Travis County Commssioners Court
March 18, 2003
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Item 9
9. Review and take appropriate action on grant proposals, applications, contracts, and permissions to continue: a. Approve grant application to the u.s. Fish and wildlife service through the Texas parks and wildlife department for funds to assist the county in the purchase of seven tracts of land with endangered species habitat for the balcones canyonlands preserve; total grant is $19,444,662 and a 25 percent county match of $4,861,166 is required.
>> good morning.
>> I did read the backup. And the part about -- 10 million dollar grant, for this year being outstanding, contract not signed.
>> that's correct. They haven't returned the executed contract yet.
>> okay. We are not reading into that. It's just a matter of -- of delay or --
>> that's what I'm told.
>> what we have done on this is to hope that new development, new evidence, new development will enable to us generate the county's match and the other thing is that the commitment really becomes firm at the time of execution of contract covering a particular tract. And historically this is coming in pieces rather than a lump sum.
>> yes, sir, that's correct.
>> there has been one possible change that caused us to make a minor revision in this grant proposal since we submitted it to you. That's the possibility that they will no longer allow us to use any kind of revenue that's derived from mitigation to meet our match. In the past we used this rather extensively, but our matching funds have increasingly come from the t.i.f. Revenue rather than participation certificates or mitigation donations, we don't expect a change in policy to affect us as significantly as it would have in the past.
>> is this only on the mitigation and not the p.c.'s, participation certificates?
>> it would also include participation certificates. In fact, they asked us to remove the statement that we would use participation certificates as -- as to make our matching funds, they asked us to remove that statement from this proposal. However, the policy change hasn't been made final in -- and I'm given to understand that there -- there's still discussion going on at all levels of fish.
>> the participation certificates by all of our viewers that are listening are when folks can pay a fee to piggyback on the county and city's permit. Sometimes a particular developer is told by fish, go pay money into the bcp fund in terms of for mitigation. But as was stated, there's less and less of that because of our t.i.f. Is really the lion's share of where the mope is coming from. -- money is coming from. If you look at what's going on in development, there's very little development out there when anybody is asking to piggyback to do develop out there.
>> the t.i.f. In fy 2003 was at 2,070,000, expected to be at least that much if not more next year. We are reviewing that in conjunction with t.n.r.
>> when will you have answers as far as knowing, after your review --
>> usually that occurs during the budget process. I would suspect may --
>> usually a prelim from art corey because it's something in flux in terms of he's not required to give us the certified tax roll until late July. We absolutely know by late July, though.
>> I think t.n.r. Is in the process of identifying those parcel that's are new -- parcels that are new construction for fy '04. They forward that to art corey's staff, do us a preliminary run which we automatic to see in the next 60 days to the amount of that t.i.f. I think that you are aware of the development going in volente, which is part of this t.i.f. Real estate. And the lake area. So we would anticipate that that t.i.f. Would go up this year from the 2,072.
>> a lot of is -- 2,072,000.
>> Cedar Park, the deer park is coming in.
>> how much of the 4.8 million do -- sits somewhere when -- what is the total amount that we have on stand.
>> the understanding that I have from donna williams at t.n.r. Who has been working on this is that only 263,000 currently is not committed. Out of the current budget of 6.4 million. Or 6.5 million rounded up. And there's also some -- some grant fund that might be left over that -- that that money might need to go towards as well. But there's 263,000 currently, not committed.
>> but if we had no activity at all, I mean, we have enough money to -- to take on the 4.8 million dollar match?
>> it would take approximately two years in the t.i.f. To make up the 4.8. Our experience in the past, that it's taken that long normally to -- to fully utilize say $19.4 million federal grant. So -- so p.b.o. Feels comfortable that the t.i.f. Flow will adequately provide the matching funds.
>> this is -- sorry, judge.
>> this is a -- the -- from September 2003 to September 2008.
>> that's correct. They give us five years to complete it. But exceptions are -- extensions are given generously if needed, typically.
>> but we would expect the federal money to flow down over a period of years and not just one day we look out and see a check for $14.5 million.
>> that's correct.
>> so we really have an opportunity to kind of plan for receiving grant funds generated local match and so unless it happens much shorter than a two year period, you think that we will generate t.i.f. Funds to cover the local match?
>> that's correct.
>> now, the 10 million that related to contract 4, that was a firm grant award to us.
>> that's correct.
>> yeah.
>> and it's just a matter of executing the paperwork by the federal government to finalize it?
>> yes, sir.
>> and -- whatever local match we are supposed to provide for [inaudible] is covered.
>> that's correct.
>> again, that's 6.8 kind of sitting there. We have a bunch of deals in the cue and we are waiting on information from new mexico about what to offer certain people, through there's a queue of property owners, all willing sellers, if something falls out, there's another property owner ready to move up in the queue in terms of the distribution of those dollars.
>> that's correct.
>> since we filed the application we feel pretty good about our chance of getting the grant award?
>> we have been a consistent favorite in the past. It's becoming harder to predict these days. But -- but i've -- I understand that we have already ranked real well. Just because of the number of species that we are preserving and the local efforts, the local efforts that have already taken place and how close we are to finishing this project is appealing to get it finished,.
>> melinda is very modest, we have been ranked consistently as the number one proposal in the united states, I think largely because of the quality of the grant application of the folks that work for Travis County. We are now more than 90% complete, so they are wanting to finish us off and are more likely to give it to somebody close to finishing as opposed to all of the habitat conservation plan that's are out there that are barely off the ground. They have a great desire to get us finished.
>> if we get this, will it enable us to complete the bcp?
>> well, that will depend on -- it will get us very close, I'm not sure it will be the very last grant, but we are close. If we take several years to spend this money, then we are -- we are looking at the possibility of prices fluctuating and of course that keeps happening. One of the reasons we need to go ahead and ask for the money as quickly as possible is because we can't negotiate a written contract until we have the award in hand. And even though we may not have the funds ready to -- to bring a purchase contract to you and close the deal until later, we need to go ahead and start the deal. Start the appraisal process and the surveys and some things that can be very time consuming.
>> had this ever been tested? What exposure do you really have with the county, melinda, if -- if unforeseen -- take the worse case scenario. You topt get the federal dollars. You have a verbal agreement to somebody to -- to purchase their property. What -- I mean, is there an obligation that the county has for -- to step up to the table to do that or has that been tested?
>> we won't be getting ours in that position because we won't bring a purchase contract to you until that grant award has been fully executed by both parties.
>> well, except for the fact that -- I mean, if you have sun out there, we obviously know a couple of people that we are dealing with and there has been a lot of time take place, with regards to them anticipating this purchase taking place, and if all of a sudden, you know, we really can't do that, because we don't have -- have the federal dollars, what exposure do we really have -- maybe that's more of a legal question. Does anyone -- Karen, do you know? Has that ever been --
>> basically if we don't have those federal dollars, we would be solely dependent on the t.i.f. To be the source of any kind of dollars that we bring down. In terms of how we handled that in the past, quite frankly [inaudible] we did it in phases, we knew that we could not bite it all off in one big chunk. Toman was done in three different phase his, that one last little piece to get done. Some of these land owners are willing to say take what you can, kind of a pay as you go kind of thing. Right now we are the only game in town out there because of what's going on with development. Shut down. So we are seen as hey we will work with you. And they have been very patient and many of them have set, phasing agreements, we adopt care, as long as we know that you are in an acquisition phase with us. They have been very, convenient generous with their --
>> as individual tracts are brought to the court, at that time we have the discretion to say yea or nay.
>> yes, sir.
>> especially when it comes to spending county money.
>> absolutely.
>> if we think we ought to not do it, that would be the time to say nay. So far we have figured out a way to work our way through these challenges, basically.
>> if we were stuck in terms of no federal grants, we would still be able to use the pc's and mitigation funds solely. It's just the good thing about having the t.i.f., What we had been using before, we can get a 3 to 1 match out of the feds. But if it goes away, we just have corpus there, that money doesn't go as far.
>> that's true. We are still at liberty to use any of these mitigation revenues to buy land outright on our own, we can't use it as matching fund for federal, to match federal money.
>> without the federal money, it would simply take a lot longer to get it done.
>> that's correct.
>> it's all so clear now.
>> I would love to second this motion.
>> I make the motion.
>> second.
>> any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
Last Modified: Wednesday, April 2, 2003 10:25 AM