Travis County Commssioners Court
May 25, 2004
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Item 37
Number 37 is to consider and take appropriate action on request from Travis County county senior olympics to waive vehicle charge by the Travis County sheriff's office. In my backup memo I try to explain what happened. This item came to my attention two or three days before the actual bike competition and I was kind of brought into it on the Friday before the Saturday of the event and my first thought was the reserves and the sheriff's office reserves were available and I said, well, let's take the deputies, deputy constables rather because I know they do this kind of work and they had a birthday celebration that weekend, I think we checked with all five constable offices and nobody was available, and the options that were laid out, I guess at the last minute the senior games thought they had a $750 proposal or option they could take a look at. It turned out that was unavailable because the deputies were not available and what was left was a $2,475 option that will use 11 full-time deputy sheriffs, and it was actually that option that was used and those deputy sheriffs were paid in full, right?
>> yes, sir, they were.
>> and that cost was $1,925, actually they were paid -- that was paid before the event or the morning of the event?
>> it was paid the day of the event.
>> the day of event before the work was done? What I told senior olympics what I would do was to ask the sheriff to waive the $500 for the vehicle use. The sheriff said I'm not comfortable doing that, basically not comfortable doing it, don't think I should do it this time. It did sort of come up at the last minute in my view the senior games is a good thing. This is for persons over 50 years of age to engage in a variety of competition.
>> yes, sir, over 22 sporting events withheld may 1 through the 8th. Our last event is in conjunction with america's triathlon, we had over 1600 senior participants participate in the game and we are bidding to host the state senior olympic finals here in Austin for '05 and '06 and pretty much enjoy working with seniors and making a difference in their lives.
>> some events were at the expo center.
>> yes, sir.
>> because I know the mayor and I were there.
>> but the Texas hold-em poker tournament was at the expo center along with our 20, 40, 5 and 10 k cycling events. The rode closures is what we used the sheriffs for for the 20 and 40 k can road race which I have a map here of the actual route.
>> and you are hector wood, right? I'm the director of for the senior olympics along with public relations.
>> an e-mail from sergeant hinkel to mr. Ward. Basically sets out the options that mr. Ward says he relied on. It was the eleventh hour when it came to my attention and my goal really was to try to figure out a way to get as much money for Travis County as we could, at the same time make sure the olympics were able to proceed.
>> yuj, terry, pickering law enforcement with the sheriff's office. Generally our position has been along the vehicle usage fees is there's a fee that has been established by the court, and so whenever we get request to waive those fees, we've pretty much referred the people to the Commissioner's court for approval of the the waiver of those fees so that's I guess is buyerly up to y'all whether or not you want to waive the vehicle usage fees or not.
>> i've got a few questions. What was the budget for this event, mr. Ward?
>> we usually had a budget of $2,500 for each event and that is an ss rally sponsorship level and we did not get the cycling sponsors so we had to dip into other funds to pay for it. Usually we didn't expect to incur the cost of an engineer plan to close down the entire roads. We had never done this before. It was a first year qualifier and we're 501(c)3 nonprofit.
>> that is not getting to the core of my project.
>> what was the budget for everything you were planning to do out there because obviously you rented the expo center.
>> we did rent part of the expo center.
>> and you had funds to do that?
>> yes, ma'am, we did.
>> what was the budget for everything you needed to do on that day.
>> for everything on that day I would say is roughly around $6,000.
>> okay. Did you charge entrance fees or were there participation fees? How was that money...
>> there was a one-time registration fee of $15 per participant which was very minimal, included our participant cost and t-shirt as well as registration process, as well as $3 to $5 per event. We charged minimal for them to participate in a cycling event that costs in the end roughly around $5,500 and that was including the engineer plan which cost us money as well as paying united rentals to come out and close down the roads with the sheriff's department.
>> and when it was all said and done with, because the event is now over, did you end breaking even, with a deficit or is there money left over?
>> we are pretty much at the zero balance right now, with costs that we have to pay to a few peoples we owe.
>> I'm real uncomfortable with this. There are a gazillion equally wonderful groups that come in, they have to pay their way related to the closing of roads and employing engineered plans and dealing with the sheriff's office and if this one happens -- we open the door to a million others says, well, why aren't we as special as this group.
>> I understand.
>> and I don't have an answer to this group.
>> it's giving back to the community.
>> as do all the others.
>> judge and Commissioners, this request also implicates constitutional issues regarding the ability of a county to make grants of public funds or things of value to benefit private associations and I would recommend that you receive advise of counsel in executive session on that issue.
>> okay. Yes, sir?
>> mr. Ward, the participants in the senior olympics are -- I assume that all of them aren't Travis County residents, that people come from...
>> the majority of them are from the Travis County area, but they do come from 12 qualifiering areas in the state of Texas that are feeder sites and they can participate in any city they care to. The majority of participants were from the Travis County Austin, greater Austin area.
>> how many participants total?
>> there were over 1600 participants which is roughly estimated at and 850 people which they participate in multiple events.
>> of the 850 people what would you say percentage was, 80%?
>> probably 84%.
>> and when you all sit down to do your budgets on this, do you try to do these things so that they are oh sew so they pay for themselves?
>> yes, sir.
>> do you say, you know, if this is going to cost -- if we're going to charge $15 and this is costing us $20?
>> yes, sir, this was our first try at it, we made some mistakes most definitely, we're going to try to render those next year, it's all about getting the funds in there for, you know, sponsorship dollars and we didn't reach our goals by any means, had roughly i'd say 75% of the monetary value that we needed to pull these games off, and we did make it happen without that extra money and we're just pleading with the...
>> the sponsorships cover the majority of your expenses?
>> yes, sir.
>> or does your per person charge... No, the sponsorships usually take care of that and the per person charge, we try to keep at a very minimal cost to get participation numbers up and keep these seniors healthy and active and fit.
>> with 850 participants if you charged 75-cents more per person, you would have been there and that's why I have a real issue of we're not talking about a large gap here. You had a lot of participants.
>> like I say, though, it was our first year and as a 501(c)3 nonprofit and we fell a little short.
>> yeah. The main thing, though, if it had been pursue and the cost would have been $750, that would have been a third of what y'all paid just for the sheriff's deputies and deputies, if you starterly and get deputy constables or reserve deputy constables you end up close to zero but formally you condition do that three or four days before the event.
>> I was under the impression with matt baker we were going to get the reserve officers and that's what I based part of that budget on as well.
>> with whom?
>> matt baker who is with the reserve officers.
>> matt baker?
>> yes, sir.
>> matt baker is our -- he's a reserve officer, he's a reserve actually kind of a coordinator for our reserve deputy.
>> so what are you suggesting? Are you saying that -- are you saying that mr. Baker is you would have been able to utilize that particular services you would have been at budget?
>> I think we would have broken even.
>> broken even, yes, sir.
>> and you were under the impression that...
>> I was under the impression we were going to be able to use the reserve officers and when we finally got all the paperwork taken care of as far as the engineer plan and getting it to txdot, mr. Danny hinkel said that he had checked with the reserves and that the reserves would not be available for that day.
>> and you knew that on April 11th I was still three weeks before your event, you knew what the situation was.
>> well, I don't think that's true. My memo says that came to your attention on April 27th.
>> no, eleventh.
>> no, on April eleventh mr. Hinkel is laying out the option of $750 on April eleventh memo there were two options made available, one cost $750, the other cost 2,475. All things being equal, you would use the $750 option and what I show and I think after mr. Ward learned that the reserves in fact were not available, page 2 of my memo, that was April 27th, based on notes of my office, when he was told basically that the $750 option was not there, and so he was looking at the deputy sheriffs add a cost of 2,475 including the cars.
>> yes, sir.
>> now, this overtime of $35 an hour, or is this straight pay for...
>> I'm sorry.
>> is that overtime $35...
>> that is a flat fee of $35 an hour.
>> that is not overtime?
>> probably for some people it is and some of them it's not going to be. I mean we don't -- we don't base it necessarily on each individual's hourly salary.
>> city council was billed from 12 to $30 an hour, if you get reserve deputy constables you can get them to do it free, it's just that -- I mean this happened at the eleventh hour. We looked at the idea of using half the number of deputies to help out which you would have been able to afford easily, including the car, but we were told by the sergeant hinkel that that would not be wise, and when you think of seniors backing down the road and how the traffic can get, made sense to me to make sure we cover the cost of personnel which was more than 800 -- more than 1900 bucks which was paid in cash. Let's get advice from counsel this afternoon in executive session, we'll let you know how it comes out.
>> great. Appreciate that.
>> anything else you would like to hear before you leave?
>> no, sir.
>> I want to make sure [inaudible] any way, shape form or fashion. [inaudible - no mic]
>> so I think it's a great thing for senior citizens to keep us involved in, you know, olympic type settings to keep the good work going. The senior citizens out there really appreciate that kind of stuff.
>> I would like to say, too, that we are going to probably host the state senior olympic finals and that would bring roughly around 3,000 seniors to Austin.
>> oh, good.
>> as well as feeder sites and we hope to make this the biggest and the best in the nation.
>> quick question. When is that event going to be?
>> in '05.
>> so it's not this year.
>> we actually are submitting a bid to the tsta association to the state games and it's really a formality, they want to have it in Austin. It's an economic impact to Austin of around $6 million.
>> we'll be sure to start working on security a whole lot earlier.
>> I agree [laughter]
>> I'm the only employee and I wear many hats.
>> right. Thank you,.
>> thank you very much.
>>
>> (one moment, please, for change captioners...)
Last Modified: Friday, May 26, 2004 7:00 PM