Travis County Commssioners Court
September 30, 2003
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Item 6
Number 6, consider and take appropriate action regarding order approving the Travis County budget for f.y. '04. The amendments we discussed on item 4. I move approval.
>> second.
>> any more discussion? Anything we need to know, christian?
>> no.
>> all in favor?
>> judge --
>> yes, sir.
>> this is basically okaying or I'm in compliance with the fact that we have a balanced budget. I mean is that what 5 really is? Given the stream of revenue that the court as a body has approved, do you accept the budget, do you approve of the budget that has established the appropriations for that stream of revenue.
>> problem with a budget, it has a thousand line items. I may disagree with two or three, but overall I'm 99.9999% supportive. Any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> judge, just -- it's more of just an afterthought. I just want to say thank you to every member of the Travis County staff, elected officials, appointed officials. Going through budget is never easy, and it's just as difficult for you all as it is for us. There are very tough decisions for us to make. I want to say thank to you every Travis County employee because they did have to shoulder additional expenditures related to medical insurance. I appreciate that. Folks have been asked to sacrifice related to their salaries, but I think it was for a good purpose. Again, judge, I appreciate that there are things that we may individually have disagreed with within it, but the document itself is a good one and thank you to everyone that contributed their time and effort to this work.
>> I would like to follow up and say that, again, I think I have echoed this before, but there's no sense in [indiscernible], I would like to again thank p.b.o., I think who has really been the driving force in this and kind of make the recommendations that they have made. And based on those recommendations, I think we have done the right thing here with the -- as far as what we've done here this morning as far as the tax rate and a whole bunch of other stuff we've done. I think through their guidance, and as I stated before, I think they are the best planning budget office in the state of Texas. And the reason why I say that, folks, is because Travis County does have a aaa rating from both credit agencies, rating agencies, standard and poors and moody's. And those things are not easily achieved. They very difficult to achieve and also maintain. And with the recommendations that have come from staff and following these recommendations that come from staff is the reason I based my decision based on those kind of recommendations. To ensure we keep the credit rating we worked hard tpofrplt but by the same token we have asked the police department to do things, for example, coming up with 5% reduced budget for the different departments. 5% reduction in their targeted budget, that's a hard thing to achieve and yet we're still on course, doing a lot of positive things for the county, both elected officials, the departments, the p.b.o. Staff. This Commissioners court. I think have worked hard and I think the citizens are getting a real good product, fine-tuned and we're going to get a good service for the amount of investment that we have made and then to continue to provide the necessary services that's very critical to Travis County in hard economic times. So again, thank you all very much. You deserve the aplows phra us and the recognition. And this is what I'm doing. I wish I could put my arms around all of you, but I'm not big enough to do that, but I can sure tell you thank you and that's what I'm doing. Thank you all very much.
Last Modified: Tuesday, September 30, 2003 7:52 PM