Travis County Commissioners Court
August 23, 2005
Item 31
Number 31, receive revenue and budget issues with Travis County constable precinct 5 regarding the disabled parking enforcement and proposed pilot project for f.y. '06.
>> judge, I helped constable elfant sponsor this item. This could have should have been a budget hearing but it was within of those things by the time they got the information, the scheduling deadline with the 72 hours posting, from wasn't a way for those folks to get a slot in terms there were no available slots and they couldn't piggyback. But this was to give an opportunity for him to lay out something that I think can be largely certified if not completely and the public policy need related to enforcement of the laws related to handicapped parking, and I’m going to turn it over to bruce and to carlos lopez. Howdy.
>> hi, good afternoon, bruce elfant and this is carlos lopez. Many of you know that 10 years ago our office established the first county handicapped parking enforcement program using citizen volunteers. And it's been a big success. We have 30 volunteers that we train, we'll be training them here this Saturday, as a matter of fact. They go out and write handicapped parking tickets and help us get compliance with the handicapped parking laws in Travis County. What we've seen in the last couple of years, it's kind of a disturbing trend. Most of the tickets we write are for people who don't have a parking tag or a license plate and they are parked illegally pretty clearly in handicapped parking spaces. We've been hearing more and more the last couple of years that people are turning to use other people's hang tags and license plates because they know there's not a whole lot of enforcement if anything for that sort of thing. There's an empty car with a hang tag, you sort of have to assume it's legal. I was concerned about that, went out to wal-mart a couple of times at the beginning of this legislative session to see for myself. In an hour and a half, each time I wrote about seven tickets and more than half, four, were for people using other people's hang tags versus the tickets that we wrote for not having a hang tag or license plate. That's disturbing because people are doing it. It's basically fraud. But it's also disturbing for us because our citizen volunteers can't get their hands around that. They are not able to ask people for their i.d.s, they are not able to seize hang tags which under the law peace officers can do. So this was something that we talked about with the disability community and the auditor's office and they were able to certify about $43,000 which would be a temporary f.t.e. To see if we can go out and do some good with some visibility and hopefully we can make people at least think twice or, you know, a couple of times before they take the aggressive action of using somebody else's hang tag to basically commit fraud. So it's revenue neutral. It's really an extension of what we've been doing trying to meet the needs of a new growing problem.
>> [inaudible] did this make it on to our agenda list or would this need to be an addition?
>> no, it's on the agenda list. The issue was that we didn't include in the preliminary budget because what came back as a revenue effect from this would not cover the expenses that were being requested at the time of the -- if the expenses have changed, if you think it's going to be, you know, fewer people, it was one full-time f.t.e. And then half a temperature, plus also some operating equipment and then the printers and all the office equipment that they were going to need also and the two-way radios, cell phone. So the costs added up. The original request was for $84,802. Then the estimated effect of the package if it's fund springfield 43,343. And so one thing that we talked to constable elfant about was perhaps coming to court and budgeted hearing, we missed all the deadlines on that, but trying to look at this as perhaps a praoeult project for a year and see what kind of revenue brings in. We're having trouble really reconciling -- one was the policy issue that it would be if it is a county-wide program versus precinct 5. Then because it's only been done with volunteers up to this point, it's kind of hard to really estimate what a full-time person would do.
>> we would not be getting rid of our volunteers.
>> no.
>> that would be in addition to.
>> right.
>> they would be handling things that cannot be handled by the volunteers. I think bruce was receptive to the idea of let's test it out within your precinct boundaries, which quite frankly that's where a good chunk of the problem is related to -- downtown is a big problem.
>> parking, if you work downtown, parking is pretty expensive and these hang tags are a ticket to park for free and people are doing it, include county employees.
>> when you've got them on the internet.
>> exactly. I’ve seen them on e-bay.
>> are you kidding?
>> and I did want to make sure people got that these came in kind of late, but ron, the head of the Austin mayor's committee for people with disabilities sent us a letter, one from easter seals, and then we also got one from advocacy incorporated in terms of the disability community. So again, we would have done this in a budget hearing if we were able to meet posting deadlines, but we wanted to be able to at least have bruce have the opportunity to talk about this, get questions answered, and again, have a slot opening for people to make whatever decisions they want to about the agenda being built to discuss some of this.
>> Commissioner, the difference between -- I’m sorry, judge. The difference between the volunteers and the peace officers is that the volunteers cannot request the driver's license i.d. And not able to seize the tags as well and the peace officer can.
>> thank you, judge. I’m glad you came to the auditor's office. We received [inaudible] in may and we analyzed it and made some recommendations. There is no certified revenue. I mean there's nothing in the revenue.
>> no, no, I didn't mean to imply that.
>> now, this was based on what they submitted to us was a certain staffing and county-wide project. If any assumptions have changed, fewer f.t.e.s, limited to one precinct, anything like that is correct from the point of view of revenue all bets are off because we did not analyze variations. We just did what they submitted to us. You know, 84,000 expense. I mean we don't deal with expense, but staffing for that. And about 43,000 in revenue. The 43,000 in revenue goes with a certain set of assumptions. And to be honest at this point, we're kind of run out of time as far as taking on reworked or redone packages. I mean if you want -- obviously if you want to put that in that's fine, but if the assumptions have changed our revenue is sort of off the table because we analyzed what was given to us. I didn't realize this was on the agenda until p.b.o. Was kind enough point it out to me yesterday. All I’ve done is work on the original package. As long as those assumptions stay, our suggestion for revenue stays. But if that changes, then it's going to be --
>> I think the auditor assumption is conservative. It's pwaeud on one f.t.e. Which we would still have. The only data we had was what our citizen volunteers have done and they are not going to be as effective because they are not i.d.ing people. They are not going to be effective as the peace officers. I think it's a very conservative estimate and we're quite confident this is going to end up being a significantly revenue positive issue. But we need a year to prove that.
>> [inaudible].
>> if that's the request of the Commissioners court, absolutely. There's plenty, you know, there's plenty of various public areas that need to be covered in precinct 5, far more than one person could do. It's not like we're going to run short of areas to cover.
>> I’m just wondering because of the elected officials of that particular precinct and there's different elected officials in the other constable's precincts.
>> sure, and that's acceptable. You know, the question is if a Commissioner calls our office and says I have a hot spot that I want you to work, I think it's our obligation to go over there and deal with it. And we do have the authority to deal with it, but we are concentrating on precinct 5, yes, ma'am.
>> the only thing is when someone khraeupbs to you about what somebody else in another precinct did, you know. And that will come up.
>> I think you have to learn to be respectful of the four other constables if you were invited in by the other constable, you would certainly want to respond. This is not we're coming into your territory and going to do this and this is family and we're going to be respectful.
>> what is the charge, bruce, whenever you are caught violating this? What -- if you caught me using an illegal handicapped, what would the citation be to me?
>> it's actually 281 of the transportation code, but it's -- I can't remember the exact phrase, but it's illegally parking, unauthorized parking. And there's actually several offense there. It's parking without a hang tag, using somebody else's hang tag. Since this is a t.v. It's a good time to let people know when you block a curb cut, you are keeping people from being able to get into the business or government office, and the diagonal stripping is there to allow vans to unload handicapped wheelchairs. Those are all offenses.
>> but if you get the ticket for whichever one, if you are blocking, is it $75?
>> it's $250 plus court costs.
>> $250. I think it says $200 on the -- maybe they say 250 now, but I can remember it says if you park here illegally, it's $250. Do you have any -- do we have any -- who gets all of -- I mean how is that $250 divvied up? I’ve never ceased to be amazed.
>> I believe Travis County gets $269, and then there's some costs that are tacked on that go back to the state. But I believe we get 269 for each ticket.
>> and what is the -- are there any stats that show what our collections rate is? I mean because I’m with you. I think that this is highly abused. There is no question. If you ask somebody that was diligent doing it, you might be able to balance the county budget. We could take the tack rate to zero. -- tax rate to zero. I’m interested, but I’m afraid of signing off on something without some verification from the auditors, I mean if somebody is really, you know, doing their due diligence, you probably could pay for this person pretty easily. Do we have any stats? Are there any comparisons?
>> the auditor came up with of course with the staffing that was proposed at the time was very conservative and that was at 21% collection rate. That's how he came up with the 43,343, and that's 21%. We can certainly do better than that. But that is 21%. 21.5%.
>> and the difference between the volunteer program and an officer is that the -- 90% of the time the volunteers are ticketing an empty vehicle. And you know, they don't see a hang tag, they don't see a plate. And the hang tag is in governor compartment. We're not after folks who legitimately have one and if they will fax it or show it to us we'll dismiss those tickets. Sometimes they are writing tickets to people out of county or out of state and we still don't have the ability -- there's some legislation that would have helped us had it passed this session, but it's certainly out of state we can't do anything with and discourage our volunteers to write a ticket. We have a warning flier they put on for out of state. Even out of county collections is problematic. All of those things contribute to the collection rate not being 100 percent. But with an officer who is going to be i.d.ing people and hearing an explanation is this your hang tag and then running it to find out if it's his or her hang tag, I think the collection rate for the officer will be a lot higher.
>> is there no way we have the atkeult to find somebody that can do a six-month that's on staff where you go out there and let's be diligent with it that would give us some indicators so we could go to the auditors and say this really is a real deal?
>> I’ve asked my staff over and over, but my deputies have 150, 200 papers a month and I don't feel like I can carve that out without hurting our main mission.
>> if I can put in one plug here of somebody whose brother and sister-in-law's vehicles have those tags on them because we have a disabled child in the family, sometimes these things are not about is it cost neutral. It is all about making sure that nobody violates these spots. I take this very personally. And you have no idea what it's like when you pull up and you see that somebody is just saying oh, I just needed to pick up my stuff or whatever. This is meaningful and important for anybody that needs those slots. So sometimes it's not about is it cost neutral, it is about making sure that those spots are respected, and that's what this is all about. I would love it that you guys do such a great job we can abolish it because everybody goes by the rules, but this stuff is serious, it's wrong, and if you are at all associated with the disabled community, I think they would love it if it cost us $84,000 just to get people to get the heck out of those slots. It is wrong on a legal and a moral basis. Sorry, I have to --
>> so it's requested that we approve the revenue certified to cover the expenditure.
>> we're requesting $43,300.
>> is that the revenue -- is issue is if you would approve the expenditure. Because it looks like Commissioners court is leaning towards having this project be only in constable precinct 5, the $43,000 is, as blaine had said, I think --
>> county-wide. That is what was -- I don't have an analysis for something -- I don't have a revenue number. It would have to be whatever it is. And unfortunately we just ran out of time to try to analyze another package.
>> what we have done on some other constable items is that we have authorized for a pilot for six months to see if the revenues indeed meet projections, fall short, how far over or under to let it get going and let's get some firm numbers. You can always stop it after six months and say, well, that didn't work, or you can continue it after six months and go we need to make up the differential. I think the idea is it's a pilot to be offered whether it's all or not certifiable or not. I think it really has more to do with the need as opposed to is it cost neutral.
>> we came up with 171 tickets for the whole year to make it -- to bring in 43,000 and that will not be a problem.
>> is six months long enough to get through the system to show --
>> we'll be able to show the number of tickets written and maybe make an estimate on the collection rate, but it won't be long enough for them to [inaudible].
>> that was my question on that. You might have numbers on the front end but not on the back end of what's actually been collected.
>> we'll be able to show tickets and compare it to our experience, which will be conservative compared to what the officer can do.
>> okay. Let's have it on the sheet.
>> thank you.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, August 24, 2005 10:47 AM