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KERR COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT
Workshop
Monday, February 23, 2004
3:00 p.m.
Commissioners' Courtroom
Kerr County Courthouse
Kerrville, Texas
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
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PRESENT: H.A. "BUSTER" BALDWIN, Commissioner Pct. 1
WILLIAM "BILL" WILLIAMS, Commissioner Pct. 2
JONATHAN LETZ, Commissioner Pct. 3
DAVE NICHOLSON, Commissioner Pct. 4
ABSENT: PAT TINLEY, Kerr County Judge
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On Monday, February 23, 2004, at approximately 3:20 p.m.,
a workshop of the Kerr County Commissioners Court was held in
the Commissioners' Courtroom, Kerr County Courthouse,
Kerrville, Texas, and the following proceedings were had in
open court:
P R O C E E D I N G S
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Let's convene the
workshop, and let's see if we can pick up where we left off
last time. Has everybody gotten a copy this time? Has
everybody had a chance to read it and make notes, determine
what you think is good, bad, or indifferent about it?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Commissioner Williams,
may I make a comment before you get too far into it?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Sure.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I -- I think there's
an issue that must be resolved before we can move forward
with -- with this particular item.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What's that?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And it's fairly
unpleasant. However, I've received the third call now from
the District Attorney's office in regards to our computer
guru not returning calls, or setting appointments and not
showing up and those kinds of things. I understand that,
and I've gotten other phone calls from other offices around
the courthouse too, but seems like to me that we have to get
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some kind of solid commitment that our guru is going to
serve all the offices or -- or find out what the problem is;
if there's a problem, how can we fix that problem, before we
can set in place another set of rules for everybody to live
by, when -- when we -- when we're a little bit fractured in
the system that we have set up today. You know, and I'm
just reporting that I've had three phone calls from the
District Attorney's office, and then I received another one
from another office today that are -- that is present --
present in this room, that I think wants to speak as well.
But I think that that needs to be resolved.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I understand what
you're saying. I'm wondering, however, if that's not a
personnel issue that should be discussed --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, it may be, but I
can't imagine us adopting a set of rules for everybody to
live by without someone properly handling that particular
office. I mean, that's the way I see it, anyway. We need
to get our -- we need to get our train engine in place and
running properly before -- so we can pull the rules. Was
that a good one or what?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That was okay, yeah.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: It was fair.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I don`t know if it
gets us down the track or not, but it's okay.
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COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: But I just -- you
know, and Shaun, I hate to bring these things up, but it
just -- you know, when they call me, and I -- and I tell
them, "Call Tommy" --
MR. TOMLINSON: I'd love to talk to them.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- and --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What?
MR. TOMLINSON: I would love to talk to them.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: What would you say
to them?
MR. TOMLINSON: You don't want to know what
I'm going to say to them. You know, we tried to fix the
situation at budget time. I asked for a part-time person to
help during the budget process, and -- and it didn't happen.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, that's the
problem? We have too much work for one person?
MR. TOMLINSON: I did -- I've done what Shaun
is doing from -- from '92 until he came to work here. I
know how much time it takes. I mean, I have spent my
weekends, nights, from 1992 until he came, trying to hold --
hold this together. And I -- and I know it can't be done
with one person. Little -- little county of Bandera has one
and a half persons. I mean, I -- I did a survey of counties
our size. It ran -- the people in the technical part of --
of data processing in all counties, the minimum was two.
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Some of them had as many as five people working on the
system. We have, like, 180 computers in the system.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: If that's the case,
then we're going to add on the -- this set of rules, which I
don't -- I don't see as a huge workload added on, but there
is some. It seems like we need to address this thing. I
mean, I know we can't make a commitment, but we need to
agree that we're going to address the problem. We can't --
I'm tired of my phone ringing about these things.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I understand what
you're saying, and I think the rest of us probably feel the
same way. And if we're not responding to various and sundry
elected officials or department heads, we ought to figure
out a way to do that, but if we need more people, Tommy,
then we need to -- we need to talk about it. We talked in
court this morning about O.S.S.F. and their -- and its need.
And --
MR. TOMLINSON: You know, I voiced my -- my
opinion on that more than once. I mean, even to other
elected officials. And, you know, you just -- I mean, until
you walk in those shoes, you don't know how much time it
takes. I mean, I've been down here at this courthouse at
2:00 and 3 o'clock in the morning, Sundays. I mean, I even
got a call from the Sheriff one time in Lampasas, Texas. I
was trying to play in a golf tournament. I got a call at my
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hotel room to ask a question about -- about a situation that
was going on at the jail. I mean, I couldn't -- you know,
you can't get away from it. They're -- I mean, it's a
24-hour, 7-day-a-week job, period. And, I mean, there's no
getting around it. I mean, we -- we have people working
24/7, and they're -- they use the system, and you can't help
but have someone available to solve some problems during the
time when the rest of us aren't here. And -- you know,
that's when a lot of the work gets done, is -- is when the
majority of people in the courthouse aren't here. And so
it could be a two full-time person job, easy. So, I mean, I
don't have much sympathy for -- for some -- because I've
been there, of -- of some ~f the issues about the not being
able to get to somebody's problem. And we -- you know, I --
when I was doing it, I tried to prioritize what I did,
and -- and there were times when -- there were some issues
that just didn't get done, period. Or -- or it had -- or it
had to wait for a significant amount of time.
MR. HENDERSON: Can I say something?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Sure.
MR. HENDERSON: Nothing against Shaun or
anything. When we have something -- we're here from 9:00 to
5:00, and when we -- 8:00 to 5:00. I work 7:30 to 5:30, and
when I have a computer go down or one of my girls has a
computer go down, we're stuck. I mean, we sit there. And
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we need our computer worked on, and Shaun may be busy, but
we call and we call and we leave messages, and he never
calls us back, and sometimes it's two days. And so we're
sitting there waiting for our computer, and the judges get a
little upset, and they ca11 Brad. Luckily, Brad comes up
there and Brad fixes it for us, because we have to have it
done right then. And -- and it`s -- and he may be busy and
he may be somewhere else, but we need somebody in the
courthouse that's always in the courthouse that we can call
and can come up and fix it, because we're stuck sitting
there, because our computers are what we use. And, you
know, we've even thought, if it's okay, can we go outside
and get somebody to help us? And Shaun, when he -- and he
doesn't -- he -- you know, sometimes it's a couple days
before he returns our calls. And I know he may not be here;
he may be somewhere else, but we need it then, from 8:00 to
5:00. At least call us and tell us, "I'll be there," or let
us know something, because we do -- we sit there. I mean, I
don't sit there; I have stuff to do. But the girls --
everything`s done on computer. Everything.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Your office isn't unique.
I mean --
MR. HENDERSON: I know everything's computer,
and so I guess when something goes down, it's like, "Oh, my
gosh, my computer went down. I've got to get it back up
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before court," and Shaun's not here, so we have to call
Brad. And then we've been told we can't use Brad any more.
And thank goodness there's been Brad, because there's been
times that, if he hadn't fixed it, I don't know what we'd
have done.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Shaun, you had your
hand up?
MR. BRANHAM: I just wanted to say that I
have a pager on me, and there are times when -- most days
I'm not in my office more than an hour a day, at most. And
if I'm out working on somebody's computer -- like, last week
we had two hard drives went out, total of around 14, 15
hours, and I did most of the work at the computers. Some
days I don't have time to go back to my office, you know. I
do forget at times to check my voice mail, but I do have a
pager, and usually when the pager goes off, I do respond
within minutes.
MR. HENDERSON: We use the pager that you
have on your voicemail, We've used it many times, and we
can't get any response. And that's -- that's what I'm --
that's what we're upset about.
MR. BRANHAM: I've got a pager and a cell
phone that the Auditor's office purchased for me, and
Mindy -- she calls me all the time on it, and I always --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I think we have two
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issues here. Even aside from whether or not we have an
information technology policy, we have two issues, and one
has to do with responding to calls, identifying the caller
and calling that person back and saying it's going to be six
days before I can get there, or four days, or I'll be there
in 30 minutes, and whether or not, as the Auditor points
out, we have too much work for one individual.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think the other part of
that is, I think if we're talking about the policy, which
we're supposed to be this afternoon, if Becky's computer or
one of their computers goes out, and Shaun can't get to it
for two days, she needs to know what to do. I agree, you
can't be without the computer.
MR. HENDERSON: We sit there.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: What -- so there needs to
be -- as part of a policy, you need a backup as to, you
know, after this amount of time or -- or, you know, or
something to -- and, of course, that requires funding as
well.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Let's talk about it.
How do we deal with it? I'm directing the question to
either Tommy or Shalin. In a situation where a computer -- a
computer in a vital situation goes down, and it's a couple
of days before it can -- somebody can see it, what do we do?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: May I throw something
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out on the table?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Sure.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Could we possibly
contract with Brad Alford on a -- a per-call basis, or an
hourly basis or a monthly basis, something like that? I
mean, I don't know if he'd even agree to do that. His
wife's shaking her head no over there in the corner. And
I -- Thea's shaking her head no. But why not?
MR. BRANHAM: I'm not saying no. I'm just
saying, if we did, we would also have to offer that to
Michael Early out at the Sheriff's Office, 'cause without
him, the Sheriff's office -- he helps me out numerous times
at the Sheriff's office with little nitpicky stuff that
really doesn't cause people to go down, but it is annoying;
it's aggravating. It's -- you know, and he helps me out on
numerous occasions out there.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Good thought,
Commissioner, but I think the answer is, you can't make a
separate contract with a full-time employee.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I don't agree with
that.
MS. SOVIL: Because he's already obligated
for 40 hours.
MR. ALFORD: But I would like, if I may, to
say something.
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COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Sure.
MR. ALFORD: Brad doesn't want any money.
Brad just wants to live in peace. And with these three
sometimes.
MR. HENDERSON: Thank you, Brad.
MR. ALFORD: What Brad would like to have is
a directive of this policy and procedures. If Brad's going
to be able to do this stuff, Brad would like for it to be in
there that Brad can do it, being as Brad is responsible for
the Collections Department. If he goes up to the Judge's
office and has to spend two hours working on one of the
computers, he doesn't want to get in trouble for Collections
Department, if that makes sense. I don't want -- I don't
mind wearing a dual hat, helping Shaun. Everybody here
knows I do it; that's not a problem. But I don't want to --
it reflects on our department, our being the Collections
Department. As far as compensation is concerned, I think
that's ridiculous. I'm a County employee. If I can help
elected officials or department heads, I think that's
something I ought to be able to do without getting paid for
it. I mean --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thank you, Brad.
Your offer is accepted.
MR. ALFORD: Thank you. Well, okay.
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COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Tommy, would that --
something like that work? Or, you know --
MR. TOMLINSON: Well, yeah, anything will
help.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And I really -- I was
just using Brad as an example of a person to contract with.
Should we try to find someone to make a --
MR. TOMLINSON: I would like to have a
part-time employee.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: There are people out
in the community that can do this. You could contract with
them.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, you'd want a
full -- not a full-time?
MR. TOMLINSON: I would like to have a
part-time person to be in this courthouse.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Not -- not a
professional from a computer company --
MR. TOMLINSON: No.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- that we're
contracting with? Okay.
MR. TOMLINSON: We've been down that road,
and it was a bumpy one.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. Do I hear a
little anger riling up?

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MR. TOMLINSON: Well, there is.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, I don't -- I'm
not --
MR. TOMLINSON: I'll tell you straight up.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I understand that.
But I want to -- I'm trying to help us get to the end of the
problem here, and to help you so you'll feel better.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: He's got heartburn
right now.
MR. HENDERSON: We get angry too, because we
can't get anything done. And that's -- that's where we get
upset, too. And I speak for -- we -- I'm talking about my
Judges. I've talked to them, and this is -- I'm down here
kind of -- I'm not saying what they're saying, but
they're -- you know, we just -- when we need something done,
we need it done, and that's -- that's our problem. And I
know Shaun's busy elsewhere. So --
MR. ALFORD: I'd like to see the County go
out for some type of Schreiner student, six and a half
hours, work 38 hours a week, grounded to the courthouse,
can't leave; we'll execute you if you do-type deal, and try
something like that. I don't mind running around, you know,
for 10 minutes plugging a mouse in or resetting a video card
or something like that, but if it boils down to two or three
hours, I just don't think I can do that.
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COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Why don't we leave
this with Tommy? Would you put together a proposal and
bring it to us?
MR. TOMLINSON: Sure.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And, Shaun, I think
let's deal with the other side of that issue, too. I
understand if you're busy, you're busy, but I think if each
of us waited two days to get back to our constituents when
they called us, we'd have a minor uprising on our hands.
And your constituency is the folks who use computers, so I
would admonish you to think about how -- how to respond to
them as quickly as possible. Even if the bad news is, "I
can't get there for two days," at least they've heard from
you.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: And don't feel
over-optimistic. If it's going to -- if you can't get
there, you can't get there.
MR. BRANHAM: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Right.
MR. ALFORD: While we're pushing our luck,
until we get this deal back from Tommy, if there's something
simple that I can spend 10 minutes on, with the
Commissioners Court approval, Shaun can call me and I can
run real quick, either fix it or not. But we can make
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contact that way. If we get this other guy on board -- and
it may be something as simple as me having to call Shaun
back and say, "Shaun, this is over my head; you'll have to
get to these people." But at least that way, the department
heads will have some type of response if Shaun's out at the
Sheriff's Office or. out at Tngram at the substation. Y'all
want to try something like that?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Anybody here have a
problem with that?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You have my
permission.
problem.
my boundaries.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Nobody up here has an
MR. ALFORD: Okay. I don't want to overstep
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We appreciate it.
Thank you for your offer.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Brad, you ought to put it
on the agenda in the future, or at the -- at our next
meeting. We can't make a decision today.
MR. ALFORD: Right. No, I agree.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: If you're concerned
about, you know, your job being Collections and doing other
outside work, you ought to get it on the agenda for the
Court, you know, to give you a formal direction.
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MR. ALFORD: I think I read between the lines
good enough; I don't need to take up the Court's time with
that.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. Well, did we
beat that one to death enough?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yes, sir. Thank you
very much.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You're welcome. What
I'd like to do is hear from everybody about the topics on
the document, what you think is good, bad, and indifferent
about it. Just lay it out there. If you've got a marked-up
copy, let us have it. Let's have your comments, and we'll
see if we can fashion a document that embodies all the
potential changes and so forth, and we'll go from there.
Who wants to be first? Yes, ma'am?
MS. UECKER: I apologize; I would like to
have a little bit more time to look at it. But, after
reading it a couple of times, I think it's a good policy,
but I think there's a lot of redundancy in it, a lot of
repetition. And I think some of the sections could be
combined, because, in looking at it, there is so many things
that repeat themselves, and I would like to see it say what
it needs to say and nothing more.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Tightened up? Will
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you mark	up your copy and let me have	it, please?	
	MS. UECKER:	Okay.		
	COMMISSIONER	WILLIAMS:	You don't have	to do
it today,	but let me have it	back.		
	MS. UECKER:	For instan	ce, Number 1 and	2
needs to	be combined.			
	COMMISSIONER	BALDWIN:	Wait, now.	
	COMMISSIONER	NICHOLSON:	Commissioner	
Williams,	I marked up a copy	.		
	COMMISSIONER	WILLIAMS:	I have it.	
	COMMISSIONER	NICHOLSON:	Can I have it	back?
	COMMISSIONER	WILLIAMS:	Yes.	
	COMMISSIONER	NICHOLSON:	I probably won	't
come up with the same answer	s the seco	nd time.	
	COMMISSIONER	BALDWIN:	1 and 2 is what?	
	COMMISSIONER	WILLIAMS:	Items 1 and 2?	
	COMMISSIONER	BALDWIN:	The purpose and	the
policy?
MS. UECKER: Yeah. I think that needs to
be -- it says basically the same thing.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Mm-hmm.
MS. UECKER: Under 4.5 --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Just a second. Which
one?
MS. UECKER: 4.5. And I'll give you what
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I've got --
COMMISSIONER
MS. UECKER:
COMMISSIONER
MS. UECKER:
redundant, because it's alr
paragraph of that section.
COMMISSIONER
WILLIAMS: Sure.
-- in a couple of days.
WILLIAMS: Okay.
I think that's probably
Cady been said in the first
Some of the soft --
BALDWIN: Wait, wait. First
paragraph of --
MS. UECKER: Of 4.5. Right to Privacy is
Paragraph 1, and then paragraph --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Oh, I see what you're
saying.
MS. UECKER: Some of the software sections, I
think, could be combined. Number 7, Computer Ethics, and
Etiquette, I think, need to be combined.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Which one, Linda?
MS. UECKER: 7 and 8.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Why is 8 underlined?
MS. UECKER: Hmm? I don't know. Somebody
was shouting at me in underline.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank God they didn't
capitalize them, too.
MS. UECKER: I know.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I don't know why it's
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underlined.
MS. UECKER: And the last -- on the very last
page, the guidelines when writing e-mail. I think that
needs to say, "Each department head or elected official
shall develop and implement written guidelines and/or
policies for co-owned computer usage in each office."
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay.
MS. UECKER: Period.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay, give me your
marked up copy when you're finished with it. Thank you.
MS. UECKER: You know, that's -- that's my
suggestions.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Would you like for
me to say what I put in here?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Sure.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: I won't go into a
lot of details, but the one -- I agree that that last page,
e-mail guidelines, is not policy and shouldn't be a part of
the --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I was going to say delete
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Several places in
here where it deals with personal use of the computer. I'd
like to see a whole lot more restrictive policy on that.
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For example, under 4.1, prohibited actions include, but are
not limited to -- I think the first thing should be personal
use. And then I would be okay with some language that
softened that just a bit on things like electronic mail;
that it would be okay for supervisors to authorize very
limited exclusions to that personal use policy to allow
employees to do what Ms. Uecker said here a while back, send
an e-mail message about, "Do you want to go to lunch?" But
we shouldn't be harming productivity by spending a great
deal of time on computer, whether it's e-mail or something
else for personal use. And that's all I've got.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I guess --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. I'll have
yours back when you're finished with it.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Only question I have is
on personal use, and I'm thinking of, like, the games that
come on them. To me, that's personal, games.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Games. To me, that's
personal use. But if someone's doing it, like, on their
lunch break or -- I mean, it's a way to relax, to me, and
that's -- so, I mean, to me, that's not personal use. But
it's certainly not county work, either.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Yeah.
MS. UECKER: I think I agree with you,
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Jonathan, because it -- but only those games that are part
of the -- the package that's already there.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: You can't download
MS. UECKER: Can't download anything. But I
think 4.1 sayer just about what it needs to. I mean, it may
need to be tweaked a little bit, 'cause what I found in
allowing employees to send e-mails is, it actually -- even
personal e-mails, it saves a lot of time. 'Cause if you
happen to have to make a personal phone call, by the time
you get through the hello's and how-are-you's, what have you
been doing, how's your kids, dah-dah-dah-dah-dah, you could
have already sent an e-mail and been back at work. And
that's -- you know, that's the thing I'm trying to get away
from.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: What I'm trying to
get at is, if we have situations where employees have --
have so little to do that they can spend a lot of time
during their regular working hours --
MS. UECKER: Exactly.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: -- playing
blackjack, then we've got a bigger problem than this policy.
But I also remember hearing that part of Shaun's time has
been used over the past year or two in trying to fix things
that's wrong with the computers because they're improperly
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used for personal reasons.
MS. UECKER: Because of downloads.
MR. HENDERSON: Downloading.
MR. ALFORD: That's it.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: I'd like to see us
come down hard on unauthorized use of computers.
MR. HENDERSON: Especially downloading stuff.
MR. ALFORD: We kind of -- if I can
interrupt, we kind of added that language on 5.8. We added
a 5.8 that talks about nothing but downloads. You know,
we -- we came up with, you know, not without the I-tech's
permission, period. And then Shaun's talking about having
an approved list of software that the County needs. We
talked about Adobe Reader; that is something that we need,
and it is an approved, free -- go out acid download it. You
need it to look at some documents. Well, that's one they
can download. But then, of course, games, media players,
you know, like Real Player will just eat your computer up.
They can't download that, but yet -- but have guidelines out
there regarding any downloads.
MS. UECKER: That needs to be part of Section
3 somewhere.
MR. ALFORD: It may be. I don't know where
to put it. I just added downloads.
MR. HENDERSON: Is that the same thing as you
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download, like, music? 'Cause I saw somebody downloading
music that comes over their computer.
MR. ALFORD: It can be.
MR. HENDERSON: You shouldn't be able to do
that, either.
MR. ALFORD
implications on that.
There's actually legal
MR. HENDERSON: Downloading anything that's
not --
MR. ALFORD: Well, what we were talking about
was 9/11, whenever -- you know, September 11th, whenever the
disaster hit. I think there probably wasn't maybe four
computers in this whole building that was not playing the --
the media, what's going on. I had no problems with that.
But most of these, like I said --
MS. UECKER: It plays music. That doesn't
download it, though.
MR. ALFORD: You have to download Real Player
to watch some of the videos.
MR. HENDERSON: See, I didn't know that.
MR. ALFORD: Some of the employees wanted to
watch the jet hit; they had to download Real Player. Where,
if they would have gone to another media source, it probably
would have played on something that's already on the
computer. Not getting too technical, but that is a problem.
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COMMISSIONER LETZ: It's easier to say no
downloads, period, and let Shaun do the downloads, whether
it's Adobe or anything.
MR. HENDERSON: That, I --
MR. ALFORD: Well, I agree with you.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I like that way.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Period, no downloads.
MR. ALFORD: There's a time issue to where
Shaun has to go to this office and download Adobe Reader,
that they can go to web site and see, "Oh, this is already
approved; I can download it." That's all. We're just
looking at time restrictions.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'm looking at doing it
on every new computer. Might take a little bit of time to
get worked in, but if we get every computer, Shaun downloads
all these things automatically, then you don't have to worry
about it.
MR. ALFORD:
you get what you need, ther
COMMISSIONER
mean, I'm pretty much inept
says I am. I'd have a hard
that. I mean --
Sure. Absolutely right. Once
is no reason to download.
LETZ: 'Cause, I mean, to me, I
with computers; at least my wife
time downloading even stuff like
MR. HENDERSON: Me too.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: -- might mess up my
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computer by trying to download something that's easy and
MS. UECKER: Adobe Reader -- can I ask a
question about that? All -- every A.G.'s opinion comes that
way, so most of our computers should already have that.
MR. ALFORD: They should.
MR. BRANHAM: Usually when I install that, I
install it right off the bat. Sometimes I forget, and
usually that and WinZip's already installed on that for that
reason.
MS. SOVIL: What is WinZip for?
MR. BRANHAM: It's a compression program that
some e-mail servers will not allow you to send a file over a
certain size, so you compress it to a smaller size so you
can send it aver a dial-up.
MR. ALFORD: Goes from big to little and then
little back to big.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Those are the things
we don't -- the average employee doesn't want to get
involved in, but we shouldn't be. Becky, do you have
anything?
MR. HENDERSON: No, sir. No, sir. I think
23 that's --
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25 marked-up copy?
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COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Do you have a
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MR. HENDERSON: Yes, I do. I did that
back -- Judge Ables handed me something; he was concerned
about 4.5, Right to Privacy. And he says, "How do we handle
pending cases and the confidentiality of our notes?"
Because he has cases there that are confidential, and he has
his notes on there that are confidential, and he was a
little -- you know, didn't know how that was going to work.
MS. RUCKER: Mr. Curry also had a concern
about that. He said this was improper, especially for
attorney work product and e-mails that we send about cases
is confidential.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: How do you want it --
how, would be my question to you. If you have your computer
go down that Mr. Curry has his notes on or whatever, things
that are confidential with respect to a particular case, and
Shaun would have to take care of -- how's it handled now?
MS. RUCKER: He doesn't look at the full
information, you know, as far as documents go. He just
tries to fix the software problems that we have.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. Do you see
anything --
MS. RUCKER: He doesn't read our e-mails. He
doesn't read our forms.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: That's probably the right
to -- the first paragraph is the concern, correct?
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MS. RUCKER: The right to privacy.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah.
MR. HENDERSON: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: The first paragraph under
that, that is the concern. It says in there we have the
right to monitor that.
MS. UECKER: I think a lot of Judge Ables'
and Becky's issues can be separated, because, number one,
Judge Ables doesn't have a county computer; he's got a state
computer, and those are state documents and e-mails, rather
than county-owned. I would think that would --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Do we repair his
computers if something happens?
MR. ALFORD: But if the County would, then
it's going to fall under the county guidelines for Shaun.
MS. UECKER: Okay, you're right.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I mean, you could add a
provision in there --
MR. HENDERSON: Half county, half state?
COMMISSIONER LETZ: -- you know, with respect
to certain confidential -- you leave that paragraph in
there, the right to monitor all that, but you still --
there's certain confidential -- lawyers, attorneys, you
know, those things, law enforcement, that we have just no --
no right to look at that information. It's only when you
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legally have the right to look at it.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You better define
that.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right, I agree.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We'll play with it
and see if we can come up with something. I don't know.
MS. UECKER: I think -- you know, I think
we're going to have to -- to me, Shaun being able to look at
that is not different than the janitor having a key to my
office. I have to trust him.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Point well-taken.
MR. HENDERSON: Our problem is that this
confidentiality -- in those cases, like the juvenile -- we
have same juvenile cases on there. I mean, if that was to
get out -- and I'm not saying Shaun would do anything, but
if it was to get out, then Kerr County would be responsible.
So, to me, he should be bonded or something; I don't know.
But that's just some of those things that are -- the
computers that are state and county.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: But, I mean, I think
Linda's analysis is, if the janitor picked up a file on a
juvenile, same liability there.
MR. HENDERSON: Yeah, that's true too.
MR. ALFORD: We were talking about a while
ago, can we make a separate folder in our computers --
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again, trust-related, but it would say "Confidential," and
that would be kind of a way of going to Shaun, saying,
"Don't go in this unless you have to." If we have to trust
him, we have to trust him.
MS. DECKER: The type of things that she's
talking about, I don't think you can --
MR. ALFORD: You can't do it all. We have to
-- our juvenile payment plans are confidential, which we can
move and -- and do that with ours. But we're talking about
one document.
MS. DECKER: Of course, the Legislature, I
think, loosened up a lot of the confidentiality issues on
juveniles, didn't they, this last time?
MR. ALFORD: I don't know.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Tell you what, if one
of the Judges or the District Attorney wants to draft a
paragraph that meets the criteria that you think is
necessary to satisfy your concerns, we'd be happy to take a
look at it for inclusion.
MR. HENDERSON: That's the only concern that
they had. And then the personal use, Judge Ables put, "This
is important and should not be changed in any way," talking
about 4.4. He liked that paragraph. That's all he said.
That's the only thing. And Judge Prohl looked at it and
said --
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COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Which one?
MR. HENDERSON: 4.4. He said
MS. UECKER: Personal use.
MR. HENDERSON: Yeah. He said he liked that
paragraph, and, "This is important and should not be changed
in any way," is what he put on this. That's the only
response I had.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Shaun, do you have
any comments? Have you marked up a copy for it?
MR. BRANHAM: Highlighter. I just want to
bring up a point on the monitoring.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: This is 4.5, Right to
Privacy?
MR. BRANHAM: I'd like to break it up into
two parts, actually. Right now it says -- you know, talks
about the monitoring, and groups Internet, e-mail,
everything together, but it groups it into one lump sum of
monitoring. Evidently, the current kind of policy that we
have right now is, the only way anything's going to be
monitored, e-mail, anything like that, is at the request of
the department head or elected officials. Otherwise, I
ain't going to touch it. However, we do need some type of
monitoring in place for the protection of our systems, like
intrusion detection, anti-hacking, just to watch for stuff
like that. And it will not watch what users are doing on
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our system, how they're accessing their e-mail. It does not
read that, but it does clear the way for us to know. 'Cause
the way our present status is right now, we could be hacked
and we'd never know it, because we have no intrusion --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'll give you the
same ammunition I gave everybody else. Why don't you draft
a paragraph that says that? However --
MR. BRANHAM: Okay.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: -- we need to do
thus-and-so. Okay? And let me have it back.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And, Shaun, don't use
the word "hacked."
MR. BRANHAM: Would you like me to explain
that one? I had to go through an hour and a half one year
at a convention because I didn't -- I used the wrong term
around somebody, and I had to go through an hour-and-a-half
lecture on the difference between the terms.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Brad, do you have
anything else you want to add?
MR. ALFORD: Yes, sir, if I can.
Unauthorized copies of -- burning C.D.'s for -- for, like,
software.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What paragraph?
MR. ALFORD: 4.3. Like Linda said, it's
redundant, like 3.16 and some -- some other paragraphs in
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here. What it's regarding is copyrighting software. That
is kind of an issue where we're supposed to turn in all of
our software to the inventory maintained by Shaun. But I
believe, under copyright laws, we're able to burn a working
copy of this software. And what I'm referring to is
Microsoft Office; sometimes you open up different documents
and it needs different filters, and it will ask you to
insert C.D. Number 1. Becky, you've had this issue. I
think, Linda, you've had it, you know, till we got your
computers --
MR. HENDERSON: I don't know what you're
talking about, Brad. This is way over my head.
MR. ALFORD: That's why you call one of us
and say, "Help."
MR. HENDERSON: You come and help me, right.
I don't --
MR. ALFORD: Under copyright, we're able to
do this. We're able to burn working copies of these
programs. Let Shaun keep the original, but the department
heads will keep their own working C.D.'s. It's not -- it's
something that we're concerned about. They can be taken
home and used, 'cause they don't have secret codes, if that
kind of makes sense. I'd like to see this clarified a
little bit better.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Clarify it.
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COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Clarify it and give
MR. ALFORD: 4.1, this was a concern, I
think, of Linda's, talking about using chat software.
MR. HENDERSON: What? What software?
MR. ALFORD: WinPop.
MR. HENDERSON: I know what that is.
MR. ALFORD: After talking with Shaun, and
Shaun did some analyzing of it, he agrees that we could use,
like, MSN Messenger, which is basically what you have now;
it's just a different program. The Microsoft Office -- it's
free; there's no price to the County. It takes some setting
up to get done, but it's something that Linda, Becky, y'all
can use between courtrooms and the judges.
MR. HENDERSON: What's wrong with WinPop? We
use it now.
MR. BRANHAM: They're no longer supported by
Microsoft. They've discontinued it after Windows '98.
MR. HENDERSON: We still get it.
MR. BRANHAM: Huh?
MS. UECKER: You can get a freeware --
MR. BRANHAM: You have a freeware program,
but unfortunately, there's no guarantee that when Microsoft
releases its next version of Windows, that they will have a
version available for that. With MSN Messenger, we'd
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standardize on one and we know it would always be available.
MR. HENDERSON: Is it hard to learn?
MR. BRANHAM: No, it's fairly
straightforward.
MR. ALFORD: That's all I had, trying to take
care of different issues I've had come up.
MS. DECKER: There was another section that
said -- and I can't seem to put my finger on it right now,
but it's -- somewhere it says that you can only use county
equipment to do county work. And, you know, that's going to
cause a problem, because some of us take work home and do it
on our computers, or --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: It doesn't say that.
It just says you can't use the county equipment somewhere
else.
MS. DECKER: No, I think there was a section
in there --
MR. HENDERSON: That we had to do our work on
this specific computer.
MS. DECKER: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Surely not.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: It should not
restrict that.
MR. ALFORD: There's nothing that restricts
you from logging into e-mails at home. I don't think so,
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either.
MS. UECKER: I'll look at it again.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Tommy, do you have
anything else? Miguel, you came in late. Do you have
something?
MR. ARREOLA: I have something else. It's
just about O.S.S.F.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Can't talk about it.
MR. ARREOLA: We'll talk about that later.
Probably need to talk to Mr. Nicholson after it's over.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'll wait to get your
copies marked up.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Brad was saying
something I wanted to hear. What --
MR. ALFORD: I'm sorry. I was asking Shaun
if there's anything in here restricting us from accessing
our county e-mail from home, and there's not. And that's
fine.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: How do you do that?
MR. HENDERSON: Yeah, how do you do that?
MR. BRANHAM: Go into the ktc.net, check your
e-mail there.
MR. ALFORD: Some of the department heads do
that on a regular basis, make sure we're taking care of
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business when we're off.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Stay after school
here and tell me how to do it.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Seriously.
MR. BRANHAM: That's one of the reasons I'd
like to standardize on singular programs, so that we can
develop documentation that, you know, you wouldn't have to
have six different sets of documentation for each version
that's out there. If we can standardize on one, make
everything easy, then people can have their own.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Tommy?
MR. TOMLINSON: That's -- this conversation
right now is, I think, an example of how we can use another
body. You know, there's -- there are a lot of people,
including myself, that are self-taught as far as some
software that we have available to us. I mean, there's
many, many of us in the system that have -- have
capabilities we don't know we have. And if we had -- if we
had a body available to have -- to have some in-house
training on just common, everyday software, you know, like
Excel or MS Word, or -- I mean, the only thing I know about
it is what I've taught myself, 'cause I -- and I'm sure
that most of the employees in the system have the same
experience. And, I mean, just today, I -- I'm working on
a draft of an audit -- of this year's audit for what's
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called the M.D.& A. under GASB-34, and there were some
things I wanted to do between Excel and Microsoft Word I
didn't know how to do, and -- and it's just because I've
never been taught. And -- and I'm sure that there are
some -- there are some issues that -- some advances in
software that -- you know, that we could utilize if we, you
know, knew how to use them. And, in fact, there's --
there's -- I mean, in The Software Group system that -- that
I -- you know, that I use, Linda uses, there's ways to go
into our systems that we use every day to -- to write what's
called recall statements, to pull data or information out of
the system that we can't get from a standard report. And --
and, you know, if you -- if you don't use those kinds of --
that kind of program on a regular basis, you forget how to
do it. You know, just -- just two months ago, I called our
programmer at The Software Group to -- to write a recall
statement for me to -- to get some information out of the
financial package that wasn't available otherwise. I had --
at one time, I knew how to do it, but, you know, I use it
maybe two or three times a year. Well, you know, I forget.
And so, you know, if there was -- with another person
involved, I think we could really utilize the expertise of
somebody to teach, you know, all our system how to
effectively use what we have.
MS. DECKER: If we had someone that knew the
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recall, and that -- that's real complicated, 'cause it's all
done with keystrokes. I mean, there's -- it's not any part
of Windows or anything. For instance, if you have -- out of
criminal case management, a general report would say cause
number, name, offense date, indicted, and the disposition.
Okay, if Buster comes to me and he says, "Well, I want to
know all of the cases that were indicted from this date to
this date, whose name began with a G, that had an offense
that -- I mean, a disposition that equaled to probation -- I
mean, you can come up with real complicated and unique --
uniquely identified cases by being able to use recall
statements. And that works with money, it works with civil
stuff, it works with -- with any of the packages.
MR. ALFORD: I think we can keep it simple,
just a -- just e-mail. I don't know about Shaun, but I
don't know how many times I've run around the courthouse
just to show somebody how to send an e-mail with an
attachment. I did one downstairs last week, and it's
something you take for granted. You know, it was pushing
two buttons, and they didn't know how. But they had spent,
like -- she said she was embarrassed to call one of us.
She'd been working on it for 45 minutes to try to figure it
out. It took me about three seconds to show her. So, there
went, you know, 44 and a half minutes.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's the point
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MR. ALFORD: Exactly. I'm agreeing. There's
a lot of that need that we do already.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. Anybody else
have anything? Waiting for your marked-up copies. Thank
you. Shaun, tell me how to get my e-mails. Come up here
and tell me how to get my e-mails.
(Discussion off the record.)
(Workshop adjourned at 4:01 p.m.)
STATE OF TEXAS
COUNTY OF KERR I
The above and foregoing is a true and complete
transcription of my stenotype notes taken in my capacity as
County Clerk of the Commissioners Court of Kerr County,
Texas, at the time and place heretofore set forth.
DATED at Kerrville, Texas, this 4th day of March, 2004.
JANNETT PIEPER, Kerr County Clerk
BY: ___ _ ~~ --------------
Kathy B ik, Deputy County Clerk
Certified Shorthand Reporter
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