Travis County Commissioners Court
May 10, 2005
Item 33
33 is consider and take appropriate action on legislative issues and proposed bills before the 79th Texas legislature.
>> good morning. [inaudible - no mic]
>> I wanted to take this opportunity to let you know about the two most significant probation bills that have been heard thus far in the legislature. They have a substantial impact on probation.
>> name for the record.
>> oh, Geraldine nagy. [indiscernible] cd. One of these bills is senate bill 1266. The other is house bill 2193. And I’m not asking you to take a pro or con position, I simply wanted to give you a very quick overview of them and ask you any questions that you may have about them. The first one, senate bill 1266, as you can see in your outline, it has -- it has some substantial implications, for community supervision and basically the sentencing of offenders in Texas. One of the most significant thing is that it changes the term of community supervision. For your three g off fences, those are aggravated offenses, that does not change. Currently the term that somebody can be placed on probation for three g offense is 10 years, that remains 10 years. However, for first, second and third degree felons it has been reduced or the proposal within the bill is that it be reduced to five years probation term. For misdemeanors, it remains unchanged at two years. And their for state jail felons, from five to three years. So that's one of the most significant changes within the law for most cases, for most of the people on felony probation then, the term of supervision would be reduced. Maximum term of supervision would be reduced from 10 years to five years. There is, however, some provisions within the law that says that the term of supervision could be extended for one year on the basis of a violation of their probation terms. And take can be done up to five times. So a person who is consistently non-compliant with their probation terms could be extended up to 10 total years. Some of the other things, presentence investigations, are optional and those that are done will require an alcohol or drug evaluation, conditions of supervision, most of them have been eliminated in the code of criminal procedure 4212, leaving it up to the judge or the court to identify those conditions of probation. And the intent of this is to give them greater discretion in setting the conditions of probation. It does, however, seem to exclude certain fees. I’m in the process of trying to get this verified now such as victim counseling fees and also a law enforcement fee. I believe that's at $140 for analysis, storage and disposal of drugs and paraphernalia. There are, as you can see, a number of opportunities for good time, if the person is confined as a condition of their probation, that can count towards their sentence, it doesn't have to, but it may. The time that they serve in a community corrections facility such as our smart program and if they are revoked for non-compliance, that could count toward their tdc sentence and their community supervision time could also count toward their tdcj sentence, if they are revoked, only for a technical violation. Not if they commit a new offense. Community service restitution, in Travis County, there's about 40,000 to 50,000 hours of community service rest substitution, done by probationers governmental entities. I’m not sure if this will impact that or not, but it does limit the amount of -- of community service restitution that a judge could order to 40 hours per year. Another major change within this bill is mandatory review for early termination. So -- so for every probationer, both -- both felony and misdemeanor at half of the term or two years, whichever is greater, the judge would be required to review that case and would need to make a finding as to whether or not that person should be discharged. The judge may not refuse to terminate supervision at that point if the only problem is that the person has been unable to pay the fines, fees, restitution, et cetera and that can -- that's only if the person is indigent and unable to pay. On termination, the judge must provide a written order identifying what kind of discharge his most appropriate -- is most appropriate for the case. In some cases if a person has been difficult throughout their term of probation, they can be discharged under this bill and the discharge could indicate that this would be for enhancement purposes. So if a person were to commit another offense of that same kind or depending on the law that we are talking about, this -- the probation term could be used for that, even though they are discharged from probation. The -- the law also requires that community justice councils come up with a system of progressive sanctions to address probation violations. And this is where they talk about the extensions that I have already mentioned. It eliminates a due diligence offense for absconding supervision, so it's no longer a burden for the probation department if this bill should be passed to go out and find somebody that's absconded and failed to report. And, finally, it makes a number of changes in driver's license suspension law and the most significant one is that it would require community supervision for people whose license has been suspended and they have applied for an occupational driver's license. And that would change our responsibilities from just supervising people that have committed an offense to people that -- that are -- have their driver's license suspended which is a civil thing. House bill 2193 --
>> can I ask you a question here? Sure.
>> if you do the presentence investigation, which includes alcohol and drug evaluation, if that turns out to be positive, then the anticipation is that the judge would use his or her discretion? And order some sort of --
>> whether or not that would be a condition of probation. Yes. But the community justice council would -- would identify that within the plans, people who showed us an assessment with alcohol or drug use would be required to do that. But you would take care of that within the community justice plan.
>> a complaint today is the lack of drug and alcohol treatment facilities and programs.
>> right.
>> so are we funding more or what?
>> well, there's a provision in the appropriations bill for about $60 million to go to probation for the purposes of -- of a large amount of that money is specifically targeted for treatment. Most of it for residential treatment. Some of -- for outpatient treatment. Whether or not Travis County is going to get some of that, will really depend on how they determine to allocate that money. There's been a lot of discussion. In fact I know there's a rider on that appropriations bill that says that money will go to the -- towards those jurisdictions that have the highest revocation rates relatively to -- relative to the standard and there's been a lot of discussion that that money should go to the most heavily populated jurisdictions in the state, which would be harris, tarrant and dallas counties. I don't think it's -- I don't think it's that -- that Travis County won't get any of that money, but I think we are further down the list than those three counties.
>> seems to me that we ought to -- to let them know that we don't think that's fair, shouldn't we?
>> we have, yeah. I've had a number of discussions around that. That I think that -- that it's critical that Travis County have more treatment resources. Within the probation department itself, we have looked for any fund that we could to direct more towards treatment, so that we have done that in the past few months. But still there needs to be more capacity and there needs to be more treatment resources here.
>> okay.
>> if you take look at house bill 2193, it is very, very similar to the senate version. One positive thing in my view is that it doesn't limit the csr, but really leaves it up to the judge's discretion as to how many hours so they are not limited to 40 hours. Another thing that I think is very important is that it adds $40 court costs to chapter 49 penal code and chapter 481 of the health and safety code and that is specifically money that would be directed towards drug courts and drug treatment. So I see that as -- as a very positive thing in my view. Drug courts would be very successful, it's been proven the case for the very short program here in Travis County. In -- and it clarifies the judicial's role in the -- judiciary's role in the operation of cscd's.
>> allows for collection of fees to credit cards which could enhance our collection rates. For the money's that we collect.
>> so the recommendation to the court today is for us to be informed, but no action is requested.
>> right. Just watching the bill and, you know, if you have any questions, i'll be glad to return and keep you updated as to what's taking place with these bills.
>> do we still think that the legislature seems inclined to enact some sort of legislation that increases probation, maybe treatment programs and services, maybe a little bit less imprisonment.
>> I didn't. That's a consistent discussion in every hearing that I have gone to is that the intent is to strengthen probation and make it more meaningful so fewer people do end up in prison. So I have treatment available and have lower caseloads for officers so that their interactions can be more meaningful with the offenders.
>> comments, questions? Thank you very much, appreciate it.
>> good morning.
>> good morning. Dan mansour, management with hrmd. I’m here to discuss senate bill 809 with you. I believe that you received a memo on may 6th outlining what this bill is about. There's one correction to that memo. This -- this plan that the Texas health insurance is not the employee benefits, state of Texas employee benefits plan. This is a sort of a carrier of last resort for people who can't get health care through another avenue. What this bill does is creates some -- almost a tax on each member who is covered under stop loss insurance. Fully insured plans have been contributing to this program all along and now what they are trying to do is extend this to self-insured programs, such as travis counties's. What this would mean for Travis County is an additional 86,000 to 100,000 in costs for stop loss insurance. And we would encourage defeating this bill or at least having an exclusion for public entities introduced, especially counties. Already paid for indigent health care once, why would we do it twice?
>> seems to me that we ought to indicate to them what the fiscal impact would be on Travis County and the amount that we currently spend per employee ourselves. That we need help. Rather than the opportunity to help the state in this area. Don't we? Ever employee at Travis County now costs us a little bit more than 500 a month. And we are struggling to meet that and for the first time this is the second year we've had to ask the county employees to pick up part of that financial responsibility. You know, so we are struggling to survive, on top of that they would put this 80,000, 86,000, $100,000 per year hit.
>> that would be a minimum, based on the lower contribution. Right now Travis County spends about $28 a month for each member that's covered under the stop loss.
>> our contribution now is that much?
>> yes. It's for both individual stop loss and aggregate.
>> [indiscernible]
>> the that's what we pay in premium for stop loss insurance.
>> but right now we are sendingzy rowe to the state -- sending zero to the state?
>> that's right.
>> we were hoping the state could help us at some point. Well, what's not a -- what's a good strategy?
>> judge. The information that you talked about, the argument that you have made, we have been making that to the house. For whatever reason why when this bill passed the senate, the fiscal note showed no fiscal impact to local government. So we have provided them as. Information, to the legislative budget board, so when the new information comes out at the house so it reflects this impact. It's a huge impact on political subdivisions. As dan mentioned we are also working to get, if they goes forward, to try to get an exemption for political subdivisions. I think there's other stakeholder involved, trying to get this issue put off for an interim study. This is an issue that's going to -- across the nation in terms of how do you fund these pools, health pools that have been required by hipaa, other federal law. They are an insurer of last resort, all of the states are dealing with how do we pay these deficits, because the pools run a deficit every year.
>> but these pools cover uninsured residents of Texas?
>> it's an insurer of last resort. If you can't get insurance anywhere else in the market, you can give them to this Texas health insurance risk pool and they will provide you coverage. But the coverage is very expensive. The premiums are nearly $500 a month. So it's not a program for indigent -- you have to have money to afford this. But it's generally an older population and a sicker population, so every year the -- since it's been in existence, it began in 1997 in Texas, the -- the first year it was about $10 million deficit. In '03 it was 65 million, last year it was 88 million. This year it's projected to be 100 million. There's 25,000 lives in that pool. But they -- they just can't even -- with the premiums as high as they are, they can't cover all of the claims that come in. So they have gone, in the statute right now, they go back and they assess health care based on the gross premium that's they write in Texas. If you write 10% of those premiums, you get 10% of that $100 million deficit. But the -- they are changing the formula. That's what dan is talking about, changing one called covered lives. No longer based on the am of premiums, amount of premiums, but the number of people that you cover, that's making this dramatic increase that is sit the stop loss carriers that are in turn shifting or passing that cost on to self funded employers both public and private. S self funded public comoirs for the first time?
>> a dramatic way. The stop loss premium that you are paying right now, the top loss carriers are currently being assessed under the current formula based on premium yums. But it's a fairly small amount because stop loss is fairly inexpensive compared to first dollar fully insured. So what you are paying now is built into your premium that you pay for stop loss.
>> it's pretty clear on a fully insured plan that you can build it into the premium that you are charging. When you go to self funded it really becomes more illustrative of a per hit cost. Really that's what we are talking about here, $2 or $2.50 a participant, that's an employee, that cost could really drive up and that's an entry level cost. Because this is a pool, that doesn't mean couldn't come back and say we need 3.50 this year. It just a really bad idea all the way around from our standpoint.
>> does this have a number or still being called sb 809.
>> no companion bill.
>> sb 809. Currently in the house, has not been set for a hearing yet.
>> can you update us as to when are critical dates, if something is not out of committee, it's -- you have a better shot if you have already passed one side of the capitol.
>> the -- the deadline that we are facing this week is by midnight tomorrow night, house bills have to be -- have to be passed on second reading or they are dead. We -- in terms of when they have to be out of committee, I have to look at my sheet. But that's the immediate dead line, then there's -- there's one on senate bills, I think -- I think senate -- bills have to be passed on second reading in the house. Not next week, but I think zu0sz(38l÷no carrierringconnec
>> does cuc know about this.
>> the cuc is taking a position against the bill.
>> [indisernible] opposition from Commissioners court?
>> dan, with you assist in terms of pulling that together?
>> are there advantages of this bill that we don't see?
>> well, actually it's about a 12-page bill. The formula that changes the assessment is only half a page. The rest of the bill is actually very good. Because what it does, it encourages that Texas health insurance risk pool, to try to be more efficient so those deficits will come down, so the rest of the bill is great. It's just really the provision that changes the formula for the assessment of the deficits.
>> it introduces wellness and case management [indiscernible]
>> which we applaud.
>> yeah. Our letter should target the section of the bill that we find issue with. Discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Thank you. Next.
>> anyone else? The only thing, if you want, we were going to take a few minutes and go through the priority legislation, just to give you a status, we haven't done that in a number of weeks.
>> okay.
>> then have marisa and chris come up and answer any other question that's you may have. There are some other bills that I think chris wanted to mention as well. If you have got five minutes, we will go ahead and do that.
>> okay.
>> if you will look at your priority list, a report, and there's 11 bills listed, but there's actually 8 issues involved in this that you have asked us to work on or try to pass. Of those 8, five of them are on track. I'll go through those. And three of them are not on track. We'll also touch upon those. But that very first one, house bill 1492, the companion is senate bill 665, relating to work-related exposure to reportable disease. This was a bill that the sheriff's office has brought to you to include nurses and other volunteers that -- in the jail that might be exposed to someone with a disease and what this would do is add them to the list of people who can request that the inmate be tested. And there's a whole process that -- that is already in state statute that deals with that. But it just amends that list. That bill is on track. We expect its -- the senate bill has passed the senate and it is now in the house public health committee. And we expect the committee, that pass -- to pass the senate bill out tomorrow and hopefully go on local and consent calendar. That one looks okay. The next one, house bill 2759 by taylor, this is the one that will increase the precinct's size from 3,000 up to 5,000. And this bill passed yesterday on the locale door. Local calendar. It's not a companion, but it's a similar bill, senate bill 1272 by senator jackson, that has already passed the senate. But I think the -- the plan is to have the house bill go over and actually -- and go through the senate and pass. This language is also in an omnibus bill by mary denny, the chairman, we have got it in two places, we expect this one to stray on track as well.
>> the identified opposition has gone away.
>> senator jackson accepted the amendment that says that -- that if you change the precinct size, the result cannot cause a voters to -- a voter to drive more than 25 miles from their home to the polling place. That appears to be okay with Travis County. With galveston county that was also interested in this, el paso county. So we haven't heard any opposition, I think that that amendment is okay, that will stay on in order to keep that opposition away.
>> okay.
>> and then the next one, house bill 3025 by rodriguez and the companion, senate bill 1675, by senator barrientos. This was another bill that was brought to you by the sheriff's office and it deals with misdemeanors and it deals with community supervision. How much time a judge can require someone to stay in jail. The current law says 30 days. The problem was in -- in Travis County jail, we have vocational programs and other programs that usually take six weeks to complete. So language was added to say that in a substitute that says if the court determines that they are going to go through one of these programs and the court could keep them up to 75 days and up to 90 days for whatever -- depending what type of misdemeanor, passed out of the senate committee, went to the locale door, sheriff's office for various reasons decided not to pursue the bill. And so we -- we have let that one go and senator barrientos is not proceeding with that one. Part of the problem came up with the substitute had language to the effect it was not just vocational, educational, but also drug rehab programs. During -- during the testimony in committee on the senate side, the testimony was that we had -- essentially lost our finding to do drug rehab programs in the jail. So there weren't any drug rehab programs. Vocational educational. And so that had created some controversy on the committee, why was this bill being brought forward if in fact we couldn't fund it. I think there was some confusion. But in any event, it was enough to slow the bill down, but also for the sheriff, they decided they wanted to go a different direction. We had some discussions with other stakeholders that were interested in this issue and there were suggestions made that other things can be done, maybe in a -- that would -- that were better policy. That were outside of the legislation. And so i'll leave that up to the sheriff's office to bring that report to you, the tils on that. But that one we have laid aside.
>> I’m confused here for just a quick second, we all I think got a letter from isn't it true barrentos going what do you want to do on this. We were very wickly trying to get him the information that he was seeking. I thought this Commissioners court authorized that we move forward with this from a request from the sheriff, how is it that the plug gets pulled and it doesn't come through us that we are the ones pulling the plug? It seems like somebody lost ownership of this bill at some point and now all of a sudden pulled the plug without coming through us, who are the ones that authorized that this was a priority bill. This is not like a tier 2, 3 or whatever that we will monitor. Excuse me. This is like totally violating process --
>> [indiscernible] broke down somehow in the process.
>> it's irritating because senator barrientos was doing Travis County a favor to move forward a bill and then it's sabotaged and we are not even let in on it until we get a letter, appropriately, from a senator saying, what are you guys doing?
>> uh-huh.
>> yeah.
>> we have -- left hand and right hand are not communicating.
>> yeah.
>> I think partly I think the -- the explanation was that we had a new sheriff elected and there was some, in the transition, there were some different priorities put on different issues and so I think the expectation was that the new sheriff was going to go visit with isn't it true barrientos.
>> but the only thing is that the process allows for changes to take place, but the communication should not break down. You know?
>> we had it on the priority list. If this wasn't a priority we could have pulled it down appropriately, said, cool, y'all go spend your time on something else because we have a lot of other stuff going. It's just okay I -- I have whined enough.
>> the fourth one, house bill by naishtat, justice of the peace, this is the bill that the j.p.'s brought to you so that a visiting judge could handle back load in the courts 7 under current -- and under current law they don't have that authority. This gives them the specific authority. Pardon me, the bill is bracketed -- bracketed just for Travis County. That bill passed yesterday on locale door, senator wentworth agreed to pick it up. He's chairman of the senate judiciary committee where this will go. That one is on track pretty well. Senate bill 230 by west relating to regional funding of indigent health care services. This was the -- the issue that you had placed as a priority as to how do you deal with a -- residents from other counties coming and using the facilities and not reimbursing the county. There has been no movement or no solutions that have come forward. Two or three bills are out there. I -- I’m afraid this is probably one that union is going to have to -- that, you know, is going to have to be tackled during the interim. There's too many different ideas and interests, between large counties and small counties as well as other stakeholders. So ... That one is not going to happen.
>> then senate bill 665, that's just the companion to the first bill on the list. Naishtat's bill there. And then the next one, senate bill 767 by wentworth and baxter, that is -- that is the bill on the conservation easement to allow the chief praiser to take it into consideration when appraising the land. That has passed the senate. And it has been reported from the house committee and it will -- what the next step is for us to get -- it's on the general calendar, so we have to get that on the house general calendar by that dead line. I think we have about 10 days to do it. We are working on that, that appears to be pretty well on track.
>> this is priority bill for us?
>> that is correct.
>> the ones we are looking at on this sheet are all of the priority ones. There's 8 total. Senate bill 875 by wentworth, relating to reimbursement of certain defendants to the cost of confinement. This bill currently if someone is serving their -- their sentence at night or on the weekends, there -- the judge can require them to pay the cost of that. But the judge could set the cost, the clerk would actually collect that. They have told us as a practical matter in Travis County anyway that doesn't happen. So they brought you this bill and said change the mechanism by which that all happens. And over -- and work release, which is a different program, in -- the Commissioners court sets that fee and the sheriff collects it. And it works a lot better. So this bill was drafted to do that, to have that -- weekender and after night hours. To have that fee set by you and for the sheriff to collect it. And we went through very, various drafts of that bill and we worked with aclu and apple seed and some other groups and we had finally gotten a -- an agreed upon version. But in the end the chairman of the senate committee just wasn't comfortable with the idea of -- of this charge, even though there's discretion in there for the court to do it now, just couldn't get them there. So that bill is not going to make it. Unless we find somewhere else to put it and we will has that effort, but -- in that effort, but it's -- but it's senate bill 875 is essentially dead.
>> was that whitmeyer.
>> yeah, he just couldn't -- just the idea of charging folks. Where we were dealing with aclu and apple seed, there was a concern that if you had money and you could afford it, you could go on nights and weekends. But what about other people that couldn't afford it but had good reasons to -- to go on nights or weekends, either they were a student or they were a parent with young children or whatever the situation might be, they ought to have that opportunity and -- but it's -- it's -- it's a fairly sensitive policy issue. Even though we were trying to change the mechanics of the -- of how that fee was set and collected, that all kind of got lost in the bigger policy issue. And for all intent and purse we ran out of time as well. But -- but there -- there was a concern about who this program would be available to and just charging people, you know, who gets charged, who doesn't get charged.
>> the taxpayers get charged.
>> the bottom line.
>> bottom line is the taxpayers pick up the tab for state senators and u.t. Football players doing their weekend time.
>> and the argument was made exactly that -- that I think the figures that they gave us, it costs the county about a half a million a year to have this program. So the argument was for those defendants that are truly able to afford to pay for that privilege, allow them to pay it so that the program can continue, and then others who can't afford it could participate in the program and not pay. And -- but it just didn't get it to fly. So ...
>> okay.
>> all right. On the -- the next one is senate bill 1214 by barrientos relating to the authority of the county to select an insurance broker. This bill passed the senate. And it will be heard tomorrow morning in county affairs. And this is a bill that will allow, it's now bracketed to counties of over 800,000. So travis and the big counties. So that you could select an insurance broker for -- for purchasing your insurance. And I think the -- for all of the various reasons that -- that the risk manager had -- had told you about, on that bill, but it will -- it limits you to -- to -- there can be for contingent fee. You would have to pay that person a set fee. And the reason -- the rationale is that they will be able to get you better bids and in the end it will save the county money. I think -- that bill is on track and we expect that bill to pass as well. And then the last two, gnat bill 1272 is merely the companion to the voting precinct bill and senate bill 1675 is the companion to that length of confinement bill that we talked about, barrientos's bill, 1675. And that's -- those are the priority bills. Five of those eight are on track. One of them that weekender bill we are going to continue to see if there's something we can't do on that. And the other two I think are -- are gone.
>>
>> [one moment please for change in captioners]
>>
>> ...do I need to make a phone call to see about getting that as an amendment or what?
>> [inaudible - no mic].
>> is Williamson county aware that it's not in there yet too? I met Williamson county as in Williamson county -- meant Williamson county as in Williamson county.
>> they're snowed under right now.
>> judge, 200 a day could be coming in through the front door. So let's talk afterwards and i'll see how I can be helpful.
>> on a personal note, I will tell you I was in judge bembry's court on behalf of a client last week, and it was for a jury trial that I requested three years ago. I was set with 50 other cases on that day.
>> wow.
>> and so just to give you a first hand sense of how backed up that court is. And of course a number of the cases were dismissed because they were three years old.
>> and every one of the toll violations can be a jury trial if they choose.
>> Commissioner Sonleitner, I think it would probably be more appropriate to have this discussion after the legislative session, but I just want to make a very brief comment about a couple of the bills that bob indicated are not going anywhere. And I just want to comment to you and to the court that one of the reasons for that is that the bills as we presented them to the court, as we explained them to court and as the court elected to put them on this priority list, turned out not quite to be accurate explanations. As we got to the legislature and they received the full review and light of day, we just didn't have the right information at that time. And that really concerns me and really is at the heart of why those two particular bills are not moving forward. Because they don't do exactly what we thought needed to be done or should have been done or that the court thought we were up to. In fact, that's also true of one of the bills that is moving forward. House bill 1492 by naishtat, the work related portable disease. If we missed explaining that bill to the court based on the information we had. We were able to recover on that one and actually accomplish a positive thing with that legislation, but I think after the session, and I think we've gotten better at recession about this -- every session about this, but bob and I have always had a difficult time getting all the relevant parties to engage before the session. And so what happens is we get these bills with not as much time to vent them as would be in the court's best interest. And if we can do any one thing better, in my judgment it would be to try to have our legislative program figured out by September rather than February or January. Because these types of issues would, I think, be more likely to get fully vetted and then we won't have bills on our priority list that don't pass.
>> or don't belong there.
>> or that don't belong there. There are several other issues that the court may have an interest in, and we'll just quickly touch two or three and take a couple more minutes unless the court has any questions. House bill 2 and house bill 3, which are the overarching bills of the legislative session are on the senate floor set for today and tomorrow. House bill 2 is the education bill. House bill 3 is the tax bill. There is mixed conventional wisdom right now about what the next steps in the process are going to be with those bills. I think as late as yesterday there was not consensus in the senate on key provisions of house bill 2. And today I think there still is a lack of consensus to a great extent on house bill 3, but the senate caucused for several hours yesterday. There is some sentiment that the house versions of those bills, if the senate does pass something today and tomorrow, are so dramatically different that it's going to be difficult for the legislature to put a bill on the governor's desk. The governor has also been quoted in the paper recently as saying that he is not going to call a special session if the legislature fails to give him house bill 2 and house bill 3. The specific provisions that we care the most or that we cared about at various points in the debate had to do with appraisal caps and revenue caps and whatnot. Those are not contained in those bills at this point, although as you are aware, house bill 1006, which is the revenue cap bill, did pass the house. Senate bill 18, I believe it is, has or is about to pass the senate. And I understand that senate bill 18 is considerably more acceptable to the cities and counties and is likely at this point to be sent to the house and the senate is apparently likely not to move forward with 1006. So on the revenue cap issue, we're in fairly good shape. You will recall that the appraisal cap issue died a painful death because it was unable to get the 100 votes necessary for a constitutional amendment. The other does not require a constitutional a amendment, so it's a majority issue and therefore a little bit easier to pass.
>> what's the percent then?
>> eight percent actually. And basically current law, with what bob and I are calling more transparently in senate bill 18.
>> eight percent roll back?
>> yes, sir. But easier to foster a roll back than under current law.
>> okay.
>> the court has heard several reports relating to the mental health and substance abuse care system. House bill 470, house bill 2570 are two of the bills that we've brought to the court's attention several times. We want to let you know that house bill 470 has not left the house. If it is not out of the house by Thursday and it is not set on the calendar yet at this point, that bill will not make it through the process. House bill 2572 has been set on the calendar, and I believe passed yesterday. And the mhmr unit here in Travis County I believe is supportive of that bill based on the e-mails that I have read. So I know that we've given the court's briefings on those bills in the past, but I want to let you know that the most egregious aspects of 470 as filed appear now to be clearly and completely off the table, and it appears that we're actually moving in a pretty positive direction with 2572. I don't know if there are any other issues, judge. I'll stop there. Unless there are any other issues specifically. Obviously we have a long monitor list that y'all are familiar with and -- I’m sorry. Let me give one other one, which is the tax collection legislation. There are two bills, house bill 3031 by goodman, which is the bill that the court has been briefed on, and a subsequent bill, house bill 4121 by puente that the provisions of 3071 were put into. 2491, and I believe I have that number correct, but I might have it wrong, has passed the house and is heading over to the senate. 3071 is set on the house calendar for Thursday, which is the last day that it can pass. I’m sorry, Wednesday. Thursday is the last day it can pass, but it's set on the house calendar I believe for Wednesday. We are carefully looking at those bills. We are looking in some other legislation to ensure that no inadvertent changes would go into them that would jeopardize the county's position. And we are working closely with a number of other parties, including those from the leading tax collection firms to make sure that no changes that the court would not be supportive of are suggested. We do have one issue that we are trying to understand more clearly, which has to do with the ability of the county to collect fees based on the contracts it has with other political subdivisions. There were a couple of e-mails which the court may have seen which raise that issue. Right now based on our conversations with david escamilla and others, we do not believe that that is a problem. But we don't have a 100% clear answer on that question, so we are still trying to resolve that. If in fact it is a problem, we will draft an amendment and try to address that issue in both of those two bills.
>> does she share that opinion? Because she's the one that really has to say yes, we have authority and i'll certify the revenue.
>> I don't know what her opinion on that is. I know she's looking on that issue. I also know that she may have some additional suggested amendments to that bill that may find their way into the process and may actually make it an even better bill for the county.
>> so the money is paid to reimburse us for costs. Which would be considered as a fee -- we don't really charge. We say here's what it cost and your pro rata share, the cost is...
>> right.
>> we think they would consider that to be a fee charged, the other jurisdiction?
>> well, I don't fully understand the issue, judge, so let me only comment that my basic understanding of the way the language is in there is that whatever the issue is, it may apply only to tax warrants rather than delinquent tax collections. And apparently tax warrants are seldom used by Travis County.
>> okay.
>> the other concern was whether when we say that -- for successfully awarded attorney's fees, the question was attorneys' fees in relation to just the piece that's Travis County's delinquent property taxes or on behalf of all the other jurisdictional entities, whether when you say the county's fees, is it just for the county or is it for everything else? So we want to make sure that there are just no unintended consequences there because we've not vetted and revetted and triple vetted this thing.
>> okay. I would just ask if there are any other matters that the court would like us --
>> that's a big one. A few days ago it was reported, I think, that the house and senate had still slightly different versions, but is that in conference committee now?
>> which bill?
>> house bill 2.
>> hb 2 is on the senate floor today. It passed the house a few weeks ago with a version that I think most of the school districts were adamantly opposed to. But the house passed it and the senate now has a significantly different version of house bill 2 that they are considering on the senate floor today. It has about 50, I understand, amendments, so there's no telling exactly what it's going to look like after today. And then presumably that would go to conference committee, but it is contingent upon the passage of the tax bill, which is house bill 3, and that looks much more problematic at this point.
>> okay. Anything further? Thank you very much. The three meeting are sufficient so far? Once a week will be okay?
>> I think so, judge. I think we're -- we're obviously communicating with the court and the staff quite a bit more often than that, but I think in public this is adequate.
>> okay. Are you here on an item?
>> no, sir... [inaudible - no mic].
>> move to recess until 1:45.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, May 11, 2005 8:12 AM