Travis County Commissioners Court
May 31, 2005
Item 4
Consider and take appropriate action on request from capital area metropolitan planning organization. For contribution for transportation and regional air quality-related projects in f.y. '06 budget.
>> joe gieselman with the transportation natural resources department. I did have the opportunity to visit with the staff at the capitol about this last week. I have some recommendations to make with regard to the request for funding. Understand these are requests for f.y. '06 funds, which are -- we are now in process of -- of preparing a budget for f.y. '06. One of my recommendations would be for -- for campo to submit their application on our traditional p.b.o. Budget forms and go through the same process as -- as county departments would when requesting funds. Including the development of a performance measure that can be evaluated. That would be -- this is not something that I think that the court would necessarily have to make a decision on today. Given that you typically don't make financial decisions in -- for f.y. '06 funds until later in the summer. But you do consider them, along with all of the other requests being submitted to p.b.o. So that would be the first recommendation that the request be processed through the normal channels here at the county. The other thing that I would recommend is that -- that this amount of money is really relatively insignificant given the total budget that campo uses for their planning office. They are almost at 3 million bucks for their staffing. I would recommend in the process we also suggest a peer review of their work program at budget. Not just for Travis County, but the other contributing entities to find out how well the money is being spent and for what purpose. The -- they are also using stp funds that in the past have gone toward capital improvements, actually road development. And for every dollar that's taken for planning type of studies, it's one less dollar available for -- for hardware. Paving. And I -- that is something that I think that -- that the local governments have a particular interest in. And just to see what the opportunity costs are, is it better spent on planning studies or is it better spent on building infrastructure. And it's not -- it's about a million bucks. So it's not -- not a little amount of money. In this irit will come up, it has been discussed that the technical advisory committee in the past, so I know it's an issue of concern among some of the members of the committee.
>> mr. Ollick?
>> thank you, judge. We would be glad to present our budget and present the application that joe talks about. Let me just -- joe mentioned $3 million, our budget for 2006 is $2 million. A million and a half of that is planning funds, grant funds and then 500,000 is what we are proposing for melt policy tan mobility. That's subject to approval by the campo board in July. We are discussing that with the campo board in June. It will be up for approval by them in July. Our planning funds, the million and a half, is matched by in-kind services by txdot. But the metropolitan mobility funds have to be matched by cash and so we've asked all three counties, we have asked 11 entities for a match, 3 counties, three city, Austin, Round Rock, san marcos, three transportation agencies, txdot, capital metro and the ctrma, then the clean air force and cap cog and we would be glad to justify that budget. We are -- we are expanding our study into bastrop and caldwell because there's so much traffic that interacts between the three-county campo area in bastrop and caldwell, there's other programs, we would be glad to -- to provide the justification to that and an application.
>> I guess I have just a couple of questions. I want to make sure that -- that you know it's not a lot of money, but I want to make sure that -- that what we already have in place already, is it going to be incorporated I guess in what -- in what this particular request as far as dealing with the air quality and, joe, I pose this question to you and you know we are in partnership with other -- with other entities to -- toll look at ways of -- of minimizing those type of harmful emissions. That's detrimental to our air quality here from a regional perspective. So an example off road, [indiscernible] of -- of major equipment operators, just a little program that we have looked at over the course of time dealing with our program here that we have for Travis County. My concern is -- is there going to be a duplication of these same settings, you know, as far as like off road vehicles and a whole bunch of other things that we have looked at and also the participation from other entities, I think bastrop was a part of that, caldwell county, other counties, put their money on the table, city of Austin and others. Along with Travis County to suggest that these are the things that we want to do to -- to deal with our air quality concerns. So is this relationship intertwined with some of those other things that we have already -- we already have on the table currently.
>> it is certainly something that we look at and in our evaluation of whether or not to contribute to the estimation that we are not duplicating.
>> yeah, exactly.
>> the nature of air quality spending has also changed, as you will see in the next agenda item today, we are moving into the implementation phase where we are actually doing the measures that it's going to take to clean up the air in Travis County. So the planning phase is we pass through the planning phase, we are now spending most of our money trying to get things measured, put in place. I think the nature of air quality spending has decidedly changed. It's not to say that we don't need outreach and we don't need some planning, but I think the emphasis is going to be more implementation. The request that campo is making on the other hand is not limited to air quality. As a matter of fact the bulk of it is not air quality, it is in other areas. So this is what we would also want to look at is we are focused on the certain areas of interest, air quality being one of them. Certainly arterial system development is another and perhaps if where he do contribute to campo and their planning effort, we should target to the areas of interest to Travis County. But I -- all that I would say is that we will evaluate all of this when we get a -- a budget request submitted to -- to the county. And we'll scrutinize and make sure that it's not duplication of effort among the various agencies working in the air quality or any other planning area.
>> so you want the budget request to go to p.b.o. Or t.n.r.?
>> no. I think p.b.o. Would be appropriate. But we will certainly -- [indiscernible] real evaluation --
>> how much work could you do for $6,000 I guess is my question.
>> it's not a matter of 6,000. It's the matter of the precedence that this is the first time that Travis County has been asked to put money into planning studies in an agency that has quite a bit of planning funds already. For me it's an opportunity cost. For every dollar you spend on this, it's a dollar not spent on something else to the county. That's why I think it needs to be looked at in the context of the total budget.
>> but instead of -- well, two points here. I知 not doing the work, so it doesn't bother me a whole lot except that there's another precedent and that is that I don't know that we have asked county departments that are coming in for a small amount of money -- well, external departments that we contract with to provide what I would consider to be basic services, I think it's legitimate for us to ask how would the money be used to determine whether there's a legitimate purpose for Travis County, whether or not there's duplication, whether or not internally campo can come up with the funding necessary. What I have in mind is a four or five question one pager. Not necessarily going through a fairly elaborate budget process. I mean, if we were -- if mr. Ollick had come in, asked for the $1.5 million, I guess that I would feel differently than the 6,000. If -- if -- I don't think we ought to punish him for coming in and asking for 6,000. If he's asking participating entities of campo to help raise a certain amount of money, this is -- this is -- 22%, 20% of a --
>> 20%. It's 80% federal funds that has to be matched with 20% non-federal funds, which means local and state.
>> I guess, joe, my question is if we have specific questions for campo on the 6,000 bucks, why don't we ask, answer those questions, send that to t.n.r. And do the analysis for us? And if your conclusion is that we shouldn't fund this, the letter came to me out of the clear blue, I put it on the agenda, you wanted a chance to look at it. I mean I don't -- I don't want mr. Ollick to leave with the impression that we are trying to punish him. Turning it down may be easier than asking for $6,000 worth of information.
>> well, there is an issue, a couple of issues. One is that this is stp [indiscernible] money. And it's only because of a txdot policy that they do not accept match. I mean, we do a lot of staff work --
>> [indiscernible] know about all of that, though.
>> we have discussed that.
>> t.n.r. Will -- will know p.b.o. Does it. Pooefb is tied up -- p.b.o. Is tied up in a whole lot of other stuff now, too. I think that the issues that you raise are good. The process that you recommend in my view is not. And I think if we have got five or six questions, we may want to get the court to send you additional questions, let mr. Ollick give you answers to questions in writing, t.n.r. Give you its response, that's simpler it seems to me. Otherwise, my guess is that t.n.r. -- p.b.o. Would require you to provide so much background information that you would end up doing the work anyway.
>> if --
>> that's just my view.
>> a question for you. Related to the study of the regional arterial roadways, it's tied into whatever we are going to do on the campo 2030 plan, but quite frankly a lot of the things that have been targeted for arterial studies are things of we don't know what to do, we need to study this some more as opposed to I am personally interested, I know that we have talked about it in this room, about -- about talking about regional arterials as a network and talking about connectivity and not simply a matter of what's the situation on arterial a in Williamson county. What's the situation on 2222 between 620 and 360. To me those are -- those are very focused arterial studies as opposed to the big picture. I know that when we were having some interesting discussions with the city about whether we would participate in their looking in the rear view mirror or front ahead look on the whole toll road plan, we had said you know what, we really are interested in talking about regional arterials and about congestion and about safety. And it seems like this is none of those. But certainly I have a great deal of interest in that and I know in the tak there has been some talk about roadway design criteria. That is appropriate. But the big-uns, the city of Austin and Travis County are quite interested in that. You've got to try and bring along some of the other jurisdictions who are just as vital in terms of making some of this happen. So this seems like it's a very focused thing on arterial roadways and it seems like for something that's a three-county area that to really look at regional arterials so that people do not have to get on a state highway to get anywhere in this town is not not only appropriate, but even more so given all of the discussions about toll roads and people not being forced on to a paid pathway that they have reasonable and accessible free alternatives and we are never going to get there unless we really do a true arterial study about what's out there.
>> this study is 60,000, it does deal with some of the problem arterials, it also proposes to look at arterial design standards to see if we can have a three-county common arterial design standards which is something that technical advisory committee has done. But it's only 60,000, so we can't do everything. The issues you bring up really need to be dealt with in the entire campo plan. The function of arterials that parallel a freeway for example or a toll road, that's really something that's dealt with in the entire plan.
>> all of the focus is on frontage road. I have now learned this new phrase called a backage road. There's really something we need to focus on. We are flat out not doing it. I知 just going this could be an opportunity, it's really not going to be. It's going to look at some very targeted problem spots with our arterials.
>> you are absolutely correct. In this three-county area, we have far too large of a percentage of our vehicle miles traveled on freeways, we have an inadequate arterial system, non-state highway system.
>> well, a good question is specifically how would this money be used? And if joe wants to know about the county's 6,000, we need to know that, too.
>> I would be glad to answer those questions. I'll fill out whatever appropriate information is necessary to give you the answers that you need. I don't even know what p.b.o. Is, so I can't address that.
>> planning and budget.
>> issue -- a general work plan for '06 or this is not the money that you are requesting, right, attachment 1.
>> it's for fiscal year '06. The total -- our planning funds budget is 1.5 million. This is part of a $500,000 metropolitan mobility fund that is work that campo staff will not do, it's work for consultants and other programs. And for that, we need -- that's why we are asking for a cash match because that would be a cash program.
>> but there's essentially seven studies and we are asking the three counties for a total of $12,000, 6,000 travis, 4600 Williamson, 1500 hays, based on population proportion as to support, as the 20% match for four studies which are congestion monitoring, improving the travel ban model, air quality, early action compact and then study of regional arterial roadways.
>> attachment 1 really contains more detail about the four studies mentioned on page 1 of your memo?
>> I知 sorry? Attachment 1, yes, sir, that's correct. That's the details of the four studies that are mentioned on page 1.
>> the other unanswered question is why is the current planning dollars that we have got don't cover these particular studies? Because we certainly are working on travel demand models, we certainly do have a piece related to air quality, air -- air issues. I guess why is it that this won't fit into what you all -- what is already in your budgeted work plan?
>> we are expanding our work program that, you know, based on the adoption of the plan next Monday night. We feel that we have to do more work on -- on land use forecasting, has become a big issue. We have to improve our model and other things. We find that our p.o. Funds are not enough to do that. We would be glad to justify that, you know, both to the campo board and to Travis County.
>> are we going to be entitled to more federal funds or more dollars from the state to take care of this? Or is that kind of a flat number and we have to fit more within it or find other sources?
>> our planning funds, the federal planning grant funds, have gone up. In 2004 they were about 1.2 million, this current year they have gone up to about one and a quarter million, next year they are projected to go up to one and a half million dollars and then actually go down to little under one and a half in '07. That's because our area has grown in population and proportion to nation population, those figures are based on our population. Does that answer your question or --
>> well, yes and no. Yeah the number is going up, but we also need to see what is sucking up those extra dollars. Certainly there are things tied into staffing. I don't know if we've had any f.t.e. Ads, but we certainly have things in terms of people get pay raises, health insurings up. Maybe we just need to see some kind of historical trend line that shows, you know, how that has chugged along, just the maintenance of current effort still costs more. We need to see those kinds of things.
>> we have added one f.t.e., one modeling position, we've had one monitor on staff. The peer review study suggested that campo start taking on more of the modeling responsibilities, less for txdot, more for campo in response to that we have adding one modeling position. We have hired a modeler who will start tomorrow. There is one additional f.t.e. In the last year.
>> okay.
>> go ahead.
>> well, I guess my concern kind of still falls back to my original question. That was based on our -- Travis County's participation with the partners that we already have on board and also the -- the contributions that we have continuedly made here from Travis County along with those partners and then I kind of looked at the -- at the clean air force and I guess all of these things are out there, some of these models, a whole lot of things that are already in place. I知 trying to now see how all of this information can be integrated. I guess maybe some of the things that you are requesting. I really don't really know. I guess that's up to joe gieselman's shop to determine the existing things that we are doing presently to -- to -- in partnership, of course, with some of these same regional partners that you -- that you mentioned. Is that something that -- that can still be utilized as far as some of the data that's already have been collected over a period of -- of years. I mean, since i've been here that's been kind of some of the trend that we are dealing with as far as dealing with reduction in -- in harmful air emissions for this whole region. Again, I guess if -- if it's any way possible that the information come through the -- through the clean air force, along with those other groups that are working significantly for a period of time, coming up with models, as you mentioned, if all of this could still be integrated into where we are trying to go, the goal is, in my opinion, we reducing the harmful air emissions by vehicles, which are the most significant contributor to air quality concerns. So I just don't know how -- I think the process that was mentioned here is maybe the direction we need to go. I just wants to make sure that we don't duplicate services and that's what I知 trying to avoid. So you know for the same amount of money, for any amount of money.
>> one of the seven studies is early compact implementation, $50,000, for us that's mobile sources, there's two things. One is heavy vehicle item restrictions.
>> yeah.
>> then low income motor vehicle repair and replacement assistance program. That's a piece that we are taking on that's part of the entire clean air force early action compact program. But that's all very well coordinated because there was an either action compact task force of which the county is a part that works on all of that.
>> I知 trying to make sure all of the i's are dotted, t's are crossed as we proceed. That's why all of the questions are posed as they were.
>> move that we ask mr. Ollick to get with joe gieselman, work through this budget request. As appropriate joe brings in the planning and budget office, that any member of this court with questions should direct those to joe within the next 10 days?
>> second that motion, judge.
>> okay? 10 days? Seconded by Commissioner Davis. Any more discussion? Joe, that's close to what you were recommending, except mr. Ollick as a partner in the county if need be.
>> the kinder, gentler --
>> also my predecessor, so he knows a lot about it.
>> I remember that, mr. Ollick. All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Thank you all very much.
>> thank you.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, June 1, 2005 9:29 AM