Travis County Commssioners Court
February 3, 2004
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Item 31
31 consider and take appropriate action on request from the association of counties to implement a public awareness program regarding unfunded mandates imposed on counties. Christian was kind enough to put together a list. Do we need to take another week to -- to -- to do a little further work on this? I guess the word mandate sort of has me wondering the list her some of these things are actions that Travis County takes as we a -- as a result of an action by the state. That's a little different, though, than actions that the state requires us to take. And does not provide any funding. So I think that the pure unfunded mandate really is something that the state requires counties to do. But doesn't provide sufficient funding to get it done.
>> sound like what's embedded in state law, because lawmakers will vote on the indigent act for example, but they are not the ones telling jail standards is a 1:48 ratio, that's an administrative unfunded mandate. That's where I kind of saw the difference was --
>> but indigent defense, jjadp where basically criminal district judges and civil district judges were really forced to go into the education business and we are still at it, and no funding was provided by the state, we survived but I still think the judges think that it's inappropriate for them to be teaching, administering the education system.
>> the others are tied to the budget which is definitely something that the legislature vos on. Why don't we could this. Maybe come up with like a -- a priority 1 list and then a secondary list where we try to distinguish pure unfunded mandates from the others. The other thing that I was hoping to get a bit more assistance from the managers and the officials but once we start circulating this, I think we want it to be something that we can stand hyped 100%. Why don't we take another week on it, okay?
>> okay.
>> I think [indiscernible] will -- we appreciate your hard work.
>> glad you brought that question.
Last Modified: Wednesday, February 4, 2004 6:25 AM