Team, so if you you people hopefully are watching on HTV, that's still going on.

The only problem is now we're unable to accept comment.

I think somebody wanted to comment online.

If you're somehow out there listening and we'll contact the person who wanted to comment and make sure they know.

But if anyone else is listening on HTV, we're gonna have to have a new link for this afternoon's workshops, but for this workshop, if you have a question, and you're watching online, if you could email at large5 at HoustonTX.gov and we'll make sure and get that that question answered.

I really apologize.

There's not going to be an ability to call in on this on this particular um workshop.

But welcome back, everyone, and we are very happy to have presiding judge Nellie Trevino Santos and Sanessa Broussard to present the municipal courts department's budget 2027 budget presentation.

So with that, I appreciate your waiting so long, and the floor is yours.

No problem, thank you so much, and uh good morning uh committee members and staff.

Uh I am very, very pleased to be here today to present the municipal courts uh FY 27 budget.

I promised uh councilmember Alcorn that my uh presentation, my staff is uh timed me on it, and they know that I can uh, you know, I'm the youngest of nine kids, so I can talk.

Uh but it's about 13 minutes, so I'm gonna leave some time for you guys to ask questions, and uh, but I do want to uh recognize I know council member mentioned her, but this is Assistant Director Shanessa Brutsard.

She's the one that's been timing me and cracking, you know, making sure, and then my wonderful executive team uh that is here to support me.

I also have staff members from municipal courts uh watching online and uh, you know, and many of them are dispensing justice right now.

So thank you to my team.

Um wanna uh get started with the next slide, please.

Um, the next several slides are going to provide different views of the municipal courts budget, including by fund and by program.

Next slide.

This slide reflects how the municipal court programs align with the mayor's key initiatives.

Uh, our courts primarily um work under the categories of public safety and of course government that works.

Next slide.

This chart includes a comparison of expenditures for all the municipal court funds by fiscal year.

Our budget is made up of the general fund, and we have four special funds, which are listed on this chart.

The general fund reflects a five percent increase for FY27 when compared with FY26 budget.

The majority of this increase is due to the HOPE, pension, and health insurance increases.

Next slide.

This slide includes a comparison of expenditures by fiscal year for FY27.

Our proposed expenditure budget for the general fund is approximately 26,913,000, and the total for the special funds is approximately 2,756,000.

Next slide.

As reflected in this slide, the municipal courts is comprised of eight programs.

For FY27, there's a 4% overall increase in expenditures across all municipal court programs.

We have worked very closely with finance and the Ernst and Young team to refine our performance measures and create new, more meaningful measures that reflect the hard work that we do at the courts.

So as we move through the next few slides, I will highlight the programs that have new performance measures.

Next slide.

The administrative services program includes the oversight of budgeting, procurement, audit compliance, contract administration, and safety and security.

The program's performance measures include monitoring of expenditures and revenue for both the general fund and the special funds to ensure compliance with their special and specific statutory requirements.

Next slide.

I would like to highlight an initiative which we began in August of 2025 that allows individuals to handle certain court-related requests by email instead of having to come to the court.

Since August 1st of 2025 through April 30th of 2026, our team has processed 7,963 email requests, which is an average of 884 per month.

Next slide.

The first is the percentage of total court cases adjudicated through our specialized court dockets, and those are dockets such as like our homeless court, our veterans court.

Next slide, please.

The public information services program provides oversight of clearance letters, requests which are requests for employment and for military purposes.

The timely response to open records requests, media inquiries, community outreach initiatives, such as court tours, and other outreach programs that we have for the community, and they also serve as the city council and legislative liaison.

We have two new performance measures for FY27.

The percentage of individuals requesting open records who report a positive experience with in-person service based on survey responses.

And the second is the average number of public information requests reviewed and processed.

Next slide.

Our group is amazing, and some of the work they do with the students, especially around like during the breaks when kids don't have anything to do.

We provide activities.

We have a holiday activities where all of the municipal court employees donate and they adopt families.

And I just can't begin to tell you how wonderful this past Christmas was to be able to see the look on these kids' face with all the presents that my team got for them.

So we have two new performance measures for this program this year, the percentage of participants who successfully completed the youth diversion program, and the second is the average number of student cases managed by each juvenile case manager manager during the year.

Next slide.

Next slide.

And the next few slides, we're going to be highlighting revenue.

The general fund revenue budget for FY27 reflects a 2% increase from both the FY26 revenue budget and the estimate.

And municipal courts will continue to provide various internal initiatives to expand and enhance revenue.

And we don't make a whole lot of money off of the wedding and the passport services, but I'll tell you, it is such a fantastic way to bring in the public to our courthouse and allow them to experience working with judges and the staff, you know, for a more happy time, right?

A lot of times people are coming to court, but they are getting to know our courthouse, and it's just a great, I say a public relations opportunity for our court to see these services.

Next slide.

As you can see, the FY27 revenue budget for all four municipal court special funds reflects a 13% increase from FY26 estimate.

Next slide.

As reflected in this chart, the FY27 proposed revenue reflects a 3% increase from the FY26 estimate across all funds.

Next slide.

The majority of the municipal court revenue can be found in the administrative program.

Next slide.

This concludes the budget portion of the presentation.

I will go quickly through the next few slides and then share a few important highlights about our achievements.

Next slide.

Next slide, please.

This slide reflects our organizational chart.

Next slide.

This slide shows the municipal court department demographics, and of course, we continue to reflect the diversity that can be found in Houston.

Very proud of that.

Next slide.

And so here are some of our FY26 accomplishments.

I'm not going to go through all of them.

I've highlighted four that I want to share with you.

First of all, our special dockets continue to offer equitable case resolution options to our most vulnerable population.

The homeless docket is held three times per month, and through March 2026, it has assisted 524 individuals and resolved 2,284 cases.

Teen Court continues to grow and make a difference for our youth.

This past year, we've had over 150 student participants.

Last night, we held our teen court graduation where 46 seniors were recognized.

I'm also pleased to share with you that we have a new jury management system that was implemented in FY26.

It provides a more efficient process, including a paperless system and a debit card payment that we utilize instead of a check payment, which we handle through the mail.

And last but not least, we continue to work very closely with the administration, partner departments, and architects on the site selection, design, and core space needs for our new municipal court building.

I am very, very excited that we have made so much progress in what will be an iconic municipal court building that all Houstonians will be proud of.

Next slide.

And this is another exciting thing that we recently had done at our court.

We performed our annual customer satisfaction survey.

And I am pleased to report that we had a 99.6% favorable rating.

This is a survey that we conduct not only at the main courthouse, but at all the satellite courts as well.

Because our municipal court is often the very first point of contact as far as a courthouse for most Houstonians.

So I really want to commend my team for these exciting survey responses.

Next slide, please.

This concludes our presentation for the FY27 budget.

I would like to take a little point of privilege to thank my team.

This is my first year that I completed in February, and I cannot begin to tell you guys how much this executive team, Janessa here, and all 230 something employees have supported me and who have stepped up to do an amazing job at the municipal court.

The judges, all of the staff, I continue to ask a lot of them, and they continue to deliver.

So all of this budget, I can sit here and present it to you, but it's only because of the employees at the municipal courts that all of this is possible.

So thank you.

Any questions?

I'm ready to answer.

Spoken like a true leader, thanks to you and to your amazing team.

We really are so grateful you are at the helm and all the good work you're doing.

And she reminded me I sped her along last year, so she she really got nailed down that that uh that presentation.

Um, I'll go first to Vice Chair Castillo.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Judge Santos, for the presentation.

Congratulations to you and your team on the successes, particularly the customer service satisfaction survey.

That was great to learn that the court is scoring so high uh from folks who are are there to you know uh usually deal with the ticket or or whatnot, but uh you're right.

That's the court most folks have an interaction with, and so it is important to to leave that positive impression.

And um I appreciated all your highlights around the youth programs, uh mentioning the homeless docket as well.

Those programs are incredibly impactful, and I learned about some new ones that y'all are doing as well.

My question is around the revenue by fund.

What is driving the increase, the 29% increase in the municipal court technology fund?

Um that's that's a unique fund in the sense that um we also get some um from the vendors.

Uh we have a collections vendor, and that's part of the contract where they provide funding to enhance the technology so that we can uh focus on some of the collection efforts.

So we do get some funding from uh vendors, and um it's just also some realignment of some costs so that therefore the revenue looks like it's a little higher.

But there, but all of the court costs are the the same, so it um this one is just more of a realignment of some of the costs.

So it isn't um from an increase in collections.

No, no, it's because it's the the all of these special funds are court costs that are in uh the citizens pay when they pay a citation, and there's certain amounts that go into each fund.

This one just looks a little bit higher because of this additional funding that it gets through the collection vendors.

Okay, that makes sense.

Thank you.

Councilmember Romares.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, uh Judge, for that presentation, and thank you to uh staff as well for all y'all's hard work.

I want to share an experience I had several months ago.

I went to municipal court, I got subpoenaed as a witness on a case, and I was going through the lobby, and you know, many, many people going through security and uh trying to figure out where to go, and um and behold, uh someone from courts helping people to figure out where they need to go and where the courts uh are located is our presiding judge and doing it cheerfully.

So when we talk about customer satisfaction, clearly that starts at the top, and so I really appreciate your your work and your enthusiasm for the job.

Uh so you know that was a great experience for me to see you in that role uh trying to help people.

Uh I had just uh a couple questions.

You mentioned the use of email to help uh the courts be more efficient.

Do you all use email to remind people of their court settings coming up or their jury duty assignments?

Good question.

Um not email because that's not captured uh through the citations when an officer writes a citation.

But we do send text messages.

So if the officer got a cell phone number and it and hopefully you know it's the right number, we do have a system that will send reminders uh to citizens that they have a court date.

Um, with regard to emails, even our new jury system, we're not yet on that um able to use emails, but again, we capture phone numbers and we will be able to communicate with them through text messaging, say, for instance, the court is closed due to a freeze or some issue.

We now have the ability for those who have opted in and given us a cell phone number to communicate with them.

Uh there was when we were transitioning between the two vendors, we kind of had an overlap, and we knew we were gonna have too many jurors, and rather than make you know, a large 80 jurors come when we really only need about 50 or so, we sent text messages and said, yes, this this is the courthouse, and here's a regular phone number.

If you know that you know, a lot with spam emails your or text, we were sure they would be concerned, but you do not have to come to court tomorrow.

And they were so grateful that you know, of course, who wants to go to jury duty, right?

So we do utilize not email as much, but text messaging.

Okay, that's great.

And um on your 2026 accomplishments, I may have missed it, but I see here that courts received the Texas municipal courts education centers uh traffic safety award.

Can you can you uh go over that?

Yes, I I really would love to have talked about all of them, but uh, you know, and and in the entrance of of time, that is an exciting award because some of the initiatives that our public information uh PIO team, our public information officers, uh work on is these outreach efforts, and traffic safety is so so important in Houston, right?

So we feel that even though we're a court, we should be educating the public about you know, no texting and driving or you know, just any distracted driving.

So we have initiatives at the court where we'll bring in the students for tours, and we have um I believe it's Texas AM that has this mobile unit where you put on the goggles and it shows you how if you're distracted, how you you know, and you're trying to drive.

I don't do it because I know I'll get dizzy, but the the kids do it, and so because of those efforts, we put together an application.

Every year we apply, some years we get honorable mention, but this year, thanks to my fabulous team and uh Jose Soto and Erica de Leon, they put that together and we won.

It's the Texas Municipal Courts Education Center, and uh for they have them in groups the large municipalities, medium and small, and we won the award for the large municipalities.

Well, congratulations, and again, thank thank all of you.

That's a council member Martinez.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, first I just want to say thank you for uh having me yesterday.

I really enjoyed it and enjoyed interacting with the young folks and of course their parents as well.

It was a great program.

They loved you, council member.

You spoke from the heart, and those kids were just very very intensely listening to you.

I really, really I really enjoyed it.

I really did uh judge.

Um but in a little bit of from the last uh presentation, you heard us talk about that there's might be some overlapping.

Um, and I think you've already started looking at the you've already started to get the EY study and seeing how we can become more efficient.

Um I think it'd be it'd be definitely good for us to figure out, you know, I know y'all receive most of our funding from the uh governor's office.

Yes, um, so but identifying ways where um we could definitely become better uh have better uh programming if we're overlapping, seeing where I'm sure some of the kids from the health department could benefit from what y'all are doing, and so just think through those things.

Um again uh those young folks from yesterday, young folks that we're engaging with throughout uh the city of Houston, uh, just to have a well-rounded uh um experience with the city of Houston would be ideal.

Can I speak to that for a second?

Yeah, definitely.

We uh definitely collaborate with the department of neighborhoods, especially that when we called it the anti-gang office.

So if our j juvenile case managers run into a situation with a student at the schools and they are somehow, you know, associated with gangs, we do collaborate with with the team of experts.

Uh also another point of of interest is that our juvenile case managers are primarily funded through the juvenile case manager fund, right?

It's a special revenue fund that uh uh is composed of when people pay their citations, there's a court cost, so we can only use that fund for juvenile case managers and and truancy and prevention intervention.

So while we love collaborating um also with the health department, we were involved with my brother's keeper for a while, and just yesterday I received an email asking if I would serve on uh um their executive uh board um revolving around the My Brother's keepers Keeper.

So we are so thank you for that suggestion, and uh yes, we will definitely collaborate more as well.

Thank you, Judge.

And then the last one, um, as you're looking at how you can continue to bring in revenue.

When's the last time that y'all have uh done a study for weddings?

I know y'all, weekdays is $100, weekends 150.

Um, have you and I think that's probably consistent maybe with the county as well and maybe surrounding, but is there been a study to say, hey, might need to increase the fees?

We we do need to increase the fee, especially because the the we have to justify any increases, it has to go before uh I think uh on our the fee schedules for that that the city has in the finance team, and because of the hope increases, our staff's salary has gone up, right?

So if it's if you look at the cost that we charge, it's because of the the c the time for our staff.

Right.

And since their uh salaries have gone up, it is justified to increase the the cost for the the fees for the wedding.

So we we will be looking at that, so thank you for the reminder.

Um I I think it is nice for those that are getting married that you know oh it's only $100, but um I still think we need to look at to recover the fees.

So thank you for that reminder.

Definitely.

Great, thank you.

I don't see any other council members in the queue.

And is there anyone here in the in the chamber that wants to speak?

Okay, well, there you go.

You're all done, and thank you again to municipal courts, your wonderful team, Jose, and all the rest.

We love working with you, and um great job.

Thank you.

And come visit, and who knows?

I may be standing at the in the lobby and I'll greet y'all there.

I can't I can't wait for the new lobby one day.

Thank you.

Okay, colleagues, we will be back at 1 30 today.

We will start with um hits at 1 30 to be followed by administration regulatory affairs and then human resources.

Thank you.