The OAG provides legal counsel and support to the state of Texas, its officials and agencies and other authorized entities, and oversees certain specialized civil litigation matters through its Legal Counsel Divisions, with $612.56 million to spend in 2022-23.
In calendar year 2021, for example, the commission spent $11.41 million on IT alone.
What follows are snippets of the OAG’s five goals from its website, including information resources planning for each goal, with some minor edits.
1. Provide legal services
The OAG defends the state in cases including those that seek to promote economic freedom, support limited government, defend the United States and Texas constitutions, and preserve the rule of law.
The OAG has launched investigations and filed multiple cases against big technology companies for violating Texas laws. This type of litigation is costly due to experts and the evolving nature of technology.
Civil litigation management evaluates caseloads, litigation history, core functions and operations to ensure legal cases are handled in the most effective manner.
The OAG seeks input and commentary from its client agencies and institutions of higher education by conducting regular customer satisfaction assessment surveys.
The Open Records Division is dedicated to ensuring the public can easily access government records through the Public Information Act.
INFORMATION RESOURCES PLANNING
Technology accommodations for OAG’s increased legal services case volumes, combined with the greater complexity of related data, fuels the demand for continuous improvements. There is a need for advancements in supporting technology that is targeted to realize greater efficiencies in attorney case assignments, achieving deadlines, timekeeping, billing, and workflow management. Integrating this technology with supporting systems provides increasing efficiencies to OAG’s attorneys and support staff.
2. Enforce child support laws and ensure proper collection of child support
The OAG enforces the state’s child support laws and the collection of child support.
In FY 2020, Texas avoided $1.5 billion in public assistance costs (including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Medicaid, and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program payments) through Child Support Division (CSD) collections.
The efficiency ratio of total dollars collected per dollar spent exceeds $13, more than twice the national average, making the Texas child support program one of the most cost-effective programs in the nation.
CSD exceeded the Legislative Budget Board’s performance measure in FY 2021 for the amount of child support collected with more than $4.67 billion in FY 2021, a 10.63 percent increase over the past five years.
CSD has more than 2,200 field employees. The state is divided into 10 service regions and multiple local offices, which includes five metro consolidated offices, 32 field offices, 37 storefront locations, three enterprise customer service centers, and four specialized offices.
CSD strives to maximize communication through the OAG website and other social media channels.
INFORMATION RESOURCES PLANNING
Technology allows the OAG to optimize limited resources to not only do more, but to do better. The OAG is invested on the path toward modernization, including a full agile transformation to support an iterative, component-based approach to business process reimagination, application development and legacy technology replacement.
3. Secure justice by criminal prosecutions and investigations
Working through tips, referrals, searches, and thorough investigations, the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) investigates highly complex crimes and apprehends individuals in which the OAG law enforcement personnel fulfill specialized investigative expertise and resources that other law enforcement agencies cannot fulfill.
The OAG has filed more than 10 lawsuits against the federal government for failure to enforce immigration law and specifically to address the border crisis.
The OAG’s CID units fulfill an underserved area and need within the law enforcement community.
The CPD provides education to local law enforcement agencies on gang resources and school safety as part of the Texas School Safety Center and the Texas Violent Gang Task Force.
The OAG provides information on the agency website at texasattorneygeneral.gov to allow individuals to initiate complaints. The agency also operates a toll-free hotline to receive reports or tips from individuals on crimes.
INFORMATION RESOURCES PLANNING
Technology improvements keep the OAG on the forefront of criminal justice work by investing in advances in case management, forensic tools, the collection and preservation of data, automating processes, and reporting information. The OAG seeks to continuously improve transparency, strengthen trust, and enhance government accountability by providing access to public data sets for numerous law enforcement and criminal justice initiatives. The ability to securely manage data and evidence, conduct investigations, share information, and streamline investigative reports for court prosecutions is the primary focus.
4. Administer crime victim services and victims’ assistance grants
The Crime Victim Services Division (CVSD) report details the legislative history of the Crime Victims’ Compensation Program (CVC) fund as well as tracking the performance of the constitutionally dedicated fund over recent fiscal years. The report is published annually and available on the OAG website.
The CVC Program continuously strives to streamline its business practices that collect information from victims and law enforcement agencies, determines eligibility, awards victim payments, and accounts for finances.
In FY 2021 the CVC Program provided $71.4 million in financial assistance to Texas crime victims and their families, an increase of $3.3 million over the previous year.
The CVSD is headquartered in Austin and maintains regional offices in San Antonio, Houston and El Paso to provide direct services to Texans across the state. CVSD representatives will frequently travel to areas when reports of violent crime have been received to provide support for both victims and first responders.
CVSD implemented a crime victims’ portal to better serve victims and those who assist them by streamlining the process and increasing the ability of authorized individuals to get needed information from the agency.
INFORMATION RESOURCES PLANNING
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic OAG used prior investments in technology to maintain communication and provide customer service to advocates, victims and their families. The OAG strengthened how it serves Texans remotely with enhancements to the CVC Web Portal, which included adding the capability for medical providers to apply for reimbursement of sexual assault exam fees as required by legislation.
5. Protect Texans from fraud, waste and abuse
The Civil Medicaid Fraud Division pursues allegations of fraud perpetrated on the Medicaid program, which provides medical coverage to lower income Texans. More than 5.2 million Texans are enrolled in Texas Medicaid.
Before the 85th legislative session, the attorney general implemented a zero-based budget review of all divisions and programs. This allows each division to review the laws that are applicable to each division’s responsibilities, determine the core functions and priorities, and evaluate the level of service provided and resources dedicated to those tasks.
The Civil Medicaid Fraud Division is in constant communication with the Texas Health and Human Services Commission as the administrator of the Texas Medicaid Program.
INFORMATION RESOURCES PLANNING
The OAG’s consumer complaint application can be filed easily online, and the system allows for basic status management. Opportunities exist to evolve and modernize this platform and its capabilities to optimize efficiencies for agency staff, engage in mediation with businesses and consumers, as well as correlate complaints often observed when a state of emergency is declared by the governor. Last year the OAG received over 30,000 consumer complaints.
