Travis County Commssioners Court
June 3, 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 26
26. A. Receive update and take appropriate action on Travis County priority legislation and actions taken by Texas legislature; and. B. Consider steps and take appropriate action to measure impact of state approved budget on Travis County's budget and how to engage appropriate county departments. I suggest we take 26 b this afternoon. I do have some idea on that. 26 a this morning, though, we have specific legislation. Chris, how are you doing?
>> good. Good morning judge, Commissioners. What we would like to do is get you out of here by lunch time. We have got -- we want to give you a preliminary report on what happened, but the [indiscernible] bill are still not on line, we still have conference committee reports we have not been through. Of course we have a veto period. So we are going to give you a brief overview and of course answer any questions that you may have, if that will work for you. Then we will come back next week or the week after, whatever you would like, give you a more complete update. First off, I want to very briefly recognize the Travis County the Travis County legislation, representatives dukes, keel, naishtat, of course the freshman representatives, rodriguez, stick and baxter, all s of those contributed in one way or another to the Travis County Commissioners court legislative agenda this session, we are very thankful for their help. Secondly, Travis County staff, your staff was very involved this session, more than the two previous sessions, they did an excellent job, put in a lot of time and we are thankful for that. Of course to the Commissioners yourselves, each of you got involved in different ways on different issues, each one made a difference. We appreciate that. Of course our legislative delegation, we don't want to leave out our senator, barrientos and wentworth, both of them again them and their staff put in a lot of time to help us out. He's going to touch upon those, I'm going to cover a few others and then let -- answer your questions.
>> let me just start judge and Commissioners, by saying that this legislature as you know was a difficult session for a lot of reasons that we have talked a little bit about over the last several weeks and months. This legislature did adopt a budget. Posted on the schedule today, judge, is for us to talk about that budget but let me just say that we are simply not prepared yet to talk about the budget. We do believe that there will be an impact on counties as a result of budget reductions and budget cuts that occurred during this session. We do believe that those budget cuts and reductions are much less than what we had originally anticipated and discussed with the court. The infusion of dollars from the federal government that we had not anticipated. The net result is that while we believe there will be negative impacts on the counties, there are those in the legislature who have spoken very strongly about that subject even in the vote that was taken, senator wentworth, for example, voted against this budget. He was the only republican in the senate to do so. One of the reasons he gave was his belief that he thought this budget will pass costs on to counties that will then be forced to raise property taxes in order to cover some of the particular health related services that are not funded by the state. We are in the process of working with your staff to try to quantify that. And figure that out. But we are simply not there yet. The budget itself is not even readily available to -- to review and search. With that, let me mention that there is a document, judge, that I believe is in front of you entitled bills to pass, Travis County's Commissioners court, 2003 legislative agenda. It has 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, it has about 12 items on it. These are the items, judge and Commissioners, that you asked bob and I to focus on. This session, there were priority bills that the court wanted to see passed. And everything on this list was in fact passed with one exception. That one exception is house bill 2303 by keel, which was the meet and confer bill. Buthe legislation for example relating to blue warrants that we discussed, the legislation related to the use of summons, passed, the I jury legislation passed, the e commerce legislation passed, the legislation relating to the population of a county election recinct passed. As bob pointed out to you, there a -- another step in the process and that involves the governor's role where he can either veto or sign or let these bills become law without his signature. So it would be premature for us to conclude that all of these are done. There are a couple of these that we are recommending to the court that you communicate the importance of these bills to Travis County to the governor's office in order to perhaps pre-empt any thought that they might be veto items. And I would be happy, judge, to answer any questions about any of these bills.
>> can we get copies of these sent to the governor?
>> yeah.
>> we will have copies made of all of those and delivered to your office.
>> okay.
>> the ones that -- that are not contained [indiscernible] you can assume that that bill is dead?
>> well, yes, sir. There are only two on here that -- that earliest effective date means they have been sent to the governor eertion already signed them.
>> so now [indiscernible]
>> yes, sir, there are only two on this list that do not have that notation. One is the meet and confer bill, 2303 and that is that -- that did not pass. The other one is sb 1099 by barrientos, but the exact provisions of that bill were placed as an amendment into house bill 1204 and house bill 1204 did pass. That's the e.t.j. Bill.
>> what about -- what happened with the -- with the hb 35 [indiscernible]
>> house bill 3588 did pass. We are still in the process of evaluating all the provisions of that bill. However, I can tell you preliminary that the report we gave the court last week, that the provisions that Travis County asked for are in the bill.
>> okay.
>> now, but the bill itself changed a lot and it is not readily readable right now. But we are in the process of figuring out everything else that's in it.
>> all right so. This is something that will be coming forward, also, as far as that -- as far as the transportation?
>> yes, sir. 3588 was not one of the bills that you put on your list of approximately 12 that were the bills that you asked us to pass. That's the only reason that I didn't mention it in this context.
>> I was asking the status if you had heard because I heard it went to conference --
>> it went to conference and it passed out the owe oat Texas emissions reduction plan bill, 1365 that you have also asked questions about in the past Commissioner, that bill also passed out of conference. And it did not contain some of the provisions that -- that the Travis County Commissioners court had asked us to work on. For example, the speed limit flexibility that we had hoped to preserve for the county, that is not preserve understand that bill.
>> okay. Well, this -- I guess what -- I don't know when. But I guess whenever we -- we have an opportunity to -- to get all of those bills I guess, basically passed, I guess we had involvement one way or the other, do we have an updated version of what we have here coming forth.
>> yes, sir. There are several other bill that's bob is prepared to speak about that the court has asked questions about or that we had opposition to. Wean give you a quick report on those right now if you would like. First two of house bill 156 and 157 by krusee. The one gives a regional mobility authority the right of eminent domain, that has gone to the governor, the other one allows you to issue bonds. And that also has gone to the governor. House bill 396 by mury, that would allowed your appeals of your property tax to go to small claims court and you all were opposed to that, that bill did not pass.
>> good.
>> and of course the one that we have talked about many times, house bill 43 by wilson that dealt with the location of a central Texas airport, that also didot pass. House bill by baxter, that did pass, we did put an amendment on, that tom nuckols and transportation natural resources worked on quite a bit. Then house bill 1681 by stick, relating to the compensation of auditors. And you had voted to support that bill and that also did pass. 7 the house bill 2856 by ferrar related to certain fees collected by domestic relations offices, that was one that had been brought to you by cecila burke, you voted to support that, that also passed, that will bring some revenue into the domestic relations office.
>> what's the number on that one?
>> house bill 2856. Another one that we would probably like you all to do a letter to the governor's office on. On the importance of that bill, we will get with staff and get that back to you. Hcr 223 by hartnet that you all are very familiar with that would have authorized suit against Travis County. That also did not pat. Senate bill 1017 by wentworth, related to the ability of the county to sue or be sued, that's one that you all are aware of, we had a lot of involvement from Travis County from you, judge Biscoe and your staff, from the county attorney, john hilly, did a great job. Mr. Shepperd, our county attorney, all were over there and battling that one out. I think it -- finally we ended up Commissioners court ended up supporting that. And that also has passed and gone to the governor.
>> what else was added to the bill.
>> architects were added in that final draft. Then also we had -- refresh my memory.
>> dealing with injunction. Pretty well diffused. The presentment portion of that statute.
>> then we mentioned this last week, the creation of a new district court in Travis County. That -- that did pass. And that's not effective until September of 2005. And then finally, several weeks ago, the county clerk had brought you senate bill 1731 by gallagos, which is a fee bill that will add, I think she said about a million to Travis County if I remember, that has passed and gone to governor, so also going to need some help from you all to --
>> write another letter.
>> talk to the governor on that one, we will get that list to you all the suggested lguage. That's all that I have.
>> okay. Thank you very much.
>> thank you.
>> thank you all. The next point is getting all of this digested and separated and especially there are some that will generate some revenue. For the county if we do -- of course those that need letters. How will you determine those -- those that will need letters to the governor hoping that these sign-off on them? [one moment please for change in captioners] .
>> ... As somethi
g that might get his attention. So we would like to communicate and be sure that if it does get vetoed, it doesn't happen without us, you know, without a surprise to us, hopefully.
>> those are all the questions I have. I dpes is anybody else here that may need to make some comments?
>> [inaudible] hospital district.
>> come on and sit down. Thank you all very much.
>> Commissioner dawt Daugherty, I had been asked to brief out the hospital bill and answer any questions you might have. I think you probably heard by now that the ornl hospital district bill -- original hospital district bill had been bottled up in house calendars late into the session, and was not going to pass. And so at the latest hour, sometime I think it was last Thursday, an amendment was placed on the 2292, which would help agency reorganization -- if agency reorganization bill and the amendment that was placed out, it was not the same thing as taking our original bill and placing it on there. There was some procedural things. You can't take a local bill legislation and just amend it on to a general bill. It would have been subject to a point of order. So what they did is -- maybe I can explain this well enough. In working through the -- these past nine months or so working through the hospital district proposal, we had a number of options to go with, and there's basically two general ways to go, two chapters under the health and safety code. And one is a 281 district, and that's a county hospital district in which the county Commissioners court appoints boards of directors and have a great deal of authority over the hospital district. The other is -- 286, more of an independent board, less under the control of any other governmental body, and it's an elected board. And so in working through the proposal with the citizens task force, hospital district task force, actually what came about was proposal for so legislation we create kind of a hybrid. I think we've gone through and we've talked with you all for -- and I know you've had many people talk to you about that proposal over time. And that ended up was resulting in the bill that was filed and moved through the senate after over to the house. So presented with the predicament of that bill not getting out and having to amend an existing legislation and not being able to take our bill and tag it on, the movers and shakers that took up this movement had to make a quick decision, and what they did was they amended that bill to pretty much amend chapter 281. So what we have that's being sent to the governor is basically a chapter 281 district with a few special amendments that were placed on to cover some special peculiarities with what we wanted in Travis County. For example, under a general 281 district, which we've always had the authority to do if the Commissioners court on its own motion wanted to or if you received a petition signed by 100 residents, you would be able to call election for a 281 county hospital district. You would appoint the board of directors, not more than seven, I believe, of that district. One of the changes in the amendment for us would be that they retained the ability to have a nine-member board. It would be still the four, four one agreement that we had.
>> that was with the original, right?
>> if you remember the final compromise that we reached on that bill, it was four from the city, four from the county and one joint, but the compromise was that the county and its four selected positions, two of those selections would be residents of the city. Well, that particular provision did not -- was not part of the amendment. So what you have is four county, four city, one joint. You can, you are always free to appoint your -- anyone within the city, but that's not mandatory for you now. The -- the other major part, I think, of the amendments were under general county hospital district, the Texas limitation is 75 isn't per hundred. They placed the cap on 25 cents is in our amendment.
>> 25 cents per $100 valuation.
>> and then the other major change in the amendments, I think, really dealt with the issue of what is to be transferred. And they tried to stay true to the original language of the hospital being transferred. Starflight not be transferred unless we chose to do that. We had a special issue that came up in negotiating the bill over these past few months where we have community centers that are also jointly a [inaudible] and what happened to that and they pretty much kept to the same language. What would happen there is either the county could transfer that building over and the district would lease back the community center part of it or we would lease over the clinic part to the district. So we've pretty much -- and it would be a three-year lease until we agreed to a shorter one. But they pretty much kept that similar language.
>> what about the -- one of the questions I brought up during that time we were going through all of this about the point of how could we off set Travis County expenditures, money that we spend now on the services that a hospital district could offer. How could we off set and how much money with would we save if the voters actually bought into and approved the hospital district. And if that's the case then I asked the question then how could we off set according to property taxes. And I want to -- I'm sorry, because I -- [inaudible].
>> right. That was an issue that had been discussed and there was existing law that I guess the -- there was existing law, but the original bill was working its way through the legislature, at least a couple of our state representatives from our delegation voiced concern and wanted something more specific. And there was, I think what was called a stick amendment for a while that was being floated around, and that was what was eventually placed -- we included the amendment it was placed on 2292. So that is within the law, and I can read to you that language. We had been -- as late as the few days before they ran with this amendment on to the other legislation, we -- the city and I had been working on some language we thought was more appropriate and I had seen from john banks some language suggestions we thought was going to be fine and we were going to be working with representative stick. In the meantime, this issue popped up and the people that drafted the amendment on the 22 did not carry forth our suggestions. And so we've got the basic stick amendment. Let's see if I can read some of the keys to that. This section applies only to a district created in a county with a pop lawtion of more than 800,000 that was not included in boundaries of a hospital district before September 1, 2003. Here's the key part. The Commissioners court of the county and the governing body of the municipality with the largest population in the county, that would be the city of Austin, in determining the ad valorem tax rate of the county or municipality as appropriate for the first year the district imposes ad valorem taxes on the district shall, one, take into account the decrease in the amount the county or municipality will stand for health care purposes in that year because the district is providing health care services previously provided or paid for by the county or municipality. And two, reduce the add have a lar lem tax rate adopted for the county or municipality as appropriate in accordance with the amount of the decrease. The Commissioners court of the county -- this is c, the Commissioners court of the county and the governing body of the municipality with the largest population, city of Austin, in the county, shall retain independent auditor to verify that the ad valorem tax rate of the county or city as appropriate has been reduced as required by this subsection. In short, we have to take that into account. We thought the language really wasn't as clear for the idea of -- the city I think was more concerned about the fact they may have to lower the tax rate because the hospital -- because of the hospital district, but because of the budget situation they were in, they might have to raise the tax rate for other reasons not having anything to do with health care and be free -- we wanted the language to be clear there's a net effect. So they proposed language to make it more clear, but that didn't make it into the amendment. What we were able to do was getting some legislative intent placed into the record that emphasized it's a net effect is what was important.
>> okay. I guess my last question -- and I'm glad you brought that point up because early on in this process before we even sent that language over to the legislature, I wanted to make sure that we had an opportunity to decrease ad valorem taxes if a district was created. Of course that appears that representative stick's language would allow that to happen. And what I'm hearing now, and I'm wondering if that was address understand this hospital district configuration, is the opportunity for other regions to participate, other counties since we're serving a large, multi-county area, how would we be able to participate facially to even further -- financially to even further reduce the expense if this was to pass by the Travis County voters when the election day comes? Was that addressed?
>> that wasn't part of the amendment. [inaudible] allow for that and i'll give you a example under the existing law, the hospital district can pass on cost to those outside the district and governments outside the district for that care that is correct indigent care -- that care that is provided by the district. But if you are talking about -- the other part that I don't know the answer to because I'm not as familiar was 281 and I'm just more recently been familiarized myself wit, I don't think there's much latitude for adding outside the district, adding other districts onto it. But I want to fin ush my research on that. The legislation that we had worked in with the task force provided all types of opportunities for other counties to join in. That's not -- that wasn't part of the amendment they were able to place into this. And so now i've got to go back to 281 existing law and find out what opportunities there are for other counties to join in. But there is the financial contribution. The district that would be created under chapter 281 would have the authority to seek reimbursements from other counties that had residents that were treated within this hospital district.
>> okay.
>> there's the opportunity for financial contribution.
>> okay.
>> the largest other thing -- before I leave you, the largest point I think to be made from the fact that this maneuver was made is that we're now under -- this chapter is going to be utilized, we're now under chapter 281. Which in essence is hospital district largely under the guidance and control of the Commissioners court. The board would be chosen by the city and the county, but the budget would have to be approved by the Commissioners court. The Commissioners court would have authority to set the procedures for purchasing. Legal services provided by the county attorney's office. But there are a number of instances, major purchases, major contracts all have to be signed off by the Commissioners court. So if this vehicle is used, it's a chapter 281 district and the Commissioners court would have a great deal more involvement with the administration of that hospital district than was originally contemplated under the proposed health care task force legislation.
>> what's the city's response to that?
>> I don't have a formal response from the city. I've been in one task force meeting since this amendment was placed on, and actually I think it was still before we had learned that it wasn't taken off by the conference committee. It was still alive, but there was a chance for it to be taken on. The city was working with that language and they understood the language. I didn't hear from those that were there at the task force any great concern that this would be a -- for lack of a better phrase, a deal breaker.
>> does this language come from the other bill that we proposed?
>> virtually all of this language. Virtually all the language it amended came from that -- but please understand that was a 30-page piece of legislation and this is less than 10. So there was a lot that was given up that they could not put in the amendment. So what they really did is they just tagged on to chapter 281 and put a few changes in they felt had to go with the tax rate limitations of 25 cents, the board, the board specifications, and then the transfer of property from the city and the county. Those special deals. Other than that, it's a 281 district.
>> but we need to next week -- what we need next week is an analysis on what parts of the bill were picked up and carried forward and what parts of the bill --
>> i've been working on them side by side. It's been a bit massive at this point and I hope to have that for you.
>> would this mean that the -- that brackenridge would -- I mean the contract that the city has with seton now, that it would -- that they would really end up having to contract with us now because of 281?
>> yeah, let me see if I can explain that. But that's a good point. Let me see if I can assist. Under the law, I believe under this amendment, the hospital would come over to the district. It would come over subject to that lease. So the hospital district would own the property and they would now be the authority for the lease as opposed to seton. So they would be the landlord. And since those major contracts and leases have to be approved by the Commissioners court, any future amendments after the transfer between the hospital district and seton with regard to that lease and brackenridge hospital would have to be under the -- under the current scheme, would have to be approved, ratified by Commissioners court.
>> I tell you what, we have sure just taken on one heck of a deal that -- a lot more than we thought. I mean, and somebody -- somebody needs to have a strong conversation with this group that got this deal done.
>> good point. I probably should have said this earlier. I learned of it of course after it was done. I was summoned to a lunch meeting last Thursday or Friday where they presented some language and said what exactly is this and I realized what they had done and what they had to do. They couldn't take the whole bill over. I had heard they were thinking about an amendment, I hadn't realized they were only taking pieces of it. They had to move quickly. They made some decisions that certainly I was not part of. I don't know if anyone else on the Commissioners court were part of.
>> we'll have it back on next week. Thank you, mr. County attorney.
>> let me add one other thing. There is talk as well that later on during special session there may be a effort to come back again and revise this language to put in more toward what we were aiming at originally with the task force. I think the position of the city -- the position of the task force, they still have hope to have another look at this and have another shot at moving it over to what they originally intended. Thank you.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
Last Modified: Wednesday, June 4, 2003 9:52 AM