Travis County Commssioners Court
March 11, 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 39
39-a, discuss legislative issues, including proposed bills, and take appropriate action. And 39-b is other bills that may be considered in response to action taken by the legislature, and take appropriate action. And attached to the agenda is a listing of bills that we are asked to focus on specifically. And as usual, I do not have my list attached to my agenda. At the top of the list is meet and confer. I got an e-mail from the county sheriff and circulated that to the court. Did you all see that?
>> yes.
>> the sheriff was happy with the language in the current draft, and that language has both associations covered. And I thought the sheriff had spoken with dan, but she did not speak with dan, she simply called and left a message. Dan got the message and gave it to me. This is something that we have supported historically. This will be the third session, right?
>> yes, sir.
>> and questions?
>> judge, like I said, that really was the pressing issue. It didn't -- rather than us contemplating that there may be multiple associations, this is a very good job and I appreciate the work that went into this in terms of defining it. I have heard some questions raised, and I hope, greg, you can answer. Sometimes the vagueness is a good thing in terms of so how is this committee going to get formed? How many? 4? 42? Can you give us a sense of what you think it's going to be?
>> [inaudible]. There will be hurdles, but I think we can come to an equitiable solution on both sides.
>> but your intent is inclusion.
>> correct.
>> and there are also concerns raised by others in terms of what if people want to pursue different goals before the commissioners court? Does this group have to adegree on what each side of the house may be lobbying for?
>> that's the whole gd behind a bargaining committee. [inaudible] as opposed to a faction of different groups.
>> but in your mind, it may be possible that you may be lobbying for something different than they may be lobbying for because there are different needs of your end of it than another end of it.
>> well, I speak for all the needs, for the whole department because it includes the law enforcement, patrol officers, corrections, civilians, it's inexclusive of everyone. As far as those ideas and forethoughts that others may have, again, to bring it to the commissioners court under one heading.
>> and inexclusion is the intent here. The other question is does somebody have veto power over any of this that would preclude the commissioners court from moving forward with what they think is best even if the others are disappointed in the results?
>> right. The final draft of what it will entail, we don't know, but that is one of those things we'll have to overcome.
>> great. Thank you.
>> so today is for us to move forward and draft a bill or is it being drafted already?
>> the bill is being drafted.
>> there is one already drafted, judge.
>> what's the request for today?
>> I would move that we endorse the newly revised bill that has been drafted that makes very clear that in the meet and confer that there is a bargaining committee that has the right to visit with the commissioners court about their goals for a budget session, and I would move approval.
>> second.
>> okay. Any more discussion? All in favor say aye? That passes by unanimous vote. We indicated this morning commissioner Gomez would be absent for this entire meeting. That's a 4-0 vote. Hb 1. That is the appropriations bill. I would sent out a reminder notice to four individuals, cscd, jim risk, steve ril yums, health and human services, and juvenile justice, ms. Medina, and ronnie earl, our d.a., For prosecution and probably wouldn't hurt to have a little bit on corrections there, but I think consistent with what we talked about last week, we ought to pull those together, share those with our legislative delegation. And I really think that we ought to make sure that the other counties, and especially urban counties, be asked for their elect officials to get engaged. It's one thing for us to ask the legislative delegation of harris county to do something. It's another thing to ask the Travis County commissioners court, Travis County city council if they agree with the approach we're taking to notify the harris county legislative delegation of impact it will have on harris county. So we notify our people of impact it will have on us. We ask them to do the same thing. I know c.m.c. -- [inaudible] will be active. That's not quite the same as the individual elected officials working with their delegations in their communities. They may well conclude that h.b. 1 does not have any impact on them. So don't waste their time. But if the urban council, like us, it will have substantial impact, and I guess even if we can't change people's minds, then at least we ought to let them know what we think the facts are. And the other thing is we may as well go ahead and start the education process for Travis County voters.
>> and judge --
>> and residents.
>> tomorrow is the next legislative luncheon of the conference of urban counties. I don't know who is attending, I will be there. I'll be happy to pass along that message to our fellow county commissioners and judge that's we will see tomorrow.
>> how does that sound to you, bob?
>> I think that --
>> sound like a brilliant idea?
>> I think it's a brilliant idea, judge. [laughter] [inaudible] about doing something similar to what we are doing that is correct is --
>> engaged.
>> [inaudible] programs to all the [inaudible].
>> the other things that I would make a tone of as factual, that are as objective as possible and try to be truthful, because I'm thinking that that would be substantial adverse impact no matter how we look at it. The only question would be whether we take steps to assist the impacted residents or not. And as we've mentioned from time to time, seeing the individuals here in Travis County is a little bit different than legislative members that go back, they can see them in their county, but they probably won't see the ones in Travis County that we deal with. So what do we need to do with on this one today? Keep our fingers crossed? We did receive a couple of those.
>> seems like we keep on the advocacy and press our case at c.u.c. And get everybody involved. Sounds like you laid out a good vision.
>> you dropped something out of your folder. Something on the floor there.
>> the secret plan.
>> the plan to solve the state's budget.
>> I think exactly what you all said. As you know, staff is busy getting all the data for us that we'll have in about a week, and I think we do just as you say, we take it to the Travis County delegation and we -- you present your case, present your facts. Ultimately, you know, the legislature may just -- we don't know what the legislature is going to do yet. What I would expect -- but I would expect there's going to be some cuts. And then it comes back to you. Do you want to fund those programs that they are not -- that they are no longer going to fund, or are you going to take the same position as the legislature and say no, we've got to tighten our -- tighten the budget. So at this point no one knows, but I think we are on track to help the legislature by getting that information to them.
>> it would help us to know the facts too.
>> yeah.
>> and help us [inaudible]. And to the extent we can share that information with Travis County residents, they can start thinking about these things early also. Luckily our budget process really gets serious about, you know, mid-summer, August, so we have a few months to plan and deliberate.
>> and I think one message that is very important for you all to convey to the legislature is that this is going to have an impact locally, that what they are doing is going to have -- is going to come back here. And that, you know, they are going to hear from you one way or another.
>> I was going to ask barbara to come to the microphone. I know she is trying to write me something and unless we are going to give her some valium, we might --
>> under the health and human services tag, I believe there's a letter from c.s.c.d., And you might want to consider as you have with some of our other issues looking at that letter seeing if that would be something -- h.b. 1, I'm wrong. Thank you for correcting me. And this is a tag team effort. With ann's steens this. If if you look under that tag, there's a suggested letter. I don't know how the court feels about that, but that's something to consider.
>> the unfortunate reality is they are proposing cuts in practically every single area, so I'm afraid our letter might be like 49,000 pages. It seems like it may be easier to pass on to our legislative delegation in chunks. Health and human services chunk. Some of the criminal justice stuff. The juvenile justice thing. So they can easily pull out all of those things and provide factual information. There may not be one letter, there may be multiple memos from us that are appropriate. It certainly would be easier for me if I were a legislature to have them all subdivided so I could just pull depending on what the issue per day was.
>> if I could, my impression is so far you all are talking about the proposed cuts to the c.s.c.d.s. There are also huge proposed programmatic cuts throughout the t.c.j. Budget and in the prison and state jail facilities. Bob made note of the fact that we would want to pass along to our legislative delegation what impact it would have to reduce or eliminate the funding for those programs and what programs Travis County might feel compelled to pick up. I want to note the less direct impact in the one we cannot predict and that is recidivism and how many people that might then place into our county jail. If the -- I won't propose to speak for tony sabello with regard to programs in state prisons and jails are effective at reducing recidivism but on the assumption they do, if they stop, the recidivism will go up and the county jail population will go up as well as the case loads in our district and county court. I just wanted to know that so that it's on the table since we've been dealing with jail overcrowding for a while now.
>> well, I think it's a stranl here. I don't think this commissioners court nor should any commissioners court in the state of Texas stand by and say but we stand by ready to pick up that program if you choose not to fund it. That ought not to be the message. The message ought to be the state has its mandated responsibility, so do we, and we will assess everything when you conclude your work and we begin our work. But I'm not going to pre-promise to pick up anything in this budget.
>> right. That's not what I was suggesting. I was just saying that bob had noted that that might be the ultimate impact of the reduction of some of these programs if the commissioners court is forced into a decision of do we want to provide rehabilitative programming in some other way in order to stem the tide of people coming back into our county jail and court system, or do we want to say state, it's your job to do this and we'll fade the heat for whatever impact that has on the jail population and the court case loads.
>> or the state will stave the heat.
>> right.
>> the world of what is said is important, so I'm beginning to think there ought to be like an official document that the court bleses. I was hoping we would put the documents together from different departments so we could see all the facts. If you got 150 facts, I'm not sure they will listen to those. Maybe you ought to try to pull out the most important 12 to 15, you see what I'm saying, in a certain area and say here's the impact on Travis County residents right here.
>> and in terms of the Travis County delegation, what we would like to do is take one or two of you with with us as we meet with each member of the Travis County delegation so they can hear it directly from you all. And, you know, I think at that point those meetings are going to be relatively brief. We will just want to highlight, you know, the most critical areas.
>> I'm happy to participate.
>> and I will.
>> okay. Now, who should we have look at the great deal of information we are getting in different areas and reduce that down to the most important pieces of information?
>> let's not all jump at once.
>> I took that to mean everybody wanted to serve. [laughter] [inaudible].
>> judge, once chris and I get the information, we would be happy to do a first draft and present it to you all and staff.
>> we can do that then. Let's do it that way. Hb 28. Relating to rehabilitation programs for defendants housed in state [inaudible] jail eye just saw this on the list this morning. I'm not sure who put it on the agenda, but I can talk about it because my office is tracking it. It wasn't me that put out the agenda, though.
>> do we know who put it on the agenda?
>> no. There's no fiscal impact to the county on this one. The original bill would have improved rehabilitative programming in state jails and they gutted it in the house committee. Now it only provides for inmates to be able to tutor each other one one is illiterate and calls for improving volunteer-related programs -- volunteer provided programming in the state jails. There's no fiscal impact to the county, and now there's no fiscal impact to the state as well. There's also probably going to be very little programmatic impact. I don't think the commissioners court needs to continue considering this probably.
>> that's permissive?
>> it is.
>> sounds like you all are tracking it.
>> yeah.
>> hb 103. Convinced of alcohol related offense. Increasing the fines?
>> can I make a comment about the bills on this list? I think this is a list of everything that might have been brought up. I don't think we necessarily have to discuss them all. Once we've got about 10 bills that you've asked to us file in the past, and those will be filed by Friday because it's filing deadline. We'll have a list for you every week. But the -- and those we might want to go through one at a time. But for purposes today, I know there's some folks that have some new things they want to bring up, and we might want to just use the time for that. And then there may be one or two bills we'll highlight for you on here, but otherwise you don't need to go through those unless you want to.
>> i'll just say related to -- because a lot of these are fee related, obviously I think the commissioners court is extraordinarily interested in, but it doesn't seem we have to know every detail on every bill in things that are positive for the county, in terms of helping us recover the costs of having to do certain things, and we certainly are not looking for things that are negative in terms of taking away things. And I would kind of like leave all the fee stuff in that general category. If it's good, great. If it's bad, it needs to be brought to our attention. There's no way we can keep track of thousands of things that are fee related. At some point those will start to gel, but it isn't today.
>> I would like to go farther than that because those possible unfunded mandates that come down from the state as they may be bill related also. And of course, we don't know exactly what some of those things are going to be, but there's a possibility that that may happen, that we may have to be looking at picking up the tab for something we can't afford. I think I would like to see some of that kind of categorizing.
>> that's a good suggestion.
>> it's going to impact us during the budget.
>> more strategic information.
>> right. Exactly. So --
>> which of these do we need to discuss? In all honesty, there's none I need to discuss. There is one I would mention. Well -- [laughter] that I need to discuss. There is one bill that chairman lewis has up probably right now that deals with the cash bail bonds, that supports or tries to make legal what the process we have here in Travis County. And I just make you aware of that. I don't know if you want us to go over there and put a card in support of that bill. That's one issue I want to bring up. The other is you have mentioned in the past that bill from last session that increased the number of voters in a precinct.
>> yes.
>> and that has not -- we've been watching. No one else has filed that. I talked to the committee. There hasn't been much talk about it. If you want us to file that bill, the Travis County bill, we need to do it by Friday. So if it is real important, we may need to file. There is one vehicle out there that we could maybe add on to another bill, but in the event that you would want to file a separate Travis County bill, I would bring that up. That's all I have for today.
>> judge, start with the last one first, I would propose two paths. Yes,ed and file it, but also let's look for a vehicle to stick it on because sometimes the thing you stick it on gets killed. We got information yesterday and we are once again having to split an incredible number of precincts, primarily in precinct 3 because of the rapid growth out there because they've hit the 3,000 mark, and we all of a sudden now have to increase our costs, rip up communities about where they are supposed to vote. When now half of the people are voting early. That is something that could make our election days and our election process not only more effective and efficient, but it will save us money because we're not going to have to hire as many judges for brand-new things that, you know, trigger the need to create a new precinct because you hit 3,000 in one -- 3,001 people.
>> that bill would increase it to 5,000.
>> right.
>> so that is real important to us.
>> considering it --
>> that bill is important to us. Why don't we go ahead and read the difference -- [inaudible] trying to piggyback another. Move that we do that. File the appropriate bill that would raise the limit from 3,000 to 5,000 and get the legitimate reasons from county clerk and tax assessor. Any more discussion of that? We talked about that the last five or six years, haven't we?
>> yes.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> could I ask bob a question, judge?
>> yes, sir.
>> do you think that whenever you file a bill and it doesn't really get legs to go anywhere, and then you try to attach it somewhere that people -- I mean, finding somebody that is willing to let you do that to their bill is sometimes, you know, a little iffy.
>> that's right. Yes.
>> I mean, that may be one reason why you don't -- I mean, if you throw something out there, you start finding a lot of opposition to it. Before you know it, you go to that bill's sponsor and they are kind of like, hey, maybe [inaudible] won't need part of it. So that's just, you know, a train of thought that i've had at times when i've been over there. I don't know if you share that.
>> no, I agree. We would rather have a bill of our own filed. We can get a hearing out and public testimony, et cetera. So, yeah. Ecause if thereare problems, the first thing they want to know if it's going to mess their bill on there. If we ask them voluntarily.
>> the lewis bill, what does it do for cash bonds?
>> it authorizes or attempts to authorize the custom that we have here in Travis County for cash bail bonds. And I wouldn't even want the lawyers to explain exactly how that works.
>> the practice ra, as I understand it, is the sheriff takes the cash, and instead of having the surety bond put up, they will post the cash and it gets transferred over to the district clerk or county clerk, depending upon the situation, whenever the case is actually filed. If it's never filed, the money is handed over to the treasurer. In a lot of cases, the money is being handed other to the treasurer early, late, whatever the situation. So I think this bill is intended to reflect the practice that we're already doing that may be sound from a fiscal standpoint, but it's the just not in the statute.
>> in the way that chairman lewis views his bill is that if -- for example, if the bail is $1,500, if they had to pay that to a bail bondsmen, of course the bail bondsmen don't like this bill, but instead of paying it to the bondsman, you pay it to the county, and if you show up, then you get your money back. But I think what also happens in practice is that that money is then assigned to that defendant's lawyer. And so -- in chairman lewis' words, the same dollars are being used to get in a person out of jail and pay for the lawyer. So his argument is it relieves us on some of the indigent appointment of attorney load because you now have someone who can get out of jail sooner and pay their attorney with the same dollars, whereas otherwise they lose. The bail bondsmen look at it dif frently. That's their money that gets cut out. This is the third session he's introduced that bill and it's been unsuccessful. I do think the bail bondsmen will have an amendment later in the session to make what Travis County docile legal. So --
>> I think that there is a a.g. Opinion request that is outstanding as to whether or not counties who currently collect some cash portion on their personal bonds, whether or not they can continue to do that. And so this bill would clarify what someone is already asking the a.g. To opine on, and -- but yes, it's something the bail bondsmen, they don't particularly care for it.
>> what's the number of representative lewis --
>> house bill 1031 for lewis. It's about two-thirds of the way down on that first page.
>> I would note one more thing, it's got a provision that is discretionary with the county that the county can opt to retain 10% of each bond for administrative costs. That is not something that we currently do. That would get rid of the benefit that bob was talking about in terms of using that money to pay for the person's attorney. But if the county did opt to do that, then it would be a revenue positive bill.
>> okay. This airport in central Texas, is it back?
>> yes. It was heard this morning and it was left pending in transportation committee.
>> now, there was language that targeted Travis County, I guess robert mueller, Austin-Travis County, in the past. Does this bill have the same language?
>> if you recall from last session, that the bill gave -- the bill from last session said you couldn't do it at mueller and you had to get permission from the commissioners court in the county before you could do anything. The bill this session deletes that in its entirety and brings mueller back in the picture. In listening to the testimony this morning, the proponents -- there's a federal study going on. They got half a million dollars to study what would be a good site for the central Texas airport. And in listening to the proponents, what they want is mueller to be in that study, to be in the mix to see if it is a good site. And of course then the other side came in and said but we're developing this site with the city. They had the developer there. They had the local community leaders, the neighborhood leaders, who said that this is the first time that the neighborhood folks are together, the developer is together and the city is together. So I'm not sure -- it was left pending. I don't know if -- what the committee will do with it, but that's where it's at right now.
>> I was going to say, I know that commissioner Davis wrote a very good lerlt to representative crewsy talking about this and I visited with representative krusee about that.
>> of course the residents [inaudible] for precinct 1 and we have vowed for many, many years to divorce robert mueller from being used as an airport. Of course, it finally got closed. Of course, my position is not going to change from what it was last year, and that is to exclude robert mueller and other airports for general aviation in precinct 1 without the consent or approval of the county commissioners court within the jurisdictions that we oversee. Of course that is correct doesn't mean [inaudible] but those jurisdictions that we do, built to stay intact like they are and be deleted out of a proposal by Ron [inaudible]. I would like to encourage the court if we could send a letter from the court what -- whatever means of mechanism we need to use to get that message across to those folks, on proponents of this, and the court -- I would like to put that in a formal motion, if possible.
>> second.
>> motion to indicate Travis County's opposition to a bill that does not give the commissioners court of the selected county ultimate authority over whether or not an airport will be placed in that county.
>> yes, sir.
>> and in favor of deleting any language that seems to target Austin-Travis County.
>> exactly.
>> that's what my second covers. Any more discussion? All if favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> judge, could we go back to 1031, the lewis bill? I would move that --
>> what bill?
>> 1031, the bill related to the cash bonds. And judge wisser had given us indication the criminal justices are in favor of this. I would move we endorse 1031 and ask our legislative liaison stick a card in endorsing representative lewis' bill.
>> second.
>> we'll put that on our list of bills that we -- any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you.
>> i've got number 38 #- checked here. Operations under the Texas [inaudible]. Is that the same as our raise?
>> yes, sir. Basically the bill that was introduced simply fixes a attorney general opinion that was filed earlier this year and it simply says that the judge has to give an answer on a permit within 15 days of the filing of the permit. I think it's 15 days. So that the rave knows whether it's going to go on or not. The judge can no longer wait until the last minute to say whether or not they have ganded the permit and have the rave operator spent a lot of money putting together the rave and find out the day before the event they are no longer able to to do it.
>> it's under t.n.r. And it's the very first little gold sticky.
>> we've had some discussions per what happened last year with specific rates here in the county. I know that the bill has been sent for analysis to dennis rutter and several other folks. From t.n.r.'s perspective, we have a couple of suggestions that we might want to consider make to go the bill, a couple of amendments we might want to make which would lower the -- currently if you have 4,999 people, you don't have to come in for a permit. We would like to see that cap lowered to something like half of that. 2500 folks. Because we feel like it's really easy to get out of hand at that level. There's also a time period for which the permit allows the event to go on, I think it's five hours. We would like to see it lowered to something more like three in order to sort of get a handle on these huge events that we don't have much way to enforce whether or not they are complying with the fire marshal regulations, saner to regulations, those sorts of things.
>> what are you saying, they aren't in compliance --
>> I'm sorry?
>> you mentioned the regulations, fire regulations, all the other regulations. I didn't catch that last statement.
>> on-site sewage. They basically have to have bathrooms to accommodate the people, and that's one way that we are able to control the events. But again, if there is 4,999 people before they even have to come in and tell us about it, we feel like that's excessive. I don't know if tom knuckles or the county attorney has any more on that bill.
>> does that mean on the property itself? Because I think -- well, go ahead, tom.
>> the bathrooms?
>> go ahead, tom.
>> I think the issue you are talking about is the county doesn't have any jurisdiction unless the 5,000 people are going to be there for over five hours.
>> yeah.
>> and in a couple of cases, as a matter of fact, one of the raves where we ended up in court, it was the promoter's contention that he didn't have to get county approval because he wasn't ever going to let 5,000 people be there for more than five hours. He was going to keep count, therefore he was not subject to our jurisdiction. Five hours is pretty problematic in terms of even convincing these people they need to come in and explain to the county how they are going to protect public health and safety.
>> those are the two recommendations t.n.r. -- we have not heard back from the health department or the fire marshal about any other recommendations that they would like to make, but those are just two issues that we would recommend the court entertain. Based on actually what's happened in our county.
>> where is representative pitt from?
>> waxahachie.
>> and if you have 2,000 people or a smaller number, anything over 200, you ought to have to demonstrate that you have basic stuff. Restroom facilities. We have a list of that that we got from the sheriff. I think we ought to say no matter what the number is, if there's more than a couple hundred, seems to me you ought to have to have the others, then you don't need a permit. See what I'm saying? I don't know if that number should be -- seems to me that -- I wouldn't say more than a couple thousand. That's a lot of people for five hours without restroom facilities. There needs to be some law enforcement present. There needs to be an age limit. I mean, there was a list of stuff that we looked at that we thought was appropriate when we went to the judge. We were trying to persuade the judge that really was an unhealthy situation whether you like loud music or not is sort of irrelevant. But with that many people out there, that many hours without certain facilities, you invite bad circumstances.
>> uh-huh.
>> and that's what we did. Basically. So we need to get that list. I forget who at the sheriff's office had that list, but -- so even if we reduce the number and say, okay, if it's this number you don't need a permit, there ought to be a "if" there. Something if you have adequate restroom facilities and I forget what else is on the list, there ought to be some sort of law enforcement present. Especially these things like sometimes a five-hour period starts at 10:00. Goes to 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning.
>> often.
>> in the dark, right.
>> traffic alone, you might be able to do something. That would be another criteria that -- because you are right. In five hours, you are not drinking kool-aid. So that's -- as somebody that's been a little bit in that business before, you are right.
>> [inaudible].
>> something tells you there's going to be 2,000, I mean all of a sudden you've got like, you know, a continent of people. They sort of attract each other.
>> exactly. There's always more people usually show up than they think. I guess this is the first time we've brought the bill to the commissioners court, so I guess what we need is authority to continue to pursue language that we might want to amend it, assuming that the court agrees that we would like to speak to make some additional changes to the mass gathering act.
>> I move that we grant that, but that we check the sheriff's office, pull out all the things we think you need in order to protect your patrons if you have more than a handful. Because I do think that getting if america mitt ought to be -- permit ought to be raise understand some circumstances, but upon a showing of -- and we ought to list those things.
>> okay.
>> so this is like moving ahead. [inaudible] the question is whether we take that position for or against it with this particular response.
>> well, if there's an amendment that would make you happy, we can always go to representative pitts and see if he had accept the amendment without [inaudible].
>> do we think he's trying to do the right thing?
>> you know, is a lean mentioned -- celine mentioned there was a a.g. Opinion that came out because there was no requirement for the judge to ever respond. The county judge could literally sit on the permit and the guy would have to cancel the event. It's fixing that problem, plus doing a whole lot of other stuff that just sort of has more certainty to the process and in the end helps counties out.
>> I think if nothing else he ought to know about our two or three experiences with these concerts and what we found the problem to be and what we think the solutions are. In addition to requiring that a judge act on the permit request. So the question is when is it waived and you reduce the number, but there ought to be other conditions that you need to meet, and I think we ought to focus on those other conditions and let them know about the two or three. Every one of them -- in the last one a guy died and the number was not as great as the others we heard about.
>> I would also like to add, judge, the [inaudible] from a [inaudible] standpoint where it requires that they designate a responsible person that we as an even forcer can go to and also attaches a jailable offense for it if they are in violation of it. To me we need that strong language to be able to deal with that in the county.
>> well, there's no doubt the way to get a handle on these things is to set the standards up front so that -- I mean because really what you do is you start limiting. And when you start, you know, financially making it, you know, unsound, if you will, I mean, like putting up some sort of a -- posting some sort of a bond or something because I know that I saw all of the overtime hours that constable mcand gus got called apparently on this one you are talking about, before you know it, the county really does take on a lot of liability there, I mean just in the payment of what it took to go out there and get that thing under control. So perhaps if you have -- I would love to see the list s.e.l.i.n.e. If that's something you have, and maybe I could add some things.
>> we'll get it to you, to you all.
>> we had a couple of very frightening experiences. From what I recall.
>> we're a good poster child.
>> all in favor of the motion to proceed. That passes by unanimous vote. There was a motion and second. Any other bills on that list that we need to discuss before we go to ones that are not on the list?
>> yes, sir. Seline with Travis County t.n.r. House bill 124 introduced by senator baxter is the companion bill to the bill introduced by senator wentworth. This is the home builders bill dealing with last session 1445 which you had a hearing on earlier today. They are having a hearing on the baxter bill in the house tomorrow, and we just felt that the commissioners court perhaps would want to have somebody over there to testify, if nothing else as a resource. And these bills are mainly aimed at Travis County and bexar county and a couple of others. We feel like you all might be interested in making sure that we have some say over there. So we're bringing it to you now. Again, we've been meeting with the city and feel like progress has been made in implementing house bill 1445. Obviously as you know, there are some real issues that still need to be resolved, but we feel like we have made progress and we did implement an interlocal and set up a one-shop stop as house bill 1445 directed us to in April -- on April 1st of this year. So we are implementing the bill. We have folks here that can talk about those bills, if you would like. There was a substitute, actually got fax to do me 30 minutes ago, that brackets out the smaller cities. So basically only a city with a five-mile e.t.j. -- I haven't even -- 3.5. And I'm not sure --
>> [inaudible].
>> what that is exactly. So brackets out all your smaller -- your Lakeways, your manors, your webbervilles will not have to comply with house bill billion. I haven't had a chance to see fit does anything different. But this is a bill that essentially -- if agreement can't be found between the city and county, it basically gives the county full jurisdiction for platting in the e.t.j. Yes, this will probably have some budget impacts. Exactly what those are, we haven't been able to determine yet. If you have any other questions --
>> we need to authorize staff to go over as resource witnesses at this point?
>> yes, staff or one of yourselves.
>> in case there are questions of -- about Travis County's position.
>> or if you want to take a position, yeah. I don't even know if you do or not.
>> I think it would be helpful if we had resource people over there to answer specific questions that come up before the committee. We're in a real interesting place because we've got this moving target over at the legislature and I think we want to be considered we are in good faith working with the city of Austin in terms of dealing with that. This thing is constantly moving. There may be a point that we may well want to take a stand on whatever version of the baxter bill that eventually does emerge. But I don't think that's today. I don't think it would be helpful in our negotiations with the city and I don't necessarily know it's going to be helpful with the state legislature because these are both moving targets. I think we're going to get to a place where we will be taking a position on this bill, but when there's already new substitutes coming that we have not seen and none of us have been able to visit with impacted stakeholders, to me it's premature to let both processes move forward in good faith, and what it lands back at the commissioners court because it may be appropriate for us to weigh in, that would be the time. And in the meantime we send our resource people over there to answer technical questions the committee might have about what's going on in Travis County.
>> judge, are you making a formal motion that you are suggesting as far as having staff to go over as a resource?
>> I just think we ought to direct them.
>> judge, I have -- I had made plans to go over and testify, you know, as the precinct 3 commissioner, not, you know, from the court. Commissioner Sonleitner and I did discuss that perhaps there might be some strategy -- I mean, that this may be better, you know, for that not to take place given that we're trying to work with the city. But I would like to call representative baxter and ask him. I mean, if he is inclined to want someone from the court to come over to testify, I mean I certainly feel the way that the bill is written. So I don't have an issue with that, but i'll let everybody know -- I mean i'll call him this afternoon.
>> and if you feel strongly about wanting to go over there and testify, I would certainly never advise against that. I think you should, if you want to do it that way. I'm just trying to think in terms of for me, I'm trying to do good things on both fronts, and at this front I'm not sure weighing in is going to be exceptionally helpful on either end in terms of how this is proceeding through the legislature, nor with our discussions with the city of Austin. I would not want either side to think that I'm being less than open-minded and trying to in good faith get a good conclusion.
>> [inaudible].
>> yeah, I know. I can at least try and fake it. To try and get a good conclusion, whether that good conclusion occurs at the state legislature or if it occurs with good compromise and negotiation here on the home front.
>> what time will it come up tomorrow?
>> it's one of those that it's a -- the committee goes in at 10:00, I believe, and then the house goes in at 10:00 and they will have to break, so it's really uncertain.
>> pardon me?
>> if that's the direction of the court, have I no problem --
>> my motion is we authorize staff to serve as resource witnesses.
>> okay, well, i'll second that motion, judge.
>> and our position has been if I were to go over and testify as Sam Biscoe, Travis County judge, I have a right to do that. I can't say Travis County commissioners court believes so and so unless we have taken a formal action. But by authorizing staff, we basically are there in the event we are asked to respond to different questions and if asked what's the commissioners court's position, the truth is, assuming it's passed, the court hasn't taken a position yet and we're still working with the city of Austin hoping to resolve that. But we'll try to monitor this and at the appropriate time when we've given up on our ability to resolve it without legislative support, we'll come in. Does that make sense?
>> yes, sir.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you.
>> two judges are here. Susan, were you here on 1725?
>> I'm here on 1681.
>> let's let them say -- 1725 by representative stick. Related to the suspension of a driver's license for a failure to pass a test for intoxication or failure to take a blood or [inaudible] specimen test for alcohol. The problem is I assume it's just Travis County -- [inaudible] new obligation.
>> yes, sir. Right now -- well, in 1995, the law change to do create a division of state hearings officers like judges, and the department of public safety got a whole bunch of lawyers to do this.
>> and this is our hundreds of thousands of [inaudible].
>> this is judge breland from county court number 6. Actually even before '95, justices of the peace did these hearings, so I used to do them as a j.p. Then the law change understand '95 to create this whole agency and all that. Well, this bill would basically eliminate the driver's license suspension function from that state office of administrative hearings. And move that responsibility to the county courts.
>> they don't send money along with it?
>> no.
>> [inaudible].
>> well, there is -- I will say there is a filing fee. For example, if someone were arrested for driving while intoxicated and wanted to have a hearing before -- to determine whether or not his driver's license would be suspended, he would file a petition now this the county court. I assume, although the bill doesn't address it, I assume there would be a filing fee and I'm guessing it would be similar to the filing fee that's required as a petition to get an occupational driver's license, which is $171.
>> if it doesn't specifically say it, there is no authority and the auditor will not allow us to collect it. That needs to be found out quickly as to whether there is the authority or not. [inaudible] [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>> in terms of letting representative stick know about the traffic that's going to be coming in in terms of the kind of cases going there, in terms of what we could farm out to our jp offices that are more decentralized. The other question that came up is whether a master could hear these in the same way that some of the duties and responsibilities that some of our county courts at allow or district courts have been shifted to image straits. Because obviously the state felt it didn't take a supreme court justice to do these hearings. They were done through an administrative hearing of attorneys, not the most expensive lawyering you can get that a county has to offer in terms of caseloads.
>> but it's supposed to be assigned to the county court at law in which the case is filed. But usually in those cases a judge can sit for another judge. I don't know if it would be prohibited for a master.
>> we might want to work with representative stick about some of our concerns about this. Could we have these things happen off site in terms of be able to hear these things or does it have to happen at the Travis County courthouse, whereas right now these things are occurring elsewhere in the county, where you don't have to met with the traffic and the parking and all that kind of stuff. So I'm just asking the question.
>> so what's the solution?
>> we certainly are willing to work with representative stick and representative keel, but we wanted y'all to know that that would be a significant burden on not only the county courts at law, the county clerk, and the county attorney's office, although the bill doesn't say that the responsibility for representing the state would then call on the county attorney's office. I spoke to representative keel and he said their intention is to zero out that item at d.p.s. And get rid of 43 lawyers.
>> if they take 43 lawyers to do this, -- okay. N exb of those will be Travis County folk. And again, understanding that zeroing out there doesn't mean that the mandated duty and responsibility is also zeroed out. If we're talking about eliminating this from law, that's something else. But if they're talking about shifting it, we just want to ensure that we have financial capability to be able to pick up any duty that gets mandated to the county as opposed to one that's at the state. But if they're doing it for x amount of money, it's hard to imagine that we're going to do it for life.
>> I would -- while these are filed in county court, and that's kind of generic, slash civil, they are heard in the court where the crime is pending on the criminal side, which means with regards to magistration or associate judges, we have a bill hopefully to get the authority to do -- done stream from the facility to do it at that level, but we currently would not have that. So part of the representatives with -- discussions with representative stick may need to be if this inevitable, you must make sure that we get the tools we need to be as efficient as possible. I don't know if you had a dance chans to look at the memo that debra did for us, but it shows the caseload that we have right now, and the criminal county courts at law in Travis County have really a bigger caseload than other large counties in Texas already. And the people at d.p.s. Estimated that in 2002 there were 1370 of these what they call alr hearings for Travis County. And we've all spoken to a number of defense attorneys who said, you bet. These hearings are going to be in the county courthouse, we'll file a lot more of them because they don't -- most of them don't really like going to that state office. They would be much more likely to file if it were going to be in the courthouse. So I think 1370 is probably conservative. And then judge denton -- so it would be among the four county courts at law, criminal. So we just wanted to let you know. It's not that we don't want to do the work --
>> I think we need to understand the full implications if the work is shifted over there. And I think it would be best to work cooperatively with representative stick to find a more efficient way and effective way of handling this, but not inheriting a financial burden and other kinds of tools like the use of image straits to be able to deal with this. I think we want to work cooperatively with him to figure out how are we going to deal with this and offer some suggestions to him.
>> move approval of -- judge, when were you thinking about reporting back on representative stick on this particular item?
>> I don't know when the -- I don't know when hearings are set and assignments made. We just accidentally found out about this.
>> [inaudible - no mic]. My name is elizabeth earl. I'm judge of county court number 7 here in Travis County. And we just found out about this ourselves late last week. And so we don't have a lot of specifics about how much money is actually going to be shifted to Travis County, but as you can tell by the numbers, there's going to be major shifting if this does get passed, where the responsibility lies on Travis County and the numbers that we foresee is going to be pretty substantial. And we're just concerned. We just wanted to make sure everyone here was aware of that. And whatever we can do with working with representative stick, I'm sure every county court at law judge would be happy to meet with them. Like I said, I ran into him last week when I found out about this.
>> it would also be helpful to get information to him if we can find out how long does one of these hearings normally take? And again, not for today. Like gets get that -- like let's get that information if this is a 10 minute hearing or a three hour hearing or a three-day hearing. That would be good information for representative stick.
>> it can be up to that. It can be anywhere from 10 or 20 minutes up to two or three hours. So not knowing that up front, I don't know if representative stick may have that information.
>> and do these things have any kind of preference on the docket that they all of a sudden would dump other things because there are time limitations? This is all information for us to get to representative stick, not to us to be doing right now.
>> there is a limit right now, there currently are. The county attorney's office has to be aware of that.
>> I move that we find out more information.
>> second.
>> thank you.
>> and see how cheap these free lawyers will be that are let go.
>> thank you very much. Appreciate it.
>> thank y'all.
>> judge?
>> susan?
>> I'm here to talk on house bill 1681. And that's relating to the compensation for the county auditors. This is a bill that I asked representative stick to carry and the district judges made a motion when I was reappointed in September to do this. A little bit of history is that the salary of the county auditor has a lid on it and it can't exceed that of the highest paid elected official or -- [inaudible - no mic]. And what has happened is in many counties that limit has been reached. Travis County is one of those. The reason I started thinking about that when I was reappointed this time is that I could retire at the end of this term, and many counties have had trouble with previous auditors under the restrictions under this bill. Williamson county had a problem. When they're auditor retired they did a nationwide search and what they found out is that under the cap they couldn't hire an auditor. The first assistant auditor was making more than the county auditor. So they were in a position of they had to have an auditor and had to appoint someone, and they basically begged this woman to take a pay cut and be the interim auditor just out of the goodness of her heart until they could go to the legislature last time and have a local bill changed which would allow them to be able to increase that salary based on the market. With gas be 34, the -- gasb 34, the complexity of the skills with the job are certainly more than they used to be. There is also a significant amount of liability that is laid upon that with the signing. So you would want the district judges to be able to approve an auditor that had the skills to do that. If in fact I were to leave, I'm sure they could find someone that would take the job at what I'm paid because I'm paid well, but the rule there would be, and by the way, you will never get another increase until the elected officials that you happen to be benchmarked, does, regardless of your performance. That's just a whole different environment in terms of being able to improve for someone in this office. So this is the bill that was drafted to take care of that. There is probably one other auditor in the state that would fit in this category, and that's the auditor from tarrant county. She would fit into that. But that's the situation. We don't have a problem right now, we don't, and I'm not thinking of retiring right now, but if that does occur or if I were to have to leave and then you had that problem, [inaudible - no mic] and at that point you've got that office in limbo trying to see what's going to happen and [inaudible - no mic]. So that was the reason I'm thinking this may not be a bad time to get the bill in. We don't have a problem here, but it prevents having one in the future.
>> judge, I thought this one made an awful lot of sense because it really strikes an artificial cap for no reason to link this person to somebody that could be a sheriff, it could be a tax collector, it could be anyone other than one of the statutory judges. And I know that we personally found that kind of sticker shock, you know, in terms of that's what the market had done. When we started looking for an i.t. Director, we were shocked to go, it's not in this level any more? When you go out there and find these highly technical people, the market is very, very different than we last looked 10 or 15 years ago. Certainly susan has been here a long time and it builds up to a certain place, but the market is radically different than where some of these counties may think. And I certainly would not want the district judges here or in tarrant or any other large urban county, the complexity of our budget or gasb 34 to artificially have a cap. It just doesn't really make sense. It ought to be related to what that person's skill set is worth, cost of living, and they make an appropriate offer that is not tied to what you're paying your sheriff. That just doesn't seem to be a linkage that makes any kind of sense.
>> so right now this salary is tied to the district judges?
>> no, the county attorney.
>> no. In Travis County the high of the paid eleblghted official is -- elected official is the county attorney. So here right now it is tied -- it can't be higher than the county attorney. There are other counties where it's tied to the county judge. That's the highest paid. Or the county sheriff. So who it's tied to is not consistent, it's just the highest paid elected official, whoever that is at that time. It's an arbitrary tie-in because it doesn't really have anything to do with the market or the qualifications for a job that is in fact appointed. You might hire an auditor and that auditor should be paid a whole lot less than some official or a whole lot more. It's just not a comparison. You're looking at someone who has the skills, who will take the job, who is -- we're finding we were having a difficult time recruiting at two levels under me when the economy was good. Now that it's slowed d it's not bad, but if in fact the economy was low, that's one thing. [ inaudible ]. They may have a problem we recruiting. And I'm disappointed and if they have that problem, if there is no solution to it in terms of the law -- [ inaudible ].
>> so this bill basically takes away linking the salary to the county attorney?
>> yes, right the.
>> and provides what?
>> it allows the district judges to pay the auditor whatever --
>> to set the salary?
>> right, to set the salary of the auditor. And you know that cap, judge, came because traditionally there's a war in Texas between county commissioners and the auditors, but the reality is you have district judges making life and death decisions, settling multi-million-dollar lawsuits and in a way it's a sad state of affairs that you can't trust those people to set a salary of a person. It's kind of a bad thing. So you have to have confidence that they'll do the right thing. I would hope you would have confidence that they would do the right thing, but as I said, it's -- since I have the cap, since I'm my age and since in one year I could retire, this could be something that is not in -- [inaudible - no mic].
>> bob?
>> just for your information, the urban county that brought the bill to my attention wasn't sure that it was drafted, but just limited to Travis County. And so their only comment was they had no problem with raising the cap at all, but as you know, they have this traditional position that they always want the commissioners court ultimately to have that approval. And so that if it turned out to be a statewide bill, they would want to amend it to give you all approval of whatever the district courts set. So I throw that out as back background. > but the intention is for it to be local legislation?
>> I think you all intend it to be local.
>> right. Auditors' association has -- [inaudible - no mic] and [inaudible - no mic]. Very local. When this was submitted by representative stick to the -- [inaudible - no mic].
>> the legislature council?
>> they thought that if you had two restrictions on the bill, then it could be overturned. So they were the ones that suggested that it would definitely apply to Travis County because we have a -- we have other 800,000 and we have a comprehensive automated table with the checks. So it would apply to us. They he had is for a bill like this to be constitutional, it has to be possible for others to also fall in that category. So --
>> I guess what you said, bob, as far as if it is a part of the Travis County and other counties, the ultimate leverage -- I don't like to say leverage -- that the commissioners court will have the authority to agree with whatever the district judges set as far as the salary.
>> that's correct. It's the final say.
>> in other words, you need some checks and balances there. I can understand that. Basically with the budget constraints and a whole bunch of other stuff.
>> if you want to make a tech in a tall calty, technically we would have to approve the personnel amendment, which would ratify whatever that salary is. That is -- I mean, yeah, you bet, the commissioners court in this case --
>> the move for 1681.
>> second.
>> any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Any other -- okay.
>> we're here on senate bill 697. Senator barrientos has filed this as a follow-up to the parole violator bill that didn't make it last session too far. This one is a different mechanism. It requires the parole board to dispose of technical parole violations in a much shorter period of time than they currently take to do so. And kimberly is here to answer more in-depth questions about the substance of the bill, if you'd like. I wanted to point out the fact that since the senator has filed his bill, there have been five other bills filed that all try and get at the parole revocation process. Some of them are limited to technical violators, some of them aren't, but they all seem to have the same intention of vag parole violators spend less time taking up space in the county jail.
>> did we endorse this last time?
>> yes, and it was a much more aggressive bill last time. It had to do with seeking reimbursement for the county housing those inmates. That obviously isn't going to work not last time and not this time for sure. This one actually just shortens the amount of time pretty drastically that they would have, two 60 days to nine days, to dispose of that. We haven't had an opportunity yet to do a side by side analysis of this bill and the other five bills to see what all the fine points and the differences are. Some of them seem very similar, even though their language seems to be quite different. The results seem to be similar. So we're working on that.
>> move that we support it. On the theory that we basically took the lead last time and it's hard to get something like this rolling. This is one of those areas exclusively within the state's jurisdiction. They control the hearing officers and the paroleees, but those inmates are in our space. And if we don't put pressure on them -- [inaudible - no mic]. And we've gotten to number 6597 at one point --
>> it's coming back back up. If the technical violators are staying for the full 60 days and I'm not sure if that's the case or not but if they are and that's reduced to nine, it could reduce our population by about 75 inmates at any given time, which is three percent of the jail population right now.
>> how many parolees on average in our custody would be a million dollars a year. And if they're technical violators, that means the state basically has no intention of sending them back to prison and is basically teaching them a lesson. Don't get me started. All in favor of this bill, supporting this bill, it passes by unanimous vote.
>> senator barrientos and his staff asked me to let you know that they had tremendous support and help from Travis County staff, particularly kimberly, and they thought she did a great job, and they wanted you to all know that.
>> we won't be able to increase her compensation, but we can thank her along with the senator. Thank you, kimberly. [ laughter ] anybody else? Any bills? Then we'll see you all next week. We'll have our Friday meeting next Friday, next Friday, not this week. Last session we had this on Tuesday and then we triedto meet again on Friday morning in the event that we needed to. Do we need to hold off on the Friday meetings?
>> what we've been doing is at 10:30 staff and other elected officials are invited to a standing meeting where they all get prepared and I get prepared for this on Tuesday. So if we can hold off. Not that we wouldn't love to see you on Friday. [ laughter ]
>> thank you very much.
>> thank you.
>> appreciate it.
Last Modified: Wednesday, April 2, 2003 10:25 AM