Travis County Commssioners Court
September 23, 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. Consider and take appropriate action on recommendations from the working committee on county cell phone use and the fy 04 budget.
>> thank you, I'm danny hobby, emergency services coordinator but also chaired and will continue to chair the cell phone task force. And you should have hopefully been delivered by me our recommendation and I would like to go with that, if I could, and then allow you an opportunity, of course, to ask any questions and there may be today some other departments that are here that also wish to speak to you if you wish for them to speak on this matter. About three weeks ago, you gave me instruction to go and contact departments in regards to your action on reducing the general fund budget in the offices and departments throughout the county. For the use of cell phones by 25%. So you came up with a figure that you had given me that I think you have got -- you had gotten from p.b.o. You also had some question that's you wanted to have submitted to the offices and departments. And in response to cell phone use. And so I left here with some other folks, formed the cell phone task force, and we put the questions together in a small survey, sent that out to everyone, gave them a deadline and as you see here in the -- in the information that I have given you, we went through a process of having meetings and collecting information and then as a result coming up with what we feel is the only adequate recommendation to give you today. I hate to admit this, but christian was here three weeks ago, sat to my right and indicated that he felt like the task was going to be larger than two weeks. Based upon all of the information that we would be receiving and all of the different elements to this subject of cell phone use. Christian, if you are in the audience, you are absolutely correct. We were not able to get into the in depth review that we would like to. However, you also know that we are going to be coming back to knew the spring -- to you in the spring with a full report and recommendation for cell phones in the county. So we are hopeful that that will be something that we will provide you -- that will provide you better information, more accurate information, than what you see here today. However, let's get to the task at hand and that is the 25%. We worked along with eo as well as an audit in tying to look at the numbers to make sure that they were correct. We looked at the offices and agencies, in fact actually sent information out to them again to try to review. We tried to be as fair as we possibly could. However in fairness I must say if there are errors here, then they are due to time constraints more than anything. I'm not saying this is a 100% document. This is a glimpse of what's out there, more review and studies would need to be done with the departments and agencies. We look forward to doing that in the coming months. But to get to the recommendation, there were two option that's we came forward with. One was to simply go with a straight reduction of 25% across the board for each office and department. Regardless of any justifications or special considerations submitted. Second option is to consider juftions and special -- justifications and special considerations from officers, departments and make funding decisions based upon individual submittals, I think that you will see with some of those submittals there are some very interesting justifications as to why people use cell phones and how critical it is to their operations and services. The cell phone task force, as I said in this next paragraph, of course, mentions the process that we went through. And you see the attachments that are with this document that provide the survey and provide the submittals, as well as the chart. Summarizing some of the questions that could be answered quickly. The other recommendation, the final recommendation that we come up with based upon those two options is that we go ahead with the 25% reduction, but that we allow departments, we would encourage that you allow departments for those that wish to, to come forward, and to justify for you why they feel like that their 25 percent needs to be reinstated. And we have, as I mentioned at the beginning, I think several departments here that would really like to do that. Because they feel that a 25% reduction will impact their service delivery. The other recommendation that you see is one in which we went and found that there are several agencies that do not budget in the cell phone line item, but consistently transfer funds into the cell phone line item. And so to be consistent with everyone, we felt like that we should bring those in to say that if we are going to do any 25% reduction on those agencies and offices that use cell phones, then they should be given that same 25% reduction.
>> I'm not -- they don't have a cell phone budget, but they transfer funds into the cell phone line item?
>> yes, sir.
>> uh-huh.
>> how is that done?
>> sir, they just simply transfer money into the line item. I would probably ask p.b.o. To give you the expert rendering on that, but that's what we --
>> [multiple voices]
>> budget transfer, don't we?
>> what p.b.o. --
>> by the way I support the practice for that -- [laughter]
>> what p.b.o. -- completed a run of the preliminary budget, and that's the numbers that we have been giving to you, the 152,639 in the general fund preliminary budget. During fiscal years, deposits do request -- departments do request and we have not hesitated to sign automatic budget transfers going from operating line items into cell phone usage, normally the departments correct that usage for the following year, through the preliminary budget and they rearrange their operation line item. So --
>> so they increase their department's budget by transferring from other department line items?
>> that's correct. From their supply line item into cell phone usage.
>> okay. Well, why wouldn't the best move today be to say do the best that you can to live with this amount and if you find yourself running short, then come and let us know, say, nine or 10 months from now.
>> second.
>> wouldn't that make more sense than anything else? I mean, my own view is that if you really need the money to have cell phones to do county business, we have a responsibility to fund it. When I looked at the amounts, though, they were much larger than I thought. And my motion would be basically to ask the departments to live within this amount to the extent possible. And if they run short, come back to the Commissioners court. I mean, it's -- it's a larger amount for cell phone, but it's a very, very small amount in the scheme of things. I can't believe -- if they come back to us in eight or nine saying we did the best we could, we would ask how much do you need to get to the end of the fiscal year, I see us basically asking are you sure they are using these cell phones for county business, the department head would say, of course, yes. And I don't know that we would have facts to -- that would cause us not to believe that. I see us basically providing the funding. But in my view it would be good to have the departments to at least try to live within the amount.
>> uh-huh.
>> judge, could I get a clarification on two particular situations. Going by danny's big sheet, in t.n.r. They showed us what last year's '03 was, which was $35,000 and the preliminary budget there was a radical reduction. That joe because of the switch over to the nextel phone system got it down to almost -- it's like less than half the amount. To me to go another 25%, I felt, was going a little too far because they had already beyond [indiscernible] in their '04 budget submission. So I know that -- it is a small amount of money, but to me they had already beyond met the 25% rule. So I didn't want to change the t.n.r. Line item. The other one a small amount, the county clerk's budget, they have a weird use of cell phones in terms of during election years because they have to have all of these extra cell phones go out in the system. To me I didn't want to make an adjustment on the county clerk's as well simply because the '04 budget election cycle is huge because we have may primary, April runoffs, running the city council election in may and for other entities and we are talking about a November election. So to me I didn't want to mess with the county clerk item for this year only, simply because it is a huge election year. So those two -- those were the only two that I was going -- I'm with it on everyone else but in terms of the t.n.r. Line item and the -- the --
>> look at the county sheriff it's pretty much the same circumstance. If we weren't looking at the other departments, I think that we could make the same argument. The spirit of my motion basically is if you run short, come visit us and we'll work with you. I think if we were to start picking and choosing these departments it would not be good. If we do it for one, I think that we would have to listen to all of them, an audience today. I don't -- when we did this it basically was to call to the fact that we have a huge expenditure for cell phones and I don't know that our approach is as systematic as it ought to be. We will have the task force doing other work after October 1, and I think that we would do them a favor by coming up with a written charge indicating what the Commissioners court's perspective is or what our perspectives are. So i'mism theght. T.n.r., Sheriff's office, county clerk, some of the others that I saw here were taken --
>> there are a number of offices and departments that could come up here and I think give you good justification --
>> I would be real surprised if several could go through the fiscal year without some sort of supplement. What I'm saying he is do the best you can, get as far as you can, come back, we will put the money there. If the election people and the county clerks, who work for the county clerk need cell phones, it's our responsibility to fund them. And so at that point I say we provide the necessary funding. The other thing, some of the others here is kind of hard to change practices overnight. Cutting the money really won't necessarily reduce use, but it does call attention to the fact that we are trying to save as much as we can. That would be my approach.
>> what is the --
>> I'm okay with that. I think that's a good approach.
>> I think as long as we say out loud that there may be issues with t.n.r. And with the county clerk and we are not going to not allow them to do their jobs. I'm just saying out loud because if we are talking about, high, let's properly fund people, we know next year is a huge election year. And cell phones, whether we like it or not, are a part of the election verification process.
>> if it is county business, I think that's fine.
>> I'm saying that for all 27 departments. For the listening audience, the county judge does not have a cell phone and he's not on that 27.
>> nor am i.
>> small technical issues, on the list that I supplied to court that we applied the 25% to, it includes the county auditor at $240 a year, and the purchasing department at $392. The district judges have approved the auditor's budget including that amount and it's my understanding, maybe Commissioner Gomez could -- could clarify it. I believe the purchasing board approved the purchasing department's budget. If in fact those that have -- that have -- probably shouldn't have been on the list in the first place were removed, instead of $38,160, 25%, it would be $38,002. Just a technicality.
>> okay. But I think even for the two of them we would want to in the spirit of the motion request that they help us reduce cell phone use.
>> sure.
>> I'm not -- I don't hear the court saying don't use cell phones, but I do hear it saying use cell phones on county business, let's do a better job of promoting accountability than maybe we have historically.
>> sure.
>> I think there is a comment from the auditor saying that even though their budget has been set they will reduce the cell phone item by 25 and they will go ahead and increase another line item to be in compliance with the district judge' order. So they are internally doing what is necessary -- [multiple voices]
>> we would be glad to do that to the purchasing department's budget, also. I assume that cyd is okay with that.
>> yeah.
>> I'm saying as to my vote, if you run short, come in, basically we fund it.
>> yes.
>> also, with that, if I can ask t.n.r., The way the -- they demonstrated to cut into their request and requirement for cell phone moneys increase by -- the nexcel [sic] or whatever they are using there, they have a service apparently that you can get cheaper than what other folks are doing, I would like to see or hear from t.n.r. How they can get reduce their cost, still get service, and it may be something that the other departments can model themselves after to reduce their costs. Now, I really don't know exactly what type of situation that is with the type of phobes that they are using. But apparently it must be effective because they have reduced their costs. So my question --
>> continue looking --
>> if anybody can answer that quick question for me, how is that they can use another service and reduce costs and still -- that's pretty important, maybe, just maybe the rest of the departments that are looking at this can model or mqhc themselves after t.n.r. That would be a further reduction in cost, go ahead, please.
>> Commissioner, joe gieselman with t.n.r. On that walkie-talkie function it works best for field personnel.
>> just the field personnel.
>> road and bridge and parks.
>> okay.
>> because there's a lot of -- of field to field interaction. And instead of using a cell phone call, they are actually using a walkie-talkie function. That's where it seems to save the most money. Quite frankly, that's where a larger volume of calls is as well. That's why it's worked for t.n.r. That function, in my own case, doesn't work that well. Because my calls are typically to land line people. I end up using a more expensive per call phone on the nextel than if I had a fixed rate on a different service. So we are beginning to look at where it works best and where we ought to go back to the other service for some of the office personnel. So that's what I can tell you right now.
>> I'm glad that you explained that, joe and for those other 27 departments that may just fall into some of the categories that as far as use of phone service in what joe gieselman just described, I would encourage you maybe to look at that, also, to further reduce costs. We are looking for reducing costs as much as possible. So thank you for those comments, I appreciate it.
>> Commissioner, what I think is beneficial here is that one of the things that you are going to learn from the survey is that there are agencies and offices and departments that are looking at how to better streamline and better utilize cell phone use. And before I forget, there is a recommendation, judge, in regards to the fiscal year '04 budget phones, transfer situation, whether or not you all wish to approve that. That is a recommendation from the cell phone task force, so I do need to make sure that we address that before I leave. I also want to give you something that is just -- I'm just going to throw it out and hopefully you will better understand it once we come back with our report. But you are seeing basically an article that I attached for you, I have another one here that I just pulled off c.n.n.'s website, that regardless of what we think about cell phone use in the past, cell phone use is here. Cell phone use is now more active than hard line, fixed line, you look at it worldwide. What's happening overseas is that they are now a developing -- developing portability which is allowing someone to use their cell phone number among carriers and then also now is coming out I think soon is the availability of using your hard line number to transfer into your mobile line. And one of the things that I think that you are going to see happening, this is just a prediction here, it's not very difficult to predict, but what you are going to see, I think occurring in governments as well as in homes, all across this country, and the world, is you are going to see less hard line phones and more wireless phones. That is just the way the technology is moving. And so do we teed to start looking at and we will be looking at, for instance, in my office if I am carrying a wireless phone, why do I need a hard line phone? Why do I need both? If I can take the same number and interchange it, then why don't I do that? Why are we having the separation, why are we having the multiple uses of cell phones? But as you can see on the chart, it's not something that's going to go away. It's not going that's going to lessen until you wish to lessen it. It's something that I think we need to and I hope to through this cell phone task force give and you good case of. Why we need to use wireless cell phone activity. If I can't then of course that's your decision to move forward and lesson cell phone use and stay with hard line. But that's not the way it's moving in the industry. It's my job as emergency services coordinator to let you know about what the trends are and what we need to be doing as far as efficient service delivery in Travis County. So I will get off that little soapbox and hopefully have justification and adequate information for you later. I would like for you to consider the rule change, the '04 budget rule change. That is not something that in fairness to leroy and to christian that I was able to get in deep discussion with them, so they may have an opinion either for or against it. I would like for them to make a comment to it if they wouldn't mind before we ask you to consider this.
>> thank you.
>> [indiscernible]
>> in support. Commissioners court's desire to contain cell phone expenditure, the cell phone task force recommend that's the fiscal year '04 budget rule for cell phone expenses be revised to reflect budget transfers, moving funds into cell phone items will not be considered automatic budget adjustment transfers. If during fiscal '04 a budget transfer to a cell phone line item for which there was not an original budget in the adopted budget, that county office department budget transfer request will be reduced by 25%. The basis for the fiscal '05 target budget level for the office department will be reduced by 25%. Of course what you are saying today is that they will be able to come back during the year if indeed they needed to have any type of reinstatement. But this again is to try to bring equal treatment to all agencies and so again it's only affecting a few agencies and we just wanted to bring that before you.
>> p.b.o. Has no problem with bringing any transfers, transferring into cellular telephone lines during next year.
>> do you think our position to department ifs they run short they come to the Commissioners court for a budget supplement will pretty much obviate that --
>> I think so.
>> see what I'm saying? What they have been doing is transferring their money from one line item to another to cover a shortfall in cell phone and what we are -- what this motion says basically, do the best you can, but if you run short the Commissioners court will provide supplemental funding. If this motion passes, won't it really take care of this little issue for '04?
>> it will -- it will take care of the issues of anyone that has a -- a budget for cellular telephones. I think what the committee was trying to get at was any department that may not have a cellular telephone line item and then they want to move operating expenses to cellular telephones and what they are reg the budget rule would force those to -- to Commissioners court. If you prefer not to have a budget rule that specific, can you direct p.b.o. To send those to court and we'll send them to you.
>> what if we asked the p.b.o. Not to consider any cell phone transfers until the court has acted on the second set of recommendations from the committee? I'm --
>> be glad to do that.
>> I'm hope thank we hear from the committee before next year. Is it unrealistic to expect a follow-up report within the next 90 days?
>> due to the holidays, yes, sir. I don't want to commit that one again. I was looking at the first of February to get us through all of the holidays.
>> let's give the committee until February 1 then.
>> thank you, sir.
>> if we -- if you think we need this budget rule if we do this motion?
>> if you are going to require the agencies to come back and justify -- again, you are putting everybody in the same pool here. I think what leroy is saying is that there are several agency that's do not currently have a cell phone budget. We are trying to bring everyone into the same pool. If you are having them all come in and justify to begin with why they would need to reinstate their money, including these folks, as long as they are included in that I don't have a problem with that. I don't think the task force would, either.
>> any problem with extending the motion to cover the 27 departments and the others who don't have the cell phone budget right now? Just coming to let us know basically.
>> right.
>> okay. Now, is there any department that thinks this action is not fair? And would like to address the court? Or speak against the motion? Yes, sir?
>> well, I probably don't need to say anything since I'm going to vote against it because I don't think we are going to get anywhere. I mean, unless we force people to -- to have the cuts. I'm hopeful that -- that -- I applaud the departments that have brought considerable changes to the table. I mean, it's obvious that there's some that -- that can and will do this. Hopefully we'll see what we are probably fixing to vote on is -- we are asking you to do this, but if you can't do it, come and get money from us. And --
>> there's also a do the best you can element there, too.
>> well, I -- I realize that. Maybe i'll be proven wrong on this. I mean, people will bring these budget in under what we think that or at least what I think that they are going to do. But -- but just kind of like gasoline, I mean, I -- I think that if you want people to cut their budgets, you have to really give them a mechanism to do that and the mechanism to do that, as far as I'm concerned, is not give free phones out in this county. But that's not the will of the court. I don't think. And so I do think next year, we will be back with this thing. We set out to try to find a sizable line item budget cut. I have watched us recede from that and now we are just going to give everybody the opportunity to come to us and say this is why we need the money. I'm not very hopeful of that because I see departments coming to us and I can't really take a department on. I can't take county clerk's office on when they come and lay all of the justification out for why they need it or the sheriff's office or whatever. But I do think, hey, we have identified in budget, we have got a lot harder years staying us in the face next budget sighing kel than we do -- cycle than we do this one. I think at some point in time we are going to have to get hard lined and that's the only way that you are going to cut the budget.
>> I think all of the additional scrutiny has been extraordinarily helpful and it has met what was the intent of the judge's motion to begin with. When I see things like the sheriff's office, 25 phones being turned in, that's meaningful. To see t.n.r. And facilities go is there a better way that we can do business and substantially come in before we even got to this 25% year deal and say we can do better and to see the sheriff and facilities and t.n.r. In particular say we can do better. I'm not picking on stephen, but in stephen's department there are a couple of folks that used to claim reimbursement, they are not claiming reimbursement anymore. I think that it's taken everybody to look at why do I use this phone, is this really relevant and are there better ways to do business. So I think it has exactly done the intent of the judge's motion and we are getting the 25 percent out, but we are also recognizing that if there are hardships, I don't look at it as being an automatic that somebody says I can't find the money please bail me out. No, gets go to be a very specific reason that is justifiable such as, hello, we have just run 10 elections and this is our cell phone bill and these are the costs that the county has to incur. Now that's what I'm going to hear versus I just couldn't find a land line so I decided to use my cell phone, that's -- I'm not going to vote for that, they are going to have to find that money, it's not an automatic for me. It's going to be a justifiable reason once they have not found the scrubbed money within their own budget. So --
>> that goes for me, too, it's not automatic. I -- it's taken the 25% off, it is a sign that we are, we recognize that we are going to be in for some hard times and we need to start paring things back and just using those cell phones just for county business.
>> I see us as trying to partner with appointed elected officials trying to promote accountability without being arbitrary. At this time we appreciate you and the committee --
>> let me say a couple of things, judge.
>> I didn't finish. I got one more --
>> we hope that you don't have any resignations. Between now and February 1 because there's other work to be done. Thanks.
>>
>> [one moment please for change in captioners]
>>
>> we will have the ability to police this type of action and we'll also be liking at a case-by-case basis if it comes back to the Commissioners court if there is some type of, quote, justification at looking at receiving more funding for extra services from your cell phone if this particular reduction is impacting that department. So, again, there are some measures that are in place here whereby we are able to look at each situation in the near future. And then again, we just might get lucky. Maybe another one will -- no one will come here asking for extra money. If so, we'll look at that on a case-by-case basis. And I have no problem with that. Thank you.
>> any more discussion? All in favor? Show Commissioners Davis, Sonleitner, Gomez and yours truly voting in favor. Voting against Commissioner Daugherty. Thank you.
Last Modified: Wednesday, September 24, 2003 7:52 AM