The Senate Finance Committee met to discuss Article V. Below is a highlight of those discussions regarding the Department of Public Safety, Texas Division of Emergency Management, Jail Standards, Texas Military Department, and the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission.

This report is intended to give you an overview and highlight of the discussions on the various topics the committee took up. It is not a verbatim transcript of the hearing but is based upon what was audible or understandable to the observer and the desire to get details out as quickly as possible with few errors or omissions.

 

Department of Public Safety

LBB Presentation

  • Decrease of 3.1B from 18-19 bien, increase of FTEs
  • $60.8M for human trafficking, anti-gang funding
  • 208m for driver’s license program, program has not met performance measure target of wait time of 45-minutes or less since 2015
  • Whitmire – People from Houston are driving to Columbus because the system is so dysfunctional, what can we do to fix this problem?
    • LBB Staff – We have been looking closely at drivers’ licenses and so has Sunset
    • Whitmire – We might need to pursue a new model for driver’s licenses.
    • Taylor – People have to wait for too long for their license. We need to take “drastic action”.
  • Birdwell – During sunset recommendations were made to close rural offices and move them to urban locations. We could change the command structure from DPS to DMV but that wouldn’t make a difference in efficiency. The commission needs to look at efficiency.
  • Nichols – The driver’s license issue is not only bad it has gotten worse. Wait times have gone up, 15,000 calls went unanswered. I have a note that the number of FTEs was reduced last budget cycle, of the number of FTEs how many empty slots are there?
    • LBB – I don’t know right now but I can look into that.
  • Hinojosa – We need to be reminded that our population continues to grow. I don’t think we should be closing offices in rural areas either.
    • Birdwell – We rejected 12-0 on sunset the recommendation to close rural offices and consolidate with urban offices. Regardless of this issue we will need funding to run DPS.
    • Watson – The sunset commission was frustrated/angry, but we couldn’t get a good answer on what needed to be done. But just doing something isn’t enough, we need to know what to do. The commission decided that there would be a plan on what to do by 2020. We can’t just throw money at something and fix it, we need to know what to do.
  • West – Historical full-time equivalent employees, in terms of FTE cap we funded 10,412 for 2018?
    • LBB – yes
    • West – And the number of employees was less than that?
    • LBB – Yes
    • West – In 2020 we are recommending more than 2018 and 2019, are any of those for driver’s license?
    • LBB – No the additional FTEs are for the human trafficking and gang violence measures.
    • West – Every session we talk about this, but nothing has been done, if we need to move it to DMV, we need to move it. We don’t need to study it anymore we need to do something.
  • Huffman – Why weren’t the FTEs filled? I went to get my license renewed recently, the people working were very efficient, but we needed more people there. I think if we started with a new agency it would be worse in 2 years than now.
    • Nelson – Couldn’t you have done online what it was you waited in line for?
    • Huffman – No, not what I did.
    • Nelson – Part of the problem is that we need to get the word out that a lot of the process can be done online.
  • Perry – We are talking about moving licenses to an agency that has fewer FTEs than is needed for licenses? I think that is a bad idea and agree with Huffman. DMV only has about 700 FTEs, they are not ready for this transfer.
  • Flores – Does DPS have a full-time administrative resources division dedicated to licenses?
    • LBB – Yes.
    • Flores – I agree with Perry that the DMV does not have the organizational capacity to take something as big as drivers licenses
  • Whitmire – DPS is our “premier agency”. This issue is a political liability, someone could beat us in an election if they promise to get the DPS licensing to work.
  • Birdwell – As a point of clarification, we don’t believe DMV ready at this time, but we did set a hard date of Sept 1, 2021 for the transfer to happen. We can do it in a deliberate way to ensure we did not create a larger problem with a hasty transfer.
    • Nelson – In the base bill I intentionally made sure we did not put any more money behind anything until we were sure what we were going to do.
  • West – There are some issues with this MOU that LBB points out “operation of logistical concerns”, what does that mean?
    • LBB – We are not sure how the organizational structure of TDEM and A&M would play out if another disaster occurred.
  • Perry – TDEM is the frontline of emergency management when something happens, I think this could be a stand-alone agency.
  • Huffman – The funding request comes through DPS, but the TDEM requests come through A&M and the funding is requested to flow through DPS, is that correct?
    • LBB – Yes
  • West – The governor increased deployment of National Guard members with federal government, is the federal government paying up front or is it reimbursed?
    • LBB – I don’t know of any state funds being used, so I would guess it is up front, but the agency would know better.
  • West – Explain for me the “advanced analytics” project? What is it?
    • LBB – We are trying to unify many different crime data sources into a single database. Most bids for the project came back higher than initial estimates, so it went over budget due to those bids.
    • West – So it’s over budget by $5m? Where is that budget coming from?
    • LBB – that would be a better question for the agency.
  • Hancock – Do we consolidate total state spend in the area of software projects the way we do with health?
    • LBB – We provide upon request the universe of all IT, cybersecurity, modernization projects for the committee. There is no informational rider in the bill that talks about coordinating across agencies on big IT projects.
    • Hancock – I think it would be interesting to have financial numbers as well as a completion percentage relative to schedules.
  • Bettencourt – This is a relatively small project but is way over budget, how was this estimate done, with a vendor or internally?
    • LBB – From the indications we have the estimate was done internally.
    • Bettencourt – so it was an internal estimate that was off by 200%
  • Hinojosa – I’m trying to figure out some of the issues we have with funding crime labs, how are these regional partnerships helping with these issues? Were there any discussions about sharing the costs with local jurisdictions?
    • LBB – Last session there was a rider that required DPS charge a fee for certain kinds of analysis, shortly after the session the governor and some legislators requested those fees not be charged. So, if you would like the fees to be charged that is something you could do in this session.

 

Col. Steven McCraw, Director, DPS

  • We will need replacement aircraft after 15 years to address reliability and performance issues. We are recommending no new aircraft, only replacements.
  • Talking to local officials the top priorities are crime labs, replacing aircraft and vehicles, and personnel in rural areas.
  • For driver’s licenses we have a multi part plan.
    • You cannot underpay the staff. Our recommendation if 34k per year
    • We must fully staff the agency.
    • 50% of the things people come to the offices for could be done online or on the phone, we need to make this known among the people.
  • Whitmire – I there anything to my notion that the driver’s license offices are something you do but is not a priority? I don’t have a recommendation on where to place them, but I say, “fix the damn thing”.
    • McCraw – The driver’s license office is the face of DPS, people don’t see state troopers or others, the licenses are a priority as long as it is under DPS and if it was moved to another agency, we would ensure it is a smooth transition.
    • Whitmire – I don’t subscribe to that, I want you to fix it.
  • West – You are asking for $420m to fund 1900 FTEs, if you had this exceptional item funded you would be able to fix the problem?
    • McCraw – Yes, I believe it would be a “shining example of state services” if we get this funding. We are going to need to expand offices in response to demographic changes, including growing population and the number of foreign nationals who will be applying.
    • West – You had an exceptional item last time that was not funded correct?
    • McCraw – Yes.
    • West – How are the 1000 national guardsmen on the border being funded?
    • McCraw – The feds pay up front
    • West – There is a variance in the number of FTEs employed and the number approved, why is that?
    • McCraw – For licenses it is low pay, for other departments it is attrition. Most of our vacancies are on the non-commission side
    • West – Are our salaries comparable with other states?
    • McCraw – Now, for example we pay 26k a year for a frontline driver’s license employees, we recommend 34k per year.
    • West – Of the nearly 4000 arrests at the border, the report states that 1000 were 100 miles away from the border?
    • McCraw – We don’t look at arrest rates or indictments as a performance measure, we look at crime rates as a performance measure. We consider reduced crime as a success, and while arrests are important, arrests are not the goal. Reducing crime is the goal.
    • West – would you tell the members the success of the body camera program, if it recued the number of complaints?
    • McCraw – It would be difficult because we have made it much easier to complain. The body cams do provide excellent evidence to protect both the public and the troopers.
  • Nichols – How many FTEs are for driver’s licenses?
    • McCraw – 2200
    • Nichols – so that’s about 9 people per location?
    • McCraw – Size varies, some offices are larger some are smaller some are part time offices.
    • Nichols – There are some of these urban centers with only 2 people working, I haven’t heard of any with 10 or 11 working?
    • McCraw – None of our offices are fully staffed.
    • Nichols – You said you had 2200?
    • McCraw – That is not just station employees, that is everyone who works in drivers’ licenses
    • Nichols – How many are in driver’s license stations?
    • McCraw – About 350 in 229 locations. The second part of the exceptional item is to ensure that all these stations are fully staffed 8 hours a day.
    • Nichols – We have spent $350m in the last 6 years on new “mega-stations”, I would say we don’t need more stations and more locations, we need more people.
  • Campbell -Talk about your partnership with SAPD and other local agencies in relation to anti-gang and drug enforcement
    • McCraw – Sometimes the consequences of an unsecure border are manifested in urban areas away from the border. We have funded projects to go after gangs. The governor was concerned with what we were doing to assist local PDs, we have been working to patrol to communities with the highest crime rates. Because of this we have seen a reduction in violent crimes where we have implemented these programs.
  • Flores – On border security, there has been some going back to “silos” instead of “fabric”, what can we do to “weave that fabric” and work together with local sheriffs on the border?
    • McCraw – We work with the border sheriffs, I meet monthly with them, any problems they have we take care of promptly.
    • Flores – Could we have a larger contingent of patrolmen to protect our infrastructure, especially in the Eagleford and Permian?
    • McCraw – We can work with the regional data in that area to see what we can do.
    • Flores – Why is the SA regional HQ not included in this LAR?
    • McCraw – No, there was such a large amount of money that we did not want to include facility funding in this request.
  • Hinojosa – You have a lot of drug cases where they send the drugs to the crime lab in ATX and it takes a long time to get it back to the prosecutors, how are you helping the local jurisdictions pay their fees or to set up regional crime labs?
    • McCraw – Some communities are looking for more than what we can provide, so some of these will pay for a body and we will train it.
    • Flores – How can you cover the gaps when a border patrol agent is busy with processing someone and gangs will bring drugs in during those times when they are distracted?
    • McCraw – It is about situational awareness because it changes everyday depending on what the cartels do.
    • Flores – If it is less than 100 kilos of cocaine the Feds don’t want to prosecute, we can either fund those smaller cases or let them go, and letting go is not an option
    • McCraw – That would fall to the local sheriffs and state prosecuting agencies.
  • Perry – Do you have an opinion on the TDEM swap as we are currently discussing, tell me what we gain and lose by that process.
    • McCraw – We will work under whatever umbrella, we will bring to bear special agents and Texas rangers. Whatever the structure we can be successful.
  • Huffman – On the issues of the feds declining to prosecute some of the human trafficking and drug smuggling cases, do you have any specific examples of that?
    • McCraw – Yes it happens frequently, although the process has recently changed so they are prosecuting more. In the past few years the Feds were not even prosecute assaults on border patrol officers.
    • Huffman – Is the 50-hour work week working out?
    • McCraw – Yes, it has been working out and the troopers like it, it has helped with recruitment even of troopers coming from out-of-state.
    • Huffman – What is the missing persons database, how does it help with border security?
    • McCraw – There are all manner of accidental deaths of people trying to cross, this is tracking those.
    • Huffman – We still have 43 state guards on the border funded by state funds, what is going on with those?
    • McCraw – These are specialized people who stay in certain positions for extended periods.
    • Huffman – Were these helicopters you are asking to be replaced the ones used in Harvey?
    • DPS staff – We are asking the helicopters without a hoist to be replaced
    • Huffman – Exceptional item regarding “I watch” program for schools, does that work together with crime stoppers?
    • DPS staff – Yes, the program works together, it works to leverage something we are already paying for and unifying data.
  • Kolkhorst – Are all the new FTEs non-commissioned?
    • McCraw – No, some of them are commissioned
    • Kolkhorst – Request of $25.4m to maintain staff levels, is that for moving people up the career ladder?
    • DPS staff – No it is for new recruit schools, we train all our personnel from the bottom up. We need 4 recruit training schools per biennium.
    • Kolkhorst – You have DPS regions, the license offices are overworked, I would like to work to streamline that process to reduce the amount of paperwork.
  • Whitmire – I would for the record like for you to inform us the amount of people of the 300k apprehended at the border how many surrendered themselves if you are going to use that number as justification for increasing funding. About 200-250K are women and children who surrendered themselves.
  • Nelson – Last session there was 49.8M for the backlog of sexual assault kits, will that get the result we need?
    • McCraw – It will tremendously help, but there will never be a zero. We are trying to ensure there are no kits that have been sitting there for more than 90 days.
    • Nelson – What are you going to be able to do with the money for human trafficking?
    • McCraw – It will help because we will be able to conduct more investigations to dismantle and disrupt these organizations as well as identifying and rescuing victims.

 

Nim Kidd, Chief of Texas Division of Emergency Management (LBB presentation covered under DPS)

  • $15.1B of Fed funds in TX for Harvey relief
  • Under $5B in local assistance, $1.3B of that on the street. The rest will come as scope of damages are defined, etc. 80% of fed funds are on the street, the rest will take 6-8 years
  • Perry – Where are these numbers coming from, are they FEMA numbers?
    • Kidd – Yes when I am talking about these numbers, I am only talking about FEMA numbers.
  • Perry – The $5B on the table comes through the hazard mitigation program, is that includable in the $15B?
    • Kidd – No it is not includable. The majority of the FEMA money is a 90/10 split, so the 10% is covered by either the sate or the agency affected
    • Perry – Does the original $15B include the $5B?
    • Kidd – Yes it does
  • Nelson – If the state covers all matching funds for disasters, does that set a precedent for matching funds for every occurrence that may arise?
    • Kidd – From the federal perspective I can foresee the question that “if Texas has the money why do you need federal assistance?”. However, I could never recommend that the federal government pays 100% of the cost because the local governments and administrations will always know better how to serve their communities.

 

Juvenile Justice Department

LBB Presentation

  • Whitmire – Are you considering moving some of the juveniles to other facilities closer to their communities for significant cost savings and possibly a better service model?
    • McGeady, LBB – The budget as its introduced contains baseline info as a starting point. The committee through its deliberations can make decisions regarding the kinds of things you are mentioning.
    • Whitmire – The day cost of keeping someone per day looks to me like its $456.38, is that correct?
    • LBB – Yes that’s correct for residential facilities.
    • Whitmire – Even at that amount we are not helping the youth at any objective way.
  • Perry – Resources where I am from are limited, if we were to consider outsourced or community-based care as we have with CPS, do you have data that would show positive impact?
    • LBB – With respect to local secure facilities we have data for that. With respect to services we do not have a list of services within each facility.
  • Huffman – I missed what you said about violent felony referrals?
    • LBB – For the last four years we have seen increases, and especially last year we saw a 5.4% increase.
    • Huffman – And those will drive up costs because those cases are more expensive?
    • LBB – Yes violent felony offenders are much more likely to be committed to a TJJD facility.
    • Huffman – About the terroristic threats arrests related to school shootings, did those become apparent after Santa Fe or just the shootings nationwide?
    • LBB – They really started increasing after February. These were almost all misdemeanors; a lot of kids were bringing guns to school in “copycat crimes”.
    • Huffman – Was this statewide or local to Santa Fe?
    • LBB – It was statewide
  • Whitmire – It’s the gang activity that is driving the increase. The greater number of people referred from the schools are mostly an abundance of caution by school officials.

 

Camille Cain, Exec. Dir. JJD

  • High amount of risk, it is difficult to recruit number of officers needed for facilities. We need to recruit more officers and reduce the population of those facilities.
  • Many kids in the facilities would be better served by mental health professionals than what they currently have.
  • Whitmire – Daily outsourced cost is so much smaller than the $465 at a state facility, why don’t you go in that direction? It looks like a reduction in cost and an improvement of services
    • Cain – We have been moving more in that direction
    • Whitmire – Why couldn’t you shut down the Gainesville facility for cost savings?
    • Cain – We can’t shut down Gainesville or any other facility bc it would push 160 kids into the other facilities?
    • Whitmire – So you are so understaffed that you can’t handle 160 kids being split over 5 facilities?
    • Cain – That is correct we are severely understaffed
    • Whitmire – Almost all of these young people who get to the campuses are violent felonies, it is difficult to control those kids.
    • Cain – Yes and the closer they are packed the harder it is to control them.
    • Whitmire – There is a national movement to move 17-year-olds from adult to juvey, what would that do to your facilities?
    • Cain – We would not be able to handle that number of kids.
    • JJD Ombudsman – We need to update some of these facilities.
  • Watson – Can you expand on what contract care means?
    • Cain – The system as of right now does not provide adequate contract care. We need the right rates and the right kids to provide contract care.
    • Watson – How many private vendors do we currently use?
    • Cain – we use 10 or 12, some are very specialized, and some are broader.

 

Brandon Wood, Exec. Dir. Commission on Jail Standards

  • Exceptional requests – 1 additional FTEs, employee retention strategy to reduce turnover
  • West – How many additional inspections can you carry out with additional FTEs?
    • Wood – The FTEs we are requesting would not be involved in onsite inspections.
  • Whitmire – You recently told Harris County they were out of compliance, what are the actions you can take?
    • Wood – Describes process they could take for sanctions on a facility. Cannot close a facility like Harris County due to the amount of inmates.

 

Maj. Gen. Tracy Norris, Texas Military Dept.

  • Flores – What was the criterion that you used to choose Eagle Lake over Sheffield as a site for the challenge program?
    • Norris – Natl Guard Bureau decided to shut down the site, I can get you a whitepaper on that.
  • Nelson – When do you expect to repay the governor’s office for the remainder of the Harvey payments?
    • Military Dept. staff – We are waiting on FEMA, we don’t know exactly when.
  • West – What is the challenge program?
    • Military Dept. staff – It is a program for at risk students. They stay and sleep at the location.
    • West – So the students get shelter, food, education, why is there only one location in the state?
    • Norris – We lost a site after Ike hit Galveston, over the past few years we have been searching for a new site, but it is difficult to find a suitable location.
  • Campbell – Can you speak to the problems that can arise with contractors?
    • Norris – We have been given more funding from both federal and state government, so the overall workload has been rising
  • West – Is this program military based?
    • Military dept. staff – There are commandants, but it is not a military school.

 

Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission

LBB Presentation

  • $116.5m in all funds, $17m increase from 18-19
  • IT resources funding increase of $7.4m for licensing and tax collection tech replacement to address agency’s reliance on paper records, manual data entry and report creation.
  • Agency has been limited by technological capabilities, requests $6.9m to update public safety technology and cybersecurity (In original notes this said $16.9m, it is actually $6.9m)
  • Birdwell – There are some sunset recommendations here that were specifically rejected by the Sunset Commission
    • Nelson – This might not necessarily be a contradiction but 2 entities exploring
    • McGeady, LBB – There may have been times when we mistakenly included staff recommendations in here
    • Nelson – Where it says “sunset recommends” you are saying “sunset staff recommended”?
    • Watson – Some of them are Commission recommendations. Some, particularly the ports-of-entry recommendation, are staff recommendations that are not necessarily recommended by the Commission.
    • Hancock – Many times we are confused by staff recommendations even when it comes to LBB for LBB staff recommendations or LBB Committee recommendations. There should be a clarification between staff or Commission/Committee
  • Taylor – Was the issue with ports of entry a safety issue?
    • Watson – Commission reached the conclusion that eliminating the ports of entry program would not be good for public safety. But it was not cost-neutral, so we wanted to hear how to make it cost neutral.
    • Taylor – Is this to do with people buying things duty free at a port of entry?
    • Birdwell – The main thing are goods coming in through Mexico, not cruise ships
    • Hinojosa – There are lots of people going to Mexico, drinking the alcohol and getting “poisoned” by it, so it is a public safety issue.

 

Kevin Lilly, Chairman, TABC

  • A few years ago, there was a crisis of trust surrounding TABC, we have tried to address this.
  • Working on eliminating human trafficking from TABC establishments
  • Exceptional item 2 for licensing and tax collection tech replacement.
  • “We want better technology and we want boots on the ground”
  • Nelson – I have heard more than half of the TABC agents will be working on human trafficking?
    • Nettles, Exec. Dir. TABC – Yes, these agents are specialized in working on human trafficking issues
    • Nelson – I believe you received $7.4m funding in SB 1 for cybersecurity issues, will that fix the issues with security?
    • Nettles – The exceptional item for cybersecurity was a standalone item for only $974K and did not make it into SB 1. We would ask you to reconsider that. We had a review done with an independent vendor who identified gaps in our cybersecurity. We have a lot of sensitive information (soc sec numbers, etc.) that we need to protect.
  • Kolkhorst – What have you done to improve inspections and health standards?
    • Nettles – What we want to due is focus on ATLAS(?) locations, we allow people who have no previous infractions to use their phones to take pictures to conduct their inspection quickly
  • Nettles – I believe exceptional item 2 would decrease wait time for licenses by about 20 days.
  • Hinojosa – Money laundering and human trafficking happens in a lot of places where alcohol is sold
  • Taylor – I would like to know what the safety is for items coming off of cruise ships, because we are not testing it, we are only taxing it.
    • Lilly – No we are confiscating illegal and toxic alcohol. There is a legitimate safety issue, especially on the border as Hinojosa mentioned earlier, not as much on the cruise ships
    • Taylor –So why are we doing this on cruise ships and not just on the border?
    • Nettles – There have been some instances where a black-market ring attempted to bring contraband liquor into Texas. We weren’t able to prove they were part of a ring but anecdotally it can happen through cruise lines.