Travis County Commssioners Court
March 2, 2004
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 10
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10 is to consider and take appropriate action on the deloitte touche consulting phase 1 report on the subdivision review process in the extraterritorial jurisdiction of the city of Austin.
>> good morning.
>> good morning.
>> we have today a presentation to give on the phase I report prepared by deloitte and touche, deloitte consulting. As you recall, we have spent over two years developing a response to the new state law that requires consolidated review within the extraterritorial jds of city -- jurisdictions of cities. And we have worked for some time with the city of Austin developing a single office, a single code. At the end of that process last December, the county decided to hire an outside auditor to come in and review the subdivision review process. And that auditor is deloitte consulting. They have spent the intervening months in some detail looking at the city review processes, looking at the county review processes. And our charge to them was look at the law, look at what we do and find out if there's any duplication. And what we're continuing to do in the single office. And what they have then is a two-phase process. The first phase was to look at duplication itself. The second phase is then to examine what to do about that if there is, in relation to having a fee that corresponds to a single review. This is being paid for by the county, so it's pretty much a county-sponsored study, although it does involve the city of Austin's processes as well as Travis County's processes. So with that I would like to turn it over to deloitte and let them make this presentation and then be open for any questions you may have about the findings of the external auditor.
>> thank you, joe. My name is scott huntsman, I'm with deloitte and I appreciate the opportunity to present our phase I results to judge Biscoe and the county Commissioners that are present here today. We appreciate the opportunity to be of service to the county again, and we hope that you'll find our results beneficial to gaining a better understanding of what's going on in the e.t.j. Is the presentation up right now? Getting there? Before we get the presentation up I do want to thank joe and his staff, both cynthia and carol for the assistance they provided our team during the process of gathering the information necessary for us as well as conducting and helping us schedule the interviews. The city of Austin was also cooperative and participated in various meetings as well as various take holders from the stakeholder community did come in both early into the process and express some of their issues and concerns to us that we did take into consideration as well as last week we did review some of the final issues with them and got an impression from them as to what their thoughts were on that. So with that in mind, we'll go through the presentation. What we are presenting on the screen is literally an executive summary of the detailed report that you have in your packets. If you recall, when we were engaged, phase 1, the objectives of phase 1 were basically to determine whether the county and the city had satisfied the statutory requirements of the house bills 1445 and 1204. In addition, we were asked to look at -- because in the interlocal agreement there was a clause to look at eliminating duplicatn within the organization, the single office organization. We also took the opportunity while we were looking at the processes and interviewing both city and county representatives to look at the activities that may be duplicative and present you with a report on that. Is that us?
>> we're having problems again with the powerpoint.
>> should we give them a hard copy?
>> we've got it.
>> you have it? Okay. Okay. Well, then move to page 3, finding statute -- binding statutory requirements. What we reviewed the local government code and the intent here was to determine how client the city and county had been in developing the single office and how complaint they were with the local government code. We literally extracted five elms of the local government code and they're shown in this table word for word. These are the five operating elements of the statutory code that we believe we needed to get comfortable with. And through the๑r process of reviewing and interviewing and on-site observation and reviewing of documentation, as you can see, we believe the city and county have met the requirements of the local government code as it pertains to the operations of the single office. If we move to page -- if you move to page 4, some of the things we did want to note before we get into some of the complication discussion, we believe there have been some achievements to date that the single office has contributed to. Number one is meeting operational requirements of the legislation.
>> you're up.
>> we're up. Okay. Page 4. Some of the other achievements is the creation of the joint code, chapter 30, was obviously a great benefit for the efficiency of the single office and how the connectivities got carried out. The negotiation of the interlocal agreement was obviously beneficial to both parties. Developers now receive comments in a single document versus comments from the city, from the county. They now receive a consolidated response from the single office, so that is an achievement and a benefit in our opinion. A new conflict resolution process has been implemented to satisfy disputed issues. And in addition, we think that the community -- or the communications between the county and the city have improved just because of the level of cooperation necessary in operating the single office. If you move to page 5, before we talk about the duplication that we did see in the review, it's important to understand a couple of concepts that we've defined early on so that it was clear that we were differentiating both dual responsibilities and duplicative responsibilities. A dual responsibility as it pertains to our review had to do with those things that occurred during the review that both the city and county reviewed the same item, but they were doing it for a different purpose. So they had dual responsibilities there. A duplicative responsibility or element were activities where both the city and county were reviewing the same items of the plan or of the documentation and reviewing it for the same purpose. So you can see the difference there and the reason why we would do that. If you go to page 6 briefly, the application process and the construction review process were literally carved up into four succinct process areas so that's how we're going to present to you our findings. The application intake is literally that, it's where the application is received. The city apparently manages most of that. A completeness check is basically checking the application to make sure that all elements that are required are present. Some level of review does take place during that completeness check, but it's not as substantive as the next step, which is the substantive review, the detailed review of the plans and information presented by the developer. And lastly, during the construction there is an inspection process that both the city and county have during construction phases. So if you move to page 7, we'll move through this fairly quickly. The application intake process, there was no duplication of functions identified by us in that particular area because the city pretty much does most of that. They receive the applications for the e.t.j. At one Texas center, and from there they're distributed to both city and county personnel. In the completeness check, our analysis indicated that duplication does exist by both the county and the city. Both entities review applications to determine whether all required information has been provided. So there's a level of duplication that occurs there, and probably needs to be rethought of, rethought in phase 2, if that's the direction we're instructed to go. When you look in the substantive review elements, we've broken this down by the different categories of the substantive review, so you will have -- we have general requirements, design of water and water and wastewater, transportation, floodplain and storm water management and environmental. So we'll take each of those separately. Under the general requirements we found that one of the two elements there were determined to be duplicative. The county and city there both review applications to verify administrative requirements have been met on the application. So that's a level of duplication that we believe could be streamlined. Design of the water wastewater and electrical utilities. One of the five elements in that part of the study were believed to be duplicative and that's where the city and county review, whether a utility provider has been designated for the planned subdivision. Both of them are literally looking to see that a qualified utility provider is scheduled to provide utilities to that subdivision. Transportation, this was one of the largest areas. In fact, I believe it was the largest area where we did see duplication. In fact, the entire area of duplication, all nine elements of the transportation review area were duplicative. So here both city and county personnel review the transportation design and provide comments based on the same set of criteria. That's one area where the highest level of duplication was present. If you go to page 9, looking at the floodplain and storm water management, here 50% of the elements or three out of six elements were determined to be duplicative. Both city and county revie the conveyance of off site drainage, the design of the storm sewer line, the capacity and design of the on-site detention ponds to determine complains with the chapter 30 requirements. Also in this area we found that the review of the water quality ponds was also a dual process -- a dual requirement. The reason foe that is the county evaluates the impact on the management of the storm water and floodplain implications which the county is charged with. The city on the other hand evaluates those same quality ponds for water quality and environmental issues and concerns that they're charged with. So that was an example of a dual responsibility where both of them are looking at the same information, but for a different purpose. Under the area of environmental, no environmental elements were determined to be duplicative, primarily the city manages most of that. The county does have some area in the silk screens that they put up on construction sites, they manage those to keep the erosion from pushing the dirt into the streets and down maybe possibly clogging up a drainage area or a floodplain. That's it on substantive review areas. If you turn to page 10 and inspection. The chart there basically shows the two areas where the city and county both have a pretty involved inspection process, both of them are contributing at about the same level. It depend on the day, the project, it depends on what's needed basically is what we heard from the inspectors. But certainly under transportation and drainage and then the construction eliminate related environmental controls, both city and county are having heavy inspection activities that go on there, so in those areas where we saw -- where we identified duplication. The other areas, environmental, infrastructure and utilities, the city or other entity such as a municipal utility district or an electrical utility are providing the inspection piece of that part of the project. So that brings us to what do we do about all this? And our next step is page 11. We believe the county needs to do the following: first -- and you'll see in bowled print, determine if duplication can be resolved. We believe in most of these cases it probably can. There are some questions that we've listed here to help guide sort of the decision-making process as we start to think about how to best utilize both our resources in phase 2 as well as how you might go about moving forward. So we've listed down here, can duplication be reduced or eliminated while still supporting the unique interests of the county and is city? Object shrusly you both -- obviously you both have rules, ordinances, laws, that you have and need to comply with, and unless those are adjusted or eliminated in some cases, there's going to be some level of duplication or dual responsibility just implicit in the fact that you're both governing entities that need to have a role in how these subdivisions are developed. So that's important to consider going forward. And if that's true, which we believe it is, how will that process be facilitated between the city and county? So by that we mean how are your staff and the city staff going to get together and agree to a proper conclusion as to how we go about fibsing some of -- fixing some of this duplication. Who should do what in a single office is obviously of primary concern. Who -- how will this impact staffing at the county. For example, if you take on things that the city has been doing previously, what are the impacts in terms of how much staff you're going to have to hire to determine how to cover the volume of inspections or the substantive review process that you had not previously been staffed up to do? And vice versa with the city. They have those same decisions to make. How will this affect chapter 30 in the interlocal agreement? How will that get carried out in the end? How will this affect fees? That's something we didn't address in phase one. That was always agreed in phase 2 we would look at the cost of service elements of these activities. And be more able to respond to you on the fee aspect. How important is the process -- is process efficiency in this whole thinking here until the duplication matters are resolved? By that question, if you recall in our original proposal, phase 2 included an element of us looking at the business processes to help make them more efficient and effective. We're sort of rethinking that right now in that until we eliminate the duplication, you can make the processes as efficient as you want, but you're not really going to really have the basis to make the process as efficient as you can until you figure out who is doing what and eliminate some of the duplication that's there. If so finally, if the duplication cannot be resolved, prepare for arbitration. And if arbitration is the route in which you need to go or if that's the route you elect to go immediately, there's quite possibly a role that we could play in helping assist the county as an expert in the arbitration process given our understanding of the single office processes as well as the level of duplication and what's presently there. So that's our presentation. I think we're able to -- chris kennedy is with me. He was our manager on the project and we're prepared to answer any questions that you might have.
>> so when we see that there's a specific area of duplication, we really should think noncompliance with the law?
>> noncompliance with the law?
>> right.
>> no, actually, duplication was not addressed in the law. The law did not require you to eliminate duplication. In fact, as we've mentioned earlier on, you are compliant with the law even though you're inefficient, let's say. But the law as we understood it and read it, duplication was not explicitly written in the law. One might argue that the spirit of the law might lead one down that path, but we didn't try to interpret or put any interpretation into the law.
>> then how is it that if the if the duplication that you highlighted in this document isn't addressed and fixed, you believe that the arbitration requirement has been triggered? If duplication has not been resolved, prepare for arbitration. That's what the law says basically.
>> judge, can I respond to that?
>> yes, sir, please do.
>> you're the lawyer.
>> the issue is that notwithstanding what the statute does or doesn't say, the city -- the statute does say that cities and counties are going to jointly regulate in the e.t.j., Have to enter into an interlocal agreement and decide who has authority to do what? And in the interlocal agreement Travis County signed with the city of Austin, what was agreed upon was basically a division of authority on who collects what fee for what. And that's the basis of the arbitration.
>> not duplication?
>> right.
>> which was the whole spirit basically of the people going to the legislature and saying this is what the issue is. I guess we'll get into nitpicking, but what we're really talking about here is if we don't find a way to deal with this, then you've got two people wanting to charge for doing the same thing, and that is -- I mean, there should be no ambiguity insofar as what 1204 was trying to convey. I mean, joe, I mean, you're not falling in with that, are you?
>> well, there is -- there really is a difference between what you read in the law explicitly, black and white, versus what you're implying in terms of the spirit of the law. I think knowing how the law evolved, I can actually see it both ways. I can see what the intent of those who started the law and where they wanted it to go, but as any law, it goes through its periods of give and take and compromise, what came out did not take away from either the county or the city its authority to regulate in the e.t.j. It gave three options that did that. The fourth said go to a single office. And I think in that is the ambiguity of what we -- we were certainly doing everything under the law that is ex-plit sitly -- explicitly required of a single office, but there's still duplication. Do I think that it's efficient to do that? No, I don't. And I think there are ways that we should continue to pursue the elimination of duplication. But here's the gist of it. You are expecting when I come up to this table to represent to you that such has occurred according to the county standards for subdivision. You are trusting that my staff and I am representing to you the county's interest. Would you do the same if a city staff member came to this table and said, everything is taken care of? In some ways the duplication is that very issue. It's insurance. You would pay my salary, you have direct control over me and my staff, you expect me to do the county's bidding as far as its regulations, and you trust that I will do that. And if I don't do that, you've got recourse. I'm imagining the city council expects the same of their city staff. And so some of these areas, especially in the areas of duplication, if you look at them, they are all in the core business of Travis County. I mean, most of our subdivision review from 20 years ago to this day are in the area of transportation and drainage. That is our traditional core business. And that is why there's more duplication in that area than so many others where the county has not gotten into that business over the -- since we got authority. It somewhat speaks to what the legislature granted us the authority to do as well, so we've always operated within those realms. So when it comes to eliminating duplication to be more efficient, one way to do that is for the county to get out of the business and just say, okay, expect the city to represent the county's interest in the e.t.j. And we'll just -- we'll go do something else for a living. But would you trust the city to watch out for the county's interest? Those subdivisions, the infrastructure that is approved and platted and built, that if it's not done correctly, you're going to maintain that infrastructure. The other way around I can put on my city of Austin hat and say, okay, the city should get out of the business of transportation and drainage because that's the county's core business. Their argument is going to be yes, but, we expect to annex that same infrastructure in so many years. We don't want to give up our oversight of what ultimately we may have to take on in case the county didn't quite do the job good enough. We don't want to pick up the liabilities of not having been at the table to review and inspect and check to make sure everything that we're going to take over was done just the way the city would want it to be done. So I think a lot of what you see in the area of duplication is of that nature, how much do you want one or the other to control their destiny? We have the authority to do it. 1445 did not take away our authority to do it. It gave us four options. We could have gone for giving one or the other the full authority. We could have gone to a gerrymandering where you take this portion of the e.t.j., You take that. We could have gone to functional areas, you take environment, we'll take transportation. But we chose option 4, which is single office. Which means we both retain full authority over these subdivisions, only giving the exclusive authority when it came to variances and waivers. When there absolutely had to be someone to make the final judgment call, we split the baby. We said okay, in this matrix, the county has absolutely final authority. And in these areas the city does. But it was only for variances and waivers. Otherwise we both retained authority to review it. In a central office we tried to set up a mechanism that resolved conflict. Didn't necessarily --
>> are you in agreement with the findings and conclusions of the report or are you making the opposite case?
>> I am in agreement with the findings of the report both with regard to compliance with the law, but also with the fact that we have duplication.
>> okay. So on the transportation, if there's duplication in all nine transportation elements, are we legally required to eliminate the duplication?
>> I do not think you're legally required to eliminate the duplication.
>> what, if anything, are we legally required to do?
>> I think since the law requires the city and the county to agree on who has authority to do what in their interlocal agreement and because in the city of Austin Travis County interlocal agreement there is a provision on who has authority to collect what fees, the legal obligation is to come to agreement with the city of Austin on who has authority to collect what fee for what. Now, ultimately what that agreement is, I think there's some flexibility, but ultimately what we agreed with the city of Austin to do and what the city of Austin agreed to do back in the interlocal was to decide who collects what fee for what service. [one moment, please, for change in captioners] related to there being a complete application. So if that one is okay, it's duplicative, pick one. I don't have an issue saying the city of Austin doesn't give me heart ache. Snebd one item is duplicative, to me that's also an easy one, I think, because Travis County is not in the utility business. And so to me it's like we should stop doing that, I would have no issue or heart burn saying the city ought to be reviewing because we are not in the utility business. But then we get to the next item, we are totally in the transportation business. Those are our roads, our subdivisions until the city decides they are indeed going to annex. So it would seem to me that that ought to be wholly a Travis County responsibility with the exception of what things have been designated as near-term annexation areas. And those are very narrowly defined, they are legally defined, where the city of Austin has made a commitment to say that something absolutely is coming into their jurisdiction within a three-year time period. They have got all sorts of legal stuff that they have got to get to related to service plans, annexation plans, police, fire, e.m.s. Seems to me if it is in that narrowly defined near-term annexation area I would have no problem with the transportation piece being done by the city. But if it is not on that list, while it is in theory that the city at some point is going take over those roads, the reality is, is that it could take forever or never. And too often those decisions are being driven by things like, well, what kind of debt do they have related to municipal utility district or um did they have a library district or now we have to absorb that debt. There are a lot of other swaps going on in terms of the city saying we are never going to annex that area so long as we get to have your sales tax. They are making all sorts of swap offs, we are always getting stuck taking care of roads in a particular area. For transportation to me that one ought to be in Travis County, unless it's the nerm-term neation. Floodplain and storm water management. Same situation. Core travicounty responsibilities. We are the administrator of the floodplain period. So it seems in the near-term annexation, something very narrowly and legally defined, seems like floodplain and storm water management ought to be Travis County and the city of Austin ought to look to us to fulfill those legal obligations. Water quality? Dual. So we have no issues there. Environmental, nothing was seen to be duplicative, so we have no issues there. Then when you get to inspection. It would seem since there's dual -- duplicative things going on, transportation and drainage, that ought to be that the county do that unless you are in the near term annexation. And I would say on construction related environmentals, since we are ceding everything to them on environmental we ought to stop that and let the city do that. I don't see this as being difficult, but maybe I'm being overly simplistic. Then we would stop spending times on things they ought not to be. They would do the same thing. We figure out what are the usual number of hours that it takes for us to do something, figuring in all of these things and then we move on with setting our fees and we can only hope that the city does the same thing. But we cannot force them to stop charging for things. But what we can do is hopefully get into a good dialogue of getting them to stop doing things. Then they will have to face their own constituents related to the charges that they do.
>> yeah. I never saw the single office eliminating the county or the city from protecting their interests. Our interests. I never saw that. Unless, you know, I see legislation that says the county needs to stop doing this and this and this, you know, we have our responsibilities laid out. And I would call that dual then responsibilities, but I don't -- I don't -- some -- maybe we feed to although at that -- need to look at that definition of duplicative and dual a little closer so we can make a determination, Travis County needs to take care of its interests. I think we will be held to that.
>> Commissioner Daugherty?
>> before I get completely crazy.
>> so are conceding partial crazy? [laughter]
>> scott, can you share with us what the city of Austin's response was to what you all found?
>> they are in agreement.
>> okay.
>> since they've -- since they haven't been in -- or we haven't done the fee part of this thing, which is really kind of where we are going, that was really the major issue. Hopefully if they are in agreement regarding page 11, here the things that need to be resolved from the county standpoint. I suspect that the city is going to be saying to us that -- that, hey, your guys did this deal. I mean, you know, mai appraisals are made as instructed. I mean, unfortunately the way a lot of people think, I hope -- I think that you all did an independent study, said hey here's what it is regardless of who is paying us but there's always that question mark out there about okay what's going to happen on this thing. To cut to the chase, what this thing really is is how do we not charge the development community twice for doing something that needs to be handled whenever a set of plans come in to take care of whatever it is to take care of. I mean, Commissioner Sonleitner laid it out. You're right. There are real obvious things in here. I think that the city would even agree. The thing that always is in the back of my mind that bothers me about this, maybe it's just that I heard it nebulously and it's not that accurate. But I have always -- I think i've heard is that the city is not really interested in altering their fees. Bingo. There's our problem. Because it's not fair to charge the development community twice. I would be very willing to say come on city, let's decide who does this, who does that and -- and we are only going to get one seat of fees from it. But what I fear is that we are going to continue down this road. What we are -- the advantage that I think that we are going to have is that the legislature is going to have to get involved with us again. And god I mean I hope they don't feel like they have to came the -- you know the ambiguity out because nothing has really been ambiguous as far as I'm concerned with 1204/445. You have got the development community that doesn't think that it's fair. I think that all of us think that it's not fair to charge twice for something. I hope that arbitration, I hope all of us think that arbitration is not the bottom line answer. Saying you know what we spent six figures, close to it by the time we get through doing everything with y'all. See, we really wanted to do the right thing and we have an independent document here that says here are the things that we found. Now, maybe the city is just going to come around on this thing. Maybe the city is just going to lay down and say, okay, well, that's fine, we'll take what you said here and -- and we will comply with this. I don't think that any of us or that many of us feel that that's going to be the case. I think that they are still going to want to charge these fees and that we are going to get into a situation where well, hey, we have got to charge for some of these things because we are actually doing these things, especially when you start talking about transportation. So I'm -- I mean I don't want us to get to a point where it looks like today what we have done is we have gone off, we have done a study, we believed what the study is, we suspected that it was going to be a lot of what we have found. Now, I don't think there's a city -- is there a city person here today? So it's not like we can ask, you know, them. And but maybe the next time that we meet, we ought to ask lisa or somebody from over there to come along and say, hey, how do you really feel about this? Joe?
>> this report will be presented to the city council on Thursday. I would think after that meeting there should probably be high level talks between the city and the county about the next step of this process. By that I'm meaning elected official. Because I think probably at that level it depends on where we go from here.
>> some of these things are going to be within our control even if the city doesn't agree with us. If we feel strongly that transportation and floodplain and storm water management are things that we ought to be doing, we can continue to be doing that because -- I would feel good about going to the state legislature in terms of explaining why. But if we think on the water and wastewater, electric utility issue that that's duplicative and you know what we are the ones who ought not to be doing that, that is within our control to say we can stop and we can stop tomorrow. Same thing on the general requirements. If we choose to say, you know what, that's something that's so administrative, that can be one or the other, fine, let it stay with the city. We can choose to do that and then all of a sudden it is no longer duplicative and we just need to refigure how many hours that's not -- that knocks off of a review if it's something substantive or not. But I think the core is going to be transportation, floodplain and storm water management. Those are core Travis County issues and I think we need to have some good discussion was them about whether they at least stop the duplication. I think there is a totally separate political discussion that is quite frankly not of our making, it's not our decision on what they choose to charge for whatever they have got over there. That's -- that's frankly none of our business. They are going to have to deal with their constituencies, their folks, but represented to, gee, can we at least get them to stop duplicating the service because there is no value added, that is something that we could, I think, successfully press. But the fee thing, that's -- that's a separate issue. But I would like to think that we are doing all of this, representing to duplication what Travis County is charging, not because the state legislature told us to do but because it is the right thing to do, whether they tell us to do it or not. It is the right thing to do.
>> the two years that the staff, county and city negotiated, comply with the law, we didn't discuss all of these possibilities? That seems so simple today.
>> [laughter] I think this report probably crystallizes the very -- base issues. And I'm -- quite frankly I think the process is much better today than it was two years ago. I mean, all of the process, the communications is better. We are -- I think we are eliminating what we started, remember, by -- by the charge of conflicts ping-ponging back and forth. I think that we have gone a long way to stop ping-ponging. That hasn't eliminated the duplication. I think that we are both doing things, doing a better job, not getting the developer in the middle of conflicting comments. But -- but if the issue is -- is this process as efficient as it can be. The answer is no. We are still -- both putting levels ever effort into the same thing -- levels of effort into the same thing, perhaps for good reason, but it's -- it's -- I would not -- I certainly recommend or I agree with Commissioner Sonleitner and in terms of the counties core interest being transportation, floodplain and drainage. I think that's -- that's where we have traditionally been. That's probably where we put most of our effort in making sure those are done right.
>> do you think we have a responsibility to -- to get with the city and try to address the duplication --
>> absolutely. But I think the --
>> you think that if we cannot eliminate the duplication, even in transportation, we have a responsibility to go to arbitration?
>> that will have to be done at a very high level. I think -- I think one or the other of us needs permission to get out of the business. By our elected officials. By the governing body. And I don't think the city staff knowing them just as I know my own staff would be, you know, willing to say no, we will stop doing this. Because there is. You just as I said to begin with, when I come up here, you expect me to have the answers. You expect me to give you assurances that the streets are built to our standards, that we inspected then, they are done right because you know if anything goes wrong we are going to be out there fixing it. So that's the issue. If I were not to do that, you would have no one coming up here giving you those assurances, at least not on county staff. Now can you -- can you ultimately get there through some kind of contract or whatever. That when these plats are brought to you with a city review only, would you be willing to semi their recommendation, that they would been reviewed by the city. If you can get there as elected body, I would say that it's solved. The same goes for the city council. If they are willing to say if the county staff has reviewed this and then if the county staff giv us the city council assurances that it meets our joint standard, that's okay th us. But today we are not there.
>> judge, can I respond to your question. Are we legally obligated to go to arbitration.
>> if we don't address these.
>> right. Let me give background, house bill 1445 said city and county have to enter an agreement by a certain date, which we d. City of Austin and Travis County had an agreement. From the perspective of the real estate stakeholders, it was just a paper agreement. There were still a whole lot that the city and the county hadn't really agreed on. So the follow-up, house bill 1204, when you look at it overall, the basically said, you know, just having a paper agreement is not good enough you know. You have to have all disagreements resolved by a certain date or go to arbitration. Now, again, the law says the city and county have to enter into an agreement saying who does what, who has authority for that, that includes fees. The city of Austin and Travis County chose, in our agreement, to say that we are going to address fees. As of today, it set some parameters on how we were going to address those fees, how we are going to look at it. As of today, we have not agreed with the city of Austin on what's going to happen on fees. If the agreement is not resolved, then the law says go to arbitration. Unless you choose to rewrite that to eliminate that disagreement. We did that. You know there were a couple of amendments to the interlocal that basically eliminated city and county disagreements. There was one on utilities, one on something else. Basically instead of going to arbitration, we are going to amend the interlocal. Those are really your two options. You can always retread the deal so to speak if you find out we went down this path, thought we could agree on it. Got here, turns out for one reason or another we complaint. You don't have to go to arbitration. You can always restructure the basic deal between the city and the county. I am looking forward to what the council says and what their reaction is to it. Presuming that it's doom, death and destruction guns and lawyers, let this be laid out and see what they say and then go from there. This has been extra ordinarily helpful documenting whether there is dual versus duplication.
>> you plan to be at the city council meeting on Thursday, joe.
>> I'm leaving that up to city staff. My meetings -- my message to lisa I said that --
>> do you plan to go to the city council.
>> I think that's up to them.
>> if you want me to go --
>> I think you ought to be there. If nothing else somebody may ask what do the Commissioner court members think. As best you can characterize what we have said today.
>> all right.
>> I think that we are kind of at the point where we need to take [indiscernible] steps one way or the other. I recall that stakeholders did lay out an option that would basically divide the areas of responsibility.
>> that's right.
>> and basically [indiscernible] it did sort of come at the last minute. But if we do some things that -- that we need to address, in a way that I think probably address them a lot better than we have. That's just food for thought. Next week is not a good week for us to discuss this. But March 16th is. And I think that if the city council receives a report on Thursday, then at a staff level we ought to try to have a meeting with the city before the 16th or have city staff and the Commissioner court meeting on 16th.
>> I will extend that invitation. In term of the next step for the consultant, our contract -- did -- our contract covers the fees as phase 2?
>> it does for the county. And right now the consultant is on hold in part because this is a very central issue. We can go in and do the cost basis of the county fees. And that's what their contract says. But it is literally one hand clapping. We can justify the basis of our fee, it doesn't get to the underlying issue of duplication. And so -- so rather than go there, start spending money to do that, I think we probably ought to get through phase 1 to find out what the intent is on both the city and the county's portion before we move into our phase 2.
>> but if there is service duplication, in both -- and both of us are charging --
>> you can bet there's a duplication, yes.
>> there's an absolute guarantee of fee duplication.
>> I think you can probably on that.
>> how much.
>> would it be useful for them to take -- we were talking to them yesterday and kind of in a casual conversation, would it be useful to have the consultants set up a -- a kind of a model project, development project, 100-acres, whatever, and compare what the total fees would be if that project were in the city of Austin, number one, number 2 if it were in e.t.j., Or number 3, if it were in Travis County. That might give you on an overall comparison of what kind of a problem this is. If the -- if the duplication is insignificant that make it say something. If you found, for instance, that the fees for a project that would be similar to one in the city of Austin or Travis County in the tooemg -- in the tooemg is a whole lot -- in the e.t.j. Is a whole lot more, then that is a problem. The city has already said they are not going to allow their fees to be looked at. But I think that we could get a feeling for the cost of duplication by that. I mean that's a suggestion. I don't know if that's helpful to you all.
>> joe, I know in terms of -- as we looked at subdivision fees before in terms of we kind of gathered up in terms of short form, long form, kind of assuming how many hours does it take to do this and then attaching the fee to it, is there a way that you all, without regard to where the city is duplicating this or not, can we attach how many hours ana normally spends on reviewing transportation kinds of issues? I mean, how many are we putting into that task? How many hours on the water and wastewater electric utilities, that's duplicative, are we putting in? Anything that's duplicative can we attach, you know, some sense of the number of hours? That's not making any kind of conclusion as to whether we stop or they stop. But for us to have a clear idea of how long that is duplicative process of verifying, administrative process taking. All of them. Point by point by point by point without any regard to saying that we are going to give it up or they are going to give it up, but for us to have a good sense of the time involved in each of these tasks.
>> I think we can probably do order of magnitude. In going through the process, they can probably purse out owe parse out how much time they spend. It is, though, a currents level of effort. It does not speak to how it might be if there were no new duplication. It's just a snapshot of what's going on today. But that would be --
>> are we able to hold off on making a decision on the next [indiscernible] until March 16th.
>> I think we can. The one little sticky wickket that we might have is that we amended the audit contract with deloitte to do this. And that contract is -- is -- ends either on June 30th or when they are through with their audit. Whichever is first. And I'm not sure what when that is going to be. Certainly before jun 30th. It may be mid April. If this -- if the work we washington them to do in phase 2 can be done by mid April, then we don't have a contractual problem. If we do, I think the only thing -- it's not a big deal. We can just get a separate contract for the work. So it's just rather a procedural, but we want to make sure that we are in compliance with the contract. But I mean I think that's detailed that -- that we can take care of it internally. I wouldn't let that date drive your work. I would rather, you know, do a contract if that's what we need rather than say we have got this -- this time frame that really doesn't suit the work.
>> okay. Well, so where are we left if the county concludes after additional efforts to resolve these issues. That we have failed and arbitration is required and the city thinks arbitration is not. Just binding arbitration or do we --
>> I don't think the statute gives the city the ability to disagree as to arbitration. There's a provision in the statute that basically says, you know, if the county submits it to arbitration, the city shall participate. If the city submits it the county shall participate. I don't think they have the legal ability to decline arbitration. Anything else today? Isn't a good idea to be at the meeting, joe or Commissioner Sonleitner? [laughter]
>> send Gerald.
>> I think just procedurally, I think joe should be in the audience, just to listen and -- and geafert your -- gather because sometimes they can't get everything off of the tape. You are not seeing the sideways glances all sorts of things. But it should be the city's call as to whether they chose for them to participate in the discussion. I'm not going to presume that we insert ourselves with joe. Deloitte, yes, but joe --
>> friendly clabator that -- collaborator that you really are, joe.
>> let me make one thing clear to deloitte. It is not in their contract to make that presentation to the city council. I have extended that offer to the city in spite of that because I thought it was important for the city council to get the same presentation as the Commissioners court. But I left that lisa. I said this is up to you. If you want deloitte there, they will come, but they will give the entire presentation, not be there just to answer questions. So that there's a comparable level of transmittal of information. That would I hope put the -- equal footing --
>> do we have from the county a letter to the city manager that says I guess in just a paragraph or two to sort of highlight where we think the report leaves the county before Thursday?
>> I don't know -- they have the full report. I have not given them any separate letter.
>> okay. Maybe being there is sufficient.
>> i'll be there.
>> anything else on this item today? Two members of the court by law may attend that meeting without our posting it.
>> do we have a sense of when this might be up? Seriously?
>> I don't know if it's time certain, I don't.
>> we could find out. That's -- because their meetings start at 9:00 in the morning and go until --
>> midnight.
>> yes.
>> thank you all very much.
>> thank you.
>> appreciate it.
>> we will have it back on on March 16th.
Last Modified: Wednesday, March 3, 2004 1:16 PM