Outsourcing inmates to Travis County approved

The Hays County Commissioners Court approved an interlocal cooperation agreement with Travis County for the outsourcing of inmates to the Travis County Correctional Complex on Aug. 6.

The agreement allows Hays County to outsource inmates — when the Hays County Jail experiences overflow — to the Travis County Correctional Complex, which can house more than 2,500 inmates, according to the Travis County Sheriff's Office website.

“I think one of the hopes of this contract is to move our inmates closer to Hays County... “ Precinct 1 Commissioner Debbie Ingalsbe said. “Defense attorneys would have a better proximity to their clients.”

Hays County Sheriff Gary Cutler also mentioned the proximity of Hays County to Travis County.

“We do not have any [inmates] in McLennan and Waco anymore so we do want to bring them closer for the sake of Courts here,” Cutler said.

“I personally think it's a win for us to bring them closer to keep them more accessible for representation and access,” County Judge Ruben Becerra said.

In other business, the County approved out-of-state travel for Crime Scene Specialist Renee Luna to attend a training session on mass fatality management. According to Mark Cumberland, Captain of Support Services Bureau for the Hays County Sheriff’s Office, the training is primarily geared towards the criminal investigation division.

“Mass casualties, as recently as last week and this week, are obviously occurring on a regular basis,” he said. “We train often for response to these. We don’t have so much training on how to manage a crime scene of that magnitude so as these trainings are becoming available we find it a priority for the Sheriff’s Office to get a grasp on how we would manage something like that in our County. They’re extremely large and complex so we want to have an idea if it were to ever happen, how we would handle it.”

Additionally, the Court approved a Professional Services Agreement with Garver, LLC, for Hays County drainage and low water crossing improvements in Precincts 1 and 2. Services will be provided at the following low water crossing areas: Bunton Lane at Bunton Branch Creek, Cotton Gin at Porter Creek, Francis Harris Lane at York Creek, Grist Mill Road at Plum Creek, Turnersville Road at an unnamed creek crossing and Chaparral Park Road at Little Bear Creek.

“We’re anxious to get these projects going, they’re needed very badly,” Precinct 2 Commissioner Mark Jones said.

Commissioners voted to recommend a burn ban in Hays County following a recommendation by Fire Marshal Scott Raven.

According to Raven, who analyzes 14 points of data when evaluating burn ban criteria, conditions call for the enactment of a burn ban. He said the Fire Marshall takes input from County Fire Chiefs on their recommendations.

“Even if it were to rain tomorrow for a week, it’s not going to rejuvenate those things that are now dormant for the summertime and things like that,” Raven said. “So with that, with the increased fire behavior, it’s becoming more dangerous, with the heat advisory we’ve got going on all this week now, with the temperatures and humidities and things going on it’s going to be more work for our firefighters to put out a fire if it started, and the prudent and safe thing to do would be enact a burn ban at this time.”