Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, April 26, 2011 (Agenda)
Item 24
Item 24, consider and take appropriate action on the legislative matters including, a update on legislative activity, b, hb 2979 relating to county authority to provide certain exemptions to restrictions on outdoor burning.
c, legislation relating to local government authority to enter into public private partnerships including senate bill 1048 and house bill 2432.
and d, amendments to the priorities policy positions and the positions on other proposals sections of the Travis County legislative agenda.
>> good afternoon k Commissioner and members of the court.
thank you for giving me time to visit with you this afternoon.
what I'd like to do is briefly review with you where we stand with the legislative process.
you mentioned a couple of bills and policy initiatives the county is working on.
then answer any questions.
I also have with me tom knuckles who from our county attorney's office and will give you a little bit of an overview of senate bill 1048 which is the bill having to do with public private partnerships and do our goes try to answer any questions the court has about that.
let me start with our overview.
we're at the point in the process where the senate now has passed out of its finance committee a bill.
we actually have a report that compares the senate finance bill with both the current budget with house bill 1 and the committee substitute to house bill 1.
max is passing out copies to members of the courtment --court.
this was done yesterday afternoon by our colleagues at tackand just now became available.
they are updating and checking it but we wantd to get information into your hands quickly.
the overall is that the senate bill is a better bill in many respects than the house bill although still spends less money than the state is spending this biennium.
as you know the gap between what the state was spending and we projected the current level of services to be for the next biennium was $27 billion.
so we're already in the hole.
so this budget is a very moddest budget compared to whether at least many people think are the needs of the state.
again, we'll have more information for you on that.
they hope to bring the bill the the floor of the senate this week.
in the house, actually the big floor action this week is going to be tomorrow when they take up the house redistricting bill.
they expect a lot of amendments and debate on that bill in the house.
both the house and senate have very important piece of legislation on the floor.
and that is actually part of a broader trend we are beginning to see.
the erred when the committees are really--period when the committees are doing their intense work is starting to wind down and we're seeing the action is shifting to the floor in both the house and senate.
we will keep you apprised as best we can.
next week will be the last full week for house committee meetings.
we're already at the point in the session where the senate and house deadlines are going to begin to kick in.
I think on Monday I believe the 9th of may, I may be wrong about that, will be the last day for house committees to report out house bills and joint resolutions.
so we're really about ten, 12, two weeks at this point from those deadlines shutting down.
a quick overview of our priorities.
we delivered to your offices this morning just a telecon report on our priority bills.
let me make few comments.
I already mentioned the budget debate.
we continue to try to monitor the budget and where we can be, try to affect the budget and argue for particular streams of funding, particularly for counties.
on unfunded mandates, house joint resolution 56 by representative burt solomons is in the house calendar's committee.
we are hoping they will schedule for floor debate soon.
a constitutional amendment needs 100 votes in the house to pass and representative's amendment has at this point I believe 93 cosigners so he is actually very close to just having in his cosigners the critical mass necessary to pass the bill.
we're hoping to move that.
what that unfunded man date constitutional amendment will do is say any mandate that the legislature passes that it does no the fund, local governments like counties can choose to not exercise the mandate.
this is important in terms of local control.
as you know the state raises most of its money through the sales tax but local governments, particularly Travis County, raise most of our monies through property taxes.
so when we have to increase our property taxes in order to make up for failings at the state level of funding, our tax payers feel that particularly in their property tax bills.
on the burn ban, that bill is in very good shape.
it has passed out of the house and gone over to the senate.
meantime the version has passed out of committee and is scheduled to be considered on the local and uncontested calendar Thursday of this week.
we're hoping to substitute in the house bill for that and then we will, the house bill will pass both houses of the legislature and can be on its way to the governor.
of course we keep a watch out for caps bills, both appraisal and revenue caps bills.
the appraisal cap and revenue cap bills were heard in the senate and have been left pending.
there has been no action even though the committee hearings were all over a month ago.
obviously we would like for that to continue.
the house ways and means has published its schedule for this week and has not schedule those bills for consideration.
that would be the appropriate committee for those in the house.
so we consider that a good sign.
next week will be the last week that the house committee can meet and report bills.
so we will watch and see what is on the agenda for next week.
but we consider it a good sign those bills were not even heard in the house yet.
on land use, as you know we have had two really primary vehicles for land use bills here in the 8 2nd legislature, one hb 662 by eddy rog riddest, the other by garner coleman.
both bills have been heard in committee and are pending.
we are working with the authors and some of the interest groups to see if we can fashion some kind of is substitute that will allow us to get those bills moving.
I not want to be optimistic but we continue to work with the authors.
our other bill that has to do with land use authority is our bill to preserve agricultural open space in Travis County.
senate bill 1044 has passed the senate and is over in the house.
we are awaiting its assignment to a committee we are hopeful about what committee it will be assigned to and are working closely with senator watson to see if we can move the bill forward.
I am very optimistic about that bill.
the final priority issue I wantd to mention to the court is fund 6 di versions.
these are the monies taken out of our gas tax and motor fuels tax and diverted to other purposes besides transportation, planning, construction and maintenance.
there are several constitutional amendments, one that we are paying most attention to is house joint resolution 64 by representative joe pick et from el passo.
and also we are looking at senate joint resolution on the senate side 38 by representative wendy, excuse me, senator wendy Davis of fort worth.
representative picket's bill has been heard but not out of committee yet.
senator Davis's bill has not received a hearing yet.
I'm in the as optimistic about eliminating fund 6 di version in this section as I was at beginning of the session, but we will continue soldiering on.
meantime, a lot of other bills are up for hearing.
this morning we had a hearing on the bill the court approved a couple weeks ago about the Texas state library and archives commission being able to store local government records as well.
that bill was heard and has passed out of the house, was heard in the senate committee, administration committee this morning, and was passed out of that committee and recommended for the local and uncontested calendar in the senate.
so what we are hopeful is that there will be moving quickly an will pass both houses.
senate bill 1848 is being heard today and has do with distribution of revenues from 911.
as the court remembers we had a conversations about how those monies to our local capcog had been, our local cog, had been reduced.
there was an effort by representative work man to fix part of that.
meantime what this bill does is give local cogs more authority over their money so that it does not pass through the state, get reduced, swept and then only part come back.
we do support senate bill 1848 and dropped a card for it this morning.
there are a couple bills up tomorrow.
bills on driving safety courses which would give judges an option to do a specialized driving safety course.
those bills both the senate and house versions will be heard tomorrow morning, as will our bill on the Travis County magistrate duties which we are filing on behalf of the criminal district judges in the county here and also on behalf of judge grisard, the criminal manage straight.
tomorrow also we--magistrate.
tomorrow also we will hear 5--1554.
I think it will be heard in the igr committee, the billboards bill.
we will be there to drop a card in support of that bill.
so those are the kind of key legislative initiatives that we're working on this week.
happy to answer questions you have or I can move on.
yes, sir.
>> you mentioned hb 662 which is really a critical bill, and I hope that it gets support and moves forward because I think the community is really kind of behind this a little bit as far as the land use.
this is one sponsored by representative rog rodriguez but also one, hb 990.
>> yes, sir.
>> the other one that really affects the residents that reside in my district, the district that I represent as Commissioner on this Commissioners court.
of course, they have came down and echoed their concern opposing this particular bill.
I'm wondering if there's anything in addition to that.
I know staff did make some comments on that.
I guess leroy nelis and others, even county staff have made comments on that particular bill.
of course, it appears to be a real bad bill for that community.
so I'm just wondering what is the situation on that right now.
of course, I think maybe the persons need to be reminded of how that bill affects Travis County.
I think we have heard something, and I may ask leroy nellis to maybe come before the court at this point and let the community know.
because that is a very serious bill.
>> sir, hb 990 is set on the house local and consent calendar for Thursday.
if it passes on that calendar, it will go over to the the senate.
we don't know who the senate over will be at this time.
>> right.
so I guess we have had staff, I guess, to speak in behalf, on how the bill will affect Travis County.
actually what it is is a shell option where the county will participate in this process, which is really think something that Travis County residents, as far as the ones that I know, there's no support for this.
especially in the area where by this bill is affecting the community, which is in precinct one.
farce the boundaries of this particular zone.
if leroy nelis will come up and let me hear something on this as far as what impact this will have on Travis County residents.
I think that needs to be heard again.
>> let me just clarify something you said, Commissioner.
you said that the county would have to participate.
actually, the bill, the existing statute does in the require the county to participate--not require the county to participate.
the Commissioners court will still retain control over whether or not it participates in the joint venture with the city that is contemplated by the bill.
>> it's a shell option in there.
when we looked at that last time there was shall per se in the bill.
>> it's discretionary.
we would not be required to participate.
>> I think the bill would have never passed in the first place had it required the Commissioners court to do something.
that was before my time here, Commissioner, but is as you know the Commissioners court has always taken the position that it ought to retain flexibility to make the best decisions for the people of the community.
>> right.
well, I represent that communit.
>> yes, sir.
>> of course, I'm going to echo my concern for the residents that I represent.
that is within precinct one.
>> yes, sir.
>> so leroy.
>> I did not bring back the specifics, Commissioner.
but what I did recall, and I'll just reiterate what we had said previously when the Commissioner and myself and a member from the auditors staff met with the mayor and representative rodriguez and some of the staff.
the Commissioner had indicated to that group, and we felt like we had some type of agreement, our understand anning at that point was that Travis County be left out of future billings.
--bills, obviously, what has been crafted and moving forward is an optional bill where it would come back to Travis County in the event the city wanted to move forward.
it is my understanding as it is deese's that Travis County would have the option of opting out and the city could go forward without us.
so I think that was one of the things that you are obviously concerned about would be the effect if the bill mandated that the county participate.
and it's my understanding at this time that the bill does not mandate.
>> and it never has in any of its permutations.
>> hold on, please, Commissioner.
this is my precinct and I represent it.
my concern is that this particular bill, again I'm going say the same thing, has come up under this guise of providing property tax relief for long-time tax paying residents of east Austin, who are predominantly black.
now, it appears, this bill appears to facilitate a land grab by the city of Austin community development corporation, which is the facilitator of gentry fication.
very straight forward to my point.
the community have come here over and over and over again to oppose this bill.
I have no one that have come forward since this bill has come to this Commissioners court on several occasions, that have shown support for this bill.
but I have heard many opposition to it.
it continues to come back.
it's really beyond me of why it thance to come back when there's no support.
and again, it's within the boundaries of precinct one, which Commissioner Davis rents--represents.
I'm going to speak for the persons residing in my precinct, I'm going to speak for then, as I'm doing.
again, it does appear as if it's going to be some kind of property tax relief, the way it appears.
so I'm through with that.
I'm going say that and continue to fight this as long as the people over there say they don't want it.
>> I j us have one, sorry--
>> can I be recognized?
>> certainly.
>> I'm placed in the ott position of--odd position of defending representative rodriguez.
I'm absolutely rock solid in my belief that his intent in this bill is to increase affordability in his precinct, which shares constituency with yours.
and the bill, contrary to your representation in your statement has never and doesn't currently require the county's participation.
I just wanted to make that purfly clear.
perfectly clear.
it has never and it doesn't in its current form require county participation.
it is elective at the discretion of the full Commissioners court.
it would require a majority vote of this court.
the city of Austin nor the community development corporation could force our participation.
>> the city of Austin in our last meeting, as you heard leroy nelis state in that meeting with the city, said it would even bring this up before us again.
they will take care of it themselves.
of course it didn't happen.
regardless of what you are saying over there, Commissioner, again, Commissioner Davis represents precinct one.
and I do represent a lot of this area.
again, I'm going to defend the persons that reside in precinct one, again long time taxpayers in this area, who have been led to believe that this is some kind of property tax relief.
the predominant persons living in this area are black.
african american folks that have been midled.
of course--miss lead.
of course a lot of these folks don't even know anything about this, haven't been educated enough on what is going on.
this is the thing that needs to take place first.
I have told the representative about these concerns.
of course, you continue to come back with it over and over again.
of course, the community is saying no, we don't want it.
again, Commissioner, I represent precinct one.
>> I have heard you say that repeatedly.
>> thank you.
>> same simply setting the record straight.
>> I want you to respect it.
>> I respect it and I hope that you will respect my opinion that the representative is not engaged in some plot.
>> I don't know.
you seem to be speaking for her.
let her speak for herself.
I have told penny this and we have spoken.
>> I wanted to echo Commissioner Eckhardt's interpretation because I do not believe there's any mall intent.
I think the only thing we have to appear is fear itself.
I think it's very important to have a full understanding of the facts.
I believe that representative rodriguez has put a lot of thought and careful consideration into the crafting of this bill and we still have a choice.
>> we can cirf --differ in whether it is a wise policy move.
I totally respect your opinion that this would not be wise policy for the county to implement.
the fact remains it is discretionary and we are at our option to refuse this policy option if we do in the believe it is wise or that it would be abused.
and I can understand that.
but I will not allow a misrepresentation to stand that we would, that this bill forces us into anything or that representative rodriguez is engaged in a blot to steal property from east Austin residents.
>> if that was the case I think representative rodriguez should have come to the elected officials that represent the area.
>> Commissioner, if I can just elaborate at the risks of disagreeing with my friend leroy.
we keep talking about the bill.
it makes minor changes to the governance structure of something that is already law and will kick in once there is the agreement that you have referred to between the county and the city to create this taxing entity to help fund this program.
that is already law.
what the bill does is simply change the governing structure in ways that frankly are favorable to Travis County.
what I do want to correct, and what I understood leroy to say, it is not a matter of if we do not participate the city can go ahead and do this by itself.
under the current statute, it is a joint tif between the city and county.
>> we have a pocket vote ee.
if we don't participate it does not happen.
>> it doesn't happen.
one of the suggestions that was made I think when you all visited with the mayor was to amend the current law to cut the county out and let the city go forward by itself.
but that has not been done and that is not the purpose of hb 990.
the truth of the matter is if the county does not participate, not only does the county not participate, but the project itself, at least the financing part that is already in statute, does not move forward.
>> I stand corrected.
>> let me just comment on one thing.
we may not agree with Commissioner Davis on his evaluation.
I think one thing that we are, that he is correct about, and I agree, is that when the governed have got the have a say in our democracy.
there's been plenty of opportunity for the state representative to come and speak to the folks in that area about the bill to explain it.
and that hasn't occurred.
as long as people don't buy into a proposal that any one of us, doesn't have to be just the state representative, even us, they don't buy it, it doesn't go very far.
heaven knows Travis County is very well-known for having many public hearings on a lot of the issues that come before us.
obviously, there's a value to that.
but people there are saying no.
I don't know how many they have to say it.
obviously, there's something that bothers them.
they haven't gotten the information that they need in order to understand the issue better or something is missing.
otherwise there wouldn't be the opposition and fear.
yeah, there is fear because of what has happened in the past.
you know, in past years.
that fear has to be allayed with public hearings, communication.
people have to understand what they are getting into.
so I fully understand his position as well.
>> I agree that there is a great deal of fear out there well founded.
but I not agree to adding fuel to fear with misrepresentations of representative rodriguez's intent or misrepresentations with regard to what the bill actually says.
>> the only thing, the only way to leave create is to have some--alleviate is to have some communications with the folks who are going to be affected or feel they are going to be affected.
the airing of the issue has got to be consistent.
but until people understand the ramifications of this action, we're not going to get very far.
all we're going to keep doing is pointing fingers at each other.
that is not going to resolve the issue.
>> I agree.
>> meantime, this was a bill, which bill?
that was.
>> that was part of my back up on item a.
b is house bill 2979.
this was a bill that her shell and I briefed the court about last week.
this has to do with exceptions, statutory exceptions to the burn ban authority of the Commissioners court.
the Commissioners court took our information and asked us to keep this on the agenda and let you know if anything started to happen on this bill.
I can report to you that nothing has happened on the bill in the last week.
so we can now move on to item c which is house bill 1048.
this is the bill having to do with setting some statutory ground rules for the construction of public private partnerships.
I was going to see if I could turn the floor over to my colleague, tom knuckle, so he can give the court a brief overview of what the bill does and I'll have some wrap-up comments about the legislative posture of the bill.
>> this bill essentially sets out sort of a cradle to grave comprehensive process for doing public private partnerships.
one good aspect is it adds to existing authority.
there are various authorities under which state agencies and political subdivisions can do public private partnerships.
but they are all statutes that really address other issues such as taxing and revenue.
sort of allow public private partnership as an incident to that.
this bill changes the focus.
its entire focus is public private partnerships and how they should be done.
again, cradle to grave.
it adds a lots of transparency for public private partnerships of the existing authorities for p3, as I said, the p3 element of it is sort of a side line.
there was never any attempt to say here is how you should go about doing a p3 from start to finish.
>> [one moment please for change in captioners].
.
.
>> [one moment please for change in captioners] say yeah, we want to follow this bill, one thing this opens the door to is unsolicited proposals.
if you exercise the authority under this bill people could start on their own initiative sending you proposals to do p 3s and under this bill you have to actually act on that.
so if you just take it and say yeah, we're going to do it, be prepared because you probably be get some of those and it will consume some staff time and your time and you will have to be dealing with unsolicited proposals, things that you might not be ready to work on or not be ready to head down that particular road.
I think the most interesting aspect of it is the bill creates what is called the partnership advisory commission.
and this is a commission made up of the chairman of the house appropriations committee, three state representatives select bid the speaker, the senate -- the chair of the senate finance committee, three senators chosen by the lieutenant governor, and three members -- actually three executive branch officials appointed by the governor.
so basically an all-state board.
the interesting thing is that if you choose to do a public-private partnership under this statute, you have to submit the proposal you've received to this commission and let them comment on it before you can start negotiating with your private partner.
so that's one of those issues where state officials should be involved in public-private partnerships, but whether that's something that's necessary for political subdivision, someone at the local government question, that's one of the issues you need to take into account if you decide to operate under this authority or not.
and those are really the high points.
>> what is the status of the bill?
>> the bill has passed the senate and is over in the house.
the provision tom mentioned regarding the partnership advisory commission is one that we and the cuc are looking at pretty carefully because while the concept of the commission may make sense in the context of state agencies who are also covered by this bill, it may not make much sense for counties.
the important thing that cuc got into the bill in the house version -- in the senate version was the provision he referred to that keeps it occupational.
that is to say the way this works is you adopt -- you as a court would adopt a set of rules that say we want to be governed by this statute.
but you still have the option to do that.
as tom said, if you adopt that, then you have to deal with unsolicited proposals, you would have to deal with the partnership advisory commission.
you would have to deal with several of the requirements of the bill, many of which are good, but some of which are problematic.
in the meantime the court could continue to elect operating under its current authority and we think -- and I know cuc fought for this provision precisely because we want to make sure the Commissioners' courts preserve the option of deciding under what set of rules, if you will, they wanted to play.
we will continue to monitor the bill.
we don't have a recommendation to court as to whether or not to support the bill at this time.
>> and there's no chance that they would let local governments choose whether to be not only optional, but to go through the state commission or a local commission?
>> I think something that we're talking a little bit about in cuc and that we could explore was having the local governments exempted from that part.
that part really -- for instance, it requires that a copy of a proposal be sent to the chairman of the appropriations committee and the chairman of the finance committee.
in addition to this partnership advisory commission.
so I think probably what we certainly could do, Commissioner, even without direction as such from the court, but is explore the possibility of amending it to exempt counties from that.
>> yeah.
it really doesn't make sense to have to go through a state commission if we're a local government.
>> I think those conversations are probably already going o.
>> unless they want to help us fund these things.
>> sounds like it will be an unfunded mandate.
>> if they want to throw the money at us for these things, then of course we're happy to run the plans.
that's my report on that.
I do not have a recommendation for the court
>> [overlapping speakers] but we'll keep the court posted through presentations in Commissioners' court or through other communications with you about that.
the final item is changes to the legislative platform, and we have none to recommend today.
>> thanks.
thanks very much.
>> dietz durks get with staff?
>> I did.
>> could you read that when we just handed you?
>> it says that -- this is section 2, section 373-a-155-b, local government code is amended to read as follows: the county shall pay into the Texas increment fund for the zone the same percentage of the tax increment produced by the county that the municipality pays into the fund.
>> if we elect to do it.
>> but it says staff.
that's the whole -- that was the point I was trying to get you to see.
I know I looked at that document and it said shall.
when I said shall, shall is still the word.
and I didn't want to get from that.
>> the word shall does appear in the bill, yes, but nevertheless, it is optional whether the county aveils itself of the policy.
>> just by way of giving context, Commissioner, the section immediately before that says amends another provision of the local government code regarding the effective date of the zone.
it says the zone designated by the ordinance.
this is the --
>> I understand that.
I saw shall.
>> adopted under that takes effect on the date in which the county adopts the final order agreeing to the creation of the zone.
so again, the preliminary thing is for the county and constituent to agree to create the district together.
once they do, then the county accepts its responsibility as a partner in it to fund it with a 11 of contribution.
>> that shall only goes to -- first the county has to decide whether they want to be an equal partner with the city in this program.
that's all that shall refers to.
yes, the word shall appears in the bill.
that doesn't change the fact that it's discretionary as to whether bept to avoice mail ourselves of the policy or not, even if it passes.
>> like I stated earlier, that wastated and I wanted to make sure shall was -- that shall was in the bill.
and of course, education, I think Commissioner Gomez summed it up very accurately as far as educating the public, which has not been done in precinct 1.
okay.
thank you.
>> yes, sir.
members of the court, there are 35 days remaining in session.
in the regular session.
we're not advised at this point about the prospect for a special session.
thank you very much, Commissioners.
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