Travis County Commssioners Court
May 25, 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 8
8. Consider and take appropriate action on budget amendments, transfers and discussion items.
>> I think the budget amendments and transfers with the exception of ds 1, are there any questions on those? I think the one we would like to discuss both ed op and pbo would be ds 1.
>> all items seem to be routine except that one. A source of funding only, right?
>> on ds 1?
>> right.
>> that is correct.
>> yes, sir.
>> and I believe that the motion was take frn salary savings. Facilities management will not have $73,000 in salary savings unless we absolutely freeze positions and we would have to freeze three positions that I think the director can speak to the need of hiring them today. So that the money will not be there, we would have to freeze...
>> the backup says that pbo has a current projection of over $200,000.
>> that is correct.
>> pbo projection, let me explain, we do a flat line projection on personnel savings and our projection currently for all of that ops, not facilities management, for all of that ops is 200,000, that is significantly higher than what the depp is projecting and what all of alicia's departments are projecting. I believe there's a plan to use a portion of that realized salary savings for one-time employee pay increases as allowed by the current compensation policy.
>> yeah. What pbo did is they took current vacancies, all current vacancies and said you're not going to fill them for the rest of year and that would include human resource assistant, senior business consultant, business systems consultant, associate business consultant, engineering technician and project manager. You are going to hold those vacant and that is how they got to the $200,000. Well, we would like to be able to fill them because there is a need to have the positions, so that is how...
>> my point was if you need to come back and sigh us later in the fiscal year we'd understand. I guess really my thinking was driven by the fact that the allocated reserve is much lower than i'd like for it to be. It's a little bit more than $900,000, right? But there are ear marks against it that if used would eat up more than half of it. But we have June, July, August, September, the rest of the fiscal year. The savings will really materialalize over the next few months, my thinking was if you fill your positions and actually you did not have enough in that line item and you realize that July or August, you would come back to us and we would get you through the fiscal year basically.
>> could we talk about that in terms of coming back to the court and what happened last year with this particular amount, judge? Because I think it is relevant to what is said and what is done. We always have the option to come back to the court. This is a point, I think, where we were told "if you run out of money come back to the court." When we submitted our budget, we asked for this additional 74 -- $73,000. They said, "no, we're going to put in it allocated reserve, when you run out of money, come back to the court." So here we are back at the court to ask for the...
>> that has been ear mark and that is...
>> that has been ear marked already in allocated reserve.
>> yes, sir.
>> and it's $72,578 that was placed there for maintenance operations in your shop such as equipment purchases and a whole lot other stuff.
>> yes, sir.
>> and I mean a whole bunch of other stuff that you had, basically based on the contingency that would be available if you actually needed the money. Now, my point is since it was placed in allocated reserve just for that particular purpose, I don't seem to squabble you. I really don't. If we were looking to use this money for a particular event, of course that is another deal. However, it appears that my concern about the whole thing is that it's almost like robbing peter to pay paul to an extent because I think the carpet program, the other replacement of carpet and a whole lot of other things, may have been going to that fund and I think that's what you were suggesting to continue to do that. But I'm really concerned about the promise that we made you guys as far as coming to the allocated reserve to use the $73,578 that was specifically ear marked for the purchase of equipment and other things like that for such a request that you're making today and I did not hear anything during the time we discussed this issue when you came before the budget process, and during the last budget cycle, that we would have to go to salary savings to do the same thing. Now, that is my problem.
>> you think you will not generate this amount in salary savings?
>> that is correct, sir. I think that...
>> move that it be ear marked in allocated reserve.
>> second.
>> any discussion? All in favor. That passes by unanimous vote.
>> did you take a vote...
>> the rest of it.
>> motion to approve everything. Here is another motion. This motion is to approve all the rest of item number 8.
>> second.
>> all in favor? That passes unanimously also.
Last Modified: Friday, May 26, 2004 7:00 PM