Travis County Commssioners Court
August 7, 2003
FY ‘04 Budget Hearings
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Commissioner Sonleitner’s Comments
That's my short list.
>> i've got mine. I i have distributed -- I had sent it to you as you requested and I thk we got it around to everybody as well. I would call this more these are my areas of concern because, quite frankly, we're just getting started on the budge. If some of these ideas have already been looked at by pbo and already imbed understand there and yoalready saw them and figured out it's not possible. I'll put it as a checklist in terms of issues most of they will have to do with costs, but there are a couple of things where I didn't want to get bit related to a problem that needs to be addressed, and let's just take care of it during the budget process. In sheriff's office, we actually did pass an ordinance related to sexually oriented businesses. They're supposed to pay licenses. I don't know if they're paying them or not. I知 not asking for these answers now. I知 just kind of throwing them out there. Just where are we on the sob fees. We also are requiring collection of fees related to secity alarms, largely intended to deal with false alarms. Are we indeed getting compliance? Are we getting dollars? In where are we? My collection is that the freeze on new certified corrections officers was a one-year moratorium. I just want to make sure that that's still there? There. If we have to have an affirmative action by this court, that would certainly seem consistent. I think that's one of the items we have in the r.f.p. To say help us land on what that number ought to be, but in the meantime we need to freeze, no more addogany more certified corrections officers. These are the two on four and five are the things in making sure we don't have issues. The civilians in our crime lab, making sure that we they are in line with a.p.d. And d.p.s. I want to make sure that they are. People are much more aware of what those folks are doing because of the program csi. I think we also will have to be aware if we created any issues on 911 operators, because once those folks are sitting in the same combined communications center and they know they can work for the city versus the county and there's a differential by moving over a desk, I don't want to lose excellent people simply because we didn't pay attention to that. I will also tell you that our 911 operators do a heck of a lot more than the folks at the city. It doesn't mean that they're not wonderful, talented people, but we expect a whole lot more out of our folks and I want to make sure we don't lose them because we didn't pay attention to that. On gas be, a follow-up. What temperature -- temporary slots did we ich ones need to stay and we authorized which had a defined task and it's now over? Check off. This is Karen's personal little non-risk manage management. I知 still trying to get greater accountabilities for what happens on preventable accidents. And that is the idea of charging back to the departments preventable accidents, especially on these vehicles, that are not within the course and scope of duty. Things that are absolutely somebody else, subrogation. We're not talking about those. We're talking about the ones that are just preventable. And if you stick it back on the departments that it's coming out of their monies, well, it just helps on accountability. Because right now we just pay the bill and we move on. Overtime, just a general assessment. Who gets it, which departments, what's needed, what is not? It's a whole just a checkoff related to overtime management versus comping out. I think that also involves the county attorney's office about where -- can you offer comping, where must you offer comping, what rights, choices do employees have or we don't have? Hr hugely will be involved here, so if it's just overtime can be very expensive. Constables, they need to be delering civil paperwork. And I am wanting to know if there are people that are specifically attached to law enforcement, which is lovely, but to me they should be writing tickets. If people have time to write tickets then and they're caught up, they need to be doing other thgs that bring us in money. They're supposed to deliver paperwork on behalf of the jp's. I want that to be task number one. If they are finished and they have a lot of time le over, write away on the tickets. But their work needs to be number one the jp's. And this is the one time during the year that we get to make that point with all of our constables, that you are to serve the justices of the peace and get their paperwork delivered. Tied into that, we can't do it now, but it's a pbo thing. I think the jp's and the constables need to be teamed up with the same budget analysts in looking at the jp's and the constables and they need to be a team in terms of tax and dollars generated because there is a great deal of discussion amongst all of them about we do the work, but someone else gets the credit. Well, if you tie them all together and you look at them as a team, then it's going to be a lot easier to see how the teams are doing and also promotes them working together as a team and it also we get around that discussion of, well, I did the work, but blank got the credit in their account for the work that I知 doing. So I just think there needs to be a rea evaluation here. Some other things that I forgot to put on the list. I have not gotten feedback about early retirement. The state of Texas, the university of Texas has the option of offering an early retirement bonus. This is not to be confused with changing our retirement age or years of service, which is once you change it, you have to liveith it. This is a one-time thi where they offered a 25% bonus to folks who would retire as soon as they were eligible and then those folks presumably would be -- their replacements would be less expensive in terms of folks that might be end of the pay scale and somebody that's hired would be at more the beginning of the pay scale and while there may be a little bump related to the bonus, they would be filled with lower level people who would have a long time to work their way across the pay scale. Do we have the legal ability to do it? Have we looked at it? Is it something we want to even explore?
>> it really isn early retirement, it's retiring when you reach retirement age.
>> thank you.
>> it's a retirement incentive. It's not early. Because the way you just described it, you would have to be eligible to retire --
>> thank you. And there are also -- yeah, there are also --
>> it's a whole other set of issues with early retirement.
>> that's a big difference. In one line we have to deal with the -- this approach is just retiring -- moment.
>> it's not early retirement. It had to do with the retirement instances. This is one that will probably be on the category of susan will not be able to certify any money, but it's one that in the future years could be substantial. All indications are that seton would like to visit with us, as other hospitals related to interfacility transfers for starflight. We lost that business. There are potentials there that if we can get into some good discussions, we might be able to recapture some of that business. Those are paying clients in terms of the monies that come in. Those are not you get a quarter of what it costs. Those are 100 percenters and we have some opportunities, I believe, on interfacility transfers. Again, not anythg that susan could certify, but certainly as we go through our discussions on the interlocal on e.m.s., I think that might be brought in in terms of what seton would like to do on interfacility transfers. I know south Austin hospital is interested in visiting with us. It's potential that's out there. It's more of a future positioning of ourselves.
>> you do not then have a sense that this is potentially feasible by September 10th?
>> not anything that would mean dollars for this year that could be certifiable. It's setting ourselves up and in the marketplace in future years. The exposition center. In terms of what is the general fund transfer, we have put a great deal of dollars in there. Let me make this extraordinarily clear. I am not interested in the mom and pop events. I知 not interested in the small things, like the family reunions. I am looking at the same approach that we are looking at related to our park fees where we very specifically said not the youth, where we very specifically said not this kind of stuff. You had to do with the large tournaments in the parks where it was it was huge numbers of people coming in and using our park and trying to capture a little bit of monies back there. I would be looking at the same thing on the expo sition center in terms of what prices the pricing -- let's put it that way, the pricing related to the large events from 10 and 20 and 30 and 40,000 people coming to that facility. And that's not like having the banquets out there for 4-h kids. It's not the same. Those things are going to be passed along on their customers. I知 thinking the harley hog people. I知 thinking it's the big enough in terms of that pricing and especially discussions relating to parking. Are not capturing those dollars. People are making money off the fact that we have a wonderful facility out there. I think we ought to see if we can see if we can capture parking and then I think there are county attorney related to that because we do not own the land underneath. What flexibility or not do we have related to parking. Again, I will say I the mnts issues, the work of that staff out there, etcetera, etcetera. It has to do with the large event. Related to our annual thing, I know we'll get to it later. Jessica -- it's the annual thing. It's not something we -- that might be something we may be able to impact how many new c oovment's we need to do. What can the consider reserve be. Are there other waythat we've got projects that get finished up and then before the end of this fiscal year, and there's leftover dollars. I know that we've got new facilities that are fixing to come on board once you get a closeout of the new precinct 2 health & human services complex up in Pflugerville, we will know what the exact costs are. If there's dollars left over, we'll even take the quarters in the cushions of the sofa. Every dollar will help.
>> i've gotten report from departments. They were due August 1st. It was something we will look at next month.
>> very good. I think this is a concern. Impact of the city of Austin budget and what's going on with our neighbors a couple of blocks away the, making sure that we are fully aware of what they are doing impacting us. What they do in their division review. How is that going to review the work load of tnr. I don't know. We got good information from steven williams, thank you very much, about what's happening on their health & human services side, but in addition to not only the reductions that they are looking at rksz I see some things here saying reduction of one f.t.e. Related to the Travis County interlocal. I don't know if that's already imbedded in the budget or not. We do things with the city. It's making sure that cuts that would occur on their side are not impacting us or shifting things to us or forcing shortages on to us. We just lost a doctor again out at the Jonestown clinic. It's just -- we're making sure that we are getting what we are paying for under our interlocals with the city of Austin.
>> and Commissioner, also reduction in the summer youth program?
>> yes, yes. There are huge things. The map program, moving over to community care services, are we exferbl can a that, what they're doing with summer youth employment? 10 percent reductions in social service contracts. We did that one this year. We didn't do it. We jt looked at it. And I look forward to that being --et some lovely input from the social service community. They're let elting their language and evaluation unit. I don't know how that's going to im act us or not. That might be a positive thing or not. So just making sure that we know what the city of Austin's up to and cuts that they've got over there and impacting us.
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>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
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>> how well are we doing in terms of recapturing those costs.
>> final one has to do with t.n.r. We have not yet adopted and have the potential of doing a parkland dedication ordinance. If it is truly like the city of Austin's, people are given two choices. The first option is that you set aside the land within these subdivisions for parkland. But a lot of folks, small, though don't want to give up that space so they have an option of paying a fee that can go into a parkland dedication fund and gets attached to large areas of the city. A, we need to find out if there's some dollars sitting out there related to the city of Austin where they are not looking to put parks, but we have metropolitan parks, thanks to the voters in the east, northeast and so theast, that those dollars, capitol, one-time money for one-time expenses. But those capital dollars might help us offset some things that we might need to take care of. So, again, parkland dead indications ordinances. Are there opportunities there or not? Again, I don't think it's something we can certify, but it is positioning up for the future related to land acquisition, but especially for those who really do choose not to want to spend money on parks, but in the same way that you've got fiscal being posted because that's your share of upgrading the road, well, same thing goes with parks. I think, judge, that's consistent with what you are looking at of figuring out ways that our very good parks department is a little less dependent on the general fund and that it's more oa user based and new growth is helping to pay for those parks that are coming on board that we happen to put out there before they got there. And we can do the phase 2s and the phase 3s. Margaret and I are fortunate, we are already in phase 2, Commissioner Davis is in phase 1, and I think there will be a phase 3 for all of us. I look forward to get something southwest, Commissioner, because the money is there if we could ever find a piece of property. Those are my thoughts, concerns, issues that I would throw out there.
Last Modified: Friday, August 8, 2003 8:52 AM