Travis County Commssioners Court
June 8, 2004
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Item 11
11 is to receive update and take appropriate action on city of Austin and Travis County efforts to implement house bill 1445 for the review and inspection of subdivisions in the jet jet jurisdiction. -- extraterritorial jurisdiction jurisdiction. Joe?
>> joe geiselman [inaudible] resource department. We had a chance to meet with the stakeholders last week and to get their perspective on the progress that we're making on eliminating duplication. I believe harry was here in the audience. Rather than me speak on his behalf, I think we ought to just hear from him directly about some of the comments that they made to us last week in our meeting.
>> good morning.
>> good morning.
>> good morning, judge, members of the court. My name is harry savier, executive vice president of the home builders association of greater Austin and was participating in the stakeholders group which included home builders association, real estate council of Austin and Austin contractors and soldiers association. -- engineers association n our meeting we really had I think three comments that we conveyed. The first was that the final agreement that you are working toward, we encourage to be codified. We've already seen where there was a resolution or an agreement reached with the city of Austin where they agreed to review fees and utility services would be -- they would review those only in those cases where they were city of Austin utilities involved and they've chose to ignore that. Our request is that your final agreement be elevated to the level of codification. Still outstanding is -- and there was extensive discussion regarding the resolution of inspections. And I think the stakeholders are still a little bit nervous about Travis County fully delegating to the city of Austin inspection responsibility, potentially getting to a final inspection and then that inspection being determined that for some reason that there were county standards not reached. And so what we did, we've conveyed to staff our encouragement that if there is dispute that remains on an operating day-to-day basis between the city and the county in that final inspection, assuming an inspection program as recommended or delegated to the city stays in place and if disputes occur, that the builder or developer not to be individual placed in the middle, that those need to be worked out between the city and the county. And then our final comment was that there was a six-month process which frankly has not been able to be undertaken because everybody has been so busy working on where we are today in terms of getting through the final implementation of house bill 1445, but that that be -- that that continue to be recognized as a need and go forward. And those were, I think, the sum total of our comments.
>> basically on that last comment, as you recall, we put a six-month let's try this out. And I think what the stakeholders are saying is slide that down another six months because we really haven't got to the point where we're really executing. So they want us to execute and then six months see how it's working. They are saying we haven't gotten to the point where we're really running the program in such a way that they can see how it's working. And they want to be able to have six months after the time where we're really going, let's take another look at it and see if we're performing as we said we were going to perform.
>> judge, can I add one more thing or one more explanation. It really was not in our specific comments. One of the things still open is fees. And we recognize that the -- I think our perspective on fees is we recognize the county may have limited ability or for that matter desire to arm wrestle with the city of Austin over fees. And at some point that becomes the responsibility of the industry. We are not happy with the fee situation with the city of Austin. We feel like it's unfair and unappropriate. But we recognize that it's probably not reasonable for us to ask you to take on that battle for us.
>> deal with county fees -- you would expect I guess has to deal with --
>> county fees and I think our perspective has been the county in the past has been very reasonable and fair about letting fees based on cost of service. Obviously we would like to have them subsidized, but I don't know that's a fair request.
>> I think that's the only piece we can work on, but p- hope is if we have transparency as to what it is that our piece of the equation costs, then one can make some logical deductions and figure out what the city of Austin is charging even if it's a lump sum. I'm afraid that is your right to fight with them. We can do what we can do over here.
>> thank you.
>> with the city of Austin, what's next on the schedule?
>> okay. The staffs of the city and county have been meeting and I think we have probably a more realistic assessment of how long it will take us to first provide you with some examples of what the fee would be in the drinking water protection zone versus the desired development zone. We now have a team of city-county staff members that are mapping the process as the subcommittee divided it up. In other words, we now know what the responsibilities are, the city versus the county geographically. We are sitting down and actually going through the code and saying this is what the city is going to be doing, this is what the county is going to be doing. At the end of that process, and it's different based on geographic area. At the end of that process the county can go back and look at the labor content and the time it's going to take us to do that and the resources needed. That's the basis of our fee. The city is going to be doing the same thing from their perspective. Not on a cost of service basis but on a general fund basis. So we're looking toward probably the end of June before we can come back and say here are the fees. We realize that we're both, in order to have this embedded in our budgets for next year, we have to have this pretty much wrapped up by the end of July, which is the time when the city manager presents her budget to the city council. In that budget there's got to be a revenue projection based on fees from the subdivision radio new process and that's pretty much the same timetable the county has for its budget cycle. So we know that there is a very short period of time to come to a final agreement on what the fees are. But the first thing we need to deliver to the subcommittee is what you requested us to do and that is to show you some examples of how this is actually going to work in the single office, and that is what we're working on right now.
>> joe, did -- have you had a chance to speak with any city officials as far as what you presented to the Commissioners court this morning?
>> no, Commissioner, I have not.
>> can you tell me basically when you will have an opportunity to do that? If it's necessaries. And it appears to me that it will be.
>> high levels of city staff have indicated to us they have no desire to converse with us on that issue.
>> I'm sorry, repeat that.
>> high levels of city staff, assistant city manager and I understand the city manager herself, have indicated that they are not willing to discuss fees.
>> okay. Well, joe, let me ask this question. And I guess again looking at the single office concept, the fee that's here I think is still going to be something that will still be a challenge as far as the county is concerned. Of course I think there's more disagreement with the stakeholders as far as what we're doing as far as cost of service. But with that objection as far as our budget is concerned, are we basically prepared, in a position at this point to have the type of information necessary to give the -- an efficient, adequate pro sex as far as what we're doing here, as far as our budget cycle for this year, as far as what I'm hearing and in the time lines as far as the direction we're going?
>> we don't right now, but we are working on that right now.
>> okay.
>> we expect it by the end of June we'll be very close to having a framework for what that looks like. And probably mention why we'll actually have a fee structure and a forecast of fees for the budget cycle. We know we need to get that into our revenue projections for f.y. '05 and have the county and city adopt it as part of their budget proceedings. So within four weeks we should be close to giving you the information that you are looking for.
>> what if we ask to see a budget example in two weeks? [inaudible].
>> that is probably at best we'll be able to get that to you by the end of June. There's a lot of different things happening there. One is just the sheer amount of work that it's going to take to get that. We also have embed understand that some vacations of key people who would not be available for weeks at a time. We're kind of working around different constraints.
>> two weeks became six weeks?
>> two weeks became probably four weeks. Frankly, I don't think two weeks was doable. And I had my doubts when that was said, but because there's a lot of good bit of work that has to be done to go through and understand what it is the level of effort that's going on by the city staff and by the county staff. It's literally walking through the code, taking a subdivision of a certain complexity and walking it through the code and deciding what the city and the county -- with the city and county staff what level of analysis is being done by whom. And by what type of discipline. Was it engineer, planner, utility type person. To be able to say, okay, here's what it's going to cost not future as opposed to what it costs now. And that's one example where we have it divided in the drinking water protection zone. We take another example and we write it to the desired development zone because that's the way we divided up our labor.
>> well, I don't know that anybody expects to see, like, a finished product. And I thought our intention was to see an example. I recommended one, staff recommended two. How we would approach the feet -- fee setting. We take four or five weeks and come up with a finished product that nobody likes, we're back to square one. So I was hoping to see the direction in 10 days to two weeks myself.
>> we can give you the methodology, but that doesn't give you the fee.
>> well, the city said we can give you some idea in -- county can give you some idea in two weeks.
>> that isn't possible and I didn't say that. Hi my doubts that could be done two weeks. I think both the city and county would tell you it can't be done in two weeks.
>> the finished product?
>> no, the examples that you asked for.
>> I think they need to keep trying.
>> lose on whole month the nobody the happy -- I mean you don't expect to ride the first time you get on a horse. You get on as best you can and stay on as long as you can.
>> we're not giving you a perfect ride in the time we're telling you. I think to get an actual fee schedule we're talking more like in mid-july. We're trying to deliver what you asked for, but with enough reliability so we're not just throwing a number at you.
>> when does the subcommittee meet again? Probably the end of June. June 28, somewhere around there.
>> I think we lose momentum if we take that long.
>> we're not losing phouplt item. I can tell you the staffs are fully engaged in that period of time.
>> when staffs are working on their own, nothing happened. Two years we have been working on this deal. I thought with two members of the court and two members of the council met with respective city-county staff, that's when we got work done and when we were making progress. And the last meeting was a week or 10 days ago. So if we hold off another month, that's a five-week period. Like you said, there are vacations. Well, [inaudible] staff go on vacation. And it shouldn't stop when one of the managers goes on vacation. That just means somebody else has got to step up and fill the void. Seems to me. I mean I think if nothing else, the group ought to meet again as soon as possible and try to figure out where we are. And if it takes another month to get it done, so be it, but there are other things that need to be worked on. This was [indiscernible] but if our challenge is to codify the agreement, then at least we ought to be working on that. I mean in the meeting there must have been seven or eight staff. I mean not all of them are going to be working on the fee presentation, right?
>> there's about five individuals were working directly on the fee issue. The people that have the most knowledge on what actually transpires in the review process. Most of the people in that meeting are the higher-level managers who are there by and large on a policy issue. You are not having the assistant city manager and the director of the department work at a level of mapping the process or determining the fee schedule. That's an entirely different group of folks. And certainly --
>> the example came up because we were discussing whether or not we needed to hire outside independent help. And city and county both took the position that we could -- we ought to try to do it in house. And so the only question was can we come up with some examples and make that determination. If we can do it in house, it makes all the sense in the world to do it that way. But the examples were supposed to give us some occasion of whether in-house would be soufr whether we still needed outside assistance. You see what I'm saying? So if the longer we delay that determination, say we decide, okay, we really do need outside help, right now we're looking at making that decision in July.
>> we are proceeding --
>> it may be September before we get the outside help.
>> no, I guess we are proceeding. We understood that what the objective was to get a set of fees here based on the division of labor which the subcommittee put forth. And that was a key decision. We are proceeding on now to actually determine what those fees on based on that decision of labor. It is being done both with inside staff and the county [indiscernible]. They were actually assisting us in the development of that fee structure with the county. What you are going to jump to the end state here so we actually have something done and finished on the fee. And so in the process we have to have these examples by geography, but it's almost by the time you do that amount of effort, you are three-quarters of the way there. So just, you know, get the work done. I mean we're trying to expedite the process so that we actually have a fee schedule ready for adoption.
>> maybe the best thing we can do is put together a time line for implementation based on 1445 and when in fact we get to implementation. Maybe the court ought to see that next week and then we figure out where to go from there.
>> that's fine.
>> I mean I -- this thing about momentum, though, I think that's real important. And there are other issues that -- there will always be other issues, but there are two or three big ones on the horizon that if we're not careful will overshadow this. Hospital district, toll roads.
>> I just think it's a lesson for us. Next time we have to work with the city of Austin, we need to remember the form of government that they are under. And the elected officials don't ever really get involved in the discussions up front and we probably need to insist on it since that's our way of doing business. And I think what happens down at the end when we ask that the city councilmembers be involved, we made a little more progress. But if we had taken that step early on, when we first started this discussion, I think the two years, we would have accomplished a lot more. But I think that got in the way and that's my perception of what occurred.
>> going into all of this, Travis County fees were based on cost of service. And I am convinced that when this is all over with that the Travis County piece of this will still be based on cost of service. So while it is taking a little bit longer to calculate that, I think we've been very consistent and perhaps that extra work and extra time and extra consideration is going to be necessary so people have full confidence that when that number comes out and it's different from what it's been to date that we can justify why that number is what it is, it's based on cost of service, and it is not based on refuse-producing [inaudible]. I can wait. We're going to get there. I agree we've got to get the rest of this stuff out the door and get going because the state legislature will be here before this gets adopted and I think they will step in and do things if we don't.
>> what if we have it on next week for consideration of a written time line? Next week. The county time line. After that I do think we ought to meet with the full group again, and if we're looking at the next real action by the city and county being a month away, I mean we ought to show the steps, we ought to see the proposed dates for different steps.
>> if you -- I'm sorry, judge.
>> to my knowledge, [indiscernible]. We were all left with the impression that in two weeks we would see something relating to fees and based on what we saw we would know whether we were making real progress on that, whether we're taking outside consultants to help, whether there are other pieces to revisit at some point. And put those in final shape. Whether to codify them, reduce them to written agreement or whatever we plan to do. We may as well go in and try to do the other steps also.
>> and I don't think there's any problem with doing parallel processes on the codification of the agreement as well as the development of the fee. I don't think there's any conflict in both of us moving along parallel tracks. And I'm sorry if I guess the expectations were raised that we would be able to deliver in two weeks and --
>> the expectation was based on an agreement. Arrived at a meeting with everybody present and sitting here saying yes.
>> no, I did not shake my head. I want to be very clear about that.
>> you did not object.
>> I did object and then at one point I thought maybe I don't understand what the request is. And everybody else is saying yes, but -- in my mind, it was not capable of being done in two weeks.
>> well then I think I expected a two-week effort. But that basically was prioritizing the effort. It meant doing that. And if the city's part -- they said there's would be a whole lot more complicated than ours. So we moved from the week that I recommended to two weeks that somebody else recommended. And all of the city people including elected officials present were in agreement. So my thinking was in two weeks we would come back and see what we had. It's a momentum coster basically more than anything else. Let's get our time next week, look at that and try to figure out whether we can live with that and meet again with the city and try to persuade them that's the thing to do. Is where I think we are.
>> I think the biggest part of that time line, it would be helpful for us to have clarity if our minds when the Austin city council is meeting over the next two months because while we are every every single Tuesday, it's my understanding in July they have one and only meeting at the end of July. So the thing that would be a travesty and tragedy is that we put in all this work that is dependent upon the Austin city council acting and all of a sudden it's hurry up and wait, and that is not fair to our staff and other people that have a lot of other things to do. Can we also have clarity as to when they are going to be around, the things that require joint decision-making, so we can coincide effort with those dates. I think they've got one more meeting -- [multiple voices]
>> volunteer, I think they should get a vacation.
>> this is a two-year two-week project.
>> you don't have to remind me of that. [laughter]
>> let me ask this. Judge, so I understand, let's say everything works out and we get the single office. Are our people going to be under a [indiscernible] with the city of Austin people or will our people be in their offices where they are now? Tell me logistically, I mean I'm having trouble understanding exactly how that will work.
>> we will actually have offices at one Texas center where the city has their one-stop shop.
>> our people will be over there.
>> they will be there at least two or three days out of the week. Otherwise, I mean, you really do need, if you are going to be working in teams on a joint review, that's really the best way to do it. And we ideally we would have a director of that office who supervises the joint staff. And I'm recommend to go the court that that person, the director of office, be paid for by the county and city both and be appointed by the city and county both. So that it actually functions as one office and not as just a collection of staff that show up on a day-to-day basis. I think that you are talking about computer connectivity, you are talking about in take of plats, you are talking about setting up meetings that can be joint reviews, and I don't see it working any other way.
>> closure on a whole lot of specific things is what I'm saying. That's why we need to keep meeting and try to deal with these issues.
>> well, judge, I am -- I'm fairly encouraged by the meetings that we've had with jackie and darrell. I mean I think they've been fairly -- they've really been pretty forthright. I mean obviously they have a stance they are trying to make I mean just like we are. Wut we all -- we don't have to be told that whenever you bring up fees, they get -- they get crazy. I don't mean crazy -- that's the wrong word. They get very apprehensive about wanting to really show what their costs are. I mean which is the reason, you know, I mean part of why everybody is so suspect of, you know, of really is this thing going to do what it's supposed to do. I mean heck, we even have a situation now where their legal says we don't really interpret that fees were ever a part of 1445.
>> and it was part of the interlocal. [multiple voices]
>> and so at some point in time we ought to just go dis. I mean we're not getting there. But I want the judge, I'm pretty blown away that we were going to have a two-week thing where I thought it was like, okay, hey, we've got all this information. We'll pull this stuff together and within two weeks show you here is a comparison as to what we did and what we will do. I mean I believe you joe if you said hey, it's a lot more detail than what you guys thought it was going to be, but I will tell you I bet you that darrell and jackie felt like the judge and Gerald, that two weeks, we're going to get to see the [indiscernible] so we can make this call. I mean hey what's another couple of weeks compared to how long we've been fight ing this. At some point in time it's not worth anybody's time to continue to with this because the ultimate thing that we really have is arbitration. And that -- and I know that the city doesn't want to do that, but that is a tool that we have. Because I don't think that there necessarily was ambiguity or that anybody I guess, you know, you can let attorneys read a paragraph and, you know, everybody can come up with something different about what that paragraph says. But it's just obvious to me that fees needed to be -- need to be part of the city. So I hope that, you know, whatever we're going to do from that point forward is going to be very fast and that we can get this thing off of our plate. And I just wanted to say I agree with the judge, I really thought we were going to have this meeting this week we were going to have [inaudible].
>> what other parts of the program do we need to work on, go ahead and nail down. [inaudible] expect some sort of cost reimbursement, right? That needs to be in the discussion. How much space do we need, what days of the week, exactly how it would operate, I mean I do think those issues need to be addressed. It may well object the feet -- fee setting we'll reach an impasse, then we'll have to deal with that. I don't know that the city wants to give us 100% of its methodology. That's why my position was whatever you plan to give, bring it to the meeting. Let us see that and we'll show you basically our approach. That's just one issue. Then we move on to the other issues. And so at one point, you know, legislation, litigation, I mean I'm trying to avoid that because it can be a lot more time consuming and costly and there's a window of opportunity left. Started out a whole lot larger than it is now. Let's get the time line, look at that and try to -- I do think the time line ought to address major steps that we think must be taken in order for us to implement whatever our strategy is for complying with 1445. Fees being just one of them. How's that?
>> maybe I'm getting confused at this point because it has been two years, but it's like I always knew -- yeah, 1445 you can make the argument the fees in there, well, I think it was implicit they were, but it doesn't matter because the city council and the Commissioners court signed an interlocal that said we would look at it. But I will tell you I never had the expectation that the Travis County Commissioners court would tell the Austin city council whether we thought their fees were appropriate or inappropriate. Comments here on the dais, it isn't our business. Nor I didn't think it was that they were going to be able to say gee, Travis County Commissioners court, we really think that your fee for doing that particular service ought to be this. To me, it was a commitment that we would each and jointly look at the fee structure and make appropriate changes. We're going to do our piece. The rest of it, it's like the city council is going to have to deal with that and deal with the ledge and the stakeholders and I never thought that we were going to dictate to them what their fee ought to be. We just need to be just able to justify what the Travis County business plan is and we've always been based on cost of service so I feel we're going to get through this process and conclude our work in a good place. The rest of it they are just going to have to --
>> we reached an agreement that both of us would show how we would arrive at the fee. I didn't expect anything magical, but I expect some sort of explanation in two weeks because that was the agreement. They could change their mind, it won't bother me except we ought to know. Still I think Travis County has the responsibility to eliminate fee duplication on our part. But there are other parts of the program that we have to nail down also. And in my view we have discussed generally, reached consensus, but really haven't nailed it down. Nailed them down yet.
>> let me make sure I'm clear. I've listened to you any number of times. If you are interested in the methodology that we use to derive the fees, we can do that in two weeks. We can do that right now. If that's all you want is the how we are going to go about rerifing the fees, -- deriving the fees, we can explain that to the subcommittee. But I thought you wanted a kpafpbl of what the fee was for a particular review. Give me two kpafrpblgs how much would you charge for this and how much would you charge for that. That's what I'm saying takes more time. I can explain how we are going to -- the steps we are going to go through to derive that fee. We can do that right now whenever you want to meet.
>> we said we would indicate what the fee would be also.
>> that's different. I'm hearing two different things. I want to make sure I'm clear what you are expecting to get.
>> let's see a time line.
>> all right.
>> and I would urge us to have another meeting as soon as possible to sustain momentum. Otherwise I'm afraid we lose it.
>> all right.
>> and that's not even taking into consideration the fact the council meets a whole lot less than we do in the summer months. I think the work groups seem to be moving in the right decks. Right -- direction. All right. Thank you much.
>> thanks, harry.
Last Modified: Wednesday, June 9, 2004 7:25 AM