Travis County Commissioners Court
March 15, 2005
Item 34
The next one is to consider and take appropriate action on legislative issues for proposed bills before the 79th legislature. I was given a list of bills that we hope to hear about. House bill 2666, toll collection, hospital district, proposed legislation. Third --
>> judge, if I might simply start by giving you a very brief report on two issues that the court has asked us about. Let me start by saying that we do have a list of our priority legislation and the status of that, we are not going to go through that list unless anyone has any questions about it. We would like to report to you on the appraisal and revenue cap issue. During the debate on house bill 3 yesterday, which ultimately that bill passed the house last night around 10:00 by a vote of about 78-70. There was language that removed all references in that legislation to appraisal caps and revenue caps. In order, as that bill has been sent forward, it does not change current law in any way on that subject. That does not mean that the issue is over, it means that there will be a separate piece of legislation. Most likely one offered by representatives iset and gat gattis that might be considered by the full house in perhaps two weeks. In particular on behalf of the county has done a very good job of continuing to make the case for the county to various key members of the legislature and those committees, and so she will continue those efforts, and we do have some information for the court, and I know you've also been involved directly. And so that fight is not over, but it's not in house bill 3. And with that, judge, I think there's a list of issues and other items.
>> could you tell me real quickly, did you find that to be mostly along party lines or was that -- I know that that's a fairly close representation of what's in there in the '80's and the 80's and the 60's, but did you say 78-70?
>> I believe that every democrat voted against the bill, plus a few republicans. There may have been --
>> [inaudible - no mic]. One democrat voted against it. One democrat voted for it.
>> it was mostly along party lines, yes, sir.
>> okay.
>> and I believe we turn it over to judge dietz at this time.
>> good morning, Commissioners. I think it was about last week or so, actually, two weeks ago, that I was meeting with facilities and we were doing the planning process for the new civil courthouse. And in the land that we picked out, roger had obtained opinions from the city of Austin concerning the capital view corridors. I think -- have we distributed this to y'all? Pages 3, 4 and 5, page 3 is a map of the various view corridors. And basically I think you can see that the block that currently has the usb and the hope building, I don't think it's an understatement to say this is in capital view corridors. The restriction of that property is primarily -- every view corridor except one would limit height restriction to approximately 70 feet. And reasonabler can give you obviously -- roger can give you obviously more detail and just reiterating what he's told me. However, there is a view corridor from the wooldridge park, which would primarily limit any structure on that property to approximately 15 feet. And i've included two newspaper articles, one drawn from 1982 and one drawn from 1983 when they originally were proposing the capitol view corridor bill and the discussion and hiemented particularly about the -- highlighted particularly about the wooldridge park view corridor and its restriction and you will see in the 1982 article they were talking about that anything above 15 feet would block the wooldridge park. In 1998 the Commissioners court spent about a 20,000-dollar study on the historic courthouse and about whether or not it would meet its needs on into the future. Let me finish out on this view corridor bill. It's become apparent -- we tried to scramble because the ultimate solution to this if we were to use that land would be to try to remove at least one of the view corridor restrictions , but it is rather apparent to me and I think everybody else who has worked on this, that this is something that is going to -- if we are to try to remove the view corridor restrictions on that property, it going to require substantially more background detailed work than we're able to do in a one week period. Our next window of opportunity is in the year 2007 at the next session, and it's going to really require work by primarily the Commissioners court with its legislative delegation to try if we are to continue to use that as a proposed site of the courthouse, it's really going to require a lot of work between now and then to try to set this up to be able to try to use that. I thought I would take my few minute, my less than 15 minutes of fame, and point out that we are really reaching a critical stage. As you know, a new district court will come online this September. And awaiting gubernatorial aappointment, that space is to be put in where the district clerk is vai at a vacating on the third floor. After that happens there is no room for expansion in the historical courthouse. We also plotted, and I think I reported to some of y'all, back here on page 7, we have now estimated that over the next 25 years, to 2040, that the district courts have 12 courts, there are nine district judges and three associates. We estimate at the current rare yoaz in the year 2040, we're going to need 23 courts. By the year 2040, Travis County's population is roughly 1.4 million. In other words, we will have to have near double the space that we ought to have. And what I want to also emphasize is that your 1998 study says that your present 43,000 square feet approximately is inadequate for our present needs, and certainly inadequate for our future needs. So I guess I’m making an invitation to the court that at some time, whether in a working session or some other time, we need to sit down I think rather quickly and start discussing what our alternatives are for the construction of the new civil courthouse. I think my understanding is that and the way we were looking at it is that it would be not until the year 2007, 2008, which we be in a position to be able to begin the construction of a courthouse. And we think we will be able to use that time productively in planning and ascertaining what our needs are, but by the year 2010, you're going to start needing a court -- the time line works out that about every three years you will need to add an additional court at the district court level. Not necessarily a district judge, but it may be an associate judge to handle what's anticipated to be the increase in cost. So this capital view corridor bill is not working. If we're going to do it, if we're going to continue to use that property, we've got to put in a lot of work between now and the next legislative session. Because there's a lot of momentum for preserving the capitol views, and to be eabl to obtain any relief I think is going to be an extremely difficult problem. And if that property is not appropriate, then we need to be looking at another site or sites. I'll answer any questions that y'all have.
>> questions?
>> thank y'all.
>> thank you.
>> not everybody at once.
>> sorry, judge.
>> i've got a question that says hospital district, adjudication process for toll correction collection, and you're here for another matter?
>> I believe it is the adjudication.
>> and judge, this is what was brought to everyone's attention about three or four weeks ago when we started meeting with the jp's and realized that there is a train wreck fixing to happen unless we get some kind of relief and not have any kind of toll violences wind up crippling if not shutting down our jp court systems. Representative krusee has realized this as well not only because his Williamson county Commissioners brought it to his attention, but that there were more and more toll situations around the state of Texas. The bill that's been put up, which is one that is permissive and not requiring, is house bill 2666. And it has to do with the enforcement of a required payment of tolls for the use of certain turnpike projects. And there is permissive language. It not specifically related to travis or Williamson county. It's for any county that chooses to opt in with going with an administrative hearing versus throwing all of these enforcement cases into the jp courts. And simply the reaction that I got from judge bembry when this was brought to her, she literally could spend morning, noon and night and still not take care of all the toll violences that could potentially come before. So I would -- the remedy is 2666 mirroring what harris county already does in terms of an administrative process and to keep them out of the jp courts. And this would be permissive legislation, not mandatory. And I would --
>> so report on 2666.
>> I would move that we endorse 2666 and send an appropriate letter to senator krusee endorsing this particular legislation.
>> judge?
>> thank you for inviting me down this morning. Commissioner Sonleitner is accurate, we met with txdot, they informed me that they plan to have 284 tickets per day, about 104 tickets per year. And as you know, from having discuss tion the caseload -- discussing the caseload before that's not a sustainable level. I have reviewed this legislation and it is agreeable to me.
>> you think we should support it.
>> all in favor?
>> abstain.
>> show Commissioners son lighter, Daugherty and yours truly voting in favor. Commissioner Davis abstaining.
>>
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>>
>> ...this is something that was drafted up by the county transition team I think shortly after the hospital district referendum passed. And it is a part of the bill. I believe it was drafted by April bacon in the comptroller's office. Am I right on that? Auditor's office, I’m sorry. The second piece is that it authorizes revenue anticipation notes, which would allow the district to borrow money in August or September to pay for its budget and finance its operations through the collection of property taxes in the December-january time frame. It would eliminate a costly stunt that's in our current authorizing legislation that is frankly targeting at the establishment of a medical school in Travis County and while we think that is a laudable goal, in light of the utmb current initiative and the progress made on that, we don't think that study is appropriate or timely at this time, and we would not like to spend money on it right now. There are other provisions in the bill that give the district the ability to change its name. One property that. 'Ve hadis we might want to renae the district the Travis County health care district on the fact that we do a lot of things, not among them at the present time is the operation of a hospital. And the last item is some language that would just generally give more flexibility with respect to contracting, and there's language in there that enables and facilitates that with the consent of the Commissioners court. We would like to ask you at a time that's timely for you if you would support this legislation. We think it would be helpful. We anticipate that it would be a local bill. We're not aware of any opposition to it, but we think it would be helpful to the hospital district. We would appreciate your support of that. The second point, we wanted to share and come with you, mostly on the listening side, issues related to health care or related to local issues that you think are important is we're working in the legislature. I was talking to the judge the other day and he identified to me house bill 470 that we're looking at that you all have expressed other than over. We're looking at senator west's bill which is targeted at this issue that we've talked a lot about. I know Commissioner dais and I had talked a lot about it, which is the stalled out of county issue. That bill would allow out lying pages to pay for a I here income level than 21 percent had when those patients come into a region nool trauma center like brackenridge and would improve that situation substantially. There are some concerns about the bill that we've heard expressed from the county's standpoint and that it has some obligations on the part of counties to spend up to 8% of their revenue and it doesn't seem to contain a safety valve for those counties that have hospital districts such as you so that we would in essence aggregate the county revenue and the hospital district revenue. That doesn't seem to take account account that the county, now that you have a hospital district, can't constitutionally spend money on aspects of health care. With that i'll stop and ask any of my colleagues if they have anything to add or lon to any comments that you all -- listen to any comments that you all might have.
>> I would add that the house sponsor to the bill is senator elliott naishtat and the senate sponsor is gonzalo barrientos. And I know the other bill is senate bill 18, which is another version of a revenue cap, but it's even more damaging than the proposals that are currently out there. So is that senate or house?
>> it's house -- (indiscernible). Have I got that number right?
>> and we've got the endorsement and support?
>> second.
>> discussion? This deals with the 3010807. All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. On those others were just to be informed?
>> yes, sir.
>> the one clarification I had asked you about, clark, is can you just expand a little bit more about the changing of the name? Because I think the little note that I sent you is we don't want to have anything -- if it's in name only, fine, but we don't want to have anything that disrupts or threatens our ability to say that we're a hospital drik and we need to be treated as a hospital district under the law. Because there is strength in numbers because we spent a lot of times when we were brackenridge hospital saying we were a look alike hospital district and we didn't fall under those projections.
>> I think you're right. The name change would not change our legal status at all. We continue to be a constitutional legislative hospital district, we would just have a different name.
>> not a problem. Thank you.
>> we would envision in the future that we would go from Travis County to a central Texas hospital district.
>> I want to take this opportunity to thank the court for all the ways in which you have helped us get started. I can't think of a single step that we have taken that would have been possible had it not been for the generosity and support and comfort that we got from this group. And I want to publicly thank you for that.
>> thank you for not asking us to weigh in on the seal and the one snake, two snake stethoscope issue.
>> you're welcome. [ laughter ] thank you.
>> the 2658, the toll ways along sh 130?
>> move approval.
>> I was going to say this one is -- this is representative krusee's bill and it would add sh 130 from the scenic corridors that are now protected, u.s. Highways where billboards are not there. And boy howdy, let's do this one. I would second Commissioner Gomez's motion and keep billboards off of sh 130.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Open records? 727?
>> this is what appeared to be a cleanup bill on its face. They have some additional costs buried in senator wentworth's bill that we require our office, that essentially does most of the open records review, to also send a letter has all of our comments that we normally just send to the attorney general's office, we would have to send it to [ inaudible ]. There are some costs in that and maybe some confidentialities. If those two provisions protections in that bill make it all the way through the final bill, it would be some additional costs and some additional time and maybe some confidentiality issues.
>> that's senator wentworth's bill?
>> that's correct. Most of the bill is fine, but sections 9 and 11 are a little bit of a concern.
>> I just wanted to make it more open.
>> can you call the concerns to the senator's attention?
>> we could do that behind the scene, sir.
>> so he could see if they're real. Apparently he's accommodating.
>> if we can talk me out of it -- i'll take a look.
>> I think he just wants to open it up for -- [ inaudible ].
>> is does impact us slightly. At least he will know something else. Any objection to that? That's just try to do that. 223 is next on my list. Requires that we disclose our investment into a formula that we don't use is what this note says.
>> that is correct. I’m mary mays here, your investment manager. Just a little background on this, it's a little late in the process to be coming to you, I realize. I happen to be a board member of the government treasurer's organization of Texas, and chair of their legislative committee and have been following this bill since the beginning. It is house bill 223. It has a companion bill. The senate bill is 221. Sometime last month there was a third bill introduced in the senate, and that one is 549. We believe that the first two were mostly aimed at the tument u.t. System. This -- university of Texas system. This third senate bill is stated that it is for the university of Texas system and has been sent to the education committee. It's very similar, not exactly the same, but it's similar to this bill that we're considering today. We hoped that that would simply do the job, but it doesn't look like it. It looks like we're going forward. This is also an open records bill, and in general let me say, you know, making things open is okay with me. That's what we would support. There are 13 items of investment information that this bill would put into the open records act, and with 12 of them we're right there right now. We would provide this information because it's public money. It should -- if it's the money and the information both belong to citizens. However, on number 7 of this particular one, it specifies in talking about the yield or return that you have on your investments, it specifies that it would be given by using the internal rate of return. For the university of Texas system or any extremely large investment body, this would be perfectly a good idea. Unfortunately, this would apply to Travis County, to the Travis County hospital district and to all of the governmental entities in the state of Texas no matter how big or how small. And specifically for Travis County, we do not use this as a measure of our return. The reason being that it includes the change in market value as part of the formula. What Travis County uses is the cash actually that we get for that period of time, plus accrual of any future interest that we already know will come to us, but was earned during that time period. The purpose for using the change in market value is if you're going to be buying and selling out of your portfolio, then that's going to mean a change in your yield because if you sell what you've got and the market value is lowered extensively or raised extensively, it will change your yield. Since Travis County and a lot of these other governmental entities do not actively trade day in and day out, this is not appropriate for us. And in fact, it would be a misleading yield. So what we are asking, we at this point being the government treasurer's organization, is that we change the language of that one, number 7, to read the interim rate of return or other standard as provided for in the investment policy of the entity. And what that would mean would be that each governmental entity would decide on its own what's appropriate for them, put it in the investment policy. And then if the open meetings act was invoked and they were asked for their yield, they would give their yield in whatever way they calculated it.
>> so have we shared this recommendation with the representative gattis?
>> I have not.
>> I move that we do.
>> okay.
>> asap.
>> I would be happy to do that.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Let it be known that the Commissioners court ask you to let him know.
>> thank you very much.
>> are there any other folks who are on the investments committee from the local Travis County delegation?
>> I do not believe so. I don't have my little book.
>> I don't have my little book here either.
>> I can't answer that.
>> we'll check.
>> we may need to visit with our local members who might be a member of the pensions and investments.
>> I do have another question as well about the plan -- this bill will go to a hearing I think next Monday. And I plan to attend that hearing on behalf of the government treasurers' organization. Would you like me to be there on behalf of Travis County as well with this as the recommendation?
>> may as well. You look all powerful to me anyway. [ laughter ]
>> and we just found out from the audience that representative krusee is on the investments committee. And eddie rodriguez.
>> this has been referred to the state affairs committee.
>> never hurts to meet with those --
>> [inaudible - no mic].
>> state affairs, not county affairs.
>> no, state affairs.
>> the visit will be just as much fun.
>> thank you very much.
>> any other legislation? So now, on this 470, the mental health bill, we have already taken an official position in opposition. And voted on that, right?
>> yes.
>> there is a substitute, judge, which was provided to us by staff in the last couple of days. We have shared that yesterday or actually late yesterday with your staff here, so they have not had a full chance to review it. My initial assessment of it is that they feel unlikely to change your position on the legislation as a result of changes that were made.
>> what changes were made?
>> well, we have not had a chance to fully review it, but one of them is to move toward a capitated system as opposed to the system that was kind of what I would call more of a managed health care network system.
>> has anyone commented on that?
>> we have not had a chance to review it thoroughly, judge?
>> anything else on this item today?
>> we talked about at the very beginning on the habitat preserve, pulling off the value when you have a conservation easement. We did not have a specific senate bill number attached to that. Do we need to do anything related to -- senator wentworth kindly has filed on our behalf senate bill 767. Is it sufficient in terms of where we were before, judge, that we were in favor of that bill getting filed? We now have a bill number on it.
>> if we think it's the same?
>> I’m just making sure.
>> it's one and the same.
>> I just wanted to get clarification that we're covered. Thanks.
>> thank you very much.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, March 16, 2005 12:37 PM