Travis County Commissioners Court
November 23, 2004
Item 3
3. Consider and take appropriate action on draft charter for a citizens bond
advisory committee. Mr. Gieselman has distributed a draft charter that has
been discussed with members of your subcommittee. That include members of
Commissioners court and mr. Gieselman will finish the steps for me. -- finish
the sentence for me. [laughter]
>> joe is that tie deep red.
>> it's actually maroon.
>> I hope you did notice that I was wearing burnt orange
and have my hook 'em statue of liberty pin and my horns are up.
>> I wear it with great hope.
>> I wear mine with great pride.
>> the subcommittee met on the bond accountability charter
and basically talked about the scope of the bond. After much discussion, we
actually revised the scope. To delete first of all the variance bets, the
variance beds, jail beds. The consensus was if that is something that you
are mandated to do, then probably it's not appropriate to be asking a citizens
advisory committee to go through a lot of strain to evaluate it. And put it
on a ballot for public adoption only to find out that the court has to make
a decision on that. So we pulled that off. So the only thing that we maining
-- remaining in the scope for jails are the replacement beds which are discretionary
to some extent. So that remains in there.
>> in added capacity.
>> and added capacity.
>> and added capacity. Everything other than the variance
beds. The other discussion was on the courthouse, we thought that that was
best place into a planning design mode. So there's a lot of questions that
have to be answered before you would go out and ask for the capital to build
a new courthouse. So the committee decided to put the planning and design
money into short term or certificates of obligation so that effort can continue.
With the eye of doing perhaps a separate bond election in 07 that addresses
the courthouse expansion. With those two things off the table, what you have
then is the remaining jail beds and everything else, basically transportation,
drainage, parks, recreation, open space. But we also reserved sufficient debt
capacity to take care of those other things. So instead of $145 million ceiling,
we lowered to it 100 million. You still have in reserve enough debt to take
care of those other items when the time comes. So the charge to the bond committee
would be looking for other candidate projects. That -- that we -- in the scope
that we described. That would value somewhere at $100 million. The other item
we did on the scope was to translate transportation. By that we -- we are
very conscious of the fact that in the last bond election we spent over 100
million dollar on right-of-way for state highway projects. So it is the intent
of this bond election not to include such -- such expenditures. No debt for
state highways and toll roads but what would be eligible would be county roads
and right-of-way for state farm to market roads that typically are obligations
of local government. That would till be part of what we call transportation.
The other change we made was on the composition of the committee itself. The
smaller scope that we thought would have a 15 member committee, with three
members appointed by each member of the court would be sufficient to due diligence
on the scope that was provided to them. I guess the other -- the only other
items, we asked that the new appointment, no one accepted an appointment that
might have a conflict of interest. It's -- that is an explicit statement now
in the charter.
>> conflict meaning?
>> that they would not expect a benefit from the improvements
to be made. Either by way of contracts, they own land that's affected by the
bond project, any -- any direct conflict of interest.
>> we'll have a -- a definition from legal by the time of
the first meeting? I can almost guarantee you that would be one of the first
questions that the -- that the members will ask because typically that means
different things to different places.
>> sure.
>> so if we clarify then it will go good.
>> we have to -- I have to mention, though, that the $145
million capacity was reduced by $45 million as the projected cost, which I
think there was discussion that it's probably in the high side, of the variance
beds. Now, it also assumed the 2.9 million dollar co. So if that $45 million
is correct, for the variance beds, which you are -- and I don't know if it
is. The 100 million is not correct. Because the -- because the ceiling is
145. So if take you out 45, you are left with 100, but if you are going to
add another 8 million because of the helicopters, that's not in this projection.
So we would be down to 92 million or thereabouts. Now, the --
>> yes and no.
>> now the -- the 45 is I don't know how tight. How tight
that 45 million is because I remember seeing lower numbers. So I’m -- since
jessica has -- has run the numbers more than once, we would be glad to --
to show you what the capacity is now with a much larger co than what was originally
on the table at 2.9 million.
>> except that the -- that the -- the -- to take the 8 million
off the 145 is not necessarily entirely correct because one was long-term
debt of 145 million, and the 8 million is short-term debt, which could have
been used because we had a plugged figure in there related to short-term debt
that would be occurring in the coming years, it can be taken off that $10
million figure.
>> no. What that -- well, with all due respect that's probably
not realistic. I think we are whistling to think that all of a sudden we are
going to have a 10 million dollar co in '06, we are rationally going to use
eight of it.
>> I wasn't saying all eight of it in one year. I’m saying
you can make adjustments in the out years related to the co, that's within
your control.
>> everything is within your control. We need to give you
what the assumptions are. We need for you to debate those assumptions, but
the fact that -- the math is incorrect. At the present time. That you are
seeing.
>> you are correct.
>> and short-term money is much more extensive that be long-term
-- than long-term money which argues -- so that I -- actually argues that
the 8 million is too low to reduce it. So the decision on helicopters has
a bearing just -- it's not a good or a bad bearing, it's just something that
we need to feedback to you so you can see it and debate the -- the -- the
assumptions. We will show you, I think, historically, and we need to show
you historically, what the Commissioners court has borrowed in the form of
cos in prior years. You will see sometimes that it was over 20 million. And
other years it's four or five million. We picked 10 million and that's because
of all of the other demand on the -- on the county. I do believe that -- that
you can't -- I don't think that you can spend $8 million and not take it off
the capacity.
>> I don't disagree with you.
>> I’m looking at a $34 million estimate on --
>> I know.
>> do we need to get with -- with mr. Trimble, maybe balagia,
get more accurate numbers.
>> that was discussed at the subcommittee level, the conclusion
was reached perhaps it would be 45, the 100 million was a round number. That's
where that number came from. 45 is not driven by analysis, it was driven by.
>> easy math.
>> that's correct. Easy math.
>> unfortunately it was. 145, if you take out 45, you got
100 still.
>> there's easy math going on in both directions. Easy math
going on in spending, easy math going on in saving. I think that we probably
need to get down and not have easy math but tight math because when you display
it to the citizens advisory committee they are going to get underneath it.
It needs to be pretty tight I think.
>> what we have also found was that the last time we gave
the citizens bond committee a number it was blatantly ignored. It wound up
being higher, if the 100 million is on the low side there's a little bit of
room but we are not telling them they have that at this point.
>> > we would like to do our jobs to give the Commissioners
court the best date that that we can. I’m telling you the data ain't going
g now. We will give you the data, you can decide.
>> so we have the members of the court appointing all of
the committee. What kinds of people do we want on the committee is this? Did
we address that different background, don't we?
>> we have in the past had a pretty diverse committee.
>> it's time to balance geographic in terms of all parts
of precinct 2. Making sure that you have got a good mix of people in terms
what was other background and skills that they bring forward. It wasn't put
in a charter, but it's certainly already starting to -- to talk about those
issues.
>> any advice on -- on members who have served on -- on previous
advisory committees?
>> I provided the court with a list of the 2001 committee
members, but --
>> are they sure we keep them off, try to get them on.
>> that was just requested, we provided it, not making any
statement with regard to reappointment.
>> okay. I received my list, I felt real good, 60 second
later I was very sad. We make of the list what we wish. Questions, comments?
What's our deadline for committee appointments?
>> thank you that was my question. What deadline do we need
that we can extend by at least 10 to 14 days?
>> I think that you ought to shoot for a committee being
engaged by the first of January.
>> first of January if.
>> yeah.
>> December 15th. Deadline.
>> that's -- the holiday so no one is going to get really
thrilled about committee meetings over thanksgiving or christmas.
>> first of January, the first week of January because we
will all be in front of our tv sets watching football on January 1st.
>> December 15th deadline.
>> that works.
>> December 15th.
>> if not, if we let it slip, let's not let it slip past
the first of the year.
>> in terms of telling folks their commitments that this
would be something that we would probably start cranking up the committee
around the first week of January and they are to deliver or report to us what
was it by July.
>> actually, we asked for an annual report, six to eight
weeks out.
>> then a final report due no later than July first.
>> let's time the committee actually met quite a bit toward
the end.
>> oh, yes.
>> yeah.
>> early on it was not so labor intensive, but toward the
end they really were serious. Supposed to have public meetings.
>> okay.
>> just a little background on the logic behind that, on
the issue of [indiscernible] interest. It was not a legal question, it was
a perception question because there is a difference between a perceived conflict
of interest and real one. The real ones are easy, the perceived ones are tough,
extra legal, so that's --
>> that's come up so much lately on some of the big community
issues that we think -- I think we ought to to help members avoid getting
in that position. If you haven't done it before. It's really kind of tough
when you get attacked. I think we have dealt with enough to kind of foresee
when -- when certain individuals may be vulnerable to the question. It really
-- most of their time it's maybe a more serious question than it is like a
charge. But I think if we -- if we foresee the question, then I just think
that we ought to try to help our residents avoid being put in that position.
>> a lot of times the perception is resolved through full
disclosure.
>> I agree. Do we need to take action, judge on the draft
charter?
>> we can.
>> I would move approval on the draft charter. If there are
any revisions in terms of having more firmness to that number, that can always
come back --
>> second.
>> second.
>> my more discussion? Any more discussion? All in favor?
That passes by unanimous vote. Including the December 15th target date for
making committee appointments. Okay. Thank you all.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, October 26, 2005 3:03 PM