obviously is more than the roughly million we spend.
[24:58] But again, the perk here in what makes this possibly feasible is that the state is cost-sharing
[25:06] a lot of that.
[25:08] Down at the bottom, you see the 80% in year one projected to save us about $777,000.
[25:18] Year two at a 60% contribution, $543,000.
[25:24] And then in year three with the 50% call share, the savings is estimated to be about 412,000.
[25:32] Those numbers were originally lower, but in visiting with these folks about the fact that
[25:41] we're going to have to still maintain private attorneys,
[25:48] we would need to be a, well,
[25:50] So, co-defendants, and a lot of this I learned for the first time here recently, when there's
[25:56] a bust and arrest, whatever, where there's more than one person involved, that's what
[26:03] you're referred to as co-defendants, which typically in y'all's areas is around 10%,
[26:09] but here in Victoria, due to the prevalence of, I guess, gang activity, meth production,
[26:18] And it's higher than that, around 25%.
[26:22] The buddy system.
[26:23] The buddy system. OK, the buddy system.
[26:26] So given that fact, y'all were able to scale down your employees a little bit,
[26:30] thus increasing those cost savings.
[26:35] One thing we'll have to still consider on our end is what we would maintain.
[26:40] Still maintain paying private attorneys. Correct.
[26:43] Which looking at that, Caitlin, we came up with.
[26:47] I think around roughly $200,000.
[26:52] Roughly $200,000 is what we'd still maintain paying private attorneys.
[26:57] So again, this sheet that you're looking at here, their estimate on employees needed,
[27:02] total cost, and then the estimated cost savings.
[27:07] My goal in all this is to make sure that those numbers at the bottom right are accurate,
[27:12] those cost savings.
[27:14] because I would think we would need to be fairly confident we're saving at least 250,000ish to have some margin for error.
[27:25] Constance, our DA has something you want to...
[27:27] Good morning, gentlemen.
[27:28] Good morning, gentlemen. How are you doing?
[27:30] I'm good.
[27:30] I would be remiss at this juncture if I didn't speak up.
[27:34] I want to thank these gentlemen.
[27:36] I first want to say that I know that this organization does fine work,
[27:38] and I know that the counties that they are serving, they're providing an excellent service.
[27:43] The projected numbers that you're looking at, though, if I'm not mistaken, are based
[27:47] on a glimpse three years back, and so under a different district attorney with a different
[27:53] philosophical approach to case management and charting decisions and things like that.
[27:58] And so I have to tell you that I don't think that the numbers going forward are going
[28:02] to be reflective of what you're seeing on paper at this moment.
[28:05] And so I'm not saying that in Victoria County in the future, this may not be the direction
[28:09] that we need to go but I'm saying to you not yet I would appreciate the
[28:14] opportunity to have a full year or two under our belt to see what impact a new
[28:18] philosophical approach has on these numbers I think that would be smart and
[28:23] you know at the same time complimenting the court and the judge
[28:26] certainly for exploring any opportunity to be good stewards of our tax dollars
[28:29] you know not not taking issue with that but I'm saying that perhaps it's
[28:33] premature at this junction to to make that decision because the numbers I think
[28:38] going to look a whole lot different so I needed to throw that into as my duty as
[28:43] your newly elected district attorney. Speaking of the time frame you had
[28:47] mentioned application needs to be made in May right what is it what is the time
[28:52] period for approval notification of award and that long time tell me tell
[28:59] me some yeah that happens in June tell me some stops along the way it all the
[29:04] way to y'all are on go in Victoria County. Right. The board decisions are made in
[29:10] June, right? So the staff will typically present the requests to our board and at
[29:16] the June meeting, which was early June, they can take action at that point. I
[29:20] mentioned that since there's still some refining and vetting to deal with the
[29:24] budget, if you know we don't present the grant request to our board until
[29:29] the county is fully ready to do so. So even though we have an
[29:34] May 10th, I'd like to kind of get something in the offer.
[29:36] We present it to the board in either June or August.
[29:39] More likely, I would think, in this case,
[29:40] it'd probably be right to present to the board
[29:42] for action in August.
[29:44] The start-up for the program would typically
[29:46] be slated for the fiscal year 2020, which
[29:49] begins in October on our calendar,
[29:51] for most counties.
[29:53] So we'd be looking at starting up October 1st.
[29:57] Because the IDs, whenever we implement a.
[29:59] Check out the video description.
[30:00] A larger program, that schedule often is hard to meet, so we don't ever move forward until all the stakeholders are prepared to move forward.
[30:08] We can leave the request pending for a few months, if needed, as details are worked out.
[30:14] But the standard timeline would be to start up in October unless there's still work to be done.
[30:20] Well, we're on a calendar year. I don't know if that makes a difference.
[30:24] Now on these numbers, y'all pulled out the family law and the stuff that you can't do.
[30:30] Yes, the family law stuff is not included in the projections.
[30:33] The case laws were based on review, as your district attorney just mentioned,
[30:38] for review of the most recent three years of data that we have about the volume of criminal cases
[30:44] and how many attorneys and staff would be needed for that case.
[30:49] And there has been, and I concur with the district attorney, there has been fairly dramatic change
[30:57] even within this last three-year period in which she was not in the role of the district attorney.
[31:04] And that's not uncommon. You may see a 20-30% difference from year to year,
[31:10] which is the reason we use three-year averaging.
[31:13] And we go back every year and look at the numbers over the most recent three-year period
[31:20] and make adjustments.
[31:22] So if the case is decreased by 20% in the next year or the current year,
[31:31] that will be reflected in the next time the grant comes up for renewal,
[31:35] both with TIDC and with the county.
[31:38] So it's a running kind of an average that we're looking at.
[31:41] And those adjustments are made throughout the period.
[31:45] And of course, there's always the option if you don't like how the numbers are working for you to opt out of the contract.
[31:54] The only thing we ask is that you pay us for the cases that we still have obligations on.
[31:59] Okay, and I'll speak briefly to that. That is correct and I appreciate Constance you
[32:07] bringing that up because we do a different administration in the DA's office I think will
[32:13] definitely lead to savings there, to what extent we don't know yet. Of course those
[32:23] savings would be realized without proceeding with y'all if we stick with our current program,
[32:33] but you're saying we'd also, it seems like, I know that dynamic is true, we will see
[32:38] some lowering of costs, but would that unknown prevent us from proceeding? If instead of
[32:47] million we drop to 800,000, would that be a deal killer? And that's a question we
[32:58] have to answer and certainly something we need to consider because that is a
[33:03] variable here. There's some other variables we'll get to, but Constance.
[33:07] And I didn't elaborate further and I'm not trying to domineer the meaning, but the biggest
[33:11] jumps that we saw in our numbers coincided with the prior administration's
[33:17] And so one change in the way we do business can have a dramatic effect on the numbers
[33:22] that you're looking at.
[33:23] That policy is gone.
[33:25] Right, right.
[33:26] And so we're only three months into a new administration and I'm not sure, but I can
[33:30] guarantee you the numbers are going to be lower going forward just because we are addressing
[33:34] things a little differently.
[33:36] My predecessor lauded the fact that he tried cases at three times the state average
[33:41] and we're not embracing that philosophy.
[33:43] It's going to be some differences.
[33:44] The other thing that concerns me is that if we go forward in this way, with the co-defendant
[33:51] rates that we have on the books, the likelihood that the local attorneys that take those cases
[33:55] are out and that makes up a big part of their practice, they will move in another direction
[34:00] altogether.
[34:01] You can't maintain a practice without being on an appointed wheel and so I need to go
[34:08] back to some of those folks with one of these 25% of our docket that we're not
[34:14] It would be unrealistic to expect that they're going to wait around for those cases.
[34:18] They have to make a living and they'll go into other practice areas or go into another place.
[34:22] And so that does concern me as well.
[34:25] I have a question. We're right on the cusp of the population cutoff for the funding of the levels you spoke of.
[34:32] In the coming year, our census bump says above $100,000 to the formula. Does that change?
[34:37] So we haven't been in that situation yet, but the commission would look at that to the benefit of the county.
[34:45] I don't think we would suddenly slash it when you get to $100,000 in one.
[34:49] We're right there, so I need that.
[34:51] We came up with that threshold.
[34:53] There's a bill in legislature currently that is directing our agency to prioritize funding for counties below $100,000.
[35:01] Of course, any number you think is going to be arbitrary.
[35:03] But I think the idea is that we want to prioritize
[35:07] assistance to smaller counties, to better deal with them.
[35:11] And so I wouldn't anticipate that much of a risk.
[35:15] I've got a question back to what exactly what this is.
[35:20] Historically, well, do you hire new attorneys
[35:25] fresh out of law school because they're cheaper?
[35:28] I mean, the attorneys we have here,
[35:31] I've got to have a lot of experience in this field.
[35:35] We're looking for a mixture.
[35:37] You need about equal number of inexperienced and experienced lawyers.
[35:44] So TRLA is a very large nonprofit law firm.
[35:50] We have currently about 185 lawyers.
[35:55] It's the largest civil legal services program in the country.
[36:00] So that means we have to recruit constantly, year-round, and we recruit all across the country.
[36:10] So we're always trying to bring in new people right out of law school.
[36:15] We bring in 15 or 20 a year in an ordinary course of things.
[36:20] When you bring in, when you start up a new defender program at a jurisdiction,
[36:24] We always try to hire some of the experienced local lawyers as a priority because we need
[36:32] that kind of community knowledge and experience to train and mentor the younger lawyers.
[36:41] And then we bring in that fresh blood from the law schools and hopefully put them in
[36:46] the community where they'll stay in the community and rise up through the ranks
[36:52] to management roles within the organization. So that's what we try to do. You're not always
[37:00] successful in doing that. We prioritize, for example, in our recruitment efforts, people
[37:08] who are bilingual in English and Spanish because a significant number of our clients speak Spanish.
[37:15] So we want to have people who can communicate in that language.
[37:20] That reduces the pool fairly dramatically, and we make exceptions all the time to that.
[37:26] But it is an important factor that we have to consider.
[37:30] But yes, we will try earnestly to hire some of your local lawyers to take on these responsibilities.
[37:40] You don't have any idea overall what percentage on the facilities y'all are already operating?
[37:47] Well, I mentioned the Star County, which is the closest in terms of size that we're dealing with here.
[37:55] Star County has a population now of 62,000, 63,000.
[38:00] Victoria County's 92,000, the last I looked.
[38:06] But Star County's poverty population is about almost 50 percent of the population is eligible for our services.
[38:16] Victoria County, it's about 20 percent, less than 20 percent, 18 percent.
[38:21] So we actually have 10,000 more clients, potential clients, in Star County than we do in Victoria.
[38:29] but we've hired locally in Star County. We've hired, as I mentioned, the former DA in his first assistant.
[38:39] One of the other lawyers we had there was another person who had experience in the county attorney's office.
[38:46] But whenever we can find local experienced lawyers who are good, we want to try to hire them.
[38:55] It's for everybody's benefit.
[38:56] What we're trying to do is run as operationally efficient as we possibly can, and that comes
[39:02] with having experienced lawyers who can work with the judges.
[39:08] Your judges have been out, almost uniformly and outspokenly, the district judges who
[39:15] who had experience with our program in Goliad and Referio Counties have been praising.
[39:24] And we did invite them all, our four district judges, two county court and law judges.
[39:29] They had conflicting courtroom obligations, but I know at least three, well three of
[39:35] our four district judges were supportive of it, the other I just haven't spoken to.
[39:40] I think one where where did our county court at law stand one and I know judge
[39:48] Ernst didn't appear to be supportive of it I'm not sure about judge Gillon judge
[39:54] Ernst if I might it sounded very much like Commissioner Janic he was concerned
[39:59] about and I think Commissioner Burns expressed this in the meeting too
[40:03] concerned about the the private attorneys who might be displaced in some
[40:08] proportion. And that was his, that was the biggest concern, I think, that he was articulate.
[40:14] Yeah, and that's one variable we do have to consider. Yes, sir, did you have something?
[40:18] What I think I'm hearing, if you just give us your name in the picture.
[40:21] Yes, sir. My name is Bill White.
[40:41] Observations. I don't have access. I don't know.
[40:50] What I think I'm essentially hearing, and I've certainly been hearing about this
[40:54] for the last time before,
[40:57] pretty high level of intensity. It's going around the court
[41:00] analysis is what I think I'm effectively hearing is maybe a de facto presumption that the first
[41:11] year the grant will be 80. That is, I think, set in the next year 60. But I think the presumption
[41:18] comes in where that it's just going to get to 50 percent and it's going to come from
[41:25] the state, and it's just going to stay that way perpetually.
[41:28] Now, that's certainly possible.
[41:31] But as we all know, when we're talking about the future,
[41:35] it's always contingent on various things that are usually
[41:38] beyond all of our control.
[41:41] It's kind of like when you buy a new house in a proposed
[41:46] neighborhood, there aren't many houses there yet.
[41:50] You're one of them.
[41:51] The developer tells you, well, don't worry.
[41:53] we're going to surround you with very nice homes just like your own.
[41:59] But as time goes on you may discover that that doesn't really happen due to market forces and other things that are beyond the other developers' control.
[42:09] I'm not trying to say that the organization here is the developer.
[42:14] We just don't know about the availability of grants.
[42:18] They may still be here in the next four or five years, the next ten years.
[42:23] Then again, they may not.
[42:25] No one knows where the economy is going.
[42:27] No one knows where it's going up or down.
[42:29] The other observation I'd like to make is I have seen some numbers indicating that the newer lawyers,
[42:37] the brand new lawyers, will be coming out and working at the organization.
[42:40] The numbers I've seen and sent me in an email, I believe it was 35, maybe it was $45,000 a year.
[42:50] Now I'm not totally sure on that. You may have numbers to the contrary.
[42:54] But I would submit that, you know, I'm fortunate enough to be old enough to have gone through law school
[43:01] and gone through a quote-unquote expensive law school where I paid for the whole thing with loans
[43:07] and I borrowed a grand total of $24,000 for all three years total.
[43:12] Now, the time I got out, I thought
[43:14] that was the absolute king's ransom, but I paid it off.
[43:19] I believe now, at this point, youngsters
[43:21] are probably coming out with eight to 10 times
[43:25] that amount of money that they have invested and or borrowed.
[43:29] I would submit that what's going to wind up happening,
[43:33] at least with the brand new lawyers that it seems
[43:36] that the organization wants to hire is that they're not going to be here from now. They're
[43:43] going to be from larger cities. They're going to probably rent an apartment on a six-month
[43:49] lease. And they're probably, as they do a good job here, I'm sure they'll do the best
[43:55] they can, but they're going to be actively looking for something that pays more. And
[44:00] I would submit to you that after the six-month lease or after the year ends, they're
[44:05] going to find something more lucrative than we can blame them, right? They're probably going
[44:09] to owe a tremendous amount of money. And everybody wants to pay as much as they can. And so I
[44:15] submit that what's going to happen is that to a large extent, the defense bar that you're
[44:23] going to get on these indigent cases, through no fault of their own nor of the organization,
[44:28] you're going to have tremendous turnover. You're going to have people that work here
[44:31] for nine months, and they leave six months, and they leave maybe a year, 15 months, and
[44:37] then they leave and go to San Antonio or Corpus Rd, a better, higher paying job.
[44:42] And so you're constantly going to have somebody else who's always being trained, and they're
[44:49] being trained in the courtroom, and you're not going to have the experience level that
[44:54] I think you have now. As far as accountability, I have seen over the years
[44:58] um
[45:00] You know, it hasn't been an epidemic, but there have been some lawyers on the employment list who clearly weren't taking their obligations seriously, and they were just kind of trying to escape through.
[45:09] And I've seen judges remove those lawyers from the list, and it doesn't take very long. They figure out pretty quickly who cares, who doesn't, who's doing their homework, who isn't.
[45:20] And, you know, I think there's already a system in place that's called our judges who are elected to look at the lawyers who maybe aren't going to take it seriously and send them on their way.
[45:33] So, again, I don't have anything against the organization, but at the same time I think there are perils both financial and professional if the county goes this way.
[45:43] Well, thank you, Mr. White. I guess I would be more sympathetic to the second consideration
[45:55] about the turnover, maybe folks going to make more money elsewhere. The first issue we did
[46:03] talk about, the state pulling the money and the grant going away, but I don't think
[46:09] think fear of that should prevent us from proceeding if that's what we think we should
[46:14] do because if the grant goes away, we revert to the status quo.
[46:22] We don't want to, for fear of that, grab the status quo immediately.
[46:26] I mean, it's possible that, I mean, if we were to go into this program and the money
[46:33] were to go away in three years or four whenever, we'd have to redevelop the and pay the
[46:40] expensive back to the attorney wheel but
[46:43] in foregoing this option that's where we are anyway
[46:50] i guess there's a battle,
[47:13] I still probably got it, I'm 53, I probably had
[47:22] it
[47:23] and
[47:24] I think I could speak for
[47:32] it, like everybody else there, and
[47:36] perhaps it'll be something
[47:40] you know, a lot of us have bachelors degrees that are very remarkable and we may just go off and get something outside of them
[47:47] what I'm saying is, if
[47:49] If there's later an attempt to go back to the status quo, you may find yourself with virtually nobody who's willing to step up and do that anymore,
[48:00] especially once they get the idea that, well, you know, I might do this gig for a couple years and then get eliminated.
[48:06] So I don't think it's going to be very attractive for people, for lawyers one way around to see how it works out.
[48:12] They're going to move on. They've got their own bills running so long.
[48:16] Sure. Thank you, sir.
[48:18] Is there wrong?
[48:21] I swore I wasn't going to say anything, so I apologize.
[48:23] Well, then why even be here? We need input.
[48:28] Judge Stevenson once said when I had gone to question a witness, I said,
[48:33] I have no questions. He said, that's the most eloquent you've been.
[48:36] So anyway, I'm going to be less than eloquent.
[48:39] But I do want to address the issue of the competency.
[48:42] I was appointed by the state bar to be on the board of this organization 12 years ago,
[48:49] and can't quite get off.
[48:53] But the lawyers that they attract out of law school are absolutely outstanding.
[49:01] They are dedicated, they are to helping people out.
[49:08] they stay on. And I'm not exaggerating, probably this year we hired people from Harvard, you
[49:17] know, Berkeley, you know, across the United States, UT, very competent people. What attracts
[49:26] them is the type of work that they want to help these citizens out. But also, we have
[49:36] a program of loan forgiveness. If you're with the program for two years, your student
[49:42] loans are forgiven 100%. Even if they're six-figure student loans like was
[49:48] referenced. Yes, I mean we like say we attract people from big name law schools
[49:54] all across the United States. So what you're going to have is you're going to
[49:59] have some good local lawyers and combined with these really brilliant young people who are
[50:11] going to be brought to this community. So I don't think you're going to see a downturn
[50:17] and in fact I think the district judges will tell you there's no such thing or it hasn't
[50:22] happened yet. So I wouldn't be concerned about the quality of representation that these
[50:28] people are going to do. And what a quality lawyer will do, and I know the DA will agree
[50:35] with me, I'd much rather have a qualified lawyer on the other side than one who's not
[50:39] because you can get things done. So they're going to have qualified people who will be
[50:44] able to move these cases, feed the ones they need to, try the ones they need to, but
[50:50] you're going to have competency. Not that you don't have it now, but you don't
[50:53] have to have a fear of incompetency because you're going to have good people down here.
[50:58] And hopefully after a few years, they will move on and be members of this community.
[51:06] But I think the longevity is just not there, just because of the way of this type of people
[51:11] they recruit and the structure of the long-forget.
[51:13] So I think you're in good shape there.
[51:16] So I'm trying to take up the time.
[51:18] Oh, no problem.
[51:19] Thank you for that, Ron.
[51:20] Appreciate it.
[51:21] I would just mention that in addition to the loan forgiveness thing, we start off at 60%
[51:28] in the first 12 months and 80% of their student loans in the second year, and then it goes
[51:34] to 100%.
[51:36] TRLA has been shouldering that cost for the defender program.
[51:42] No cost to you or no cost to the state and counties.
[51:46] We're trying to work with TIDC to see if we can't shift some of that cost because it's
[51:51] been a little under $200,000 a year that we take on.
[51:56] On the civil side of our program, we have the same kind of job benefit.
[52:03] But there are a lot of alternatives through the state and through other sources for that
[52:10] kind of loan forgiveness.
[52:11] On the criminal side of the docket, there isn't.
[52:14] So, we've continued that for our public defender lawyers.
[52:20] We start salaries at $50,000 after you've been licensed, and it goes up from there to
[52:29] about $75,000, though most of the people with experience are in some kind of a leadership
[52:35] role that pays higher salaries than that.
[52:38] But if you're being paid $50,000, $52,000 in the second year plus loan forgiveness,
[52:46] many of those are making $60,000 to $70,000 in effect because of the loan forgiveness operation.
[52:54] And that helps explain why our turnover program-wide is around 10% or 11% a year.
[53:01] So it's pretty small.
[53:03] How does that compare to, I mean, that doesn't seem terribly high, given, I mean, what's
[53:11] the basis for comparison?
[53:13] What's the typical DA's office?
[53:16] I don't know.
[53:17] It depends on who you are.
[53:18] Well, we've had transitions, but I know, not us now.
[53:21] There's been leadership changes, but just in general, what?
[53:25] I don't know that number.
[53:27] Okay.
[53:27] We looked at, did a comparison for a different program about a year and a half ago.
[53:33] Just to give you just a very high level overview, we looked at salaries for county attorneys,
[53:37] assistant district attorneys, and there's a pretty big range, but, you know, one thing
[53:42] to bear in mind is that those salaries come with, in most cases, a county pension, good
[53:46] benefits, packaged healthcare, they range from 50,000 or so for assistant county
[53:53] attorney handling misdemeanors, which is kind of on par with this kind of budget.
[54:00] People handling felonies in district attorney's offices in the 70s was pretty difficult.
[54:05] You go to the big sales, it goes up quite a bit.
[54:09] The salary structure definitely changes in urban counties.
[54:12] But, you know, 50s and 70s for misdemeanor and felony attorneys is kind of the ballpark of what we saw
[54:19] with a lot of variation kind of things.
[54:23] Okay, okay.
[54:25] I'm kind of shooting from the hip,
[54:27] but isn't alone forgiveness kind of standard
[54:29] in a lot of larger firms?
[54:32] I'm just...
[54:33] I never was in a large...
[54:34] I don't know of any in Victoria who would offer that.
[54:37] Brian, do you don't hear that?
[54:50] I don't...
[54:51] Right, my daughter-in-law's with A.C. McGuffin. I'm going to tell you as long as I get it
[54:58] to stay true.
[54:59] Maybe they got their lungs forgiven, but you're still sending a check.
[55:05] They're making plenty of money. I'm not sending money. I think it's built into the salary
[55:09] package.
[55:10] Well, a few things I'll point out. The concerns, the issues brought up are very
[55:17] legitimate in their things that we need to have a grasp a grasp on as far as the
[55:23] impact I guess big picture from my point of view if we were reasonably confident
[55:31] that in this arrangement we could save 250 or so thousand a year I think it
[55:40] would be something that we would need to seriously consider there are some
[55:44] non-financial negatives, some non-financial perks, but it would need to make sense from
[55:53] a financial point of view with a margin of error built into there to make it doable.
[55:59] I think the bigger items pushing that's cost savings one direction or the other is
[56:07] our high co-defendant rate, which will still cause us to need to maintain a private attorney
[56:15] wheel where we'll pay probably $200,000 a year or so.
[56:20] Granted, that wheel may be harder to man, given folks getting out of the business, moving
[56:25] on, whatever.
[56:26] That's one item.
[56:28] The second item I think may already be accounted for in these numbers, and that was early
[56:32] on my questions as to how we can make this offer better given the fact that we have a
[56:40] pretrial service office doing a lot of these things that y'all would ordinarily do. It
[56:45] looks like that's already been built into the equation.
[56:49] Other factors that were brought
[56:51] up, the DA's comment about our costs are going to be trending lower.
[56:59] No doubt we'll
[57:00] see that, but you base your estimates on a three-year average.
[57:06] So even if we had a 40% reduction in the first year, the impact on our total expense, considering
[57:17] a three-year average, I don't know if it would kill the deal.
[57:21] We would still realize, presumably, some of those cost savings in y'all's estimate
[57:28] as far as the staffing that you need in future years.
[57:32] One thing too we haven't brought up, in the proposal you've given us, and in the price
[57:38] tag you've given us, it has a rental office space of nearly $50,000.
[57:45] We're about to close a deal on some real estate which would give the county ample
[57:51] office space to house these folks, both from Victoria as well as surrounding areas, whether
[57:58] that could be set up as an in-kind allowance in the fee amount or, you know, could give
[58:05] us a rental payment.
[58:07] I mean that's an area there where I think could be built into the deal to make it work.
[58:15] Another consideration I know I've talked to some other counties, neighboring counties
[58:19] companies of ours who are kind of looking to us to see what we do before they decide what
[58:24] they do.
[58:25] It would seem that an economy of scale, if there were others that joined, perhaps that
[58:32] could be built into this also, further increasing our cost savings.
[58:38] So those are a few dynamics that are not certain, but we, I think, need to explore
[58:46] them to come to a number, a cost savings number that we're pretty confident we could realize.
[58:52] Then from the vantage point of the court, well I guess from y'all's perspective we still
[58:57] haven't figured it out yet, but if we could get a $250,000, $300,000 annual cost savings
[59:06] through this arrangement, what would be your thoughts on that?
[59:11] I want to talk to the other judges.
[59:14] I mean, we don't have very much information
[59:16] till just now, which I question.
[59:20] And I want to talk to the judges and other attorneys,
[59:25] although I really respect what our DA said.
[59:27] I put a lot of weight in her opinion.
[59:33] And it's nice to be able to do that, by the way.
[59:37] But I'd like to talk to some people.
[59:40] Well, I know we need to do it in a hurry, too.
[59:43] I wouldn't say we're in an extreme hurry.
[59:46] We would need to turn in basically an intent application
[59:49] by the 10th, but that wouldn't obligate us.
[59:52] Actually, I think it's a full application.
[59:54] It's a full application.
[59:56] And I guess my point earlier was, if the budget is the
[1:00:00] The budget and scope questions are still outstanding. You can note that in the application, and we won't finalize it or present it to our board until you're ready to move forward.
[1:00:10] As long as there's some, I guess the main deadline is to have some kind of request in the offer with provisional numbers, if you will, working numbers.
[1:00:18] And that will give us the opportunity, and you all, the opportunity to refine the request, budget, etc.
[1:00:27] And Commissioner, you'll certainly be good to talk to the judges.
[1:00:32] I know they've been eager to talk about this.
[1:00:36] The district judges seem to be supportive, the county court of law judges.
[1:00:41] Probably not, but that would be smart.
[1:00:45] And as I've mentioned, we aren't and don't need to make a decision on this today.
[1:00:51] The bigger picture question I think, well, that I'm trying to answer is what can we anticipate
[1:00:58] as far as the cost savings that we're pretty sure we could actually get?
[1:01:03] Making sure our assumptions in all this are correct.
[1:01:06] Maybe it would be helpful if I walked you through the changes that I made since the
[1:01:12] previous numbers you saw, which I think were around $315,000 in savings at 50% state
[1:01:19] funding.
[1:01:22] I was attempting to get more precise numbers on the conflicts ratios from the pretrial
[1:01:32] services in the district attorney's office, but it was not successful in that. So what
[1:01:38] I did for the purposes of this study was to double the experience ratio on conflicts
[1:01:47] that we had in Starr County. So to do that as simply as possible on this thing, I reduced
[1:01:54] the percentage of cases that are allocated to the public defender program by 10 percent
[1:02:03] as a substitute for a conflicts ratio. Is that a sufficient reduction? Norah, we had
[1:02:09] about a what a twenty five percent twenty five to thirty percent. Okay. Yeah. Those numbers
[1:02:22] give me a lot of discomfort because that's not anything like what we've experienced
[1:02:28] elsewhere and I don't know what between Victor there's a fair amount of criminal activity
[1:02:34] in Star County.
[1:02:37] I've heard.
[1:02:37] So you've heard.
[1:02:40] Real grand city on the border, just upriver from McAllen.
[1:02:48] So that's the history that I'm looking at is kind of a benchmark here.
[1:02:55] Our actual conflict ratio, based upon the numbers that we have actually interviewed
[1:03:01] people that identified a conflict was 0.6 percent, less than 1 percent. Now that excludes people
[1:03:10] who were conflicted out because without us doing an interview of them. So we've done
[1:03:21] estimates that not based on data but estimates. And I don't know whether that's what Nora's
[1:03:28] numbers are based on or how we're getting to those numbers, but 10 to 12% is what I'm
[1:03:35] told is the actual conflict, if you will, but an estimated rather than a derived number
[1:03:42] based on actual interviews.
[1:03:47] So to jump from 0.6% to 30% seems to me to be unrealistic.
[1:03:55] Wait, 0.6%?
[1:03:57] 0.6%.
[1:03:58] Oh, I thought we were around 10%.
[1:03:59] What did I miss?
[1:04:01] The difference between people that we have actually interviewed
[1:04:05] and identified a conflict is a,
[1:04:08] I think there were like 17 last year
[1:04:11] that we actually interviewed
[1:04:13] and we went through a conflicts check
[1:04:15] and we said, we've got a conflict here.
[1:04:18] As opposed to people who we never interviewed.
[1:04:24] They went to a bondsman, for example, and the bondsman said, well, this is a group
[1:04:32] case, TRLA is only going to take one of them, don't bother to go over there.
[1:04:38] So there are a fair number of people we think who were never interviewed by TRLA and therefore
[1:04:46] never got into our system.
[1:04:48] system. So the ones that got into our system is meniscus, and we've identified as a conflict.
[1:04:54] Those that were never interviewed is a substantially larger number. We're estimating about 10 times
[1:05:02] the number that we actually saw. So that's the reason for the disparity in the numbers.
[1:05:09] I'm much more comfortable if we've interviewed somebody and identified a conflict because
[1:05:14] We have systems in place for doing those conflicts checks.
[1:05:18] It's not only people who have a group case, co-defendants,
[1:05:26] but it's also people that we've represented in a previous case.
[1:05:31] So is that determination, a black-and-white determination, a clear cut,
[1:05:38] or y'all have discretion as far as it's a conflict?
[1:05:41] No, it's not a conflict. How does that work?
[1:05:43] All lawyers have an obligation to identify conflicts and avoid them.
[1:05:50] And so the way it works in our shop, everything is on the computer.
[1:05:58] So if the first thing we do is find out the person's name, social security number, we
[1:06:05] run it through the computer to see if we have represented an opposing party in any
[1:06:12] previous case, and if we have it comes up as a conflict, and then we either have to resolve
[1:06:19] that conflict or we withdraw from further discussions with the client and turn it over
[1:06:27] to the defender context, turn it over to the wheel.
[1:06:31] But we've made a record of that in that sort of situation.
[1:06:36] But if somebody has been diverted from that system informally, we wouldn't have a record
[1:06:44] of it.
[1:06:45] And there are a lot more of those than there are ones that we have a record of.
[1:06:49] But I doubt that it's 30 times more, 35 times more.
[1:06:54] I think it's probably more like 10, 12, 15 times more.
[1:06:59] Does that include like the family law, Nora, because y'all can't.
[1:07:03] That's correct.
[1:07:06] This doesn't include family law at all, so this doesn't include any civil cases, no CPS,
[1:07:12] no attorney, no criminal family law.
[1:07:14] It's going to only be criminal, misdemeanor, and felony.
[1:07:17] So you're still going to have all your expenses on the civil side, along with the expenses at the RLA.
[1:07:24] Of course, those expenses on the civil side aren't reflected in here.
[1:07:28] Correct.
[1:07:29] So we're going to have those regardless.
[1:07:32] Regardless, you're going to have about $300,000 on top of that.
[1:07:38] Now, see, forgive me that I haven't been able to look at anything she's paid for, right?
[1:07:45] OK, but so how about the juveniles?
[1:07:48] Will y'all also cover juveniles?
[1:07:49] Yes, we're covered.
[1:07:51] And there's proposal of juveniles.
[1:07:53] I just wanted to add a point of clarification.
[1:07:55] So whatever the actual rate of the conflict cases is,
[1:07:58] and it's been confusing.
[1:07:59] I think Nora's got some good data from your systems
[1:08:03] that gets x percentage.
[1:08:06] And I think it's really a data challenge,
[1:08:10] and we just need to sit down and comb all the data
[1:08:12] and come up with a number that doesn't make sense
[1:08:14] to everybody's comfortable with.
[1:08:15] I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, David,
[1:08:17] that when we work with other counties
[1:08:18] where they contract the TRLA, contract
[1:08:21] has a kind of, based on our projections,
[1:08:24] we will handle this many, up to this many cases.
[1:08:27] is that's kind of guaranteed in your contract.
[1:08:31] And if it turns out that that number is below,
[1:08:35] it is based on an overly conservative assumption
[1:08:39] about contracts, then everybody's
[1:08:42] going to be counting the cases as they come in.
[1:08:43] That can be addressed at that time.
[1:08:45] But I think so whatever the contract that you all
[1:08:50] would enter into potentially would have the numbers
[1:08:56] but agreed upon numbers, and you wouldn't be obliged to represent people beyond that,
[1:09:01] and you wouldn't be obliged to pay them for it.
[1:09:03] So if the actual caseload that you undertook was less than that amount, where would that lead us?
[1:09:14] That would be, I'm assuming that would be adjusted in the next year's contract.
[1:09:18] I think it's more likely that they would be, I think you would set the rate for you're
[1:09:23] comfortable based on perhaps more conservative assumptions, and then if more cases are flowing
[1:09:29] in, they would bring that to your attention and talk about the need to adjust the contract.
[1:09:36] For example, in Star County, again those three counties, Star, Jim Hogg, and Duvall,
[1:09:44] which is kind of, again, comparable to what we're talking about here. We have taken on
[1:09:50] in the last year about 17% more cases than what we originally contracted for. And we
[1:09:58] haven't been paid for those cases. We took them on anyway because of a sense of obligation.
[1:10:05] But we're going to be sitting down with those county judges and revising those numbers
[1:10:10] fairly soon, because we can't continue doing that.
[1:10:14] And the state's 50% cost share is only on the pre-determined contract amount.
[1:10:21] So if we come in 17% over, there's no cost share on that.
[1:10:25] Is that correct?
[1:10:26] TRLA takes that hit.
[1:10:28] Well, in turn, we would take that hit.
[1:10:30] No.
[1:10:31] TRLA would take that hit.
[1:10:32] Okay.
[1:10:33] And it would be counted for the next year.
[1:10:35] You're signing a fixed contract for a fixed amount.
[1:10:39] Okay.
[1:10:39] I'm with you. I'm with you. So if we go over it in a year, then
[1:10:44] more cases than what we contracted for, that's TRLA's problem. I see. Okay. And if it's less,
[1:10:50] then we're going to have to adjust it either way, whether it's more or less.
[1:10:54] So it's a continuing contractual relationship. And if we have a serious aberration, if,
[1:11:01] for example, the new district attorney decided that she's only going to indict 20% as many
[1:11:08] people as the prior administration, then we're not going to wait for a year for that to get
[1:11:15] worked out. We're going to get back together again because we want to keep you guys happy.
[1:11:21] So we're going to renegotiate the contract whenever you feel the need to renegotiate
[1:11:27] the contract. Either side can terminate this contract on 90 days notice. So it's
[1:11:35] a continuing kind of relationship, where we work with you on that.
[1:11:41] How many counties in Texas you're currently in contract with?
[1:11:44] Ten.
[1:11:45] Ten.
[1:11:46] Are there any exclusions within criminal cases like capital, you'll cover capital cases
[1:11:53] or some of the bigger stuff that gets really expensive?
[1:11:56] We handle capital cases if the death penalty is not saw.
[1:12:01] And we've taken on one or two capital cases where death penalty was requested.
[1:12:10] Those are incredibly expensive and take up an awful lot of time.
[1:12:16] So in our contracts, we put an exclusion for those cases unless we agree otherwise with the county.
[1:12:26] I'm not sure if Victoria County is in the program, but there is a regional public defender
[1:12:34] office for capital cases where the death penalty is sought.
[1:12:38] Programs based in Lubbock, the county is across the state.
[1:12:41] Yeah, I think we opted not to do that.
[1:12:42] We're not in that program.
[1:12:43] So that would be the suggestion for protecting yourself against those very large possible
[1:12:50] death penalty cases that we offer through our grant assistance.
[1:12:55] This would be, I would not think that you should count on, that don't be cases going through this problem.
[1:13:03] I mean, I'm kind of ignorant on this point and I've always had questions, how do you determine a true indigent?
[1:13:09] Do y'all do that or will the judges do that?
[1:13:12] Well, in this case, you have pre-trial services doing that and we can either continue with that sort of arrangement.
[1:13:21] That's not much of a time killer.
[1:13:25] It takes us about six minutes average to make that determination.
[1:13:31] We do about 30,000 of those a year at TRLA program-wide, so it's quick and I mean I made
[1:13:42] an adjustment in these budget numbers for about .08 FTE of an investigator to cover the
[1:13:54] time spent on doing that. So it's not much time, but we can certainly work with Nora's
[1:14:04] shop and how we want to divvy up those kinds of responsibilities. In most of our counties,
[1:14:10] there is no pre-trial services office. The judges are the ones that have to do that and
[1:14:15] they're more than happy to dump that on us, so I've noticed. So we do that typically.
[1:14:22] Mr. Burch, just so you know, the county ultimately, county judges ultimately have the responsibility
[1:14:26] to determine who qualifies for these services, who's indigent and who's not. And I think
[1:14:31] with your county, and it's really to the credit of Victoria County that you have
[1:14:35] of the pre-trial services in Norris program in place,
[1:14:38] they do a good job.
[1:14:40] And some of the judges will delegate the authority
[1:14:44] to look at, get the financial information from the defendants
[1:14:48] and figure out if they're poor enough to deserve
[1:14:50] an appointed attorney.
[1:14:52] But ultimately, the buck stops with the judges,
[1:14:55] and the judges will often delegate that responsibility
[1:14:57] either to pre-trial services or in some cases.
[1:15:02] Do these numbers reflect keeping our pre-trial services?
[1:15:08] What those numbers do is it takes out that six minutes per case of an investigator's time,
[1:15:16] and so it reduced the investigator time slightly, very slightly, so yes.
[1:15:22] Yes. There's been no discussion about, well, the original proposal called for 17.53 FTEs,
[1:15:32] the revised numbers is 16.08. But that was both the dynamic of pretrial and the higher
[1:15:39] co-defender. That's correct.
[1:15:42] I appreciate
[1:15:48] the time that you've given this consideration. David has been talking a lot
[1:15:52] out the program in Starr County.
[1:15:54] That's a regional program with Starr,
[1:15:56] U-Ball, and Jim Hogg County down in Rio Grande Valley.
[1:15:59] Because I think it's comfortable and scopey.
[1:16:02] The other program that's been in place for a number of years
[1:16:05] is based in Bean County, Bean, Livo, McMullen,
[1:16:09] you've got at Goliad, Refurio, and La Vaca.
[1:16:12] Looking at a couple other counties
[1:16:13] that might join that regional program.
[1:16:17] Kushner Burns had mentioned wanting
[1:16:18] to hear from the judges about this criminal court
[1:16:21] judges, and I think that's essential to have those conversations.
[1:16:25] I'd also recommend if you have the opportunity
[1:16:27] to talk to some of the other either constitutional county
[1:16:30] judges that are in some cases the commissioners that
[1:16:32] are more involved in those counties.
[1:16:34] Again, Lovaca, Goliad, Refurio that have recently joined
[1:16:40] generally from what we've been hearing in Austin.
[1:16:43] The program is very happy with the program.
[1:16:45] So in addition to talking to your own criminal judges,
[1:16:48] hearing from some of the other folks that sit in your seats
[1:16:50] in neighboring counties is probably helpful in terms of how the program is working for
[1:16:56] us.
[1:16:56] I just wanted to recommend that as something for the extent that we all have an opportunity
[1:16:59] to do it.
[1:17:00] Very good.
[1:17:01] Thank you, Edwin.
[1:17:03] What other questions might jump out here?
[1:17:05] I know, and obviously we're not going to vote or decide on anything today.
[1:17:09] This is just informational.
[1:17:13] Any questions up here or things we need to search further to get the answer to beyond
[1:17:18] what what's been previously mentioned?
[1:17:24] Judge if I may make a suggestion one of
[1:17:28] the things that we've heard and from other counties is that having a defender
[1:17:33] program has a positive impact on your jail budget that it reduces the time
[1:17:39] people have to sit in jail at 55-60 dollars a day. Star County again did
[1:17:47] The auditor's office did such an informal survey last year and came up with a number
[1:17:53] of about a half a million dollars that the public defender program they thought were
[1:17:58] saved.
[1:18:00] I don't know how good that study is, and I haven't looked at the underlying data in
[1:18:06] it.
[1:18:07] But one of the things you've got to do is look at a baseline for before you start
[1:18:14] the Defender Program. And what would probably be very helpful both to you
[1:18:20] and to us is if we ran that kind of a baseline study here in Victoria and
[1:18:26] maybe one or two of the other counties around here that are thinking about
[1:18:30] joining Jackson Calhoun, running that kind of a study to see whether there
[1:18:38] are material savings and try to isolate the public defender program as being the
[1:18:48] factor that causes those savings. Is that something y'all would be interested in
[1:18:54] participating in? Seeing the data from these other counties I would yes indeed.
[1:19:00] Nora?
[1:19:04] In other counties also?
[1:19:09] Okay.
[1:19:12] Yeah. Okay. I guess we get that. I would be curious to see other counties how it has
[1:19:19] affected jail population.
[1:19:24] In the whole exercise we're doing here trying to gather this data
[1:19:27] that I think would be of use to see. Sure. Okay.
[1:19:35] Any further questions up here?
[1:19:40] Okay.
[1:19:40] Well, I certainly appreciate you all's time this morning and the information you've given
[1:19:48] us again.
[1:19:48] My, I guess, biggest effort is to see how confident we can be with some of these projections,
[1:19:58] with some of these estimates.
[1:20:00] There are many variables we've got to consider that I guess typically aren't in the counties
[1:20:07] y'all are in.
[1:20:12] But if it could yield the savings that appear possible, that would be something
[1:20:18] the court I think would need to seriously consider.
[1:20:25] So what steps do you want to take
[1:20:26] on this? Talk to the judges, talk to others, and have it back on the agenda for further
[1:20:32] discussion if you want to go that route? Yes, I have one other question. I see you
[1:20:38] we're finally on travel. Who regulates that travel and the expenses on that travel? Because
[1:20:46] I mean, if it's a trial somewhere else, are here, and so I just, how would that work?
[1:20:55] Well, we have internal procedures, and the first person that would be responsible for
[1:21:02] reviewing it would be the chief defender in the office here in Victoria would
[1:21:08] know who the what the cases are set in which counties which county is
[1:21:13] responsible for the travel and would verify that that it's a it's a legitimate
[1:21:20] expense and it's reasonable and necessary then it would go to our
[1:21:24] accounting office and would be reviewed there and usually by the director of
[1:21:30] administration, and the central office.
[1:21:34] Because, and it depends on where the attorney came from.
[1:21:37] Would we pay the travel for the attorney
[1:21:39] to come down to Victoria to hear a case
[1:21:41] that the attorney was a local?
[1:21:43] No.
[1:21:43] I think most of the travel, that would be,
[1:21:46] expenses that would be incurred in this type of a program.
[1:21:49] So there's a staff investigator in the,
[1:21:52] in the, what's going to be going out to crime scenes
[1:21:54] and gathering evidence.
[1:21:56] That person, that's probably going to file some mileage
[1:21:58] for their use of personal vehicle because TRLA does not
[1:22:01] operate at each other vehicles and whatnot.
[1:22:03] So it's more of the kind of local mileage expenses
[1:22:06] for things like an investigator following up on facts,
[1:22:10] maybe going to get records or interviewing a witness,
[1:22:13] things like that.
[1:22:15] I know that also one of the things that TRLA has been
[1:22:19] good about is providing training for their staff.
[1:22:22] So I think that maybe part of that, maybe that's
[1:22:24] in the training budget I made that just kind of built
[1:22:27] into the general operation.
[1:22:29] But there might be some travel.
[1:22:32] But it's all going to be going, as opposed
[1:22:35] to the county getting a claim for travel,
[1:22:38] as oversight would be provided through their administrative
[1:22:40] procedures under the contract.
[1:22:43] But I think it's more local travel
[1:22:44] and mileage would be considered, as opposed
[1:22:46] to bringing people in to Victoria from outside of Victoria.
[1:22:50] I don't think that's what's going to happen.
[1:22:51] Okay, but you used the word, the subjective word, think.
[1:22:55] Okay, is, you know, is it or isn't?
[1:22:59] That travel, if it's just traveling to Victoria and not bringing an attorney from the outside to drive in,
[1:23:04] because, you know, if they don't live locally, then they're driving, they're getting travel time,
[1:23:09] and it's going to, and we're still paying for the travel time.
[1:23:11] Right, you know, the way it would work, I mean, what most of that travel involves
[1:23:18] is going from Victoria to Edna and back.
[1:23:22] All the lawyers, if we do a regional kind of configuration,
[1:23:26] which we've been talking about doing with Jackson Calhoun and DeWitt counties,
[1:23:30] plus Referio and Goliath, all the counties that are in
[1:23:34] the 24th Judicial District, Victoria would be
[1:23:38] the hub, and all the lawyers would be here in Victoria.
[1:23:42] And they would drive out to wherever Judge Maher
[1:23:46] is holding court. Okay, and that's what you were referring to. Yeah, right. Okay, I understand.
[1:23:50] So, but ideally, hopefully, if we do the budget the way we would normally do, we would have
[1:23:57] an investigator out in Edna who lives in Edna. And she would be traveling locally
[1:24:05] within Jackson County, handling their cases locally, interviewing witnesses, interviewing
[1:24:11] clients and that kind of thing. And then periodically drive into Victoria for
[1:24:16] staff meetings and that sort of thing. That kind of travel would be Jackson
[1:24:21] County's budget, not Victoria County. One other question is, let's say I'm an
[1:24:28] attorney, I've been practicing for 30 years and I join y'all, then I can I get
[1:24:33] my own cases? So there is a state law that says that if you work for a
[1:24:38] public defender, you're not supposed to take criminal cases
[1:24:42] on the side, but you can operate a civil practice as much
[1:24:45] as you'd like.
[1:24:47] That's so that you don't have the conflict of, you know,
[1:24:51] get, that would set up some incentives
[1:24:53] where your private paying criminal clients
[1:24:56] are kind of competing with the public.
[1:25:00] Now, I think the policy for TRLA is no moonlight.
[1:25:06] and you have full-time attorneys?
[1:25:08] That's generally it.
[1:25:10] I mean, we do have some part-time lawyers that
[1:25:13] have a side practice.
[1:25:16] But that's quite the exception, probably 5% of the lawyers.
[1:25:22] OK, thank you.
[1:25:23] I'm not advocating not saving $250,000.
[1:25:27] But if we wait on this a year to see how the new numbers
[1:25:30] come out, is that any kind of black mark
[1:25:33] or put us at the bottom of the list, whatever?
[1:25:37] I would say it's black mark.
[1:25:38] I mean, I guess my suggestion would
[1:25:40] be to sit down with your district attorney
[1:25:43] and other stakeholders and just map out based on,
[1:25:48] I mean, I guess you've got a few months
[1:25:50] in of the new administration.
[1:25:55] I mean, you could certainly do this.
[1:25:56] I mean, I don't want to leave the impression
[1:25:58] that the window will close forever or be.
[1:26:00] That's kind of what I was getting at.
[1:26:02] But I'm just you know how to word it. Well, I guess let me ask this.
[1:26:06] If I know we can in our contracts at the max threshold of cases.
[1:26:13] We could build into our assumption of whatever percent decline and lower that max amount and have that reflected in the contract amount.
[1:26:23] I presume is that may be doable.
[1:26:27] So I can tell you that the counties that we've worked with in partnership with
[1:26:33] TRLA, the new public defenders, have basically said all non-conflict cases go
[1:26:38] to their program just for simplicity and conflict cases and the family law cases
[1:26:43] both outside the program. Some counties in Texas have public defenders. I believe
[1:26:49] Kauffman is one example of North Texas where Kauffman County operates a
[1:26:55] public defender directly, county staff, attorneys,
[1:26:59] and investigators, where they only take, I believe, 50,
[1:27:03] every other case or two-thirds of the cases.
[1:27:06] So you can choose to set the scope of the program
[1:27:10] at any level that you decide.
[1:27:13] I think from what we've heard from TRLA,
[1:27:17] the economy is, of course, the savings
[1:27:18] is going to be pegged to the percentage of the cases
[1:27:22] that go to the program.
[1:27:23] But the scope of a program like this is ultimately what you decide you want to do.
[1:27:31] I think that the level of savings is going to be impacted by that.
[1:27:36] And I think that, you know, as I said, your program typically has operated on the assumption
[1:27:43] that they're covering the lion's share of the cases just for cohesiveness and simplicity.
[1:27:51] We're flexible.
[1:27:53] Okay, very good.
[1:27:54] I saw Judge Gillum walk in.
[1:27:57] Any thoughts, Judge?
[1:27:59] I know you've looked at this somewhat previously.
[1:28:04] Well, and I don't know what all was said this morning.
[1:28:07] I guess the only comment that I was thinking about
[1:28:13] is that I know we have a new administration in the DA's office,
[1:28:17] And I didn't know on the economics of it,
[1:28:21] you shouldn't let that work out like another year or so at least
[1:28:24] and see where we're at then because then,
[1:28:28] because I do think there's going to be a change there
[1:28:30] and maybe given that time, you may not,
[1:28:35] you may see a reduction at that point, you know,
[1:28:38] and I don't know, again, I haven't actually worked
[1:28:43] in numbers but it seems like depending on where you're at
[1:28:47] at that point, it may not be as economically feasible
[1:28:51] as you might think it would be down the line.
[1:28:54] Because I mean, let's say it reduces down to,
[1:28:58] I mean, we're spending, what, about a million dollars
[1:29:00] on attorney fees right now.
[1:29:04] And if you reduce that down to about 750,000,
[1:29:07] and I realize the big thing that makes this thing,
[1:29:11] I guess, economically feasible is the grants
[1:29:15] that are part of that. I understand that too. But I don't know where that's headed if that's
[1:29:23] going to be there forever or not. And I know there was a dissenting order on that. What is
[1:29:28] it? How much is it for the first year? I don't remember.
[1:29:31] 80 percent.
[1:29:32] It's 80 percent.
[1:29:33] It is 40 percent.
[1:29:35] No, 80, 60, 50.
[1:29:37] I mean, assuming it keeps going.
[1:29:39] Okay, so 86. That was my only thought, is if you let it out, let it maybe pan out like
[1:29:46] at least a year, maybe even a year and a half, something like that, and see where we're
[1:29:51] really at at that point, and then you may be able to make a better decision.
[1:29:56] Maybe I hope that was a better number.
[1:30:01] That was my question. Thank you, Judge. All right, any other comments? May I make one remark?
[1:30:09] One thing you might consider if, you know, Judge Gillum has, I think, got a valid point.
[1:30:18] You might think about reviewing rather than annually reviewing these numbers quarterly.
[1:30:25] That's probably not too much of an administrative burden for everybody. But if there are some
[1:30:30] dramatic changes rather than forego $7,800,000 of savings in the next fiscal year.
[1:30:39] Go ahead
[1:30:40] and opt into the program, start those savings running, and then if you don't like the numbers
[1:30:48] you're seeing, we make adjustments as we go, but do it on a quarterly basis. See what
[1:30:55] plays out. Did I hear right that y'all are presently in about 10 counties? That's correct.
[1:31:01] The thought I have is let's assume that they continue to cover more and more counties, which I think is pretty accurate.
[1:31:09] And then if we get to where the phones are covering maybe 30 counties, 40 counties, 50, 60, half the state, I don't know.
[1:31:19] My question would be, and I don't have the answer to it,
[1:31:23] will the state then be quite so willing to pay a 50% grant
[1:31:30] to half the counties in the state of Texas?
[1:31:34] At a certain point, that number is going to get too large,
[1:31:38] and somebody in Austin is going to say,
[1:31:40] look, you can't do it anymore.
[1:31:42] So it almost seems as the organization moves
[1:31:45] It becomes more successful, ultimately, that number, that grant percentage, although that's
[1:31:52] the content that would be part
[1:31:57] of it.
[1:31:57] Thank you, sir.
[1:31:58] Other thoughts?
[1:31:58] I want to speak a little bit to that.
[1:32:01] So, TIDC does not have a very long list of counties that are interested in stepping
[1:32:06] up to do this kind of a program.
[1:32:09] Senator Colcours has introduced a bill that's currently pending in legislature.
[1:32:12] In fact, I think the hearing is coming up maybe this week, sometimes.
[1:32:16] that is really as a way for the state to provide assistance more targeted toward smaller counties
[1:32:25] or rural counties or under 100,000, has directed us to, the bill would direct us to prioritize
[1:32:31] these kinds of programs in our funding. I think that when our commission reviews grants requests
[1:32:38] in counties that are interested in this kind of program, they're keenly aware of the
[1:32:42] available resources and have never overextended themselves so to be a thing on how much they have.
[1:32:48] So I don't think that there's any substantial risk of the commission being overwhelmed by
[1:32:56] requests for counties to implement programs that the commission can't comply with.
[1:33:01] In terms of the likelihood of the 50 percent sustainability fund being there for the county
[1:33:06] down the road, the legislature adopts a budget every two years. They owned off the budget
[1:33:11] 10 years out. But our budget at TIDC for next year, for the next biennium, is
[1:33:19] they're adding $18 million in the baseline budget for our program, which the
[1:33:27] Commission is prioritizing for these types of programs. So I think that the
[1:33:32] there's a reasonable expectation that the sustainability funding which has been
[1:33:43] I can't make any promises on behalf of the Texas Legislature, but I can say that our budget has been stable or grown, and that we have not been overlonged with.
[1:33:52] Got you. Okay. Thank you. All right. Any other comments before we move on? Anybody in the audience that would like to?
[1:34:02] I know y'all've done a ton of work and time in this and we apologize but we
[1:34:07] have to be perceived with caution because it's a lot better to finish this
[1:34:12] jumping into something and then saying oh hell we got to back out that would
[1:34:17] leave a bad taste I would think in the y'alls mind for future funding but
[1:34:23] we from our perspective we want to work with the county for the right kind of
[1:34:29] I don't get any commission on David Hall's contracts or anything.
[1:34:33] They've just been a good partner that the commission has seen really good results with.
[1:34:37] So that's why we partner with online order grants.
[1:34:41] The commissioners court is still looking at data.
[1:34:45] We want to be a resource for you all.
[1:34:47] I'm sure Mr. Hall would want to continue to work with the numbers to, you know,
[1:34:53] get as accurate a projection as possible.
[1:34:55] But whatever you need, we want to be available for you all as you look at your options and
[1:35:02] let us know how we can get there.
[1:35:05] Wonderful.
[1:35:06] Well, we will, and certainly appreciate you all's time this morning driving in.
[1:35:10] And we would like to see if we can hire a 53-year-old lawyer.
[1:35:16] All right, very good.
[1:35:18] Well, thank you all once again.
[1:35:19] Appreciate you being here.
[1:35:21] Thank you.
[1:35:22] Ron, thanks for stopping by also.
[1:35:24] Well, I won't give a final argument on the floor.
[1:35:30] Still have your contact information or were you.
[1:35:35] OK, thank you very much. Appreciate it.
[1:35:46] Thanks a lot, Constance. Mr. White, thank you, sir, for your comments.
[1:35:51] Judge, thanks.
[1:35:55] All right.
[1:35:56] Well, that on our agenda was simply to hear presentation and discuss, which we've done.
[1:36:02] and we'll continue to do. We don't need to take any action on that. We will move
[1:36:07] on to item number 10. Receive fully executed notice of grant award from
[1:36:12] Rebuild Texas for the purpose of purchasing and renovating property at
[1:36:16] 311 East Constitution Street, Victoria, Texas and authorized county judge to
[1:36:21] sign necessary documents and take appropriate action.
[1:36:28] Robin we finally
[1:36:29] got well I guess is this a final step in the in the process okay okay excellent so
[1:36:47] we're simply receiving this is there a motion to do so so move all those in
[1:36:52] favor. All right. Any opposed? Second. Second. Second. Oh, second. So someone seconded.
[1:37:00] All right. All right. Did we do that right? All right. Motion approved. Excellent. Thank
[1:37:10] you, Robin. Let's see. Item number 11. Received notice of law enforcement officer reimbursement
[1:37:17] program, transportation security administration, award modification number P0006, agreement
[1:37:25] number HSTS-02-16-H-SLR930, and take appropriate action.
[1:37:35] Second.
[1:37:38] All those in favor?
[1:37:40] Aye.
[1:37:40] Any opposed?
[1:37:42] Motion approved.
[1:37:43] 41,000.
[1:37:44] Robin, what else?
[1:37:45] Oh, now I was just going to, uh, Lenny had to leave. He did make a call. This is a larger
[1:37:50] allocation on this grant than we got last year for that time period. So he made a call, um,
[1:37:57] to TSA and indicated that our flight schedule had increased. And so at least we did, um,
[1:38:02] apparently see an increase after he and I had discussed that. He, um, made some inquiries.
[1:38:08] So hopefully we'll get a little, a little bit more on that in the future as well.
[1:38:14] very good thank you item number 12 ratify rural volunteer fire department
[1:38:21] assistant program grant assistance award case number 2104 and take appropriate
[1:38:28] action
[1:38:32] Richard what have we got here that was on the award for the four
[1:38:54] Okay, thank you Richard all those. Oh, do we have a
[1:38:59] Yeah, a little thing on that. We've already turned in two classes. We've in front of almost 45 people, as far as creating that.
[1:39:07] Excellent. Thank you, Richard.
[1:39:10] Move to ratify.
[1:39:11] Second.
[1:39:12] All those in favor?
[1:39:13] Aye.
[1:39:13] Aye.
[1:39:14] Any opposed?
[1:39:15] Motion approved.
[1:39:16] Item 13, receive annual fire safety inspection report for the Victoria Regional Juvenile Justice Center and take appropriate action.
[1:39:25] Let's see a copy of that report from Richard.
[1:39:30] In your packet.
[1:39:31] Anything on that, Richard?
[1:39:33] No, sir.
[1:39:33] Everything.
[1:39:34] You just did the EVAC system, the fire line system, and that good building.
[1:39:39] They fired her along there.
[1:39:40] They did really well.
[1:39:43] They were at .26, I think.
[1:39:46] They'll do that.
[1:39:47] Okay.
[1:39:48] Thank you.
[1:39:48] Move to receive.
[1:39:49] Second.
[1:39:50] All those in favor?
[1:39:51] Aye.
[1:39:51] Any opposed?
[1:39:53] Motion approved.
[1:39:53] Item 14, consider approval of a contract between Thompson, Reuters, Westlaw and Victoria County
[1:40:01] Criminal District Attorney's Office and take appropriate action.
[1:40:06] Move for approval.
[1:40:07] Second.
[1:40:09] All those in favor?
[1:40:11] Aye.
[1:40:11] Aye.
[1:40:12] Any opposed?
[1:40:13] Motion approved.
[1:40:16] Item number 15, consider approval of letter of request from INAS Volunteer Fire Department
[1:40:22] and take appropriate action.
[1:40:27] Let's see, so this is a request for $5,000.
[1:40:35] It's going to be a request for $5,000 for they're buying a new brush truck.
[1:40:42] There are costs is $94,000. This was one of those that we discussed when you came to our meeting,
[1:40:48] the one frying in and the one on the creek. So this is one of them, they're requesting some assistance.
[1:40:54] Okay. And that does come out of the assistant fund or not?
[1:40:59] Yes, sir. It comes out. We have right now in the assistant fund at this time we have 41,439. We'll have 36.
[1:41:07] Okay. So we simply draw that pre that already budgeted amount down.
[1:41:12] Yes, sir. We hadn't touched it. Wonderful.
[1:41:14] Move for approval. Second.
[1:41:15] All those in favor? All right. Any opposed? Motion approved.
[1:41:20] Thank you, Richard. Yes, sir.
[1:41:21] Again, item 16, consider approval of copier maintenance agreement between office systems
[1:41:28] and Victoria County Sheriff's Office and take appropriate action.
[1:41:37] Brandy, is this a rene- Is this a-
[1:41:41] I think I know what you're talking about.
[1:41:42] Who did put this on here?
[1:41:45] This one was for Gina Pallon there and the approval for this one was, they said
[1:41:55] You have agreed to the copier.
[1:41:59] OK, so this is a new start and only made it.
[1:42:03] So we've already got this budgeted. This is just the new agreement.
[1:42:12] OK. OK. For approval.
[1:42:15] Second. All those in favor.
[1:42:18] Any opposed. Motion approved item 17 received letter of permission to enter and work on private property
[1:42:24] and precinct one for the purpose of drainage improvement on county maintained
[1:42:28] roads and take appropriate action. I talked to Commissioner Garcia this morning
[1:42:32] asked me to speak to this. It's just a standard litter permission by Mr.
[1:42:37] Rodriguez to enter his property to alleviate drainage off of a county
[1:42:42] road. Move for approval. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed?
[1:42:52] Motion
[1:42:54] You might need to call Mr. Mr.
[1:42:58] Mr.
[1:42:59] Consider approval of payment to staff concrete construction and connection to
[1:43:04] RAB road project precinct to and take appropriate action.
[1:43:08] It's just for history.
[1:43:11] Receive it for approval.
[1:43:12] Second.
[1:43:13] All those in favor?
[1:43:15] Aye.
[1:43:15] Any opposed?
[1:43:17] Motion approved.
[1:43:18] that that staff that was the two that was forward and bankless no no I mean
[1:43:24] him how long a project I mean how many feet oh you're out to think two fifth
[1:43:33] that he was sixty feet total 60 60 I'm just looking at 15 on each side 15 on
[1:43:45] each one. Yeah. And seven inches wide tops with the footer. I've got something coming up. Yeah. He's very, he's very reasonable.
[1:43:56] Mr. Staffie. Item number 19, consider approval of proposal from Brandon Paving in connection to Spring Ridge and Grassland
[1:44:05] subdivision precinct two and take appropriate action. Right. Brandon construction is going to seal Grasslands and Spring
[1:44:12] I move for approval.
[1:44:13] Second.
[1:44:14] All those in favor?
[1:44:15] Aye.
[1:44:16] Any opposed?
[1:44:18] Motion approved.
[1:44:19] Item 20.
[1:44:19] Consider approval of the following 2019 budget amendments and take appropriate action.
[1:44:24] A. General fund various departments, expenditures.
[1:44:27] B. Health department expenditures.
[1:44:31] Move for approval.
[1:44:32] All those in favor?
[1:44:34] Aye.
[1:44:35] Any opposed?
[1:44:37] Motion approved.
[1:44:38] Approved. Item 21, consider approval of personnel changes and take appropriate action.
[1:44:45] Like always, you've got the summary and then detail on subsequent pages.
[1:44:49] Move for approval.
[1:44:51] All those in favor?
[1:44:53] Aye.
[1:44:54] Any opposed?
[1:44:56] Motion approved.
[1:44:57] And item number 22.
[1:45:00] 2 is closed meeting pursuant to VTCA government code 551.074 to discuss personnel, various departments,
[1:45:08] and VTCA actually know that economic development will push that to next week. So this is VTCA
[1:45:15] 551.074 for personnel in various departments. We will now go into closed session for that
[1:45:22] purpose, the time is 1147 a.m.
[1:45:45] We are coming out of closed session at 1.13 p.m. for agenda
[1:45:49] item number 23, which is pursuant to VTCA Government Code 551.102. Return to open meeting
[1:45:56] and take any action deemed necessary based upon discussion and closed meeting. There
[1:46:00] was no decisions made in the closed meeting, no action taken and no action that needs
[1:46:07] to be taken now so we'll adjourn at 113 p.m.