Travis County Commssioners Court
March 16, 2004
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Item 35
35 is to discuss and take appropriate action on legislative issues impacting counties during the 78th legislature special session. This was on last week and we chatted about it briefly. It's Commissioner Gomez's item. We did get a copy of the governor's fresh statement on Thursday and have had an opportunity to read the newspaper coverage of that. And I still have not had a chance to advice it with bob and chris, and I'm afraid -- I sent an e-mail out late yesterday, wanted to impress y'all about how late I was working. [ laughter ] and to set forth a few point that bob and chris shared with us. And I think that since the cuc luncheon is on Thursday and you and Commissioner Gomez normally go, I did not post that. But I do think that bob and chris had excellent ideas that I thought they should share with the court. And especially you and Commissioner Gomez, hopefully before Thursday, which leaves tomorrow for a meeting with both of y'all if possible.
>> I think she's the only one attending it, judge, since she's on the policy committee. I'm not on the policy committee.
>> it's not just a regular luncheon?
>> no.
>> okay. That was the idea of the sort of suggested legislation. There are four or five areas that probably are real important for us, and we should bring those to our attention, one that christian and I chatted about yesterday. Probably the cap ought to be tied to new construction and project value rather than population increase. We do take a killing on population increase. It's funny, every 10 years after the census, we get a big bubble, but the other years are really kind of unpredictable. They're a lot more predictable for us. The cap requiring a vote of electorate before doing so, really does not enable us to do deal with the emergency situations you can think of, some horrifying possibilities. So if they modify the rollback election requirement, that may be a lot more practical for us. And then this notion of stopping the unfunded mandates and the shifting of costs is important. We're better able to control our budget if we -- if we predict expenditures for it. But if they're imposed on us from the outside at sometimes that we do not control, then it really becomes much more difficult.
>> judge? Did we ever get a final rendering of the unfunded mandates? I know with had a little ballpark figure of what we thought would be something we could look at at this coming year as far as the budget was concerned. Did we ever get anything in concrete to say yes, this is the number that we have to basically do? We have to estimate an approximate, but anything more accurate than that?
>> we'v got a couple of memos from staff. Christian specifically and others from justice. And what I was trying to do was trying to put together a kind of fresh statement with a concrete example of unfunded mandates and cost shifts. Which I think is as important as ever now.
>> yes, yes.
>> now, there are two members of the court going on the 30 the, then it seems to me that if we're moving on this on what we set forth here, we ought to try to get that done before you leave. I'm assuming that a special session may well be called the first part of April, mid April, and a lot of these -- if there's a strategy and we produce a written document that sets fort our position and our goal is to share that with others, legislative delegation, other officials, cec, etcetera, the time to start doing that is as soon as we can get it, right?
>> yes.
>> and there actually is a brand new lunch of the cuc that has been called because of the anticipation that there will be a special on Thursday April eighth, but I know I will not be attending that one. That's the big luncheon that i've already rsvp's that i'd be there. But the next meeting is the eighth of April.
>> well, make sure that I post that if we attend the luncheon and the possibility that people may want to go.
>> sure.
>> this is one of those issues I guess where rather than just reacting, it requires a little bit more thought, analysis, sort of systematic development of a strategy, plus basically the idea they left me with, which makes all the sense in the world. So in this little note what I tried to do basically is sort of suggest three or four other points that were mentioned. And there were probably others that we ought to sort of think about in addition to the writing and wording that we approved and that we share with others. The other thing is that during special sessions, if the strategy works that i've heard about it being reported, the goal is to try to have pretty much a consensus on the approach before they arrive in town. So that means that in my view they won't be here a long, long time. My guess is that they will be acting fairly quickly. So whatever we plan to do, it will be systematic. The other thing I mention here in three is it made a lot of sense to me as I thought about it yesterday, all of this is sort of driven by the robin hood plan, almost everybody says it's not working. But the school district and Travis County almost -- most of us, if not all of them, are deemed to be rich schools. There may be one or two others. I used to think manor was, but now it's --
>> no [ inaudible ].
>> so if that tax relief is given, then Travis County residents would get relief from that. But we don't know exactly what it will be. The thing I did not put down here is there is some talk about broadening that penny sales tax and counties and municipalities would benefit. It seems to me this would be the time for us to argue for a few more revenue-raising possibilities. Right now we're looking at real property taxes, fees and grants from governmental entities, interlocals, sales tax would help some.
>> I know that's something that the hospital districts have been advocating is whether they could get a small piece of any kind of new sales tax because so much of this wind up on the shoulders of a hospital district except here in Travis County where it winds up in the city of Austin and Travis County's budget where we do not have access to a lot of that stuff. I think the thing that I got out of y'all's memo, and I think was really good, is that we can't just say, we don't like this. That's not going to be sufficient. Because we don't. But we need to have some concrete, but have you thought about this? But so far the editorials that have been coming out have been very critical of saying that you can't cap revenue if you're not capping expenditures that come into these cities and counties that are mandates, not discretionary, but mandates. We do not have the option of saying please turn down the air conditioning in the jail and let's only run it with ceiling fans because it doesn't work that way. There are mandates that come through that we have no choice but to follow through on. And I think there might be some things too, judge, that we need to take a look at some things that we got in this last session. We worked very hard on the blue warrants, but I think that we are seeing is that we are not saving any dollars on the blue warrants. The situation is only getting that much worse. That while they have cut down the number of days before they are out of our system, the numbers of those people that are coming in have skyrocketed. And we need to work cooperatively with the state, and that may be an area of how can we assist you in coming to take a look at these cases and getting them out of our custody. Because right now the number of days is not what's driving the cost, it is the numbers that are coming through. When they have zero intention of revoking their parole and sending them back to prison because that would be on their task. So I think we need to have some very concrete ideas about being helpful as opposed to just saying no.
>> that was the main idea, right, bob?
>> what Commissioner Sonleitner just said? Yes. I think it's well put. And just for a little bit of background on that point,, as the governor has been developing his ideas, he has invited the counties to participate and help develop those ideas, and hopefully in the end endorse those ideas. And as a result of that they approached the three main associations, which would be cuc, Texas association of counties, and then also the county judges and Commissioners association, which is the other group. And each of those associations has appointed two individuals as a small taskforce to represent the counties in the negotiations with the governor. And the cuc has appointed tim brown, Commissioner from bell county, and also glen whitley, who is from tarrant county. And so what they have -- what your association, the conference of urban counties, has asked, is that on Thursday you give some instruction through Commissioner Sonleitner or Commissioner Gomez, as to how you want those negotiations to proceed and what the -- the points that you brought up, judge, if you want those pursued in these negotiations and discussions, be it prohibition of unfunded mandates or some type of definition of that, whatever it might be. And I think that's what the cuc is looking for on Thursday is to get some instruction, some direction from you, the elected officials, so that that can then be conveyed to the governor's office. And judge, if you would like us, as suggested earlier, to meet with the members of the court tomorrow or prior too the meeting on Thursday, chris and I are prepared to do that if that would be helpful.
>> I know christian has got this information because they are a wealth of information of this kind. There seemed to be inherent in the governor's proposal with all due respect that cities and counties cannot be trusted that when the school district property tax impact goes away that somehow we're just going to go wild and crazy and spend every dollar there is out there, and there is no real property tax relief. It seems prudent that we could give them some historical information and perspective as to how close have we been to the effective tax rate? How far has -- when has Travis County ever gone over the effective tax rate. When did we bump up against roll back? What were the circumstances. It seems to me if we could give some perspective that somehow we're just going to go nuts with the charge card to show what has happened in the past because the reality is we are still accountable to the citizens. And if people are unhappy with the fiscal policies of this county, our necks are on the line every two years in terms of somebody being up for relocation and being dissatisfied with the direction that we're taking. But I know christian has got that in terms of tracking where are we in relation to the effective tax rate. And when have we gone above roll back. Have we ever gone above roll back.
>> christian?
>> thank you.
>> christian, you may want to knock off 10 percent before you do that, reduce it by 50%.
>> and there have been times that we've gone above the effective tax rate. And I can remember and there were for things literally we did weeks before three of us were up for election. And it had to do with e.m.s. In terms of initiatives that we decided to do related to e.m.s. It had to do with things related to bonds that were approved by the voters that needed to be refigured into the tax rate. What have the large counties done that were the majority of where citizens now live are in large urban counties versus rural?
>> I have that information going back to 1992? I have the information of the m and o or general fund tax levee going back to 1992 and the percentage increase every year, and I will share that with you if you wish. And you can deal with the facts in accordance with what they show.
>> i'd like to have --
>> if I can get the budget director, christian.
>> I didn't see your letter, judge, but I did see don lee and one of the things I'm sure you saw most of these things, but I can see one impact is if we are forced to have a flat revenue, so to speak, we really need to look hard, hard, hard at these interlocals with the city of Austin. I've got people on the interlocal contracts and they're coming in right now saying that the city of Austin is going to need at least 3.8% for raises for their people. And I can't remember the increase for the health. But the realit is we need to be watching those because if in fact we do have a cap, that means the only way that we could pay those people more is to cut back what we're paying our own people or cut back the services that we have to get. So there really are implications in terms of not getting in to any contracts that had escalators because we will not have the ability to increase taxes proportionately, so in a way we've done a lot of work with interlocals and I think this could shed a different negative light on those. Other things as well, but that's one that comes to mind. I was trying to think of what things had kind of an automatic escalator. The other thing is the increase this health insurance? The inflation factor in health insurance is going up every single year. And we've done what we can in terms of pulling back on that, but I think that it would be naive to say or think that we as -- like anyone else, could bring that to zero. And again if we had a flat tax and you couldn't accommodate those type of things, it would be to cut other services or cut back health insurance. And we found in the past where we've analyzed that. I've sat on that committee it seems like forever. What you end up doing with many people is pushing them off health insurance and then they're on to the public role where someone else has to pick up the funding of the hearing -- I was hearing just last night saying that 24% of the people ithis area do not have health insurance. I think it would be good to look at those things that are kind of automatic escalators that we need to deal with. It's a nice concept to say, hold the line, but there are some things you just can't hold the line on. And that was just -- i'll help you as much as I can if you have questions for me, please feel free to ask. I thought i'd meet with April and I would meet with don lee of cuc just to see what kind of data they're looking at to see if there's something we could help them with. But I think ats an oversimplification of what counties can do.
>> and I know we had discussed this earlier in the year as far as collection of fines and fees and another funding source that we have as far as the filing fees that we have not collected. I know Commissioner Daugherty and I had worked with that committee for for a while, but we were looking for the first part of the year to maybe come back and revisit some of this stuff. But again, I think that's probably an important process and I would like to continue to have your input on that as we look for outstanding fines and fees that the county has not collected. And of course, it shouldn't be a part of -- and added tow our general fund revenue. That's just another area that I want to revisit here real soon.
>> representative naishtat's office called our office I guess two weeks ago and apparently they had some citizens they said -- I don't know who they were, but asking about what kinds of revenue sources were out there that we, Travis County especially, because people apparently asked them from were Travis County, but were not collecting. And our response to that was we think -- the Commissioners court has really tried to collect everything that we can. If there's a fee that we can collect, we've assessed it. And that when one comes to your attention that you're doing that. And the reality is that we are so constricted with what we have as far as the property tax -- and you know when we talk about fines and fees, these are criminal fines and fees. And everyone wants every dime of that collected. I surely do. There is a real list city constraint on those. Many of those people do not have the money to pay, period. They just don't. And we can push them harder by putting them in jail and making them sit it out at $50 a day and then we can write a check everyday for $50 instead of getting the fines and fees. But there's a give and take in all of these things. And we counties, the state has not given us that many different revenue sources. And this is my 16th year at the county. My impression here is y'all have pushed those other revenue sources just as hard as you can. I wouldn't want to say there's nothing out there that we couldn't collect. There might not be so little -- some little pocket, but I don't think there are great revenue sources out there, I don't. And what really concerns me is when you have a fix on that revenue and there are escalators in there that we really can't control very well or the ramifications of controlling them are very, very negative. That's really my concern. And I'm going to have my staff -- I'm sure pbo is doing the same thing, but look and see if we can identify some of those things. Because I'm not sure -- representative naishtat's office was kind of surprised at that. They were actually surprised that we couldn't collect fines and fees that the legislature has not approved. So they weren't owe they didn't really understand the revenue sources of the county very well, so there is probably an educating on that as well.
>> what I want to do also is update you to some interchanges that have occurred between don lee and me both in writing as well as telephonically this morning and i've been asked to do something which I was planning on doing. They're asking for an articulation by department of -- or an identification by department of those departments that are -- have mandatory obligations behind them. And those that don't. In that interchange -- this is not simply unfunded mandates, but the law says you have to have jp's, you the law says you have to have Commissioners, courts, the law says you have to have corrections officers. The law doesn't say you've got to have law enforcement. The law doesn't say you've got to have computers. The law doesn't say you've got to fix some roofs. The law doesn't say you've got to have a budget office. The law doesn't say you've got to have e.m.s., But the law does say you've got to have a tax collector. The law does say you've got to do -- you've got to prosecute some people. So while simple -- and realize that yes, we all know that in the main there are some things that are discretionary versus absolutely mandated, but at least to get a handle on here are some -- the portion of our departmental budgets that are mandatory. And here is a portion that is discretionary. You don't have to do water control, you don't have to do certain kind of things in the transportation area. And so that we can kind of see the types of expenditures that are driven by mandatory obligations versus those that are not. And the likelihood is you would look to those discretionary obligations should a cap be placed on counties. The other thing I was asked to do was show what portion of the county's budget is managed and controlled by elected official. And what portion is controlled or managed by the Commissioners court. That is fairly easy, you look at the org chart and take off, in out, in out. I have that data and was planning on sharing it with cuc because it's fairly state forward and non--- should not be terribly controversial. But it is very telling. The degree to which Commissioners courts really do have control over their budgetary lives. There is a belief perhaps that Commissioners courts have more control than they really do, and I know you see that throughout the budget process. But that data will then I believe be glad to see cuc as a template for other counties to see okay, here's what it would be in other large major urban counties because it is educational. So I was planning on responding to that question. And if you wish, i'll be glad to share that.
>> it seems to me that there's one other part of the governor's proposal that we need to keep a close watch on because of what happened in the last session and that has to do with appraisal boards and what goes on with the appraisal process. There was a very, very bad bill that fortunately got stopped that would have the appeal of a valuation go to a justice of the peace, which all due respect to our justice of the peace, if you read the local government code, they are not a court of record and they are not even required to be attorneys. Many of them are and we're blessed re in Travis County that those are. But that would be sticking the appraisal process over into what is a politically charged situation. They've also talked about whether elected officials like county judges ought to be sitting on the appraisal board, judge, to sign off on appraised values as well. About whether those folks ought to have a say so in what is the appraisal method. And I know that when we were looking to see in-- put somebody on the appraisal board, that was a question being asked. Does this person have any say so over appraisal methods? And the question came back no. You get to have a say so about the appraiser, but there are established methods that are not Travis County. It is done but the state and the comptroller's office that have to do with the appraisal methods. And it caught my attention that the governor was using figures that had the appraised -- the average homestead to be about $129,000. And we know that that clearly is not the case here in Travis County. It clearly isn't. We are not in that kind of a situation. Travis County also has the situation where about 55% of our property is tax exempt. And so that also puts the pressure on local cities and counties to have to fill in the gaps on services because we do not have government paying for those kinds of services. They don't pay the property taxes. So that's -- a lot of stuff is being ash soshd sichly because we are the state capitol.
>> does the law require that advanced notice be given subject -- items that will be covered under the special session?
>> he will make a proclamation of the special session and he will declare what issues may be considered during that, but it's generally -- it can be fairly broad, but he says public school finance and tax structure, just about anything could be considered.
>> so you limit it -- but you are limited to what's in the proclamation?
>> that's correct.
>> and the proclamation is given how far in advance of the beginning of the session?
>> well, he can give it -- I don't think there's any time limit. You can give it and then he can amend it during the 30 days. He can add on to the issues that could be considered within the call. So it could change.
>> okay.
>> I have two thoughts. One was that there are several steps that we ought to go ahead and take. The other one was that you try -- you or you and chris try to leave room for the courts. I was thinking that because of whatever we think maybe ought to be shared with the cuc at the luncheon. I guess Commissioner Gomez, if she's well she will be here tomorrow because the luncheon is Thursday.
>> we can do that.
>> the other thing is I guess I can share my memo with you. Any other written ideas we can share with bob and if we take it to the meeting or get it to him in lieu of a meeting -- not meeting with him. Anything else on this item? I guess we ought to have it back on next week. Is the wording sufficient or do we need to change it? Let's give that some thought too. We may want to change it a little bit. Thank you very much.
>> thank you.
Last Modified: Wednesday, March 17, 2004 7:22 AM