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DRAFT Meeting Summary
Meeting 15– October 9, 2003
Members:
Richard Bonewits
Richard Derham
Mark Endresen
Dave Gering
Steve Goldblatt
Arun Jhaveri
Sharon Maeda
Jim Montgomery
Bill Ptacek
Kathleen Royer
Steve Williamson
Consulting
Team:
Berk
& Associates, 206-324-8760
Marty Wine, Senior Associate
Cherienne Tibbetts, Associate
Council
Staff:
David
deCourcy, Council Chief of Staff, 296-0343
Scott White, Council Staff, 296-0324
Gennevie Cook, Committee Assistant, 205-5079
The
Commission on Governance meeting was called to order at 2:03 p.m.
44th Floor, Wells Fargo Building, 999 – 3rd Avenue, Seattle,
Washington by Co-Chair Steve Goldblatt.
Commission members present: Richard Bonewits, Richard Derham, Steve
Goldblatt, Arun Jhaveri, Sharon Maeda, Jim Montgomery, Bill Ptacek,
Kathleen Royer
Absent: Mark Endresen, Dave Gering, Steve Williamson
Guest Speakers: Larry Mayes, Interim Director, Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention (DAJD); Jim Harms, DAJD; Mike West, DAJD; and Susie Slonecker, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney.
Audience Members: Charlie Bush, City Manager’s Office, City of Bellevue; Russ Carlsen, Councilmember Kathy Lambert’s office; Suzanne Dale-Estey, Office of the King County Executive; and Anthony Hemstad, City of Maple Valley for Suburban Cities Association.
1. Approval of September 25 and October 1 Meeting Summaries: Jim Montgomery moved, and Arun Jhaveri seconded the approval of the September 25 minutes. The motion was unanimously approved.
2. King County Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention Discussion
Interim Director Larry Mayes presented the Department's overview and workload statistics, recent criminal justice system initiatives and challenges. The mission of the Department is to contribute to public safety by operating safe, secure, humane detention facilities and community corrections programs, in an innovative and cost-effective manner.
Q: Is Mike West located within DAJD or another office?
A: Within DAJD.
DAJD operates three secure detention facilities; the King County Correction Facility, the Regional Justice Center, and the Youth Services Center. These facilities are designed, staffed and used for housing adult persons and juveniles charged with criminal offenses prior to trial or sentencing and to house adults serving terms not to exceed one year. It is a very active environment; the average stay in County jail is approximately 17 days.
The jail provides services to King County Superior and District Courts and by contract to 37 cities and five different organizations (for example, University of Washington and Department of Corrections). The current jail services agreement with the suburban cities was adopted in February 2003 by the Council and runs through 2012. The contract was based on an incremental reduction in suburban cities' misdemeanant inmates to avoid building another detention facility.
Q: So this is not
a reduction in costs to the taxpayers but a shift from the County
to the cities, correct?
A: Yes that is the premise of the contract.
The cities are responsible for their misdemeanants. It is a discretionary
population for the County.
Q: Who makes sure that the costs are
being paid? Who does the follow-up to see that the payment follows
the incurred costs?
A: The jail has a good billing and tracking
system. One of our staff members, Linda Ip, is responsible for billing
notifications and resolving disputes. She audits daily activity.
56% of the individuals booked into the jail are released within the first 72 hours and approximately 86% are released within the first 30 days. Currently, approximately 200 inmates (9%) of the secure detention population is housed in special psychiatric or medical beds in the jail.
Q: Was the State's closure of mental health facilities related to the increase in jail populations in the 1980's?
A: Yes there is a direct correlation.
The jail provides inmate programs and services which, funded with dollars generated by the inmates through phone calls. These programs include education, vocational, chemical dependency services, library services, mental health services, domestic violence services, and transitional services.
Q: How is money raised from the collect phone calls?
A: The Department receives a percentage of the money generated; there is a contract with the phone company.
The Department is organized into five Divisions: Seattle (King County Correctional Facility); Kent (Regional Justice Center); Juvenile (Youth Services Center); Administrative Services Division and Community Corrections, formed in 2003. The two secure facilities are Seattle with 383 FTEs and Kent with 263 FTEs. Administrative Services Division has 51 FTEs and is located in the Yesler Building.
Q: Are those FTEs members of collective bargaining units?
A: There are 11 collective bargaining units within the jail and most of them are represented. The Department has approximately 40 non-represented employees.
Community Corrections has 38 FTEs and provides alternatives to secure detention for appropriate populations. This includes partial confinement services such as work/education release, and electronic home detention, and non-confinement services, such as the Day Reporting Center and Community Work Program. Community Corrections provides programming for defendants and offenders and provides tools and paths for reducing recidivism. The Division is responsible for implementing some of the programs approved as part of the County's Adult Justice Operational Master Plan (AJOMP), which was an intensive 18-month planning process that explored alternative types of sanctions, identified system process efficiencies and improvements to reduce costs, to make the best use of limited detention services, promote public safety, preserve jail capacity and delay the need to build additional capacity.
Q: Is Community Corrections working and useful?
A: Yes it is. The Department is working on an Intake Services project; the programs are more effective than incarcerating individuals.
The Juvenile Division, Youth Services Center, was created in 2000 and has 167.5 FTEs. The Division has secure detention of 100-114 average daily juvenile population. The Court Program provides multi-systemic therapy, functional family therapy, aggression replacement therapy, Reclaiming Futures, Building Blocks, Reinvesting in Youth and juvenile drug court.
There are a host of factors that influence operating costs at the jail. One is policy. Changing the DUI sentencing laws is an example of the impact of legislation. These changes include: mandatory minimum sentence increases and automatic license suspension. As a result, the population has increased 223% from 79 to 254 in 2000.
Facility design also influences costs. The KCCF (Seattle facility) and RJC (Kent facility). The KCCF is an 18 floor high-rise with indirect supervision. The RJC is primarily a horizontally-designed, direct-supervision facility with 14 housing units comprising 64 single cells.
Q: Which facility works better?
A: The Regional Justice Center works better than the Downtown facility mainly because of the structure and the fact that officers are in the pod with inmates; direct supervision works better. There are less than 2 inmate-to-inmate assaults per day and 1 inmate to officer/staff assaults per day. There have been no suicides in the last five years.
Q: Does the Department have to comply with local, State and federal legislation?
A: Yes but the State is considered the "floor" and has the most impact. The most noted litigation is the Hammer v. King County lawsuit. This suit was filed on behalf of corrections officers and inmates at the King County Jail and requested relief from conditions of overcrowding, understaffing, and inadequate medical care in the jail.
The primary drivers of the jail population include crime rate, arrests, criminal filings, judicial decisions to detain and release or place in a program, time to disposition, court sentences and demographic changes. Public policy decisions have a greater effect on the jail population than demographic changes; the general population in King County increased by 12% between 1990 to 2000 and the jail population increased by 70%.
There are other operating cost drivers for the jail, including average daily population and status (pre- or post-adjudication), legislation, County policies, litigation, facility design, court and contract requirements, operating policies, County internal service costs and jail medical services. The largest of our operating costs are jail medical costs which approximately $18.4 million. Inmate housing costs for 2003 include marginal costs of direct services (food, laundry, inmate uniforms, etc.) of $3.38 per day, an average booking cost of $157 per inmate for intake/release and $81 for housing per day. The average cost of an inmate in a double-bunked unit is $22.79 per day.
The Seattle facility has a total capacity of 1,661 and the RJC has a total capacity of 1,384, a total of 3,045 of secure capacity. The Department is attempting to contain costs by increasing double-bunking at the Regional Justice Center in Kent (savings of $300,000 in 2004). The Department also introduced a new master schedule for staff at the Juvenile facility (savings of $575,000), and closed the West Wing of the downtown facility (savings of $4,000,000). The Department closed the third shift booking and intake/release facility at the RJC in 2001 (savings of $1,000,000), and closed a portion of the second shift (savings of $950,000).
There has been a decrease in staffing corrections officers from 2000 to 2003.
The Department's revenues include the room-and-board revenues received for inmates who participate in Work Release and Electronic Home Detention, and contract revenues from federal reimbursement programs such as the State Criminal Alien Apprehension Program. Revenues are also generated from contracts with the suburban cities; those revenues will decline as the cities move the misdemeanant population out of the jails and to the other facilities.
The Department's challenges include establishing tort Reform, negotiating new labor agreements, budget reductions, expanding and funding treatment programs and population management.
Q: Why are there so many bargaining units?
A: The Intake Services Unit is attempting to consolidate a couple of the bargaining units.
Q: What was the impact of the closure of the North Rehabilitation Facility and Cedar Hills Alcohol Treatment center?
A: When NRF was closed, the physical facility went away but the population did not; they were moved to the jail and Community Corrections. The capacity of NRF was 291 with 45 individuals in at one time. Cedar Hills is something different; it is not part of the criminal justice system. A presence or absence of Cedar Hills does not affect the jail directly. These programs already existed and so did the infrastructure and programming and there is not really an impact.
Q: What is the percentage reduction of the FTEs?
A: Approximately a 10% reduction.
Q: Is the overtime of the staff increased because of this reduction?
A: The overtime was decreasing this year but has been increasing recently due an increase in the population - overtime fluctuates with the jail population.
Q: Is there any budget for the new facilities or the renovation of the existing facility? Is that coming out of the operating budget or is it separate.
A: Those are capital costs, separate from the Department's operating budget.
Q: If the law could be changed, what would the Department like to see done differently?
A: There is no silver bullet. There will be continuing increases in the criminal justice system unless without systemic changes. The cost of the system depends on the direction that law enforcement is given and policy and legislative decisions. If chemical dependency and mental illness were handled on the front end, the criminal justice costs in this country would be very small. How do you do that? I do not know.
3. County Employment Policy - Legal Framework Discussion
Susie Slonecker, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney, presented the legal framework for County employment policy and the King County Code relating to employee relations. The Code states that says strikes by certain essential public personnel are not permitted as a means of settling labor disputes, and this is what leads to groups having binding interest arbitration. There is not a strong code-based or statutory role in setting labor policy. The Office of the Prosecuting Attorney's role is to advise County government on legal issues dealing with labor policy. If a policy is changed, what is needed to bargain is a question that the Office would advise on.
On May 16, the Governor signed SSB 5409, which adopts a new petition method for annexation. The new method basically follows the old petition method with differences primarily in the signing requirements. The petition must be signed by property owners and by registered voters. If there are no registered votes in the area, then only owners of a majority of the area need sign.
There is a section in the King County Code entitled Personnel System where the Council sets policy such as vacation hours, sick leave, other types of leave, disciplinary section, classification/compensation issues. These govern the County's non-represented employees. The code says that when a condition of employment, benefit or procedure in an agreement conflicts with a condition, benefit or procedures established in the Code, then the collective bargaining agreement takes precedent over the Code. The County has more than 100 bargaining units. The Executive will discuss this in more detail.
Any subject matter that touches on wages, hours and working conditions are mandatory subjects of bargaining. The Public Employment Review Committee (PERC) has a chart describing what are related to those: incentive plans, severance pay, work rules, sick leave, transfer rights within the unit, disciplinary procedures, grievance procedures. 85% of the County's workforce is represented.
Q: Are they primarily units of major unions or are there a lot of unique unions to the County?
A: Most of them are locals or teamsters.
Q: What percentage of the Department is organized?
A: The clerical staff and paralegals are organized.
Q: Separately or together?
A: Together in one bargaining unit. The criminal deputy prosecuting attorneys have a bargaining unit. The civil, senior deputies are not represented, nor are the civil non-senior deputies.
There are 2000 non-represented employees in the County which the Code applies to.
Binding interest arbitration: Approximately 40-50% of represented employees have the right to interest arbitration. All of the transit division has a right to interest arbitration, in some part to receive federal funding. The State has said that law enforcement personnel are essential governmental functions, so these groups cannot strike, in order to make sure differences get resolved at the bargaining table. The structure of binding interest arbitration is that if the groups are at the table and they have reached an impasse, they go to PERC, which sends in a mediator, who works with them to resolve the impasse. If the parties do not agree, then they certify the issue for interest arbitration. In the last 10 years, King County has always been able to resolve its disputes when it has reached the mediation stage. There are three arbitrators: a partisan from each of the parties and a neutral who has been agreed upon by the parties. This is detailed in State statute.
Q: Why are the non-essential functions included in interest arbitration?
A: For the transit individuals, it is compelled by the federal funding source.
Q: What are the constraints on the arbitrators?
A: They are bound by the AAA rules. RCW 41.56.430 through 41.56.495.
Q: Is there anything statutorily that can undo a raise or anything that has been given in interest arbitration?
A: I am not aware of anything. I believe it would be an argument that a municipality would raise.
Contracting out restrictions in Washington: In the last legislative session the State gave itself the ability to expand its contracting out opportunities but did not give it to the County or the cities. The case states that contracting out work is only permissible when there is a new need for services that has arisen beyond a municipality's ability to perform the work. That case is called Washington Federation of State Employees v. Spokane Community College.
The County successfully argued in the Jiffy Lube case (Joint Crafts Council v. King County) that sheriff's deputies should be able to take their cars home rather than driving to a central dispatch facility. Based on the change of that policy, the County determined that it was impractical for officers to continue to have their cars serviced at the County's central maintenance facility. The court was clear that the issue of saving the County money was not primary and cannot be the legal justification for contracting out. The policy can be shown to improve efficiency, increase employee morale, provide for enhanced visibility to deter crime and financially benefit the officers, while providing the Department with an effective disciplinary tool, increase the life of the vehicles, greater overall field coverage and accountability for damages; all are legitimate justifications to contract out.
There is a case called Keaton v. Department of Social and Health Services where a State facility housed developmentally disabled individuals, and an in-house bakery which was to be discontinued; the agency fired the employees and bought baked goods. The court said that when the agency is going out of the business, it can contract out for that service. There is no practical answer to the frustrations around these laws and it calls for a legislative fix. The County can amend the County charter, or the State could pass legislation; a charter amendment would allow the County more flexibility.
Q: Where does the County draw the line when they are broke?
A: That is why I believe there needs to be a legislative fix.
Q: Where is the push or incentive for rational agreements? What is the process?
A: The Human Resources Division has 10+ labor negotiators who report to the County's Human Resources Director. They divide up their work by bargaining unit and by department. They bargain the contract with the various labor unions and present the bargained contract to the Council who approves or rejects the contract via ordinance.
Q: What keeps your office busy from day to day?
A: Employment litigation, sexual harassment cases; several lawsuits recently settled, the Logan lawsuit and Clark lawsuit. These were similar and state that you cannot label a worker a contract or temporary worker and have that worker sitting beside a full-time benefited worker doing the same type of work indefinitely and not pay them benefits. There is a new category of worker called a term limited employee. They can work from 6 months to 5 years and do not fall within the FTE count. The Office reviews all the collective bargaining agreements to make sure that they are not violating the Fair Labor Standards Act or the Washington Minimum Wage Act. The Office also answers labor issues as they arise but the majority of our practice is much more employment advising and defending lawsuits.
Q: How do you overcome US Supreme Court classic work preservation cases that state if it is part of your scope of work then you bargain for it, and it cannot be given away outside collective bargaining?
A: That is a huge mission for the County to think of a way that they can bargain that for the represented in this economic atmosphere.
Q: How much of the County's work is contracted out presently?
A: I do not have that figure.
Q: In order to make that decision do you do some type of cost-benefit analysis on the work for bargaining units and contracting out?
A: Our Office does not do this. The courts are interested in the efficiencies
and morale, not costs.
4. October 1 Community Meeting Debrief
The Community Meeting provided an opportunity for people to participate, and the attendance was what most expected so big changes in our outreach approach are not warranted for the next meeting; better to reach a plateau with something substantive to report. Recommendations included:
5. Framework for Commission Recommendations Discussion
Marty presented and highlighted eight issues or areas where the Commission has said that they have the potential to make governance recommendations
Marty provided a graphic titled "Fiscal Balance Framework." This graphic is an equation - when one of the "boxes" in the framework shifts it can cause the fiscal stresses such as the counties are now facing. The fiscal imbalance is symptomatic of underlying issues such as the way the County is managed, its service responsibilities, citizen expectations, tax laws and fiscal policies. Some of those can be controlled by the County more than others. The message the Commission might send to the County is that there are a variety of actions that could be taken to right the balance with examples in the eight issues above. Phases 1 and 4 recommendations fit in the box called "scope or level of service," Phase 2 recommendations fit in the box titled the "mode of delivery," and Phase 3 recommendations would fit in the boxes titled "tax laws" and "fiscal policies."
Commission members noted that more than just "tax laws" fit on the revenue side of the equation. Marty will annotate the graphic with her speaking notes and the Commission will discuss this further as a framework to offer recommendations.
6. Overview of Next Meeting
The next meeting will be held in the Wells Fargo Building at 999 - Third Avenue on the 44th Floor, 2-5 p.m. The Commission will be briefed on the Employment Policy Subgroup's work to date, and other county research.
7. Adjourn
The meeting adjourned at 5:04 p.m.