AUSTIN MUNICIPAL

COURT

2016 ANNUAL REPORT

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The Austin Municipal Court has jurisdiction over Class

“C” misdemeanors occurring within city limits of Austin,

Texas. These offenses include state and city

offenses such as traffic citations, public

intoxication, theft, assault, and city code violations.

ABOUT THE COURT

Judiciary

•Administers effective and impartial justice to all persons with business before the court.

•Comprised of a Presiding judge, seven associate judges,14 substitute judges & three legal secretaries.

•Judges preside over scheduled appearance dockets, bench trials and jury trials.

•Provide 24/7 magistration services at the Travis County jail. •Judges are appointed by the City Council for four-year terms.

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Downtown Austin Community Court (DACC)

•Provide creative and individualized sentencing options to offenders so that they are held accountable for their actions. •Reduce recidivism rates and focus on community restoration. •Provide supportive services to assist offenders by linking them to resources, with a focus on permanent stability. •Handle quality of life violations within a specific jurisdiction of Austin. •.

Municipal Court Operations & Support Services •Provides case management for the public in order to facilitate the swift administration of justice.

•Operational staff provides customer services, administration of civil cases, courtroom support, warrant processing, magistrate support, collection services, youth services, case monitoring and updating.

•Support staff provides the necessary tools to perform our jobs including accounting, budgeting, human resources, technology, contract management and administration.

Read more about Austin

Municipal Court

Sherry Statman, Presiding Judge

Click here to view the

updated docket

calendar

ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE 2016

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Click here to learn more.

- Number of total employees FY15-FY16, including Judiciary, Court Operations, Downtown Community Court and Support Services.

2016 HIGHLIGHTS - SUPPORT SERVICES

Computer Support/Quality Performance (MIS/QPT) - Increased IT functionality and advanced staff abilities - Upgraded wireless local area networking - Created a Helpdesk ticketing system & Share Point Site

- Responded to 900+ public information requests

Human Resources

- The department won 2nd place for the City’s Healthy Connections Program.

- Added 105 employees to the citywide market study for compensation

- Hosted children for Take Your Kids to Work Day

Finance - Increased the petty cash fund by $1,000

allowing immediate request fulfillment. - Ensured proper balancing with

implementation of weekly reconciliation - - Reconciled and posted more than $26.1

million in gross collections.

- Processed $5.4 million contractual and commodity payments.

- Performed 100% of cash and non-cash audits scheduled on time. - Effectively managed the budget by coming in under budget at 98.91%.

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Participation by Court Staff in City Sponsored

Programs City PE Class - 153

registrations, 69 individuals.

City Olympics – 25 team members

City Mentoring & Tutoring Program - 9 staff members

Internal Customer Service Provided by Support Services Leads to:

Increased employee satisfaction

Increased employee productivity and per-formance

Lower turnover Lower employee costs

2016 HIGHLIGHTS - OPERATIONS

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.

Yout

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•Reduced recidivism through Austin Youth Diversion Program

•Expanded classes and resources free of charge to youth and families

•Added class on cognitive behavior to focus on teen communication

Cour

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•Increased accessibility with night time mitigation •Every Wednesday 6PM - 8:30PM

•Averaged 18 defendants per docket

Cent

ral B

ooki

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War

rant

Pr

oces

sing

•Reduced staff hours and cost of 24/7 facilities and increased efficiency •Cross-trained central booking & warrant unit functions to confirm warrants at the jail facility

Colle

ctio

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Civi

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Cust

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•Additional training provided for staff which resulted in a 63% reduced error rate.

•EZ Change delivered by Dunbar was implemented to increase cash handling efficiency and time savings

Com

mun

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•Implemented new mail processing procedure resulting in more accurate mail response

•New phone system installed allowing for better oversight of customer interaction

Case

flow

Man

agem

ent

•Assumed Magistration window duties allowing for a more swift and streamlined process for filing outside agency citations, processing higher charge search and arrest warrants, and receiving citizen complaints

•Decreased customer wait time on phones

•Increased customer court order compliance with their court orders as a result

•Internal audit Improvements

•Filed 12,725 camera at red light cases (carl)

•expedited customer parking appeal process with implementation of procedure which grants hearing for cases where the pay station receipt has fallen from a customer’s windshield via waiver

Click here for more information on Court

Programs and Services

Exceptional Customer Service

“The supervisor I spoke to

was so lovely and I was here to pay a ticket!! He even made me smile!” – customer coming from parking hearing office

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“They provided the best customer service I have ever received from any government agency.”–customer on the phone

“The clerks in the courtroom were helpful, patient, kind, and efficient – they offered a peaceful presence in an otherwise tense and stressful situation. MUCH appreciated.” – Austin resident

For information on Ways to Handle a Ticket click here

DOWNTOWN AUSTIN COMMUNITY COURT (DACC)

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8 Michael Coffey, Associate Municipal Court judge (left) Pete Valdez, DACC Court Administrator (right)

Currently, 56% of all public order offenses committed in Austin occur within DACC’s jurisdiction.

Purpose: to collaboratively

address the quality of life issues of all

residents in the downtown Austin

community through the swift, creative

sentencing of public order offenders.

There are 26 full time employees at

DACC.

Visit DACC for more information.

An Advisory Committee serves DACC to advise the DACC on policy and operational issues.

It is composed of 11 members appointed by the mayor and

the city council. Click here for more

information on the Advisory Committee.

JURISDICTION: DACC initially focused on the downtown area but has since added

a portion of East Austin and the

University of Texas’ West Campus area to

the Court's jurisdiction Map of DACC Jurisdiction.

2016 HIGHLIGHTS – Downtown Austin Community Court

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Ope

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Com

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- Crew Leaders collected 164 tons of trash and completed clean up throughout Austin

- Continued to maintain the Edgar Fincher III Program

Garden

- Grew and maintained small food crops (371 pounds of food) that were donated to social service and nonprofit

agencies that provide meals to Austin’s homeless population.

- Participated in the City of Austin’s Mobile Tours in conjunction with the Texas Municipal League Conference,

and hosted conference attendants at the Edgar

Fincher III Program Garden

-Continued to streamline court

procedures

-Fully transitioned to a paperless case

management system

-Created and filed over 13,000 new cases and docketed an average

81,000 cases

-Expanded the number of Licensed Masters

level case managers by three

- Increased number of clients housed by Intensive Case Managers (ICM) by 45

clients

- Connected 38 clients to transitional housing, 52

clients to substance abuse treatment and 47 clients to

an array of counseling Services

- Supported clients with

$21,724 of financial assistance used for

application fees, first month’s rent deposit and utilities to facilitate long

term stable housing

- Assisted with the development and

implementation of the city’s Homeless Outreach

Street Team (HOST) intended to reduce EMS transports, emergency

room visits and jail bookings, generating

significant savings for the community

For more information on HOST click here.

KEY PERFORMANCE MEASURES- FY16

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Measure Name FY14 FY15 FY16 FY 16 Target

Average age of terminated cases (days) 212 184 158 215

Percentage of cases terminated to filed 103.3% 109.2% 104.6% 100%

Level of customer satisfaction as indicated by City of Austin citizen survey * 87.0% 87% 80% 88%

Number of cases set on scheduled dockets and appearing at walk-in dockets

116,025

109,628

97,116

112,000

Percentage of cases set on a docket within 60 days 98.0% 97.0% 97.84% 97%

Percent of walk-in customers served within 10 minutes 96.0% 92.5% 96.5% 93%

Total number of cases filed (see page 10 for more details) 368,684 351,757 323,543 369,000

The Austin Municipal Court and City of Austin utilize performance measures to determine the

effectiveness and efficiency of programs and performance. The information below highlights the key performance measures.

For More information click Performance Measures.

*City of Austin citizen survey data includes responses marked “not applicable” or “neutral” which may skew results.

CITATIONS FILED BY TYPE FY15-16

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Key Performance measures, such as ticket filing, are directly affected by the number of citations issued by Austin Police Department and

other enforcement agencies. Overall criminal charges have decreased compared to previous years.

6,840

11,719

12,725

131,085

161,174

Parking Traffic Red Light Camera City Ordinance Misdemeanor

Parking

Traffic

Camera at red light

City ordinance

Misdemeanor

10K 50K 100K 150K 200K

BUDGET FY15-16 • For more information on the City of Austin budget process please click here.

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General Fund Revenue 2014 2015 2016 Parking Fines $3,343,485 $3,312,591 $3,008,239

Traffic Fines $6,880,693 $6,568,800 $5,520,330 State & City Ordinance Fines $574,326 $785,095 $753,940 Oversize Weight & Truck Fines $80,805 $69,299 $59,793 Warrant Fees $1,205,003 $1,460,533 $1,077,045 Administrative Fees

$1,426,327

$1,311,947

$1,069,151

Deferral Program Fees $2,139,868 $2,099,445 $1,896,195 Miscellaneous Revenue* $883,089 $783,335 $700,433 Total $16,533,596 $16,391,045 $14,627,812

*Miscellaneous revenue includes miscellaneous payments, court collections-10% fee, bond forfeitures, returned check fees and cash overages and shortages. More revenue information may be found on the next page.

REVENUE FY15-16

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$14,627,812 or 56% of

gross collections retained by

City of Austin

$11,488,752 or 44% of gross collections

distributed to other

governmental agencies

56% 44%

GROSS COLLECTIONS

$26,116,564

Revenue is in direct correlation with the number of tickets enforcement agencies issue, resulting in less payments being collected. Revenue is derived from fines, court costs, and fees collected on cases filed in our court by several entities

including the Austin Police Department, Code Enforcement, AISD, Alcoholic Beverage Commission, and several other city departments. The revenue is distributed into the General Fund as well as Special Revenue Funds such as the Building

Security Fund, Court Technology Fund, Juvenile Case Manager Fund, Traffic Safety Fund, and Child Safety Fund.

COMMUNITY SERVICE RESTITUTION, INDIGENCY & OTHER WAIVERS

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Fiscal Year 2014 2015 2016

Number of cases that received reductions/waivers

3,737

4,835

5,460

Number of cases where

indigency was determined

1,402

961

1,528

Total amount of

reductions/waivers

$341,405.07

$470,406.98

$589,629.87

The numbers below represent the number of cases in which fines, costs, and fees were waived or

reduced by an Austin Municipal Court Judge.

ORGANIZATIONAL HEALTH

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“We know that healthy departments

are productive

departments, so we take

time to show our staff

their value, celebrate

when we can, and build

community at the

court.” - Judge Sherry

Statman

Supervisor Academy Graduation

Summer Bash Build-A-Backpack Youth Career Fest

Summer Olympics

National Public Service Recognition

CELEBRATIONS, RECOGNITION & EVENTS

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Bring Your Child to Work

Bring Your Child to Work

Years of Service awards

Employee Awards and Recognition Program

Bring Your Child to Work Day

Holiday Contests

Court Shirts for every employee

A Celebrations Committee was

established by the Court Clerk, resulting in

increased participation, diversity and employee

morale.

THE WAY AHEAD

New facilities •Continue to seek and consider options for the most appropriate use of space to meet City and departmental needs. • A new main courthouse was approved with the 2006 bond program to accommodate the needs of today’s court as well as the future.

New case management system

•Select a vendor for the new case management system which was approved for FY15‐16, funded through the Communications and Technology Management (CTM) capital budget as a citywide IT initiative.

• New system will handle more than 350,000 new cases filed annually and facilitate online services.

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Business intelligence tools

•Vet, select, and integrate new business intelligence tools to improve unit reporting with explanatory visuals and increase cross-functionality among units by providing integrated reporting.

•Create more cohesive reporting for performance measures and ensure visualizations to the public via open data.

Open and increased data

• Continue to increase the transparency of data reported to the Office of Court Administration (OCA) by partially automating the process to improve reporting efficiency.

• Design and build a data warehouse that will allow for better organization of internal reports and information.

Horizon issues for DACC

•Hire additional rehabilitation staff. •Improve resources and facilities to better serve the public. •Increase advocacy function of Advisory Board to gain community support and increase awareness.

Revised standard operating procedures

•Document all court processes and procedures to streamline operations throughout the court and improve new employee training.

• A new full-time position for Court-wide Trainer will support these efforts.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION

OR TO CONTACT ONE OF OUR COURT

LOCATIONS

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“I think the first duty of society is justice.” - Alexander Hamilton

Downtown, 700 E. 7th St. – Monday through Thursday, 7 am to 10 pm; Friday, 7 am to 6

pm

North Austin, 12425 Lamplight Village –

Monday through Friday, 8 am to 4:30

pm

South Austin, 5700 Manchaca Road – Monday through

Friday, 8 am to 4:30 pm

Downtown Austin Community Court, 719

E 6th Street Monday through Friday, 8 am

to 5:00 pm