Travis County Commissioners Court
August 9, 2005
Item 2
2. Receive summary presentation of the fy'06 preliminary budget. By the way, if you have business with Travis County this morning, it may be a good idea to head this way. I think we should -- in my view, we should get to executive session this morning, also. Good morning.
>> good morning. The -- the preliminary budget was filed on July 28th. You received copies that are available in the planning and budget office. Also been filed on the website. A summary presentation of slides has been distributed. That slide presentation is also on the website. I’m going to provide this morning an abbreviated slide presentation in the interest of time. The --, the property tax base will increase from 61 billion to $63.5 billion. New property values will stay fairly stable. Going from -- from 1.875 billion to 1.930 billion. In essence, we are coming out of the woods of a slight recession. The preliminary budget proposes a decreased tax rate. It would be a .0008 cent decrease in the tax rate from 4872 to 4864 per $100 of value, that equals the effective tax rate plus about 2%. Home values increased from 197,874 to 203,526 for all homesteads. The average tax in this preliminary budget for all homesteads would increase $21 a year going from $771 to $792. This 2% increase above the effective tax rate is all directed represented to public service, public safety. Excuse me. In terms of all funds, you see the general fund increasing from just under 370, 337 million to 344.5 million. There are changes in the road and bridge fund, debt service funds and other funds. The total county budget for all funds would go from 414.4 million to 524.0 million. I mentioned the 2% increase beyond the effective tax rate. It's for public safety increases that generates about $5.9 million in revenue. That only partially funds various public safety increases that are within the preliminary budget, the sheriff's office being the dominant recipient of these resources, primarily due to unanticipate and rather dramatic increase in inmates that need to be accommodated in the jail. The e.m.s. Interlocal with the city is about $1.2 million. There are also within the preliminary budget other expenditures related to public safety, including peace officer health benefits, juvenile court replacement grants, the d.a. Prosecution intake team, various fuel increases directly related to law enforcement. Those add up to 6.3 million, actually more than the 2% yoantd effective tax rate. There are a variety of personnel changes in the preliminary budget, the net increases, 81.6 f.t.e. Composed of additions and reductions. The sheriff's office is over half of that with 42 f.t.e. Which is related to the increase in the inmates. And the d.a. Intake prosecution team and -- in the new civil district court is another 10. There are 15 new positions that either have new revenue associated with them, non-tax revenue, or are internally funded within the resource of the department. 13 f.t.e. Were added mid-year for the -- for the fully automated court tracking system, the facts system. There are another 18 that have been requested for '06, those fund are not specifically recommended, but there is a reserve set up in the preliminary budget to accommodate another set of resources that are necessary to accommodate this -- this computer system. The sheriff's office, as I mentioned, is the -- is the dominant player with respect to additional resources. We have 227 more average daily inmates in '05 as compared to '04. 438 more inmates from June of '04 to '05. The projected average daily population in '06 is 2695, that's important, because it's important to establish a projected average daily population because resources then are set in accordance with that population. The sheriff is currently can handle about 2400 average daily inmates, without incurring stringent restrictions on their operations. There's 42 staff, costing $1.8 million. There is an assumption that an average of 74 inmates will be sent out of county for 153 days, that's in essence to handle the peak influx of inmates over the summer. There are -- there's $53,000 in the sheriff's office budget recommended for the -- for the inmates being sent out of jail and another 399,000 of a reserve for out of county inmates. That would be held with the Commissioners court so that there would also be a dialogue through the year to deal with the -- with the particular overcrowding situation that we are in right now. A variety of other operating expenditure increases when there's more inmates, they handle food, utility, pharmaceuticals, medical, that's $829,000. There's 426,000 added for nurses' salary increases, a 32 speakers vacancy rate, extraordinarily high, yet you must have nurses so we are hiring nurses from external sources. As a security officer for the emergency communication center, transfer to the courthouse security fund for courthouse security. That rounds out the sheriff's office. Other increases include, as I mentioned e.m.s. Interlocal, balcones canyon land, tax incremental finances. The facts computer system reserve $700,000, a commitment made to the hospital district for its reserves of 771,000, maintaining existing information systems of 690,000, a variety of other increases for juvenile probation, d.a. Intake prosecution team, indigent attorneys fees, new civil district court, fuel and postage. We also have budget reductions, we have scrubbed budgets and made a variety of recommendations on a department by department basis for increasing salary savings, an offset from the fire code fund of $145,000, bank contract due to newly negotiated relationship with banks is a decrease of 67,000.
>> richard, what's that offset from the fire code now?
>> the --
>> describe that in three sentences.
>> the general fund was absorbing expenditures that the fire code fund cannot absorb. There's no change in expenditures. There's simply a fund switch. Two sentences.
>> fire marshal's office.
>> for the fire marshal's office.
>> okay. Congratulations on the three sentence explanation there christian.
>> I’m trying to learn from you, sir. Since -- I think that I’m over my 10 minutes, too. If we banter we can make it 15. [laughter] since '97, we've had a variety of compensation increases. Three years we had 3 to 4%, 3 years we had 5 to 6%, two years zero, one year one and a half. Each year the Commissioners court comes to a conclusion on compensation based on a wide variety of factors. In '06 we have $2.2 million for a 2% increase for the rank and file. 2% for elected officials salaries of 41,000, that is incorrect now. Given the decisions that the court made last Tuesday on elected officials' salaries, that will have to go up a little bit. As you know, there was an extensive study of the pay school, multiple conversations between individuals and experts on that topic. There's been in the preliminary budget there's no action that's been taken in the preliminary budget, keeps pops at the current level. We have current data on vacancy rates also in the pops area, which you may find of interest because it confirms what some people have been saying. Capital recommendations, the -- the car which is capital acquisition resources, cash account within general fund for capital, that's at 5.3 million dollar. That's as low as it's been in many, many years. Some years it's been 10 to $12 million. That in essence is a lever that is pulled in order to help balance the budget. Short term certificates of obligation, $5.8 million. Other funds, which are mostly road and bridge, of $2.6 million. For capital. And then there are long-term bonds that were authorized in '01. Which is a continue ion of that bond thrortion. We have just under 21 million of capital. We have a variety of reserves, you know about unallocated, untouchable, just under 36 million. We have an allocated reserve, very similar to twoif 2005 at 2.1 million. Then a reserve within the car account of -- slightly over $400,000. Special purpose reserves, jail overcrowding of 399,000, facts which I mentioned, 700,000, southwest metro park operation in the event of a park -- a a park is acquired of 233 for maintenance and operation then lease reserve of 115,000, dependent upon certain decisions that need to be made with respect to airport. There are a variety of public hearings that will be starting tomorrow. 6:00 p.m. On Wednesday. Here in the Commissioners court courtroom on the preliminary budget. There's new statutory requirements we should have been briefed on in writing about -- which he have been briefed on. If you go beyond the effective tax rate you have to have two public hearings. Those scheduled at this point for Tuesday morning, September 13th and Tuesday, September 20th. And then there's another public hearing on September 27th on the proposed budget, that would be the day that the budget would be adopted. Plus every Tuesday there are opportunities for citizens to come in during citizens communication. What comes next tomorrow, budget hearings begin. They end on Monday, August 22nd. The 22nd has not been scheduled. It's a contingency day as we have done in the past. Should you go through your budget hearings and say we have some questions, please come back, we hold that Monday as an opportunity for folks to come back. If you look at schedule it's tight -- I won't call it tight, it's full. A wide variety of departments scheduled, some for 15 minutes, hall an hour, some for an hour or month, depending upon the substance of the issues that they have before the court. Hearings scheduled every afternoon, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, mornings on Fridays, you will have budget markup on September 7th, 8th, 9th, adopt a budget on September 27th. And I would like to also just reinforce that the budget is preliminary. Literally every other day, we receive good news and bad news. We receive that there was an error made here, information there's more revenue there. Less revenue expenses are wrong, new proposals, different proposals. It is preliminary, that's what the budget process is all about. The preliminary budget in essence establishes a platform. For everyone to see what's there. And then we deal with things on an incremental basis from that point forward. That's what we start doing tomorrow with the budget hearings. Questions, comments? Thank you.
>> there is a public hearing scheduled tomorrow morning in the courtroom at 6:00 p.m. That's to give residents an opportunity to address the court on any county services or any other issues relating to the fy '06 preliminary county budget. Thank you.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, August 9, 2005 8:51 PM