Personnel added to Child Protective Services
GEORGETOWN — Security took center stage this past week as the Williamson County Commissioners Court approved funding to bolster justice system-construction projects and allotments for additional personnel to help clear Child Protective Services cases.
During their Sept. 17 meeting, commissioners unanimously approved maximum price proposals for an ongoing Justice Center-improvements project expected to stretch into 2027. The multimillion-dollar effort focuses on a $78 million Juvenile Justice Center addition and an accompanying Justice Complex Improvements Project valued at more than $646,000.
Supporting the motion, Precinct 3 Commissioner Valerie Covey focused largely on the envisioned juvenile justice center. The project has been planned in five phases, with the funding approval covering the first two phases of construction, she said.
“What this covers is Phase I and Phase II, which gives us the additional space we’ve talked about and moving the security to a better location, having a better scenario for visitors as well,” she said. “This puts us over the amount we had approved previously.”
To offset the higher cost, she added: “In trying to work on how we can achieve that and should we back out of something that we’re doing in Phase I and Phase II to come back to the amount we had, it was obvious to me the courtroom was the easiest thing to cut out of this Phase I and Phase II.”
She countered the idea of altering the design to reduce the cost to its original amount: “The current space in the Juvenile Detention Center is not adequate for the hearings that are going on, but more importantly, it’s a way of moving forward,” she said. “We’ve talked about the Justice Center not having enough space,” she continued. “If we’re going to move from downtown — which we have not officially voted on but talked about — then we would not want to put any additional funding into that building that we don’t need to.”
What’s more, she added, the expanded space will include a fullfledged courtroom that could house a variety of cases save criminal ones.
“But it could serve for juvenile and civil matters, family matters primarily,” she said. “In talking to some of the judges, I can support adding this in.”
Moreover, the commissioner added, the county is in a good financial position to make such plans given a past bond issuance for the project.
“We have interest that has built up,” Covey said. “It’s over $7 million. The actual amount that we’re short is $10,383,148. We have money right now; we have over $7 million and it’s accruing about $1 million a month. Easily as we’re going forward on this project, we have enough interest on that.”
Road rules
County Judge Bill Gravell suggested allotting future money for road construction leading to and from the revamped facilities.
“I really would like for us to at least get the pricing on completing the road from the administration entrance toward the justice center,” he said. “We’re building rather a large county community there, and paths for getting in and out are important. I would at least like to know — we have not budgeted that anywhere nor have we discussed it — what it costs to do that.”
Covey also bought up the need for drainage improvements related to the project. Dale Butler, the county’s facilities senior director, said the design for that component was “pretty much ready to go,” but moving forward is contingent on receipt of a report by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality expected in December.
Butler provided a timeline for completion of both phases: “Phase I, if we start in December (and) the TCEQ permit comes through like we’re hoping, then we’re looking at an 18-month period to Phase I — which would include all the new construction besides the existing facility and the courtroom — which would put us in July or let’s say summer to fall of 2026. And then after that, we can start on Phase II which would be the remodel of the existing intake area and that would take us into about April, let’s say summer of ‘27.”
Gravell mused on the sheer scale of the project before commissioners voted unanimously on the revamped funding.
“Between Juvenile (Justice Center) and the county administration and this drainage project — which are all within 200 yards of each other — we’ve got about $180 million of construction going on. That’s a lot of people and a lot of moving,” he said.
CPS funding
In other business, commissioners voted 3-2 on the hiring of additional personnel to work on Child Protective Services caseloads. To that end, commissioners approved $240,200 in funding to hire a legal assistant and two care coordinators. Funding for the positions would be drawn by the county’s allotment from the federal American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, of 2021 — a $1.9 billion federal stimulus bill that includes $350 billion in coronavirus state and local recovery funds — rather than from the county’s general budget.
“We have been talking about improving the Child Protective Services functions of the county,” Covey said of her proposal. “And CPS is in a bad place. I’ll just call it out because currently the state has 21 positions and at the last count, four were filled — and that was for case managers.”
Covey said the move anticipates an eventual privatization by the state of some CPS functions handled by the beleaguered agency.
“We will talk about more permanent funding if they show it moves the needle,” she said, noting there are some 200 active CPS cases in the county. “We’re waiting for the state to privatize several aspects of CPS. We’re being told it could be five or six years, so we’re trying to accommodate the needs we have now. Some of these functions, especially the care coordinators, would actually be part of the privatization.”
Covey’s proposal called for funding $78,200 for a legal assistant and $81,000 apiece for two licensed care coordinators. The former would be a county employee, while the latter would be contracted through Bluebonnet Trails Community Services.
Precinct 4 Commissioner Russ Boles voiced early support, noting CPS’s role in safeguarding society’s most vulnerable members. The agency is tasked with providing child protection, including responding to reports of child abuse or neglect. Gravell opposed the measure while suggesting it was a state problem rather than an issue for the county to help solve.
“The truth is we don’t have a problem in the area of CPS,” Gravell said. “Williamson County is doing its job. The state of Texas is the one with the problem with CPS. What we’re doing again is another quarter-of-amillion dollar band aid to solve poor leadership decisions at the state level in relation to Child Protective Services.”
Gravell also objected to what he viewed as a truncated hiring process for the additional personnel, indicating it was a departure from normal county protocol. He said it was the first time he had heard of the proposal, further raising his concerns of a quickened hiring process.
“Do I think there’s legitimate concerns and problems we need to address within the CPS system? Absolutely,” he said. “But I think I’m troubled with our process and how we got here. What happens next week? What if I want to bring five more employees through and just present it and not go through our systems and process?”
In the end, Boles and Long voted for the measure with Covey. Gravell and Precinct 1 Commissioner Terry Cook voted against.
“ We’ve got about $180 million of construction going on. That’s a lot of people and a lot of moving.”
-County Judge Bill Gravell
