Travis County Commssioners Court
August 7, 2003
FY ‘04 Budget Hearings
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Commissioner Davis’ Comments
I just want to just basically reiterate some of the things that my colleagues have already said. I知 glad you brought up the point -- in fact, both of you all brought up some good points especially with the incentive program for the retirement. That's actually house bill 3208, and of course I think there's something that we need to investigate. I ve my staff looking into the possible number of employees with the county that may be eligible for some of this retirement incentive. And I think the numbers may be about 158 employees with Travis County that may fall into one of those categories. Right now we're still looking into that and as you stated earlier, the county attorney will have to look io that and see if we can actually go that route. But I think that's a very good, positive direction, because I think one of the greatest expenditures that we do have are personnel costs as far as the budget is concerned. How do we pay for folks? The judge brought up a couple of good points also, but to -- and to reiterate, I guess basically as far as the collection of fines and fees, I want to go a little step farther. These are basically current fines and fees as we have set up this pilot project dealing with the cscd, dealing with of course the tax assessor's office of as a pilot project, I知 looking at a possible way to look at the -- all fines and fees that we have onhe boo already that we haven't collected. We're talking about millions of dollars. How do we get that money? I think by placing a lot of money on the table, going to the general fund, the $18 million cut may not have to be $18 million as far as looking at a range as far as where we're trying to get between now and that $18 million as far as this budget is concerned. There are some programs that I still feel that we need to look at and evaluate as much as possible and to see if they are really performing the way we want them to to our satisfaction. Of course, I知 getting to be skeptical on some, and of course we'll look at those programs. And lastly, I want to make sure that the departments that come here with their particular budget requests, I hope within this budget document and within this particular budget request form, adjusted form, that those departments that have -- and as you remember during the legislative sessions we talked constantly about those particular funds, those unfunded mandates coming down from the state and passed onto the local governments such as Travis County. Of course, some of the departments have to recognize those, so it will be good if there's some kind of way that we could indicate here on thisorm that these are the unfunded mandates that have been passed alonby the state of Texas to the -- to Travis County whereby we'll know that this is no charge. We have no choice but to fund this because the state of Texas has asked us to do so, are requiring you go to do that. So I think throwing all of those in the mix, and of course that was a real good overview by the judge and also by Commissioner Sonleitner. Of course, I知 going to continue to investigate on how we can capte the old fines and fees that the money is justaying around that we need to aggressively get out there and get. And the way to do it, it's just millions of dollars as farce as as ---as far as fines and fees, and I want to get that money here on the table. And with those particular things, I basically had those things on the agenda that I知 going to try to look at a possible way for the 158 employees with retirement opportunities that may be possible through house bill 38 -- 3208 is something that we can go in that direction. So I think there's a way to get there. Those are basically some of the things I am going to be looking at very, very closely.
>> Commissioner, on your third point, in the same way that I asked the judge for teeth or detail, do you have any more detail to go another eufpblg or two deeper on programs not performing as suspected?
>> right. I will let you know what they are as we go through the process. I've got my strong feelings and I want the department to convince me that they are. If they are not, I知 pretty much convinced on some things right now, but we'll have to wait and see how it shakes down when we go through the process.
>> do we know what kind of incentive the university of Texas -- is it the state or university of Texas?
>> state.
>> u.t. Had its own program and the state of Texas --
>> what are the incentives today?
>> 25% of their anal salary if on the very day they were eligible they d to do it by end of the fiscal year so they would not be -- be beginning the school year.
>> I think the university limited it to a certain group of folk.
>> 25% of the annual salary.
>> you get three months in return for an agreement to retire. When they were eligible.
>> right.
Last Modified: Friday, August 8, 2003 8:52 AM