Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, August 24, 2010,
Item 24
>> 24 is revised language, receive briefing and take appropriate action on a tirs draft of the travis county legislative initiatives for the 82nd texas legislature.
>> judge, members of the court, deece eckstein, intergovernmental relations. What you have before you today is the packet that has our legislative platform. I want to make a few comments about it. As all the members of the court are surely aware, rk the legislative session will begin in january. They have a number of big items on their agenda, including an 18 billion-dollar budget shortfall. Congressional, legislative and state board of education redistrict driking and a number of different agencies that are up for sunset review and whose management issues have got to be addressed. Last session we adopted a legislative platform in december of 2008 that became the basis for our legislative activities during the 2009 legislative session. That document was a static document, one of the feed backs we got from members of the court as well as from we used the form that they used where basically they have what they call policy projects. We're calling priorities. And then policy positions. The policy positions are the general positions that the court has taken on policy issues that may be addressed by the legislature. The idea behind the policy projects or policy priorities is that these would be the focus of our actual efforts, communication efforts over at the legislature. The idea is it would be an organic list and tissues would move up and down on the policy priority list as the court deems appropriate during the session. So that's really the biggest format change that you're looking at in the document you have in front of you. The specific document you have in front of you is a rough draft that starts with the platform we had last time, which is shown for you in black, it takes out everything that is either -- that was addressed in the last session or that didn't call for the court to take a specific position, but just said let's monitor it. We ended up monitoring over 700 bills last session ksz so we don't need a need for the court to give us spisk direction to monitor number of issues. But we worked closely with the executive managers and with some of the elected officials to help them give up input on legislative changes they would like to see, and those new additions are in blue on the document that you have in front of you. So that's where we're at. We're not asking for the court to take any action today. We wanted to give you a chance to look at this document. We're continuing to work with the managers, with other elected officials to fine tune this document. I would appreciate any feedback members of the court have for igr about this. And our goal is to come back with a second draft to this document in about a month, let you take another look at it and then perhaps have a final legislative agenda adopted in early october.
>> will there be various lead persons per department that suggest the necessary i guess input that would need according to the legislation per department? Would that vary?
>> we have individually met with all the executive managers and in some quais usually on their top staff and managers and gone in great detail over legislative requests they had.
>> so when we look at this document, some of the black is crossed out.
>> yes, sir.
>> some is not.
>> the stuff that was crossed out was left in because that was in last session's legislative platform, but i left -- i crossed it out either because we addressed it last session or because it was -- there was a lot of stuff we adopted last session that said monitor this, monitor that. My feeling was that i preferred to have the court tell me whether they wanted me to support something or oppose something or what specific policies we wanted to move forward with. As opposed to just monitoring things.
>> back in last time and this time too. Blue is new it time.
>> yes, sir.
>> was not last time.
>> yes, sir.
>> so who did you chat with to put these together?
>> all the executive managers, several of the independent elected officials. That's about it.
>> what do you propose to do with this?
>> i propose to have the court give me any feedback it wants to give. We will continue refining the list, bring back a second draft in about a month and ask the court to finally adopt it at the beginning of october.
>> what if we give the court one more week to give you input?
>> that would be great. I'm actually giving you a mnt month to give me input. That would be great.
>> what if the court wants to take another week on the first draft?
>> okay. There's no action we're asking for today.
>> [ laughter ]
>> we'll have it back on next week for appropriate action.
>> okay.
>> when we put in take appropriate action --
>> [ laughter ]
>> yes, sir.
>> work with me, deece.
>> you got it.
>> move that we recess until 1:30. All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. If cler if cler
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, August 24, 2010, 2010 2:30 PM
