Travis County Commissioners Court
February 10, 2009, 2009
Item 5
5.
consider and take appropriate action on the following matters related to the Travis County healthcare district board of managers: a, review of applications to fill county-appointed and joint city/county vacancies; b, proposed questions for interviews with candidates; and c, time line and other related issues.
can I just -- let me cover one preliminary matter here.
will we need to postpone this?
i understand that there might be one or two applications that are not part of the 13 that we received because they were maybe misdirected?
>> I know of a couple that showed interest after the closing date.
i don't know of any misdirection.
>> I'm not aware of that either, judge.
>> well, we have 13.
and more than half of them seem to be good with relevant experience.
so I guess the question is should we consider extending the application deadline, which we would have to do across the board if we do it.
meaning we would have to throw the process open not just for -- the ones that indicated an interest.
i'm open one way or the other.
>> what is it it do to our time line that we need to do the screening and then the interviews and getting them on the -- on the board on a timely basis.
>> well, we haven't proposed a particular time line just yet.
the city's public health and human services committee will not meet until tomorrow afternoon.
so I was hopeful to be able to represent you there at that meeting.
and also to get a sense of what the counsel might want to propose to you, of course in there was any particular interest that you all had to propose to them, certainly I could take that back to them on tomorrow.
but because this will be their first meeting to discuss this public meeting to discuss this, then there was not a whole lot that I could share with you about what the proposed process might look like.
we do know that there are five applications that -- that were submitted both to us and to the city.
so the city received 11 applications, five of which are also -- we also received the same application on our side of the house.
>> so -- how did that work?
i can't recall exactly.
i know that we both made recommendations as far as who we serve on the board, but I couldn't remember the actual number of -- number of participants from the city to serve on the board and also the number from the county that serve --
>> there are four -- four Travis County appointees, four city of Austin appointees and one -- for a total of nine.
the last time we were in the possession to make the -- in the position to make the selection we were actively selecting the whole panel so it was easier I think.
>> easier then, right.
>> to make your selection because both entities were interviewing quite a slate of interested persons.
in any event, so in terms of a time line, you still have --
>> move that -- consider the time line has come and gone and consider the 13 applications that we have before us.
>> second nice there a -- therea second.
>> this closes the door to those who didn't apply before the deadline.
>> all in favor of the motion?
that passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you.
>> now.
>> of the 13 that we have that includes all of the one that's the city has received as well?
>> uh-huh.
>> no.
there are 24 total, 13 that applied to the city -- I mean to the county and 11 that applied to the city of Austin.
so 24 total, 19 unduplicated, five duplicated.
so five applications were submitted -- to both the city and the county.
>> okay.
>> okay.
the ones that were -- that filed with both the city and the county, requested consideration for the joint appointment?
>> there is not a blank on the application that would indicate that preference.
but -- but we could certainly assume that and we could make a follow-up phone call at your request to clarify that point.
>> all right.
we have one in Travis County.
>> yes, an unexpired term.
>> we have a joint appointment with the city.
>> that's correct.
>> and when the city posted the vacancy, that they simply post the joint appointment or do they have a city appointment, also?
>> they do not have a city appointment also.
they posted the joint appointment.
>> okay.
there is a subcommittee of the Commissioners court made up of the county judge, plus sherri flemming.
unless there's another court member interested today, the county judge had planned to draft an executive manager to serve with ms.
flemming and me.
>> judge, and Commissioners.
>> all right.
hold o.
is there another court member with an interest in serving?
then I will draft a -- an executive manager so we'll have a full complement, which is three to serve as a subcommittee to move to the next step.
>> okay.
>> ms.
spitaro.
>> I want to remind everyone as we're making these selections since the Commissioners court votes on the tax rates, that the total financial statements of the district are part of the county's.
when selecting these it is not a talent independent entity in terms of how it keeps its records files, it's financials, because if that is not done, in conjunction with the county's time frame and how the county does things, it will impact our ability to get out a cap and to issue bonds.
so, you know, as you are interviewing, I think that it's important for board members to recognize that that may not be such an important thing to them, but it is a very important thing to Travis County.
because it impacts our ability to get out financial statements.
>> okay.
thank you.
>> there is a minor legal question, the answer to which I could wait until this afternoon when we are in executive session.
but the question really is whether Travis County make consider an applicant who filed for the joint appointment with the city but not with the county.
and we indicated in our opportunity to serve or whatever we called it, that we were looking for two appointments, right if.
>> that's correct.
>> so we had 13 to respond.
but the question is what if the city chooses a person that did not file with the county.
the question is may the county consider that person?
now, in item a my recommendation is that the subcommittee proceed to evaluate the 13 applicants and their -- the materials that they submitted.
that we give to the Commissioners court, can we get this done in two weeks?
>> yes, sir.
>> and in two weeks a recommendation of -- of short listed to a manageable number for interview and that would be anywhere from three to five.
but a written evaluation of all 13 so that the entire court can see how the subcommittee arrived at the short list.
and that -- that either the recommended short list or whatever number the court wants to interview, we make a decision, then post the interviews and do them.
we did those interviews last time in open court.
right?
didn't we?
>> we can do that in executive session as an appointee.
i'm not -- I'm pretty sure.
>> we will decide whether to do the interviews in open court or executive session.
>> sure.
>> at the meeting.
that will be two weeks from today.
last time there seemed to be duty as they say today transparency in the open court interviews.
>> certainly a possibility if you wanted to turn off the cameras, turn on the cameras, that's an option as well if you want to have it in open court.
>> that will be a question for us to decide.
does that sound pretty good in a?
we can just do that without a motion I think.
>> uh-huh.
>> anything else on a?
b propose questions.
ms.
flemming was able to locate questions that we used last time.
>> judge, I've come up with two that I think are very important based on our experience the community.
needing to be included as part of the making purchasing decisions by the hospital board as well as finding leases for services for clients.
i think we need to consider susan's point about can they consider the importance of meeting Travis County's deadline for filing reports for
>> [indiscernible] purposes.
i just added the last one.
i do have copies of the other questions that I would like to hand out for you all to have.
>> okay.
>> now, the questions that we brought forward were the ones that we used in the short listing process or in the court interviews last time?
>> these were questions used in the court interviews.
>> okay.
is one of those questions asking if they have the time to serve on the board?
i think there's a tendency to believe that it's something that -- that doesn't need that much time and just delegate all responsibilities to the other board members, but what I -- I think we need to make a real point that this takes time and -- I think we asked that before, judge, but I don't know that -- I don't know that it's sunk in how much time it requires and I think that we noticed to really emphasize the time that it takes to serve on that board to make decisions and not delegate those to staff.
>> we tried to capture that in number 5.
we can certainly -- further develop that if we need to.
>> I think that it needs to be developed a little better.
with more emphasis on it.
>> now we have a bert idea of how much time it will take, also, we probably ought to take -- touch base with the current board members and try to get their take on the amount of time that realistically needs to be available each month and to the extend that ms.
flemming and I contact applicants we can cover that before the short listing -- before short listing.
>> yeah, because I think it's very important.
i mean a lot of times I think we get on boards and we really don't know how much time it takes.
it takes more than we realize.
although people will all say well we just meet once a month, once a quarter.
yeah, but you also meet a lot in between, you know, so you can have good decisions by the time you have the board meeting.
so I mean most of these jobs entail a lot of time.
>> well, the board of managers has, you know, several standing committees and so we certainly could share that information in addition to the board meetings there -- the standing committee meetings that the managers also attend.
>> yeah.
>> > before we report back, we will have the subcommittee tweak these questions and try to get final approval by the court.
susan, if you will give some thought to the point that you made.
if there's a question that will give us -- that would allow us to get to that, it will help.
anything else on b?
>> judge, if I can go back to a for just a moment, mr.
collins came down and encouraged me to give you an answer on the question that you asked unless you want to hear it in executive session I can answer that question now.
>> if mr.
collins believes that open court is sufficient, I'm certainly willing.
>> we both agree that it is possible to consider an applicant that had submitted an application to the city but had not submitted an application to the county because y'all have established your own rules on how you wanted to do this.
if you want to vary from those rules that's acceptable legally.
>> good.
>> okay.
>> now, did mr.
collins use the word possible or --
>> , he didn't use the word possible.
>> I was looking for legal.
>> it is legal.
>> all right.
>> all right.
>> thank you, mr.
collins.
>> legal for you to consider anyone
>> [indiscernible]
>> thanks.
>> now you're talking.
thank you for that very firm legal opinion.
>> you're welcome, judge.
>> anything else today on item no.
5?
>> with regard to item c and my original testimony regarding the meeting tomorrow, would there be any particular instruction that you would have me share on your behalf?
certainly we need some -- some information regarding the city's view on the time line and how we might work together to get to a joint applicant.
if there are any interests that you would like me to share?
>> I would suggest when we do whittle ours down to the manageable number for interview, that we let them know what our manageable number is so that we can identify overlap for the possible joint and then after we identify our core for interviews and they identify what overlaps, then we know who is the joint applicant possibilities and who are the -- who are the singles.
or at least who the joints are.
we might find that our number two joint should be our single.
>> sure.
>> I think we should let them know that we hope to have one -- one interview, one self interviews.
one set of interviews.
which means if we report back in two weeks, we would interview probably a week or two from there.
so if they really are serious about somebody that didn't apply with us, we really should request that name in three to four weeks, you see what I'm saying.
>> shouldn't we have all of those applicants, shouldn't that be part?
we don't want to exclude those, do we?
>> we have submitted to your offices an electronic file with the applications we received from the city.
and anticipating your direction on how you want to -- to consider those applications.
>> right.
>> what we did last time was to -- to send over three names, right?
we said all of these or any one of these are fine with us.
they chose one of them.
so it seems to me that we ought to do about the same this time.
>> in order to facilitate that, we should look at all 24.
>> no, I wouldn't do that.
i wouldn't look at all 24.
i would like at our 13.
if we wanted us to consider one, two or three, the -- beyond that, I think we ought to request that -- those names in three to four weeks and go ahead and interview them when we are interviewing them.
this interviewing is kind of a big deal, getting it scheduled then doing it.
when we interviewed last time the interviews took 50 minutes to an hour each.
>> yeah, I'm not suggesting we interview all 24, but that we consider all 24 for our -- as we whittle them down to those of manageable numbers to interview.
just to avoid the possibility that we find three rereally like and they find three, turns out we all like all -- just to be working from the same master set.
>> well, 13 will be a whole lot of work to get down to three or four.
24 you really can double the work.
if we were going to do that I would have -- see the problem with that is if I were going to do 24, I would short list down to six or seven and look for those two.
you don't want to short list twice.
what we did was take responsibility for sending them a very short list and saying hey in our view here are three names that we have called and if any one of these will work for you, we will make it work for us.
they chose one and I would do the same thing.
>> uh-huh.
>> otherwise I guarantee you two months from now we will be having the same discussion.
>> the question becomes does the court have an expectation of being able to interview a person who may not be on your list because what I heard earlier was that we would have a short list of three to five and then we would send that list over to the city, which they could then compare or, you know, or any of these names on your list that you are anticipating interviewing.
if there was not a person on their list on our list but that was a strong candidate from their perspective, would you want to interview that person because they are not -- you have their information, but you would not have had an opportunity to -- to talk with that person.
so I think that may be the question that we need to get to is a test this your expectation that you will interview all persons who will be considered for the joint appointment?
>> we didn't do that in the past, though.
>> we did.
because we interviewed them first.
>> yeah.
>> exactly.
>> and what I'm saying pretty much the same thing except reversed order.
yes, we want to interview that person before we make the appointment and if that person is not one of our 13, you can -- either send us that one name or the two or three after you short list down there.
i don't think we want them to send us one name.
you may not like that person.
send us two or three to choose from.
>> so your expectation is a short list from the city.
>> yeah.
>> them we will interview our short list and their short list?
>> one.
>>
>> [indiscernible]
>> if we are real lucky their short list will be on ours.
>> you could potentially interview six to seven people.
>> this is the Commissioners court, we'll do that.
>> perhaps since we walked through this year, we can refine the process and codify it for the next go around to get it more streamlined.
>> if you recall, when the board of managers was appointed they drew lots in terms of how -- how many years each member would serve.
and so this is the fourth year.
so each of your appointees that you have reappointed, if you will are in four year terms now.
and so the -- the group that were -- that were being considered for reappointment this year drew a four year term.
so this is the fourth year of having to work through that initial system.
>> it's a process.
>> right.
>> we interviewed eight or nine last time, didn't we?
>> I'm thinking seven or eight.
>> quite a few, judge.
>> won't be whole lot more than I have in mind, but we had four appointments to make, plus the joint appointment.
>> well, I will carry this information to the city and look forward to reporting back to my subcommittee.
>> [laughter]
>> thanks.
>> you are a genius if you can interpret our discussion today, good luck.
>> you were very clear.
good notes.
>> your credibility has been impugned.
>> [laughter]
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>> thank you, sherri.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, February 10, 2009 2:00 PM