Travis County Commssioners Court
May 13, 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 27
27. A. Discuss legislative issues, including proposed bills, and take appropriate action. B. Consider other bills, if any, in response to action taken by the legislature, and take appropriate action. And while we are getting set up, we did get I guess I got from Commissioner Gomez and she got from t.a.c. A list of bills that they would like our assistance on. Some of these we have been working on this year already.
>> actually, it's from cuc, judge.
>> from cuc, okay. Some of them really probably one of the 227 e-mails that came in over the last three days, which I did not get through this morning.
>> I was trying to say if we want to highlight a couple of them to really try to help on we could. Do you recall any offhand, Commissioner?
>> no -- [indiscernible]
>> there is one here where there is a proposal to abolish the fund dedicated to fair defense, which we would oppose because although we have not gotten much, we have gotten something from that fund, probably $250,000 to help offset our [multiple voices] so I move that we indicate our opposition to that along with -- along with a short letter explaining that this amount of money really covers a small percentage of our total cost, that's 3318.
>> second.
>> that motion was to indicate our opposition to that one for the reasons indicated. Any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote with Commissioner Davis temporarily away from the dais.
>> he's coming.
>> I support it, judge.
>> okay. Unanimous support of Commissioners court.
>> good morning, judge. We just have a few items. [papers shuffling - audio interference]
>> I guess everybody is aair that the capitol has made its way into the national headlines. I -- neither bob nor I really have any sense of what the likely outcome of all of this is. But just in terms of the mechanics we would tell the court that Thursday at midnight is the announced time that the house members who are currently out of state have indicated they hope to stay out of state until. At that time, rules of the house kick in that would require a suspension, a two-thirds vote of the house in order to bring up house bills that have not been already placed on the house calendar. That have not already been voted out of the house. Any other matters basically that have been killed this week, including all of the matters that have died in committee. The dpraks have one third -- the democrats have one third of the votes, mother than one third of the votes, such that in theory they would be able to control the agenda if they were to reconvene after Thursday at midnight because the rules would have to be suspended, they could block that suspension if they chose to do so. There may be a negotiation at this point about which matters speaker craddick and the democrats might agree to suspend the rules for to bring up or speaker craddick may choose not to negotiate. It is very unclear, I think, to probably even to the speaker and the leader of the democrats that are gone, what the likely outcome of this is. As we look through your agenda, fortunately, the -- a significant percentage, a high percentage of the matters that you have filed in the house have already left the house. And were over in the senate. Or they are senate bills that are in pretty good shape. So really there's not a tremendous amount on your agenda that is going to fall victim to what has happened here. However, stay tuned. I think anything is possible and early adjournment might be possible with a special session called immediately. It may be possible that they will come back and reach a compromise on bringing up everything except congressional redistricting and perhaps move forward as if nothing ever happened. I doubt that. But all is possible still at this point. So stay tuned. There are --
>> can I ask you a couple of questions.
>> yes, sir.
>> does the lack of a quorum for the full house meeting prevent the committees from meeting, also?
>> no, sir. It does not. However the committees may not meet without the speaker's permission and the speaker has decided not to give permission for the committees to meet. Therefore there have been no committee meetings and as of a little while ago, there will be no committee meetings until a quorum is returned to the house.
>> [indiscernible]
>> possibly Friday morning.
>> and then the senate is still meeting, everything is still going on on the senate side?
>> yes, ma'am. The senate has been meeting in regular session and committee meetings.
>> fil question that i've got is just procedurally, if indeed we do have a special session, is that one where anything goes or would the governor basically have to give permission for these are the things that you may bring up during a special session.
>> by constitution the only items eligible for consideration in a special session are those items which the governor places on the agenda.
>> okay. Thank you. All right. I might quickly mention four bills, house bill [indiscernible] the omnibus transportation bill passed the house as was reported to you last week. It contains some amendments that this court requested. It has been received in the senate, but not yet referred to committee. So there's no further information to report on that matter yet. Our goal on that bill is going to be to protect the amendments that you have requested, make sure that we explain them adequately to the senate staff and make sure that any other changes that might be considered on the senate side are not detrimental to your concerns. House bill 1365 the clean air bill, we like the version that the senate passed as opposed to the version that the house passed. Confer reeds were appointed for that bill. Conferees were appointed. They do not include anyone from the Austin area. They have been appointed. The conference committee to my knowledge is not planning to meet, but probably just to work out something and circulate a report. So we have an interest in that conference committee and will be talking basically to the senate conferees to ask them to try to hold on to their version of the bill in the areas that we care about. The house bill 1204, which is the e.t.j. Bill, is sitting in the senate i.g.r. Committee, senator madla has not brought that bill up at this time. There was a meeting last night that senator wentworth hosted who is of course the senate author of that bill, along some of the interested -- among some of the interested parties in an attempt to see if it might be possible to reconcile their differences. I guess that I would kind of think of that group as the Texas municipal league, aka the city of Austin versus several other interested party in the legislation. I understand Commissioner Daugherty that you were in attendance at some or all of that mention and I was not, so I invite your comments or reflexes on where that stands if you would like to add anything. To my report.
>> obviously t.m.l. Has some issues with a couple of the things that have been asked to be added. Obviously t.m.l. Is there to tell you that the city of Austin is one of their clients. Whether or not the senator will take it and try to take on, you know, the added language, I mean, I know probably about as much as you do. It was pretty clear that, you know, we were going to go forth with the added things. The specific things with regards to typical of what happens where people are trying to find themselves with a little relief, if you will, from -- from the city. But obviously given that -- that -- again t.m.l. Is one of their major clients, the city of Austin, they were very opposed to a couple of opinions. So I think that joe is going to take it on the senator today. You will probably find out before I will as to where he stands with that.
>> that process is working along. I think obviously other cities and other counties around the state have a big interest in that bill, although I think the general perception is that none have as -- as great an interest as the county of travis and the city of Austin. So that is -- I think we are -- where a majority of the focus of attention has been. I -- I do not have a sense at this point what senator wentworth's intentions are in terms of moving the bill forward or if -- if he has the votes on that committee, you know, to move a bill forward. It's just not -- not clear to me at this point.
>> what about the bills affecting -- local bills -- as far as the grandfathering of [indiscernible] I think it was 2212 and 1569, is that -- those two ills, where are they at this time?
>> I'm sorry, which ones?
>> I believe it was 2212 and 1669.
>> what do they relate to, though.
>> > webberville, the city of webberville, the unincorporated area of webberville?
>> I believe the house bill has passed. The senate bill is sitting there. It's on intent. It's on the intent calendar for the full senate to consider. And that -- it was on there and it may have been pulled off. I will check that for you.
>> please check the status of those situations and -- and I know they will be reconvening I guess maybe Friday maybe, maybe Monday, I don't know when. Also -- I'm sorry, go ahead.
>> it's senate bill 1569 by madla. Placed on the senate intent calendar, still there. But it's been there since last week, which means -- well, it could mean a few things, but I suspect he doesn't have the votes to bring it up is one possible reason. The other reason he hasn't been recognized on it. So we don't know.
>> [indiscernible] landfills, by senator gonzalo barrientos.
>> that bill, we have been working with isn't it true barrientos' office, we have submitted language and we have made no progress, though, in trying to get -- to get, you know, language that would be acceptable. So it looks like that bill is not going to make it at this point.
>> okay.
>> the last bill that I would mention has a couple to bring to the court's attention is house bill 1's budget, I would just simply te the court that -- that the conference committee has been meeting on the budget, the conferees are not amongst those who are missing in action and they plan to finish their deliberations by Sunday night. This Sunday. And originally planned to put a bill on the house and senate floor sometime early next week. There are several potential problems with them putting a budget bill on the floor right now that relate to the uncertainty of passage of certain other legislation which was intended to help fund the budgets that each side has passed. For example, house bill 2, which is the major government reorganization bill, is -- is a likely or possible victim of the current lack of a quorum right now in the house. At bill was to have generated a significant amount of money in its consolidation of a number of state agency functions. In addition the franchise tax bill, which many partnerships and business interests had concerns about did not come out of committee. It is passed the deadline. There is at least one other vehicle out there that that could be put on. But it will also die if the house does not reconvene before Thursday at midnight. That bill was to have generated approximately $400 million for the current budget and there are a series of other matters. The tax related one -- [indiscernible], in my mind, there is a -- there is a great lack of clarity and certainty about how the house or senate could actually adopt a budget as things stand right now without having perhaps a better sense of the outcome with some of these other major pieces of legislation. Our interest in that, of course, is that the senate by and large has more money in some of the areas that we believe will have a direct impact on county budgets and your subsequent budget year. So -- so we are hopeful that a number of areas, the conference committee will go with the senate recommendations on the budget, but obviously if the money is not there, to do that, that can't happen.
>> let me just ask this final question. The bills that have -- that have survived in the past -- and passed to the house, are they basically depicted, here, in other words? It just appears to me that those bills that have survived and may be actually looked at after the -- the legislature reconvenes, on the house side, are they depicted in here, per se, those that are surviving?
>> yes, sir. In the report that you have?
>> yeah.
>> yes, sir.
>> okay. Okay. Because I just now got this. So -- this is just -- this was just given to me. So all of the bills that we have before us now are the ones that have -- that have survived the house and may be considered when the legislature reconvenes whenever they do?
>> the reports that you have is a comprehensive report, so we have not taken up bills that might be affected by what's happening in the house. However --
>> okay, go ahead.
>> however as chris indicated earlier, the bills on priority list 1, most of those have already come out of the house, so we will have some time in the senate to get those passed. The ones that are coming over from the senate, for one -- except for one, assuming that the house comes back and they start having committee meetings again to consider senate bills, then I think we will have time to get those senate bills passed through the house. Now, again, that's all contingent on what happens and what kind of -- what kind of --
>> you really don't know at this time.
>> we don't know.
>> I guess what you are suggesting, the ones that -- the -- these are the ones that may be given the house consideration after the legislature reconvenes, is that -- is that what we are saying?
>> that's -- that's correct. The ones on this first list, they are -- they are probably in as good of a position short of being passed as they can be. We are not really taking a real big hit that we can tell just yet.
>> okay. Thank you.
>> sure.
>> [indiscernible] has two other bills that we just want to bring to the court's attention. One is the hcr seeking permission to sue the county that representative harkman filed. That is set for hearing on Thursday morning. Again, we don't know if the committee will even meet. At this point it doesn't look like they will. That concurrent resolution has to pass the house and the senate. So -- so I -- you know, it -- [indiscernible]
>> [inaudible - no mic]
>> that's correct.
>> so it's hazards to say how that will -- it's hard to say how that will resolve itself right now.
>> [indiscernible]
>> that's correct.
>> [indiscernible]
>> I assume it's -- I should be there at 8:00?
>> yes. On this --
>> if the committee meets.
>> judge, unless we call you and tell you that the meeting is on, I would presently plan not to have to be there.
>> the report doesn't show the room number, but we will get that and get it to you prior to Thursday.
>> all right.
>> the other bill that will [indiscernible] relating to that is the bill allowing counties to be sued in contract. That has not yet been placed on the -- on the house calendar. It's the senate bill. But we are still having discussions with different groups trying to make some changes to that. So-- so I think we can report to you better next week as to any progress that we might have there. But that's -- I don't think that's the end of that story there. We are also just -- these are a couple of -- of smaller items. We are working on a couple of amendments, one to exempt the wildlife preserves from that -- from the wild animal law and then also trying to work to get the -- the 1445 procedural amendments on to the wentworth-baxter bill. Other than that, we will be happy to answer any questions.
>> is that hb 5 -- what? I'm sorry, hb 544, [indiscernible]?
>> that's correct, right.
>> all right.
>> [indiscernible]
>> on the main bill that drops it from 60 days to 30 days, the senate refused to concur in house amendments and so a conference committee had been reported. So we will file that conference committee closely -- we will follow that conference committee closely and hopefully we will preserve most of what is in there.
>> okay.
>> the house is -- has not appointed conferees yet, but the [indiscernible] from our perspective.
>> the size of the election precincts. I think it might be the 1701.
>> yes.
>> where is it?
>> it's passed the house, went directly to the administration committee in the senate. And so we are expecting it to go directly to the local and consent calendar in the senate and then on to the governor.
>> great. That's a good one.
>> [inaudible - no mic]
>> okay.
>> as long as one of them gets through. > I might make two other comments, judge. One, I think this session is likely to set a new record for bills being tacked on to other bills depending on how things play out. There would be some -- some opportunity, I suspect, to pass some things and people are going to be looking for vehicles and ways to do that. So -- so we may have some opportunities to do that with some of your agenda, but we probably frafngly are going to be more concerned about what other people might be doing that could be a problem or be a negative toward the county's interest. That is going to be, I think, a primary focus of attention I think over the next several days. The other thing that I would just mention, I think you all have probably seen reference to this in the papers, we may have mentioned it before. People are openly talking about a special session of the legislature in the fall, probably September or October of this year to talk about school finance. My guess is that a number of things, even budget represented things, that don't get fully considered this session as a result of what has happened officer the last 48 hours will possibly be considered at that time as well. It may be -- it may end up being a broader special session, perhaps, than what might have been originally envisioned. So I think you will have the luxury of having us before you and the legislature in town for at least another month or two this year beyond your regular expectations.
>> is the session your last opportunity to challenge the appropriateness of -- of tacking on an amendment? Or can you go into court after the bill becomes law and challenge the --
>> the simple answer to your question is no. Once it passes the legislature it is deemed cleansed of any procedural or technical violations, including in many cases, as I understand it, constitutional questions like posting of local bills and whatnot. I think that once it passes and is signed by the governor, it is basically not subject to challenge. There may be some minor exceptions to that, judge, but as a general statement, I believe what I'm telling you is correct.
>> I just want to go back to what you just said, chris, in terms of the timing of the special session, do you think it's possible it could be September/october or is that just it could last through September/october? My concern there is that the cities and counties around the state are locking in their budgets and if per chance the state legislature chooses not to fund something it kind of takes away options and choices related to us because we procedurally, long before we get did to our final budget have to set the maximum tax rate. As does everyone else. So I mean I'm just -- I don't want to predict a collision course here, but we need to keep track of what was those dates are related to anything on budget.
>> last night the speaker actually said October. I mean, he said it and in his words from the dais, he said I think we will probably be back around October. The governor has previously been reported in the papers to have said this fall, which people have generally been interpreting as September or October. But to my knowledge the governor has not made a decision about when he would call a special session and, you know, it could be as early as June. But I think there will be one. This year.
>> yeah.
>> based on everything that we are hearing.
>> football season.
>> yeah.
>> I guess we have been looking at this, it poses I guess a situation whereby we will be maybe doing some stuff at the last minute during the -- during the budget session for Travis County. And I guess other counties will probably be in the same predicament as we are as far as we are trying to deal with our budget concerns. Meaning that special sessions and everything else that would be held and then still not knowing. And we have not gotten any indication yet. You know, we have been asking this early on what will be the budget impact on us for those unfunded mandates that we feel will be passed on to counties from the state. Gun, that still puts us in -- again, that still puts us in kind of a gray area. We've been trying to track it as best we can, but, you know, come September when we have to adopt the budget for Travis County, it appears that we ought to have some kind of indication on what we are talking about because again that's Commissioner Sonleitner just brought up, we have to loo at the tax rate.
>> that's correct.
>> other counties are probably in the same predicament. Not knowing what's going to come forward or what's going to be -- going to be passed on to the county or the state, kind of got us in the bad situation as far as the state passing on mandates to us. I am still concerned about that as i've been stating all along.
>> Commissioner, I think you have been the most vocal on the court about the concern and recognition of the problem of cost shifting from state budget to the county budget and we are extremely sensitive to that concern, as I'm sure everyone is. And I wish that we could give you a better -- better information. Your staff developed some very good information for us that has been very helpful to the Travis County delegation and to the budget committees as -- as we have tried focus on it. Other counties have done a lot of good work on the budget as well. But the bottom line, Commissioner, is you are absolutely correct. We don't know the answer right now. To let the -- to what the impact of what is under discussion will be on the county. We don't even really know it within a large margin. We have kind of a worst case scenario maybe and a -- and a best case scenario almost. But -- but it's -- it is very, very difficult, as you are properly pointing out, to pin it down with any certainty right now.
>> I think that we will figure it out at the last minute.
>> yeah.
>> continuing story.
>> [indiscernible] the other counties expressed opposition to the bills that basically authorize challenges to the valuation rate by the appraisal district. To be filed before the justice of the peace. For the same reasons that our justices of the peace expressed their opposition. [indiscernible] I think that without substantial additional personnel, it would be an increase in workload. What's the status of that bill, do you know offhand.
>> the bill is out of committee. Does anybody know if it passed the house? I think it passed the house, judge, last week. But I need to confirm that for you.
>> it's too bad.
>> referred to [indiscernible]
>> I move that we indicate our opposition for the reasons expressed by the cuc.
>> second.
>> and the j.p.'s, that we give to them basically a restatement of three or four reasons why we do such a writing and send it to the house committee.
>> probably the senate.
>> senate committee on intergovernmental relations.
>> okay. We will try to do that within the next couple of days. That was seconded by Commissioner Gomez. Any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. That could be a huge unfunded mandate. What we really ought to do is --
>> the point, too, is that the problem really is expressing dissatisfaction with what's going on at the appraisal districts and it's -- trying to figure out a back door on how to deal with that. If there are problems or issues related to appraisal districts and how they value things, it ought to be handled that way directly as opposed to indirectly as to how you can get around it. This is not -- not the way to deal with it.
>> ready to vote.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> [indiscernible]
>> anything from the chairman of the health care district [indiscernible] Travis County yesterday language proposed by the governor that I circulated to the court. We also got language from the attorney for the staution who has been working with -- from the city of Austin working with the committee. It looks like the governor's language is all right with me, assuming that -- that we have the same interpretation of property taxes. There was some concern about reduction of the tax rate. As opposed to property taxes. But if a general interpretation of that is all right, I was concerned about that, the language, but I understand that clark's position is that they pretty much told the sponsors that the governor's language is okay. I understand the governor basically said I understand. If this language is not in there [indiscernible] reduces your options.
>> judge, just a clarification. I think that I'm reading it right. I think that I know what they mean in terms of unintended consequences it of course appropriately says if you are not spending the money on these hospitals and health related things you ought not to be taxing for it. No disagreement. Says that you need to lower your rate, taxes, by that appropriate amount. This does not stop a city or a county from at -- in the same tax year saying okay we are going to lower it for these things, stop doing it for this. But there may be some things going on with your effective tax rate that your rate may be changing in the opposite direction at the same time something is going down and there's an offset. I'm just making sure that this is not saying that the rate must go down and pay zero attention to anything else going on with your rate that has nothing to do with whether you tax or don't tax for health care district. I mean, right now even if we completely stopped doing this and ours is just a penny, but it's a penny, you know, the effective tax rate is going up two or three cents just doing nothing.
>> nothing.
>> I'm just making sure that there's not an unintended consequence there. Because our rate has to drop when the reality is the rate is going to go up just take keep it effective.
>> a quick clarification is needed. What's there though is the interpretation that I was given, the governor insistence upon what we had talked about already. [multiple voices] transfer is to the district and make sure we don't spend that money on other things after the district is created, otherwise the district does not have a tax base. For the city and county that has meant for us like 1.1 cents. For the city more than 7-cent range. Per $100 valuation. So I think that we are interpreting that to mean if a district is created they want to see that transferred. They use property taxes. So we think that we will be able to work with that. It has been our intention anyway.
>> you don't tax for something that you are no longer spending the money no. There's no disagreement there. Just making sure that it doesn't mean that you can't replace that with okay we are not going to spend it on health care, we are going to send to it t.n.r. For potholes or some other kind of purpose.
>> if you remember during the discussions when the hospital district came before this court, there was a lot of taxing discussion during that process and this is before we dropped it -- drafted, Travis County approved the language that did go over to the state. Some of the things that came out of there that time during the discussion, I thought were very clear to me, was that I wanted to make sure that we did not have to spend taxes, continue to tax folks for services that a district would be supporting or bringing up under their authority to deal with. I thought it would be a duplicate of service and tacks at the same time. So of course I mentioned at the time how do we decrease the taxing on one end and allow us -- a hospital district to incorporate that same thing. I thought that should have been an offset then. My whole point, I think it still needs to be a lot of education in a lot of things, we do have hospitals, we do have clinics that we have to look at, things like that. So it's still -- this thing is still not ironed out yet. But the only way that we can deal with a lot of this stuff, go with the judge, as far as there's the property tax itself and I think folks still need to be educated when it's coming up before them in November to look at all of the possibilities of the hospital district and see what those situations are and vote accordingly. But again property taxes is the only way that we can generate revenue here, along with fines and fees. Whether the city has a little different type of revenue generating capacity -- so I'm still real concerned about that. Again [indiscernible] now as far as the property taxes and things like that. It would be -- would be offset according to services that the -- that the hospital district will then be picking up and of course offset that.
>> I think -- one of the issues that you have or the people have with the language that just if general is if you don't watch it, you can really -- tax rates and that's what makes people nervous, I think, they say, well, I mean, the-- the taxing entity is going to take a commensurate amount of money down, health related things, that's confusing to me. Let's face it people don't need to be confused. We were talking about the tax rate going up two or three cents, did I miss that, is that preordained.
>> no no no [multiple voices]
>> no no.
>> [multiple voices]
>> I thought maybe I missed some meaning. The tax rate was going up.
>> just a calculation of the effective tax rate, which seems to be where we land 99% of the time, somewhere in that range if when you have your values drop to bring the same amount of money in. It goes up.
>> just kidding [laughter]
>> I know.
>> you didn't hear about that meeting, you didn't go to that meeting? [laughter]
>> I was just kidding.
>> you weren't at that meeting? [laughter]
>> we will take it. Any other legislative issues for staff? Nope. The county judge and -- and [indiscernible] had the foresight to put legislative issues on the work session this Thursday just in days we need it. The work session starts at 1:30. My guess that is the other business ought to be done by 3:30. If there are emergency issues that surface between now and then, we are posted. This is a wk session, though, so although we can't take action, we will be able to discuss any legislative matter.
>> Thursday at 3:30.
>> about. If we need it. If we need to.
>> okay. Look like you all might have some time [laughter] just reading the tea leaves --
>> the senate is in -- the senate is still in session.
>> thanks, guys.
>> thank you very much.
Last Modified: Wednesday, May 13, 2003 7:52 PM