Texas Department of Criminal Justice
Through a variety of programs, the Business Section provides financial management to all areas of Agribusiness, Land & Minerals.
The Budget Section is responsible for developing and monitoring the $50 million budget for Agribusiness, Land & Minerals by monitoring expenditures and supporting accounting, budgeting, procurements and payables. We are committed to being customer focused and will act as a liaison with vendors and other departments to facilitate the processing of payments in a timely manner.
Cost Accounting works cooperatively with the various programs and services of the TDCJ Agribusiness, Land & Minerals Department. The Economist Staff develops procedures, which are used to maintain standards of accuracy, efficiency and accountability throughout the entire Department. This section collects data from all areas of the agricultural operations, which is used to prepare analysis, auditing and reports for the Accounting and Agriculture Program Administrators.
The primary function of the Marketing Section is to market approximately $5.7 million per year of surplus agriculture commodities including grain sorghum, corn, hay, edible crops, beef, horses, dogs, swine, poultry, timber and other commodities, as needed. Market prices and futures are tracked daily on various agriculture commodities to assure that TDCJ is receiving the best price for all commodities sold.
Texas Fresh Approach: Under this program vegetables grown by TDCJ are provided to Food Banks throughout the State of Texas. The Food Banks reimburse TDCJ for average growing costs, along with providing containers, transportation and distribution to their charitable agencies.
Texas Second Chance: Through the Texas Second Chance Program, TDCJ provides offender labor to help salvage and sort products for distribution at nine major food banks in Texas. Since 1997 the program has expanded to provide offenders the opportunity to be trained in a wide array of warehouse positions.
Texas Gleaning Program: TDCJ contracts with food banks to assist with gleaning fruits and vegetables from privately owned fields. The program utilizes offenders to salvage produce that would otherwise be destroyed. Currently concentrated in South Texas, this program provides offenders a chance to repay society by helping the needy.