Whipped Cream Difficulties

Harris County (which includes Houston) decided yesterday that they were going to get their breath testing services from the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Previously, the county had a contract with Lone Star College.

“So what?” you say. “TXDPS must have made them a better deal.”

The contract with DPS, which began Tuesday, will cost the county $330,000 in the first year, which would be $12,000 less than Lone Star’s contract. State law reimburses the county $22.50 for each DWI conviction it obtains without using DPS technicians; Harris County collected $220,000 from the state from 2008 through 2010.

If convictions were to continue at similar rates, the DPS contract could end up being pricier than the Lone Star contract.

Well, maybe TXDPS has more experience and competence than Lone Star. That’s quite possible…

Because the DPS oversees the Texas’ breath-alcohol testing program, the agency has a broader knowledge base with more experienced personnel who focus solely on breath testing, Durfee said. The district attorney’s office also has a preference for larger regional and statewide institutions in forensic science, he said.

So what’s the issue here? Well, one of the people who works for Lone Star is Amanda Culbertson. Ms. Culbertson was also the person who brought out the problems with the BAT vans. Ms. Culbertson will apparently lose her job once Lone Star’s contract ends. Of course, everyone denies that there was any retaliation involved.

I’m torn. It actually does sound to me like there are good reasons to go with DPS. But the timing is, to put it mildly, suspicious, especially since Lone Star has had the contract for 20 years.

Murray Newman (a former prosecutor) over at the excellent “Life at the Harris County Criminal Justice Center” blog has some more to say on this, and he comes down pretty firmly on the “retaliation” side. Here’s the Lisa Falkenberg column he mentions.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 at 7:58 am and is filed under Clippings, Cops, HCDA, Law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.