HAYS COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT
The Hays County Commissioners Court received the 2024 Judicial Services report at its regularly scheduled meeting Tuesday. The report showed that the county has had financial savings due to the program, decreased jail population and a 99.99% success rate with the Pretrial Diversion Program.
“We provide objective, investigative reports to the judges to help them in their pretrial release decision making,” said Jason Facundo, Hays County Judicial Services director. “Our officers are at the jail seven days a week providing these interviews to clients at the jail. They complete a pretrial interview guide and a risk assessment. The judges use this information to make pretrial release decisions.”
Facundo added that another purpose of the department is to foster positive relationships with those under its su- pervision, which it does by “using evidence based practices [and] technology- treatment resources to help address any need that they may have whether that’s substance abuse, mental health or co-occurring disorders.”
Judicial Services operates under the assumption that positive relationships will lead to better outcomes in cases, reduce recidivism, minimize jail population and enhance court efficiency.
“In 2024, we assisted in the release of 588 defendants on pretrial supervision. Two hundred and thirty two of those defendants were released via personal bonds with conditions to report to our office — … personal bond meaning they didn’t have to pay anything to get out of jail; They just agreed to follow the court ordered conditions,” Facundo said. “Three hundred and fifty six of those defendants were released via a cash surety bond, so they had paid the entire amount of the bond that was set or go through a bail bonds[man] to post that bond. They still had to report to our office and follow those conditions.”
Facundo said as of Aug. 1, 2024 all alcohol and GPS monitoring devices are monitored through the Judicial Services department, which will increase the number of clients under its purview. The department averaged 49 new clients a month last year. They had 816 clients in 2024. There were 1,037 interviews completed at the jail. There were 862 drug tests completed, of which there were 647 negative results and 182 positive results.
“In 2024, people under our supervision have an 89% success rate at appearing to court and also 89% success rate at remaining arrest-free under our supervision,” Facundo said, adding that these programs are having a positive impact on the jail population. “The jail population has started to decrease from 2022 to 2024.”
Hays County Judge Ruben Becerra pointed to the decrease in jail population.
“None of the viewing public … — unless you’re in the soup, eyeballs deep — no one knows just how much it takes, how many bodies, how many departments, how many elected officials, how many resources it takes just to create that graph’s result,” Becerra said. “It is a huge undertaking, and I’m so grateful that you’ve captured it in a meaningful way.”
Facundo said his office also monitors clients on the Pretrial Diversion program, which is run through the District Attorney’s office.
“Sixty-five clients completed the program in 2024,” Facundo said. “The success rate speaks for itself [at] 99.99% success rate for our clients on Pretrial Diversion in 2024.”
Hays County Commissioner Debbie Gonzales Ingalsbe applauded the Judicial Services Department for its hard work.
“The judge spoke a little bit about the jail population. Today, our jail population is 479 inmates,” Ingalsbe said. “You all have played a very big part in that. I just really want to say thank you to you and your staff.”
According to Facundo, it costs $145 a day for the Hays County Jail to house an inmate and $82.75 for the inmate to be housed out of the county. Of the 232 clients that were granted personal bonds, 116 of those were minimum to low risk, which means they were able to typically average one day in jail. So that amounted to $16,820 in savings. There were 32 moderate risk clients, which averaged 15 days in jail. That amounted to $69,600 in savings. There were 84 highrisk clients, which averaged 60 days in jail. That amounted to $730,800 in savings. Hays County created a contract with BI Inc. for GPS monitoring that reduced the daily fee by $8.50 a day and resulted in $41,310 in savings.
Learn more about the Hays County Judicial Services Department at this link hayscountytx.gov/ hays-county-judicial- services.
