Travis County Commissioners Court
October 18, 2005
Item 17
17 consider and take appropriate action regarding interlocal agreement with the Travis County hospital district regarding the medicaid upper payment limit and disproportionate share hospital programs. Last week we came close to approving this item.
>> the concept was present to you last week, and in talking with the treasure and -- treasurer and several other folks we felt we needed to document things and put it in an interlocal. So stacy, bless her heart in about a week's time has put together a little interlocal. I’ve been working with the treasurer and the pbo folks and I think we have a document that makes sense.
>> it involves a huge amount of county money, but this is dealing with another county governmental entity, namely the hospital district which is now one year old and cannot trusted even with this large a sum, but explain to us what that is.
>> the amount that is being [indiscernible] at this point in time is about $42 -- $41 million. We'll have the exact amount tomorrow. And it should be returned on Friday, the anticipated time line next week, we do have two alternatives for the court's consideration, one allows us to specify an amount up to $43 -- $45 million, and the other has a blank that you can fill in once we know tomorrow, so depending on your comfort level, we've draft it had both ways.
>> and going up means...?
>> that means that the state comp patroller will with-- comtroller will withdraw the money loaned to us and it's transferred up to the federal government and it's matched on a 2:1 ratio basically and then it's transferred back into the district's bank contract and then we -- bank account and then we wire back to the county.
>> and this transaction is necessary for us to realize what benefit? What advantage for our residents?
>> at this point we have the opportunity to bring in at this point a one-time additional funding of about 25 million dollars.
>> this is one of those local match --
>> yes, sir.
>> the more money you have locally, the more federal dollars you can draw down. And the hospital district doesn't have the amount it wishes it had, so we're giving a short loan up to $45 million for a few days.
>> yes, sir.
>> and some might wonder well what happens to the interest that money otherwise would have earned for traffic county -- Travis County, and even low interest is some interest.
>> well, the county at this point in time has no requested the repayment of that interest. However, as part and parcel of some of the things that the hospital district has agreed to do, part of that is the grant of $250,000 for the children's clinic which we [indiscernible] makes up for [indiscernible]
>> why don't we get ms. Mays to calculate that interest had the money not been transferred out in the case that concerned residents ask us. We may as well know.
>> [indiscernible] use a calculator.
>> what we are trying to do is develop I guess a good working relationship to the extent that this enables us to draw down more federal dollars for the Travis County residents, to help their needs, we figure we benefit as well. So the common taxpayers.
>> yes, sir, plus the [indiscernible]
>> ms. Ortega carter, any comments? Since the treasurer -- this $45 million may well be in your charge.
>> and publicly I want to say I appreciate your part of this process. I heard about this while I was down -- and I was at the auditors conference last week and I heard excellent suggestion in terms of safe guarding the count and glad you were a part of that.
>> the Commissioners telling the auditor as thing of two. (laughter).
>> when we go and talk about stuff, we always hear in the hallways you will not believe what my auditor. And down there it's just the opposite. You will not believe my Commissioner count, it was fascinating.
>> move approval. Discussion?
>> does this court have a --
>> I think our motion ought to be up to $45 million but we ought to fill in the exact amount so we know and we'll e-mail the court what the exact amount is, within 30 minutes after that specific amount comes to our attention. How is that? And that way the exact amount is in the lower intel.
>> -- in the interlocal.
>> yes, sir.
>> and can you come do bring that that exact amount.
>> our current yield is 3.75% at texpool and if we assume $41 million, that would be $4,212.33 per day. And if we assume there is a five-day, we assume it will come back to us on Friday. That would be a total of $21,061.64.
>> the states reminded us of the $250,000 commitment recently made to help us fund children's mental health issues.
>> not that that was a quid pro quo, but a lovely recognize mission of the relationship we have between the entities. > but I guess voters could easily reach the conclusion that without this, whatever they draw down from the federal government the district might well have to increase taxes by some amount to make up for it. So other countries are trying to access the same pool of money and to the extent we can draw more dollars into Travis County, I think we are better for it financially.
>> right.
>> is that exact amount all right. And assuming one week, that is our figure.
>> assuming five business days.
>> okay. And that is 41 million verses the 45.
>> okay, so a bit more if it goes up --
>> right.
>> discussion, all those in favor? That passes by unanimous vote, thank you very much.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, October 18, 2005 10:46 AM