Department: County Administration
Department Head/Elected Official: David Berry, County Administrator
Regular or Supplemental RCA: Regular RCA
Type of Request: Financial Authorization
Project ID (if applicable): ARPA_CRTBLOG, ARPA_BODYCAMERA, ARPA_EVIDENCEMG, ARPA_TRIAGE, ARPA_CAC
Vendor/Entity Legal Name (if applicable): N/A
MWDBE Contracted Goal (if applicable): N/A
MWDBE Current Participation (if applicable): N/A
Justification for 0% MWDBE Participation Goal: N/A - Goal not applicable to request
Request Summary (Agenda Caption):
title
Request by the Office of County Administration for approval of $20,155,823 in ARPA Local Fiscal Recovery Funds for continuation and expansion of Court Backlog reduction activities together with investment in child abuse prevention, evidence preservation, and treatment efforts.
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Background and Discussion: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of cases in the Court Backlog, defined as misdemeanors aged over 180 days or felony cases aged over 360 days, rapidly increased. To accelerate processing of cases in the backlog, Commissioners Court approved a comprehensive set of initiatives in late 2021 and early 2022 including:
* Establishment of Emergency Response Dockets
* Hiring Associate Judges to expand trial capacity
* Adding staff within the District Attorney's Office, District Courts, District Clerk's Office, Public Defender's Office, Community Supervision and Corrections Department, and County Courts
* Expanding jury services and jury facilities, including establishing additional jury operations at NRG and in the Family Law Center
* Expediting access to evidence, including funding additional evidence retrieval by the District Attorney's Office as well as body camera and 911 tape retrieval by the Sheriff's Office
* Initiating a triage program within the District Attorney's Office to review one-time, low-level offenses and quickly bring them to disposition
These efforts are beginning to yield results. The number of...
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