Travis County Commssioners Court
April 22, 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 33
And item no. 33 is to receive status report on all Travis County emergency services districts. Commissioner Daugherty.
>> I think we have some -- a number of folks that's going to give us a very informative and a great presentation.
>> okay.
>> welcome.
>> thank you.
>> thank you. Judge, i've asked a number of esd folk to help me put together sort of help train me in this particular arena and they have done a wonderful job. And I'm not there yet on all of the intricacies, but I'm moving along and without -- without all of these folk, I mean, I would -- I would not be where I am today. So I really appreciate you all putting this stuff together and coming down. And I think that this is something that -- that all of the county folk that we have got, we have got lot of folks out there in t.v. Land watching this, because I think this is going to be very informative and especially with regards to -- I mean, I certainly have found that not everybody understands esd's completely. And the more opportunities they have like this, I think we are going to be much better off as a community. Plus, I learned something, even though I have seen this presentation so far, I'm sure that I will learn something today as well. So thanks for coming and it's you all's show.
>> by default, I get to start.
>> okay.
>> I put my glasses on because I haven't figured out the technology yet, even at 96 font, I can't read without my glasses. Judge Biscoe and Commissioners, I'm mike howe, the treasurer of Travis County esd number 2. We certainly appreciate the opportunity to be here today. As you know, as emergency service district, we are required to provide the quarterly report annually on the status of each esd. However this year we chose to provide with you a collective report and give you some insight as to how esd's are working together here in Travis County. We believe this method will give and you better understanding of the unique cooperation that's been established between all of the fire departments here in Travis County. As you will hear later, while we are talking about our esd's, keep in mind on average over 60% of our calls are medical calls, our staffs are well trained and meet the state and higher standards of the Austin Travis County e.m.s. And we are up to that challenge. Travis County now has 13 esd's serving the ever increasing population outside of the city of Austin, with first responder and medical fir services. This service area includes all of the smaller cities in Travis County, as well as most of the unincorporated portions of the county outside of Austin. Over time these departments have grown from all volunteer departments to rural fire prevention districts and now to emergency service districts. We are separate governmental bodies of the state with our own taxing authority. Unlike most other taxing authorities, esd's are constitutionally limited to a tax cap of just 10 cents per one hundred dollars valuation. At times this limit makes it very hard for esd to provide the level of services required by the growing urbanization of Travis County, where residents expect a high level of service equal or exceeding that provided by a large municipal department. But without the unlimited taxing authority of a city. Though always considered a limitation, this limitation on taxes has forced esd's to become remarkably efficient with advanced technology to a highly urbanized area. Some of the efficiency is achieved through good long-range planning and good financial management. But some of the most remarkable efficiencies are achieved through cooperative agreements between all departments. Over time these agreements have grown to the level that equipment and manpower are shared county-wide with a single phone or radio call that activates what is called the c.r.c. Or county resource coordination. Once activated, plans that are already in place allow sharing and shifting of equipment and manpower to meet any type of call from medical to fire to rescue, to most recently hazmat response. This broad range of response includes all departments in the county, including the Austin fire department. Today this model developed by the close coordination of the members of the capital area fire cheefts or ca -- chiefs or cafc, already moist notably including the houston fire department are looking for guidance on developing cooperative working relationships. Without question, when necessary, close coordination and sharing of resources is the most effective cost -- most effective means to meet the public's demands for service. Since 9/11, the public's demand for services is ever increasing with no dollars coming from any other sources than what the esd's can fund themselves. This is just one more reason to share resources and not duplicate equipment. Today, not only do we want you to become fully aware of the efficiency and effectiveness of esd's in Travis County, we want you to have a complete understanding of the leadership role that the Travis County esd's provide. Our 13 esd's are no longer the struggling volunteer fire departments of literally decades ago. Today the esd's in Travis County are efficient, well run local governments, by committed every day citizens. Collectively these departments provide a level of service equal to the demands of a growing urbanized area and stand as a recognized model of the value of efficiencies of coordinated plan responses to any emergency. Before we begin I would like the esd Commissioners here to stand and also the fire chiefs. Commissioners and chiefs, we have a fairly good turnout here. And now I would like to introduce terry from esd number 6 to actually begin our presentation.
>> thank you, mike, I'm terry browder, president of esd 6, which is the western Travis County area. I would like to talk a couple of things about what's in front of you. We have put together a mutual agreement acts, that's the blue one, that you -- give you all of the agreements throughout the county. So for you and your aides to be able to use, it's all up to date. It's -- it very easily accessed. I think this will help you in [indiscernible] the second book up there is the pictorial view of hazmat and that's pictures which was put together by mike the water -- what's that called?
>> american water works association and lcra. To give you an idea of how sophisticated we truly are, in hazmat, which is one of the big things now. Then there's another one on hazmat there and then we will talk about other things throughout the presentation. The first slide, see it says Travis County emergency service districts, a collective report. Status of all districts in Travis County. The purpose to provide county Commissioners and others with a comprehensive and collective view of emergency service districts within Travis County. Information therein comes from an effort of the capital area fire chiefs, cafca, to give fair understanding of how the esd's work individually and collectively to respond to the emergency needs of citizens who live and work in Travis County. Travis County emergency service districts have served as models for many other districts in the state of Texas. Travis County esd Commissioners have led the way to clarifying legislation affecting fire and emergency medical services, provided within the esd's throughout the state. [indiscernible] led to the formation of safed, an acronym, the state association of fire and emergency service districts. Several Travis County Commissioners serve on the board of the directors of the association which I am one. I would like to say to you also that we've had a tremendous turnout with this when we had our last conference. Commissioner Daugherty was there, we had people from all over the state, from el paso, houston, beaumont. So it's a real good turnout. There are 13 county emergency service districts. You will notice that esd 14 they skipped 13, that's for -- for certain reasons that people don't like 13. Emergency service districts in [indiscernible] are created under chapter 775 of the health and safety code. Prior to formation of districts previously, they were all ruled fire prevention districts. Fire protection in Travis County outside of the city of Austin was an accomplishment by volunteer fire departments. Those vfd's were funded by local funds raised by like barbecue, bake sales and federal revenue sharing fund distributed by the Travis County Commissioners court. As the federal revenue sharing fund dried up, so went the support from Travis County to various vfd's. In the mid '80's, most of the vfd's began to establish a ruler fire prevention district. In order to have a stable budget platform. Now, all of the rural fire districts have converted to emergency service districts, allowing for a higher tax cap of 10 cents per one hundred dollars appraised property value. So a $100,000 property will pay a maximum of $100 a year for fire protection, first response emergency medical care. This translates to $8.34, about the price of a single ticket of a movie. A real value in today's world. Today 13 emergency service districts provide fire protection and first response emergency medical care outside of the city of Austin. All of these districts and the city of Austin work together to provide a complete array of emergency response in Travis County. Collaborative efforts required to make this possible are fostered by hard work by the fire chiefs who are members of the capital area fire chiefs association, cafca. , fire protection and e.m.s. First response provides nearly all of Travis County by Austin, by one of the 13 esd's. There's only a small area in northeast Travis County not protected by any Travis County fire agencies. That area has traditionally been claimed, although loosely, by outside fire agency. This area represents a growing problem with respect to uniformly and conformity with the standard protocol. Neither the elgin vfd or the taylor fd ascribe to cafca. They do not provide emergency medical care in accordance with the standards of care promulgated by the Austin Travis County medical director. Manor and Pflugerville have routinely been called upon for emergencies in this area and that results in conflict with others who claim the service rights. And now I would like to turn the next portion over to harold lewis of e -- carol lewis of esd 4.
>> good afternoon, we are wondering who do the esd's serve. As you can see, they serve -- okay. 260,000 people over 600 square miles. Until the mid 1980's, Travis County was primarily a ruler and farming community. Rural and farming community. With the dawn of the home computer industry and the focus of a multi-cultural community in an area enveloped by development, Travis County demographics have changed rapidly. We went from being a farm and ranch community to one of high tech almost overnight. Even today, with the soft economy and municipal budget woes, development around Travis County is moving on. As you drive from the southwest to the northeast, it's nearly impossible to tell when you leave oak hill and enter Austin and leave Austin and enter Pflugerville and leave Pflugerville and enter Round Rock. It's hard to even tell. Austin is no longer surrounded by open fields of cotton and corn and cedar trees. We have come to grips with the fact that Travis County is largely a metropolitan community. Comprised of one large city and several smaller cities and local communities that function much like small municipalities. We find the same types of emergencies occurring at any one of the esd districts that we might find in the city of Austin. If you were to look at a graph of the 15 largest cities in Texas by population, you would find that Travis County esd's revolve somewhere between corpus and plano. In other words the -- about the 9th largest city. Austin is the fourth largest city. And Pflugerville and wells branch, esd number 4, is serving 65,000 residents down to volente which serves 3,000 residents. While the combined esd population is less than half that of the city of Austin, it is more than a quaer of a million -- a quarter of a million people, spread out over 600 square acres. These people demand and deserve to be cared for with first class emergency responses. Not only that, our collective population of nearly 1 million people is so fluid that you can hardly tell the difference between a county resident or a city resident. Besides that, county residents often work and spend a great deal of [inaudible] lives outside of Austin. They like to come to the lake system and other recreational avenues. We can only know the difference between a city or county resident by checking their home address. The county chief's, fire chiefs recognized this fact long ago and they began working to equalize and standardize response across the county. This was seen in the creation of the county resource coordination, c.r.c. Concept. This system involves the city of Austin fire department and creates a truly seamless response that crosses age-old concerns of pay versus volunteer fire services. Crc began as a mechanism to respond to -- to wild land or brush fires. But it quickly evolved into a system that now allows us to move equipment and personnel and resources all across the county without regard to political boundaries which exist as imaginary lines on a map. This system has even grown to include emergency units outside Travis County, so we truly have a regional response mechanickism. Mechanism. What equipment do the esd's use? We have brush trucks and class a engines, speciality units and heavy rescue unit. Obviously the diverse types of alarms responded to in the unincorporated area of Travis County affects the diversity of the fleets. The city of Austin is focused with densely developed areas requiring large numbers of class a structural engines. Outside Austin, the diversity of development and spread of population has come to dictate the fleet's compliments. With the cafca working on strategies in response for setting tactical protocols, we have been able to utilize the strengths of one or more districts to support the weaknesses of others. A system has developed that allows each district to contribute what it can to the greater need of the collective whole. All departments, including Austin, contribute to the task force response that is utilized during periods of high fire danger. All departments contribute in one fashion or another to the cafca hazardous materials response team that was recently established. Fire service's work is the same inside or outside the city of Austin. The color of the apparatus may vary, but not the mission performed. Who are the people of esd? Weave over 500 well-trained emergency responders to serve the area outside of the city of Austin compared to the 942 firefighters in Austin. Prior to the mid 1990's, there were only a limited number of paid personnel in the county fire departments. Today almost one-half of the responders in the emergency services districts are paid career personnel. They are certified by the state budget or agencies just as the city of Austin firefighters are. The emergency services for Pflugerville and hudson bend have led the way with respect to hiring paid personnel and the number of paid personnel currently on staff. Volunteer firefighters meet training requirements imposed by the various deposits and follow other standards that are proscribed for specialty skills. Delivery of emergency medical care by pay and volunteer personnel is under the common direction of dr. Rock. Only three districts remain, all volunteer. District five, manchaca, district 7 north shore sandy creek and district 14 volente. What kind of alarms do esd respond to? They respond to brush fires, vehicle fires, structure fires, and almost 10,000 emergency medical calls. Shown here is the distribution of alarms by type for 2002 and all of the emergency districts. We do have the -- have it broken down by each esd if anyone would like to review that later. This shows that the call for help in an emergency goes out in Travis County more than 43 times each day on the average. The 15,000 plus alarm volume compares to the 58,000 alarms at the Austin fire department -- that the Austin fire department had during the same period. We do have a large call volume and one reason is that Travis County is one of the largest urbanized counties in the state. With 60% of the overall call volume is medical in nature, it is clearly apparent that the esd's must be ready if a variety of emergencies just as in Austin or in any other large city. Now our next section is going to be presented by steve collier and he is president of esd 5, manchaca.
>> while we move the computer around, good afternoon, judge and Commissioners. My part of the presentation is to really take an aggregate look at the financial and operational expenses of the esd's as a whole to give you an idea of what the system looks at, like financially. Obviously, operational, administrative and personnel expenses are a critical part of making sure that all of these different departments are available to -- to respond to the alarms. Are we ready of ourselves there, juan? This takes a look at the expenditures for all of the esd's combined. For the year 2002. This does not include personnel expenses. We will take a look at that in the next slide. But I will give you a few seconds to look down through that. You can see that running a modern esd these days administratively is a fairly complex financial and administrative undertaking with fairly complex budgets that have to be prepared through the year. You can take a look at some of the expenses that we have broken out. E.m.s. Services separately, fleet operations and other operational expenses there on the left and then you can take a look at the administrative costs on the right, including things like service contracts, which includes things like the dispatch services, for example. So the total there for those overall expenditures is just under $4 million for all of the esd's combined.
>> [indiscernible] [laughter] Travis County budget?
>> [multiple voices]
>> this slide is taking a look at personnel overhead expenses, as mentioned earlier, there are really only three volunteer departments in Travis County at this point. All of the rest of them have some paid people and this originally started out for coverage during the day. A lot of people were at work. And it's gradually expanded from there. But the frequency of call volume in many of these esd's are very busy and it's absolutely essential that adequate response times be maintained in order to have an acceptable outcome for both fire and medical emergencies. So personnel and overhead is a big piece of the expense -- you can take a look there at the breakdown in terms of salaries, contract labor. Taxes is a big piece of that. Insurance is also a big piece of that. The total there for personnel and overhead costs is just under $9 million. About a half of the district's overall collective budgetings to personnel. Seems like a large percentage, but when you look at an all paid department, you see that those percentages for personnel is 85 to 90%. Really a much smaller percentage of the overall budget is going for personnel in the esd's collectively. We expect that the trend towards increasing paid staff is going to increase as the -- as the call demand volume and the populations increase in the outlying areas. There will be an expanded need to pay firefighters. It's essential if you are going to track quality personnel, you are going to have to offer competitive wages and salaries. We expect these expenses to continue to go up. This takes a look at the per call cost comparison between the esd's collectively and the city of Austin fire department. The overall cost for fire protection in the city is just over $78 million. Collectively in the esd's is not quite 13 million. So the comparison there for calls is a thousand -- 1,342 in the city of Austin versus about $820 per call in the esd's. All of this is accomplished in the esd's at a cost of 10 cents per one hundred dollars of assessed valuation or less, there are a number of esd's including mine that charge considerably less than 10 cents. But those are pretty much limited to the all volunteer departments. The city of Austin provides fire protection for Sunset Valley at a cost of 30 cents per one hundred dollars evaluation.
>> this takes a look at other capital expenditures. It's not uncommon to spend a million for a piece of fire apparatus. Down below is a broke down of capital outlays for esd's beginning with the buildings and land communications, fire house, other -- fire hose, other appliances, furniture, fixtures, so forth. The total there is just over 2 million collectively. This is a -- a look at the revenues for the esd's. Again, a property tax is the vast majority of this. Again with the 10-cent cap there is some sales tax revenue. Then we have some other things, interest income, grants, some service contracts, other service fees. So the total revenues there are -- are about 18 million -- 18,842,000 collectively, that includes the $1.88 million bond for esd number 7. That is kind of the financial overview. At this point I would like to turn things over to ken campbell from esd 10.
>> thank you, Commissioners and judge, my name is ken campbell, I'm a Commissioner with Travis County emergency services district number 10. First and foremost I want to thank you all for the opportunity to serve as a Commissioner. It has been a great expense for me. I've been there since I believe about 1996 or '97. I've been a firefighter at westlake and sea bar for over 10 years, have served all the way from firefighter up to vice-president of the volunteer fire department where I'm at, c bar to a Commissioner now. I have been able to see it from all levels. I do appreciate the opportunity. We are going to talk about at this point sort of bringing it altogether for you here. One of the things that I want to point out when we were talking about the city of Austin, doing this same thing in Sunset Valley for about 30 cents per 100 valuation, that's only for payrolls and benefits. Trucks and stations are bonded indebtedness, it comes out of an additional fund. When you look at san antonio, houston, dallas, Austin, you are looking at 50 to 60 cents per one hundred dollars valuation to provide the same services we are providing for 10 cents. Most importantly of that 10-cent our bonded indebtedness comes out of the 10 cents. We are not like school districts or others that cap a cap, but the bonded indebtedness is not within that cap. We try to put this together on an extremely limited budget. One of the things that has enabled us to do -- one of the things that we have done to enable to do this more efficiently is formed of course the capital area fire chiefs association. It is an outgrowth of the Travis County fire chiefs association, which also works with the Travis County firefighters association. The become a more more regionally organized response. We have added chiefs from Williamson county, hays county, and surrounding areas because obviously we all work together on these things, including Cedar Park which now responds into some areas of the city of Austin, but not necessarily in Travis County and other departments in bastrop county as well. We have a truly regional response. I'm proud to say that through cafca and the Travis County firefighters association and through our coordination with the crc we have been able to organize wild land response teams that have been able to travel throughout the state of Texas, in fact in 1996 I went to north Texas in the panhandle to fight their fires up there. We can supply equipment and personnel and we do this also in conjunction with the city of Austin to go elsewhere to help people because we have got a very well organized system which is trying to be emulated by other counties all over. One thing that sort of begs of question of us, if we are all doing this, working so well together, why do we have 13 districts? The answer is local control quite frankly. It's very important for the local region to control its area, its tax rates, based on its needs. And it's perceived needs and wants of its citizens. I represent a number of county-wide fire departments. County-wide districts. They are in the throes of breaking up hoacially because you have -- horribly because you have very strong competing concerns, for example, you will have a large city that contributes say 50 to 70% of the tax base, they want 50 to 70% of that tax money back to them. That doesn't raise everybody's boat. With our system, everybody gets to have the level of service they want and then we can all supplement and augment each other to provide the highest level of service available. We do that again through the county fire chief's association, which includes all of the chief executive officers, which are for our district or volunteer fire departments, they coordinate their activities. One of the most recent activities that we have coordinated, of course, is the hazardous materials response team. Where you all have supplied the trailers and different resources and we have supplied the personnel and actual equipment in the trailers to get out there and respond to these types of incidents. We have always been the first respondsers, we are the closest. The stations are right there. The term has been used quite a lot since 9/11 as first responder, we have always been there. We continue to be there and it can be anything. I have actually rescued a bird out of a tree once. It had its wings clipped, that's how we had to get it down, we are there. You will notice back on some of the calls, 2,000 or more that were unclassified. That's the real community service aspect of what we do. Going out and getting squirrels out of attics, whatever silly thing that it may be. Rounded up sheep and cows as well. But we go out and help. The volunteer fire departments from which we grew out of are still associated very strongly with their communities, which goes back to regionalism as well as the local control. Not so long ago our job was relatively simple. We simple put the wet stuff on the red stuff. As we have become a more urbanized society and county, with more threats such as weapons of mass destruction and other threats, we have grown and we have evolved to where we have organized technical rescue teams, we have medical response up to the paramedic level, all of our responders are trained and meet state certifications, as well as what are sometimes perceived are and are in some instances the more stringent Travis County standards of care that we all have to be tested on. That includes Austin fire department as well as Austin Travis County e.m.s. We are no different than any other kind of fire department. We are going to respond to whatever type of emergency or issue that we have, including construction accidents, water rescues, high rise alarms, we have all of those things, as Travis County changes, the response capability of the esd's will evolve as well to meet those changing needs. Our core challenges remain the same today. We are still ready to respond to fire, emergency, medical calls. Not only doing this. More often, we are doing a much better job of it using modern technology and tools. One of those tools that we use, again I'm proud to say that we are pioneering, the use of compressed air phone systems. The chief of Pflugerville is a well-known expert in that area, he's written articles that have been published in nationwide trade magazines, we use those systems because that puts a compressed air foam that knocks down the fire quicker with less person them and equipment. They have actually shown that type of technology is much more beneficial than the tradition putting water on the thing. It cools it down faster, moving the fire along, as you can see in the slides here, we have all kinds of capabilities from technical rescue to trench rescue, we also assist Austin Travis County e.m.s. As Austin fire department does as a first responder. The star flight coordination as well. One of the significant roles one of the significant role , our response to the new threat. All of the emergency services district working under the auspices of cafca, I mean all of the departments in cafca participate to one extent or another. County Commissioners should know that their efforts to provide equipment [indiscernible] that we can all be proud of. Labor, equipment and management so that we are ready to respond to the hazards in our community, whether the hazard is domestic or foreign, like weapons of mass destruction. And we along with the city of Austin respond to a huge number of knees types of calls -- these types of calls, especially after 9/11. You can see in the lower right corner there of the slide, we have one of our Travis County hazardous materials response teams trailers that you all have so graciously provided to us. Fully outfitted. One of the things I'm proudest of, down in the lower left corner you can see where it says regional response. All of the different patches and badges of our different departments that participate in this. That includes more than just Travis County departments. We are very proud of that. Very grateful for the assist assistance that you have provided us. We have also learned that our teams need to work together as one. We train together using common methods by bringing the team members together. Regardless of the uniform the person wears, there is the common thread that binds these individuals that is to serve the citizens of our community the best of our ability. We are fortunate to have both paid staff and value tear staff who could -- vol tear staff what do that saving the taxpayers an enormous amount of money in payroll. If we had to pay more than 500 volunteers, we would really not be able to provide dmiend of -- any kind of service to the level that we do now. We are actually helping the citizens of Travis County dramatically. In light -- a lot of our paid staff comes from our volunteer staff. I think it's fair to say a great number of them get trained and we have that evolving growing family type of atmosphere in our departments. Travis County emergency services districts and fire departments working together under the auspices of cafca will continue to work together. One of the latest things that we have done is the technical rescue capability. We have had for a number of years individual departments that are able to do different -- various levels of technical rescue and we've some that train together, technical rescue teams that are county-wide before. We are back to that same concept again. Able to provide a level of service equal to the city of Austin or Austin Travis County ems. In a lot of levels. In some districts to the same or higher level. Most importantly, we have we deliver our services in a prompt, efficient and economical manner. We appreciate your assisting us in doing that for the citizens of Travis County. I will open it up now to questions if you have any.
>> questions?
>> comments. A couple of questions for ya. First thing that I would just like to say thank you to everyone here and also the troops back on the home and your Commissioners. The amount of time and energy that is put into the emergency service districts is incredible. I think there are a lot of people in this community who truly do not understand nor appreciate what you all are doing 24/7 on our behalf. I think the five of us do, but it's time that we said that out loud as well. Your departments are also responsible for being the first jobs for a lot of folks that are considering careers in the firefighting business. And I want to acknowledge chief don smith who working with Travis County is training a lot of those young people who not only go on to jobs in you all's departments, but also in the city of houston as well. That is a great, great career with a future. I also want to acknowledge that the esd's, not only in terms of taking care of the public safety aspects of this, you do things like fill the boot, work on food pantry items, fire education programs, especially for school children, I want to acknowledge what you all's role is in that, the santa on the fire truck distributions of things around christmas time. My question really is how can we deal with some of the challenges that you all are facing. The biggest one is that buying power of 10 cents is not what it used to be. If you have any information about what might be going on across the street over at the state capitol about is there any relief in sight related to the 10-cent cap. Second, I see chief smith here, annexations, how it's eating to some of you all's tax bases, how you are working cooperatively to deal with the annexation issues and erosion of your tax bases. Finally I would like to get your input we have asked you all through the esd's to give us feedback as we totally rewrite the e.m.s. Interlocal between Travis County and the city of Austin. And the missing link there is that we have a relationship with the city of Austin. We have a relationship -- we have relationships with the small cities, the small cities have the relationships with the esd's, trying to figure out ways to pull it altogether. But we need to get your input as we totally rewrite that interlocal that moves from an interlocal that presumes when we will build this consolidated e.m.s. System to hello, we have the combined e.m.s. Sand now how do we pull it altogether. So looking forward to the -- the input from all of the esd's about what would you like to see built within that. So really got e.m.s. Interlocal, annexation issues and the buying power of the 10 cents would be my three questions that I have.
>> ken may have some responses.
>> as far as the legislature goes, we are working right now with the legislature. We have a senate joint resolution sponsored by senator madla to raise our cap to 20 cents per one hundred dollars valuation. Previous to last session, we had an interim committee report from the house urban affairs committee, karred a bunch of legislation as a result of that where we educated the legislature on what we do through safety. One of the recommendations was to go to 20 cents. That's still not enough. As you can tell, the cities do it for a lot more. And -- but we are going to go to 20 cents is what we are trying to do. Obviously that is a very tough row to hoe. Especially in the legislature who doesn't like to see tax increases. We don't see it as a tax increase, we are helping them to understand that. We are raising the maximum bar, but we would also have to go through a state-wide referendum because it changes the constitution and then back to our local communities and have a local referendum on whether or not we can go to that new mexico tax cap. That's working its way through. I don't feel that it's going to be that successful. I hope that it is. It's a matter of ed came is. If not, like in '87 we will come back with a new type of district. That's why we have rural fire prevention districts ... Came back with a new type of district called an esd. We may come back with a homeland security district or something like that next time around. But as far as the annexation goes, I am also a city attorney in a couple of towns here in Travis County. I work with a number of other cities. We have no intention to keep cities from growing. That is a very important dynamic and having a healthy, stable and functional city. We understand that. The problem that we have is that we have, as with probably a lot of cities, a lot of cherry picking. In other words the city going in and picking the most desirable areas that will cost them the least amount of money to serve and make them the most amount of money. That leaves us with areas that are harder to serve. In fact, not to pick out any particular areas, but I think chief smith can give you some perfect examples of where they will not guilty and annex a street an leave us the houses at the ends of the block that don't have any water service or hydrants. But they will take all of the rest. Out in davenport west, westlake, they just annexed davenport west. They took the mudd and left us five houses right there in the middle of everything else they serve. Chief smith is having to run through big chunks of the city of Austin to get where he wants to get. Four separate islands, actually more than that. We also in westlake are having that same problem. C bar not yet because it would cost them a lot to annex us, you are seeing them doing a lot of cherry picking. I understand the economic reasons for that. I think the cities need to understand as well our economic reasons for asking for a pro rata portion of what they annexed back from them. Because we do long-range planning just like everything else does. We have five and 10 year plans to replace vehicles, make sure that we can supply personnel. You are going to take a big chunk of our base leave, we ask that you pay your proportional share of that, and help us to provide the services. If we start defaulting on our bonds or lease purchases or defaulting on other debt obligations, we are going to have a big problem throughout the whole district then the county is going to have a big problem. This is just a way of asking Austin and other cities to share with us the cost of doing this long-range planning. They have done that, been fairly good partners about it. We are excited about that, but we still think annexation is also an -- always an issue of if you are going to take one area, please take the other area so we don't have to run to one house at the end of the street. Finally the coordination, overall enhancement of the system. Really the interlocal agreement, there's been obviously different comments about that. You all have heard a lot of those. I would say that as a practical matter, the interlocal agreement should not have been combined into one document. What you have there is trying to combine the provision of services with the idea of the cities, the other municipalities out there have to have an interlocal agreement in order to receive the transport services through the can the or the -- through the city of Austin, through the Austin Travis County e.m.s. System. One thing that I think is very important, we need to separate those out. One you have to remember no other city other than the city of Austin has any responsibility for emergency services in Travis County. In previous interlocal agreement, you asked those cities to provide you with space for the ambulances. With personnel to run them. That's what the obligations were. Well, that's -- that's one thing, but they don't provide that. They had to come back to us, the districts, saying you need to provide this. We didn't have a contractual relationship with anybody. And that's -- that's one of the things that need to be fixed. If we are going to participate, we are separate political subdivisions even though we do answer to y'all, then we need to be in the mix. You need to have a separate agreement for the cities as far as just e.m.s. Transport and then have another as far as the system. And that's what I think is very important. I received the documents about that thick right now, I'm working my way through it. But I think we're on the right track this time. I don't think we were on the wrong track last time. I just think we have learned there may be better ways to do it. As far as your contract with the city of Austin for the transport services out there, we would just like some input as to how it works. One of the issue that's we've had is making sure that everybody plays under a unified command systems. We've had problems with individual units, sometimes it's ours, but when the ambulance comes out there, they sort of look at themselves as we are over here, doing our paramedic thing. That's great. But we have got an accident here and overall scene that we are trying to work, we can't have people free-lancing that we don't know what's going on. Work within the incident command system. It's mandated by law that we have to follow the incident command system. It is not mandated for the e.m.s. Person necessarily. That's one of the things that we are talking about, we would like to coordinate. As far as technical rescue, one of the things that I talked about earlier, we have that capability. I will not say that all of us, all of the entities are nearly up to the level of Austin Travis County e.m.s. Or the city of Austin e.m.s. Or the city of Austin fire department. But we do have individual departments who have that capability and could do a very good job of it and combined we can do a good job of that. And coordinating that kind of technical response is very important because if i've got paramedics coming, we are all emt's out there, you can get anybody up and down a rope, you can tie them up to the end of it, drop them down. It's getting the patient up, proper people to the patient, most importantly if you have to retrieve that patient, tough have people who know how to do police system and pulley systems and haul systems, that's where the city of Austin personnel can fit in. They can relief that area by going over and having us establish a hall system. Takes very few with the patient relatively system. But more importantly they are paramedics, maybe we need to get them down the rope and let us worry about the technical rescue part of it. We have gotten a lot of great response from the city of Austin. Meetings with them in all of the regional areas. I'm very excited about where we are going. Richard harrington everybody over there has been excellent to work with. We are very pleased with where we have gone on some of these issues.
>> thank you.
>> I have one question. [indiscernible] problem as such, but as far as getting the amount of service that they are requesting. Where are we on that? I know maybe manor, Pflugerville, somebody is still serving that area, the problem as far as service coming from other areas to actually deal with that and I know we've had some -- some calls on that. I did pose the question for somebody to look into it from those esd's to make sure that no one voids service. [indiscernible] person may not be served. I want to make sure that what we are doing, I hear your presentation, I think it's great, I think that everybody is doing a great job. But those persons that are listening, I want to make sure that everybody is going to get the service that they deserve and need to have from some emergency service esd, 12 in this particular case. Where are we on that, I guess as far as --
>> Commissioner Davis, if I could defer to --
>> could somebody address that.
>> I was going to ask chief mullenberg to possibly give you some insight. Because I know he met with these folks, we will provide some service in that area, but he may have some better insight. [multiple voices]
>> hear from somebody on that [indiscernible] make sure that everybody is in service. How are you doing.
>> > very well, how about yourself.
>> fine, good having you.
>> it's good to be here again. The question about the no man's land in northeast and Travis County, I asked the chief to step forward with me. We have been in meetings with the elgin fire department in particular on that area. And I'm -- I imagine that the greatest problem, david will probably address this more directly. It's more of a territorial kind of thing. My aunt lives there, I'm going to continue to serve that.
>> right.
>> it creates a problem for us within the district because first off, we have an obligation that technically ends at that district line. However, none of us have ever denied or turned our back on a call for help. But we are technically spending taxpayer dollars to subsidize another area that especially gets a free ride in the process. The other concern I think the program hit upon and my concern, we develop more on the eastern side, state highway 130 is certainly going to make a definite difference in that. More people out there, hence more calls for emergency medical care.
>> exactly.
>> and -- and chief krause's group and my group are the only -- the two closest groups, we adhere the standards of care according to dr. [inaudible] because we are part of the systems. They are not a part of the systems so they don't necessarily adhere, knowing that elgin does not provide first response emergency medical care, so that leaves a gap. It kind of puts the pressure on david's group, my group to step in and fill the gap. I don't know. But -- I don't know how long we can go on and do that. I think that's a collective problem that maybe county government and esd's even the medical director need to become involved in if we are going to somehow bring that into one of the esd's, if you will.
>> do you have anything to say?
>> yes, sir. That's pretty much the -- the same problem that we run into. Since the chief and I met with the group, I have also met with members of the black land prairie homeowner's association there and have expressed to them somewhat of an urgency that they need to be brought into either our district or into the esd 2. Be able to continue to provide these services. As chief mullenberg was saying, if nothing else it's a fairness that -- that everyone else in this district is paying taxes. They are getting the same service provided to them. Our district and by district 2 at no tax rate that's being collected. They were going to talk with -- with their property owners, excuse me, about the possibility of -- of petitioning for -- for an election to be brought into either esd 12 or esd 2. I have a made numerous attempts to contact these people over the last couple of months and have heard nothing from them.
>> okay.
>> so right now we are just kind of at a stalemate.
>> right. Okay. Well, concerns were brought to my attention, of course the no man's situation. First you have the evidence -- [indiscernible] -- I guess the point is it's being worked on as far as them petitions to be brought into the esd, then we can go ahead and serve them, but my whole point why working on that, while it coming to an end, we don't want to deny them service.
>> no. They are still getting the service.
>> right. That was my main concern. While you are working out the little details of how they can be included in the process, they need to go through to be included. Like I said, [indiscernible] black land prairie neighborhood group, in that area, bastrop county, Travis County line. So I appreciate those comments and that was a concern. Thank you very much.
>> any concluding remark?
>> none from us, just appreciate the opportunity.
>> do you all meet periodically?
>> I think virtually every esd will meet on at least a monthly basis if not more often.
>> in terms of you all getting together --
>> no, cafca meets once every month. In fact I think they had a meeting last night.
>>
>> [one moment please for change in captioners]
>>
>> > if you would just like to join precinct 3. [laughter].
>> actually you have a piece of 4.
>> thank you all very much. Appreciate it.
>> thank you again. Good to see you.
Last Modified: Wednesday, April 23, 2003 5:52 PM