Travis County Commissioners Court
May 23, 2006
Item 36
36 an a is consider and take appropriate action on responses to request for information on collection of delinquent taxes. B is reject all proposals and terminate rfi. C is approve order exempting bidding requirements of the purchasing act. D, consider contract for the collection of delinquent taxes after July 1, 2006 and after July 1 of each year thereafter. E, adopt additional penalty on delinquent taxes under section 33.07 of the Texas tax code. F, request tax assessor collector to deliver notices of delinquency and penalty. G, notify all taxing jurisdictions served by Travis County regarding any action taken. This item may be taken into executive session with the county attorney. And I suggest that we do that first before action on the advise our county attorney gives us. We will convene in executive session to discuss this matter with our county attorney.
we had a longer than expected discussion with legal counsel on item 36. And I have a proposal I want to lay out here. Commissioner Davis, you wanted to make comments before that?
>> yes, please, if you don't mind. I壇 like to ask staff a few questions if they can help me out a little bit. We've had a chance to look at a lot of numbers, and I guess looking at these numbers we see variations as far as what the numbers really entail. For example, I need to know the assessed value of those particular homes in precinct 1, 4, 3 and 2, they were appraise the on 2004 assessed value, they were less than $111,000 and lower. Frtion and it reveals the number of lawsuits that were filed for recovery.
>> that's right.
>> my question is how many of those 289 just in precinct 1, 329 for precinct 4 and 148 in precinct 2 and whatever there is left remaining for precinct 3. My concern of those, how many of these file lawsuits to recover delinquent taxes, these lawsuits that were filed in years '03 and '04, how many of these actually ended up in foreclosure? And I need to know that because of the fact that I know lawsuits may be filed, but how many -- I知 concerned about a series of things that are happening where folks are actually losing their home. It's very important.
>> here's what I can do for you, Commissioner. The first thing, I知 aware in the auditor's report that she broke it out in precinct 1 for that first year into quarter tiles. And I remember for precinct 1 the number was 87,000 and below. You're quoting a figure of 111,000. I don't know where that come from, but what I will do is kind of work with the tax ace assessor collector and see if there's an easy way the way you're asking it to be broken at 111,000 figure and do the best we can to take from that data how many of those ended up in foreclosure.
>> exactly. I think it's pretty important. And especially with the explosion the property values that is just skyrocketed through the roof in precinct 1. I値l give you an example of what I知 trying to say here. I got a quawl from constituents yesterday -- I got a call from constituents yesterday east of chicon at 12th street. That home assessed for $190,000. The taxes on this particular property, estimated taxes on the particular property this year were $4,400. That's substantial for an area where we are really under siege as far as a challenge just to make ends meet everyday. It just appears to necessity that there are some serious challenges that we as governmental entities would have to work together on because it's just not counting in this day to see about looking for a way to try to fix the system whereby these will not be the economic challenges that a lot of folks are having to experience. And this really has I think opened up the to a door to a lot of things that a lot of us were not familiar with as far as really being handled with all the other taxing jurisdictions here in the -- in this particular -- the way we're doing things here. So with the population in my precinct, for example, in precinct 1, they have about 193,667 population in precinct 1, a little more than 240 square miles in this particular area. It is a real large area, many, many parcels, but my concern is still what I just suggested. The number of lawsuits filed, how many of these particular lawsuits that were filed are delinquent taxes? We're not talking about delinquent taxes. Those numbers have not surfaced in all those numbers, how many of these folks are losing their homes? And it's very important to me. So I just wanted to bring that up at this point. There are some other things that we can go through here. I壇 like to look at some other things. This is a very important issue. It's such an issue, as such we really need to have a lot more public scrutiny. And I think public hearings are something that we -- it's a big deal in my opinion. It's a real big deal. And, of course, I want to make sure that the residents of precinct 1, I知 talking about not just the residents of Travis County, but the residents of precinct 1, which I represent, have a fair shot at having some say into what we're doing here. Is the system we have better? Maybe it's not, but is it worth it or not? I don't know. But the point is that we've got some serious challenge and it's going to take all of us to work together, governmental entities, they're not to a point where they should not be included. I think all governmental entities should be included in that process because it's a challenge for the folks that are under this lawsuit situation as far as precinct 1 is concerned. So that's what I have to say at this time.
>> thank you, Commissioner.
>> I think the one thing that is still -- that I want to make sure is in the record because the judges got a way to kind of short-circuit us to a conclusion here today is this: and that is that I think there has also been a wrong perception out there that somehow there is unfairness and equity that is only happening here in Travis County with regards to neighborhoods of economic challenges that only bad things are happening here in Travis County. And I want to let folks know for the record that I went ahead and went on the linebarger site, because that's where you find out about the tax sales that are ongoing in the different entities around the state that they collect for, and I chose harris county because that's where I知 from, and it was real easy for me to try and navigate their site. And I pulled up -- all these are tax listings in terms of things being sold on the courthouse steps. It is not a small number. And what truly disturbed me is that I found just on the surface five neighborhoods where the average homestead in these neighborhoods for the east houston neighborhood, the average homestead was $27,600. That is a very low income neighborhood. Highland heights, 23,100 is the average homestead in highland heights. Independence heights park, it ranged between 19 and $24,000 for the average homestead. In sunny side place, about 26,000 is the average homestead in sunny side place. Trinity gardens, 25,800. And I found 83 listings for these five neighborhoods alone where people face the loss of their homes. 11 in east houston neighborhood. 31 homes just this week in the highland heights neighborhood, which is predominantly african-american. 16 in independence heights, which is the first incorporated african-american in the state of Texas that then became a part of the city of houston. Stef just in sunny side place. 13 in trinity gardens. This is one week's worth of listings. So I think it is unbelieve believebly unfair to say that somehow only in Travis County are people of challenging economic circumstances facing the loss of their homes. This is just one week's 's worth of listings. It's the new urban renewal. This has got to raise serious questions, and this is ongoing in harris county, it is ongoing around the state of Texas. I think this process has been good for this reason because it is truly brought to the surface a lot of real serious questions in this town. How does mr. Corey evaluate properties? What is the level of taxation in this town? But it doesn't have anything to do with how well we collect. And it is not why are we the only one in the state of Texas that does it this way, my question is why aren't there 253 other counties that are not seriously looking at it the way that we do? We ought to be proud of the visionary proposal that came forward 20 years ago. We often times criticized that government does not work well enough together. This is a situation where we've got 80 plus jurisdictions that work together. When a title company needs to find out are there delinquent property taxes, they don't have to go to one or two or three different places to find out if there are delinquent property taxes, which if you go on the harris county tax assessor website, you will see under frequently asked questions, how do I find out about making payments and he says, well, if is current, pay me. If it's something covered by the purdue firm, contact them. If it's something from the linebarger firm, contact them. We have a system that works here, and I am exceptionally proud of the way that we do business here, and will continue long after I leave pro meeting this is the way to do it as opposed to the other system. Thank you.
>> any other post-executive session comments from the court? [ applause ]
>> just a little bit about where I知 coming from on this. Yes, I think we do a good job, but I think that we also need to let that word out to the folks out there in the precincts. So many of those are questions that I知 asked at the grocery store, at church or anywhere that I am in the neighborhood. And that's not my major job, but they think it's my job to collect taxes to do all of the different things that this government does. They don't distinguish between the checks and balances of this government. All they know is that I知 county Commissioner, they elected me and I should know everything there is to know. Yesterday I ran into someone that said they paid $25,000 for a little home that he bought. It's now valued at 189,000. That's east Austin. And so we kind of -- we say the economy is doing great things, but the thing is I don't know that we get out enough into the neighborhoods so we can explain to people or we can see for our eyes, with our own eyes what the economy does to different people. It does fantastic things for people who are doing fantastically. It doesn't do such kind things to those who are not in the position to do well. And I think that one of the things that helps me is to get out of the courthouse and go you into the community to see what's going on there. The other thing, I知 really surprised about the reaction I got from simply asking the question, and I ask the question because this is a democracy, this is the most democratic county in the entire world, I知 told. And to ask the question how are we doing in comparison with other communities. And all I wanted was an answer as to a good comparison number that I could then tell those people that I run into at the store, in church or in the schools or whenever I am at -- wherever I am at gatherings. This is why we do what we do here in Travis County and this is how we're doing. This is the number. And I know because I致e asked and I was told, and we had a comparison. And I guess to say that I知 a little disappointed that of all of the reaction, to get all of the e-mails from people I don't know. I don't know that they get to vote for me because I think I know a lot of the folks. Folks that I represent who vote for me. I go door to door with them. A lot of these names were not very familiar to me. And so if I致e offended your sense of democracy, then I guess I apologize, but I don't think so. If my nephew went to iraq to make sure we have democracy there, we need to have it here.
>> now, this process was a bit flawed from the beginning because we issued an rfi and needed an rfp. We know that there are legal and ethical issues with any fee waiver. There is a revenue certification obstacle that is pretty high also. And it seems to me that no matter what we do today, we would not leave here with a clear air. Therefore after lunch the county judge had some thoughts. And by the way, only I saw this until it was handed out, but I did discuss parts of it with david escamilla Friday and a little bit yesterday. Here's what I propose, that we reject all responses to the rfi. Actually, we only got two. We rejected one already, didn't we, the third one? Two, that we initiate an analysis and review that allows appropriate county staff to study specific issues instead of a broad area of collection of delinquent taxes. Then in two I tried -- in three I tried to indicate what I think those specific issues are, draft change that contains on -- should be a charge... Addresses two major concerns, and I tried to use more precise language in a. We've done a whole lot of financial work already, so it seems to me that we may be able to carry that work forward. But for people who really do taxes, and I have in mind the county attorney's office and the tax assessor, really need to help us identify whether there are areas that we could do better. B, I have a review of the manner in which we file lawsuits against delinquent taxpayers and whether any equity exists or results. I壇 say committee members, you notice that I致e sort of expanded the committee. And what's new there are five citizens, and it doesn't bother me if each member of the court appoints one. And I have a representative from aisd with a financial background, aisd financial background, same for the city of Austin. Those are our two biggest contract entities, right? Now, that makes sense to me. It may not make sense to the rest of the court or anybody else. Five, I think what we need from our committee members are two things. One, that they'll begin with an open mind or to the extent they can with an open mind until the facts are in. B, they'll commit to spending the time necessary to participate. My recommendation in six is not four to six weeks, by the way, it's four to six months. Commissioner Sonleitner, that will get us a month and a half, two months before your retirement.
>> not forever.
>> euphemistically.
>> seven, this is a possibility. For example, we'll have the committee look at that for us, may be able to get that done. May, may not make any sense. Either way is fine with me. And I say if this direction is agreeable, then what I will do is work with our county attorney and put together a charge to bring back to the court in two weeks. That's June 6. And the court basically would approve it.
>> I値l second that.
>> what I had in mind over lunch is trying to put some ideas together, see if the court will buy off on that, realize that some people have come down. Based on the e-mails I致e gotten, this is an explosive issue. A lot of people have pretty much framed up on one side or the other. Very few in a good position like the county judge right there in the middle, just looking at the facts kind of rolled in. But I知 hoping that this will work under calm irrelevant circumstances will give us an opportunity to get kind of what I wanted from the beginning, and that was just a good look see and wherever the fakes take us, I知 willing to end up there. I知 assuming that we can find some citizens and I知 assuming aisd and the city of Austin will want to commit a person to this process so we can fairly make the call. The other thing is to be honest, this is a complicated area, there are a lot of things that we do fantastically well, if not all of them. If we do all of them well, that's fine with me too. The average citizen probably doesn't know any more than I did say a year ago. And when I chat with people right now, some of them are still a bit confused about what we are looking at, maybe prior to any privatizing. They think maybe a collection of all taxes, rather than a small percentage that's really the delinquent taxes. Maybe we do all of it just well and we'll leave it like it is. I can buy that. I wish I had that conclusion handed to me, those specific findings, in a climate that was a bit more objective, calmer than the situation has been. The other thing is that the criticism that this process was a bit rushed is probably fair. I take some blame for that. There are like end of may deadlines that you have to meet or you go into the next year. So this basically put us on an '07 track, but more than that, in four or five months from now, if we conclude that there's no way to approve the current system, then I知 willing to accept that. That will be long in advance of really when we need to start moving for next year. If we conclude, however, that there is a piece or pieces that we can improve on, and this committee comes back and says it, then the question is where do we go from there?
>> judge?
>> yes, sir.
>> I applaud you for these recommendations. Let me ask you this: I think the tax assessor, I think they do a good job, I知 not saying they don't. I think I致e applauded it. When it gets down to where the rubber meets the road, we have people that -- they get a tax bill. They don't really understand a lot of the dynamics as we have recently found in a lot of these things about tax collection and a lot of those kind of things. They see the tax bill and they go through all of these processes. I知 trying to see if there's any way that the shortcomings, if there are any, but if there are some in the tax assessors office as far as educating the persons out there, you know, the last thing in the world I want to see anybody here in this county or anywhere else lose their property. I mean, because of foreclosure. If there's any type of way that we can look at that and also maybe in improvements, and I guess the tax assessor as an independent elected official as she is, I知 quite sure she may have -- and also david escamilla may also have some suggestions that can maybe make improvements in the system. I mentioned earlier, the point -- I think what Commissioner Gomez -- and I know I致e really been harping on is the inflated cost of homes that are placed so high until you can sell that home and you will not even get close to the appraised value of those homes right now. As I spoke about an example of one that's about $189,000. The estimated tax on was was about $4,400. The home as it exists right now, you cannot sell it for that for that amount of money. There has to be in my mind, and I think these recommendations are great, but the onslaught of people being forced out of their homes because of appraisals, because of a lot of other factors, it just appeared to me that somewhere in all of this the governmental entities are going to have to come together, whether it be city -- all these taxing jurisdictions, a.c.c., aisd, all of us that have taxing authority need to get together and try to figure out a way how to reduce this impact in areas that's just being overwhelmed and the income level is maybe not as substantial as other parts of the county. There's got to be a way. So I知 concerned about all of this, which I think is great, but I think overall there has to be a comprehensive approach to hold down this onslaught of increased value in these homes where people just can't really afford to pay with the higher tax assessment. So that's part of -- in my mind part of all of this. It may not be a part of this proposal, but I think at the end of the day that needs to be also looked at.
>> could that be part of the charge?
>> I think so. If we get the city of Austin, a.c.c., the aisd, the independent school -- the independent school district. I think that's a big part of it, I really do.
>> are we talking valuations?
>> we can't do anything. [overlapping speakers]
>> no, I didn't say the court. Listen to what I知 saying.
>> it was not intended to be comprehensive, intended to get us started. Any ideas that you have, they can form them today or later, but if we can get a revised draft in place and we circulate that --
>> gentrification is a real thing all over the place, but it is really taking its toll in this community, is really is. And that's been brought up several times, and there's got to be a way. And the city will have to play a big role in it, there's no doubt about it in any mind, city council, as far as subdivisions and a lot of other things that they can probably do to help keep these costs down. I mean, if we can all do this jointly as we go through this jointly. I think no one is an island in this particular quest of what we're trying to accomplish.
>> this is something that we took up a couple of years ago, and at the time we felt that it was not appropriate, but there is some discretion that this Commissioner's court has in relation to some of the homestead exemptions we offer. Of course, we all know that Travis County offers the highest allowable by state law, which is 20% for every only homeowner, homestead. But we have more discretion for what we do on the over 65 exemption and for the disabled. In trying to play off -- when we looked at this a couple of years ago, some parts of town we're seeing huge jumps in rail prails, but now we are seeing that this is really a county wide situation. Because the people who are most vulnerable to what's going on with our appraisals are those who are over 65 because of fixed incomes or disabled, that is something that christian smith and leroy can very quickly look at over the next couple of weeks, not six months, about whether it's appropriate for us to look at the over 65 exemption. [one moment, please, for change in captioners] mill middle.
>> in terms of in terms of spikes in appraised values.
>> anybody else on comments on the proposal?
>> judge. Go ahead.
>> if so, come forward, have a seat, while Commissioner Daugherty is giving comments.
>> the reason that I知 supportive of the this, judge, and I applaud you for putting -- putting -- this is way out of kilter. This thing has gotten into a -- has gotten into something that we didn't intend for it to get into. I will say that -- that I continue to want to make sure that we in this community understand that the industry of collections, I mean, where there is delinquent ad valorem taxes, there is delinquent fines and fees, whatever it is there is a legitimate industry out there and thank goodness there is a legitimate industry out there that does it. Now, maybe it is not as applicable to -- to this case and I don't know that. I mean, I certainly -- certainly would think twice about questioning my auditor's figures. I think that they have done an exhaustive amount of work to show us, you know, what we do and I think that we probably are, you know, the single county that is able to pull this thing off. I will say that that for in my knowledge to challenge an elected official for even looking, looking and questioning whether or not we ought to try to do something is ridiculous as far as I知 concerned. Quite honestly the real -- 3 a the identification of specific areas of tax collection that we can, that we might be able to perform better on, I don't know if there's something, but I bet you that there is some little bitty part of something that we can just compare because quite frankly, I would love to be able to say, to linebarger or our department that somebody else has exemplified that they can do something better. Maybe they k. It's like an r.f.p., the reason that you put things out is because you really want to see. I don't think there's anybody that sits up here and questions whether or not nelda's group does an exemplary job of collecting these taxes, I知 very comfortable with that. But I can't very well look somebody in the eye and say I know without a question that no one can do better. I mean I知 not going to say that because I don't have the comparison of -- of seeing somebody at least have the opportunity. So I would hopefully work -- think that we are going to work hard and maybe this is for the getting the other 08 jurisdictions involved. I mean if we have got letters clear from them about we don't want to even mess with it, okay, fine. But I知 at some point in time would like to find some little something, that shows where this community can show is that something that we can do? Because that is the only way that you basically take and tell somebody we tried that, we looked at it, it wasn't something that could be done, I think that we can do that in a manner that doesn't jeopardize anything that we do in this community with regards to proving to us and to this community that we do an exemplary job, I mean, which I知 very prideful in being part of Travis County and thinking that we do because that -- that really I think moving in that direction, we all know that the timing of this thing has been absolutely deplorable. Any time that you think -- I mean, all of us are nervous whenever you think that you have got to react to something like that, I mean,, you know, if you are behind a car or whether you are going grocery shopping. This is no different than what I think that we ought to do, which is take a step back. But keep an eye towards being able to find something that we could at least look at, you know, in the future, so I知 -- I知 glad that you brought this up.
>> yes, sir. Full name, be happy to get your comments.
>> rudolph williams. I知 a resident of precinct 1. I知 a member of blackshear neighborhood association. And the president of the organization of east Austin neighborhoods. I wanted to support your proposal since it just popped up I was going to just the idea of tax collection in general. I really appreciate what -- what Commissioner Davis is talking about, because I致e talked to him about it before. The -- the emergency before east Austin is -- is primarily is that the old people, their taxes are escalating. They -- I see a lot of old people who can no longer afford to pay their taxes, as the lady right across the street from me, some of you know her. Her mom is arnold's mom, $5,000 in taxes, supposed to pay $100 to tax -- the tax collector says just pay 100 bucks on it. That may be fine, but it never really deals with the issue. She pays 100 bucks, she gets 900 bucks a month just to live on. And after she -- [indiscernible]
>> when she dies, her daughter won't be able to to -- to -- to own that house. It will go to taxes. Even if you do not take this money based upon foreclosures of these houses based upon foreclosures, they end up sold just because that person can no longer, this he can't afford to pay back taxes, they can't afford to pay the present taxes. There has to be a comprehensive method where you, the county Commissioners, the city and -- the aisd, work towards homestead protection. That is the critical issue. Not tax collection. It's homestead protection. The foundation of neighborhoods is the homestead. The foundation of the city and the county are -- on these homeowners, if you look, if you just look at houston, I知 from houston, if you look at houston, my neighborhood is -- right behind the police station where I grew up, cottages a little more than 1200 square feet. If you look there now, row upon row on condo, lofts, that belong in other neighborhoods. If you go to san francisco, there's only 17% of the -- of the people in san francisco are children because families can no longer stay in the city. San francisco is the same size as Austin. If you want to keep affordable -- affordability, if you want to keep a -- hispanics and blacks and a diverse cultural affordable neighborhood on the other side of east Austin, then you are going to have to deal with the issue of homestead protection. Seriously with -- with your other taxing entities. And I would hope that that is where your emphasis and your effort go towards instead of tax collection. Spearnly if your tax collector is supposedly doing a decent job.
>> okay. [ applause ]
>> I知 glad that you brought those comments up. Let me just ask this question, right now the city of Austin for example does not allow any exemption as far as homestead exemption whereas Travis County, not trying to brg or nothing, but Travis County you have 20% right off the top, as far as -- with the homestead exemption very important and we recognize that when you get homestead exemption. So my concern is would you be willing to -- to help in that regard to --
>> oh, yes.
>> okay. That's what I need to know. Because it's going to take folks like you in the community, I talked about the [indiscernible] thing there with the judge --
>> I think that's the only solution. That you have a [indiscernible] comprehensive solution that you presents to the state legislature, whoever it is, because when you talk to the tax collector they say it's not our fault, the county says it's not our fault. The county, the city, says it's nobody's fault, but yet families are losing their home.
>> before you leave, get your name and number, you can contact my office, I want to get that because I want to be sure that you can be a part of that, your family from the blackshear neighborhood group.
>> give that some thought.
>> all right. Now, we are going to go through the list during court, the citizens communication list we go through in the morning, under citizens communication, so if you would like to give comments, please come forward. If you would like for us to send you a copy of a revised charge in a week or so, right, david, leave your address or e-mail address and we would be happy to -- to send it to you. Yes, sir? Judge.
>> good afternoon, judge, members of the Commissioners court. My name is bill aleshire. You may know that I have a unique perspective, because I not only worked for bob bullock locks then got elected county tax collector here for five years, sat on this Commissioners court for 12 more. I have had heard sad stories, I know there are sad stories that you haven't heard that you probably ought to be sensitive to. I know that nelda and her staff see them because they are there in person. There was no delinquent tax program when I got elected county tax assessor collector. The program was when you sold your property the title insurance company made sure that you paid your taxes. That was it. We started from 0. There was two, maybe three jurisdictions being collected by Travis County. I saw it from the beginning. I知 not taking credit for it because there were at least 60, 70 people that made that happen, the Commissioners court gave me permission to do what I needed to do. Even though I didn't ask for one new employee to get it done. But I didn't mind one bit with the help of county attorney Margaret Moore and her staff and the constable's office, going out and taking toys away or anything else away that I had to do to make taxes fair in this community and to do that job with integrity. And the news media paid attention to us going out and hauling off people's boats and their airplanes and their road graders, all of that kind of stuff. Even one lawyer's law books, I still wonder if that was legal. But I知 going to tell you what was in my -- one of the instances that I recall to this day that was in my heart when we got tough on tax collection. When the tax office was over in the annex and we were on the north side of the first floor, that's where the property tax area was and the motor vehicle area was on the other side, I was over in the tax division one day standing behind the counter and a lady came up there on January the 31st, and she opened her cigar box, of the money that she put in there on the regular basis that she could during the year to pay her taxes. I think it was like 4 or $500. A huge amount of money to her. And if I could have walked out of that office right there and done -- gone and done another tax seizure, I would have gold durned sure done it. There was a poor lady, she paid her taxes and she did what she was supposed to do and everybody else has an obligation to try. Folks, I didn't even accept partial pay agreements. That was an innovation, I now admit a good innovation by cecilia burke that's been carried on by medal did a wells -- nelda wells spears. There is more opportunity now to work with the tax assessor collector than anything bob bullock would have taught me to do or that I would have allowed. There's little excuse today from the tax collection standpoint not to be able to pay your taxes. But if you want to solve all of the problems with the property tax system, support a state income tax. And if you want to work with the city of Austin to try to get some property tax relief, ask your colleagues on the Austin city council to adopt the same standard homestead exemption that's been in Travis County for I don't know 20 years. Because they still don't have a regular homestead exemption on their city taxes. That's probably costed more people grief than anything that you have discovered in years worth of -- of incredibly detailed study of this area. I am just a bit amazed that you think that there is some real reason this area of all of the areas in county government, still needs some more study. After I left office linebarger hit you all up once in 2001 and they backed off because the numbers wouldn't work. No cigar. But they withdrew their proposal so it could be studied some more. The county attorney went to work for them. They come back last year, you did the most exhaustive study, you got your apples to apples comparison. If there is anything else that you wanted you had the opportunity to do it and it went away mysterious. It was never revoked, it wasn't even entered into your official record. Then it stayed away for some reason until after the democratic primary or I知 not sure why. And now it's back on your agenda again. Well, let's go back over a few basic facts and see what you already know to decide whether or not you need to proceed. Number one --
>> judge, do that briefly.
>> all right.
>> Travis County and the deference shown to the linebarger firm in this possess this year is just incredible, your honor, I will not take a moment beyond what you will allow me.
>> I will allow you two or three more minutes then.
>> Travis County has about the best property tax collection system in Texas having achieved a collection rate last year of almost 99% or 98.93% to be exact. Of the county taxes you levied. Number 2, over 25 years the collection system has provided the reliable bedrock of revenue for the county budget as well as for schools and cities and fire districts and special districts in this county without a hint of any scandal or lack of excellence. Number three, as a centralized tax collection office, our county tax office has what's responsible last year for combined tax levy of almost $1.5 billion. 1,497,675,561.44 to be exact. Of which they collected 98.89% during fy 2005. Fact 4, the in-house delinquent tax system has returned money to the county treasury and more than paid its own way. In essence it's a self supporting internal enterprise based on enforcing the taxes, starting with those who owe the most and working their way down to those who owe the least. And number 5, nelda wells spears was easily reelected as county tax assessor collector with nary a complaint voiced from anyone. So was david escamilla, easily elected as county attorney, not one person dared to run on the platform out there that the taxes should not be collected because the voters would eat them alive if they did what's been said in this room over the last few weeks. Despite these facts and this record of excellence, all of you -- all of which you should have known anyway, this Commissioners court with Commissioner Sonleitner being the exception, inexplikably set out about hiring a private law firm. Despite the fact that number one your county tax assessor does not support hiring an outside attorney, you would change the lawyer that represents her over her objection. Number two, it will hurt delinquent taxpayers themselves because those taxpayers will be hit with a new fee, up to 20% on top of what they already owe, the entire fee would go into the pockets of the private attorney and the county would no longer get the fees that it is used to fund it's in-house collection system. Number three using a private attorney will also hurt taxpayers who pay their own taxes on time because the county will suffer a lots of tax collections. Susan spitaro, county auditor, not appointed by this Commissioners court, I can testify one independent minded cuss, warned you [laughter] in a thorough and highly professional report that since the private law firms have not done as good of a job where they have contract, as your in-house collection team has done, that the county will have millions of dollars less available in the county budget and I would add that there are tens of millions of dollars that would also be lost to schools, cities and other taxing entities in Travis County that depend on the central tax office. The new twist was talk of a guarantee by the private firm for a 98.5% collection rate, even if a private firm were to -- were to post the nine million guarantee that the auditor has indicated it would take, why would you give such a contract to a private firm just to achieve what you could otherwise achieve with your in-house collection system without that extra 20% fee on the delinquent taxpayers?
>> judge, judge, would you please conclude.
>> yes, sir. With these facts you alarmed many people in this community by your actions last year and even more so by your renewed interest this month in contracting with the linebarger law firm. The people know that it doesn't make sense and nothing the shills for the private law firm proposal have said will change that. To be blunt the people wondered if a majority of you had sold out the public's interest in order to do a favor for the linebarger line if I were. The public knows about, at least some, that the favors this firm has done for some of you. But the doubt that was caused about you was not its own facility. The linebarger firm has earned a reputation by hiring former county officials, public officials, their friends and lavishing favors on their friends in government as we have seen here they even hired a foreman county attorney whose job in the past was to help keep them out of Travis County. It's all perfectly legal, well except for that one dmownt san antonio where the parter got caught brooibing a city council -- bribing a city council member. Some of us think legal or not that tactic stinks, adds more scum to what is a scummy racket. That's one big reason why when I was in office I did everything I could to keep that racket out of our county as long as our county tax collector and county attorney did a good job. Any of these private law firms that used those tactics are installing that they don't have -- signaling they don't have -- can't win based on their own performance and competitive merit. You should have told linebarger along with the rest of the private firms not only no but hell no a long time ago. There is not a single good reason this has been dragged out so long, sucked up so much of the county's staff time. The fact it has been dragged out only increases suspicion in this community about what is really going on because the facts won't justify this kind of attention to a special interest proposal. Future studies or not. Now hear some but not all of you have realized that the private contract might not be something that you should do. To those of you who have changed your mind I thank you and I congratulate you. For those who still insist on pursuing this topic, I say shame on you. There is a crying --
>> judge, you have one minute. One more minute, please.
>> where -- there is a crying need for you to pay attention to areas in which you produce a real good instead of harm that you would do to people already struggling to pay their taxes and impose more taxes on public. I think this mess should end today right here. Just say no or because our old friend ken oden is involved, perhaps you should say no thank you. The only other thick thing that you might consider is facing the fact that you owe nelda wells spears, your county tax collector and david escomilla and their staff a big pat on their backs for keeping excellence and integrity in the Travis County tax collection system. There will be some good that will come from what you have done. This issue will never again come before this court with so little public attention as it's gotten before. Now the people know to watch you even more closely in your dealings over this issue. Unless the facts change, I hope this issue is over for if it's not, you haven't seen nothing yet. The kind of battle there will be. Thank you for your time.
>> bill, I learned ethics from two very wise people, who had just a first and third grade education.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>> ms. Johnson. You will be a little bit briefer, at least try to.
>> good afternoon, judge and Commissioners. My name isdyian johnson, I知 a member of blackshear neighborhood organization, an organization of central east Austin neighborhoods. I also lived in precinct 2 for 10 years, precinct 3 for 10 years, for the last five years I have lived in precinct 1. I知 here because I used to be your tax collection attorney from 1988. I was very proud to represent Travis County and to work with this court and with this staff. The county attorney's office and the tax assessor collector's office. I still work with Travis County residents and the people that I work with now are the poorest of the poor in this county. And that's who we represent in our office. What I知 most concerned about with this proposal is the 15% poor people's penalty that it gets added if you get a private law firm involved in what you already are doing with the county attorney's office. That penalty on July 1st of each year is unfair, unnecessary and happens at the wrong time in the -- when we have such rapidly rising property values. Especially in the east Austin neighborhoods. If you don't want to file lawsuits in east Austin, you don't need a lawyer. The tax assessor can do this work all by herself and you don't need a law firm. You certainly don't need to transfer what the county attorney is doing to somebody else and penalize poor people further. Last week we were at a meeting at terazas library, it was packed, at night. People weren't there in silk suits, they were in polyester, t-shirts, baseball caps. If you think because you don't see a whole lot of people that they don't care you are wrong because you don't get campaign contributions from them, doesn't mean that they don't care what you do. You represent as Commissioners the entire county, all of the people in Travis County, and not just the people in your precinct. And they were very concerned about how -- how expensive it was on their property taxes. There were 80-year-olds in that meeting who up to the last few years never paid property taxes because their exemption was under what the amount was that they have to pay. Now their property taxes may be 800 or $1,600 a year. If the social security income is only 600 or $800 a month, that's a 12th of their income. It's really important that you don't add another 15%. The penalty to people because they didn't pay by July 1st, these are the folks that are already deciding whether or not to buy prescription drugs or turn on their fan in the summer or whether or not to eat. And if you get a private law firm involved, you have got a 15% poor person penalty. That's wrong. That's all that I have to say.
>> thank you, ms. Johnson.
>> next.
>> I知 lisa harris, I知 currently represented by Commissioner Davis. Until I got married I was in Commissioner Gomez's precinct. And I just wanted to give you a -- just a little bit of insight from my professional experience as a title examiner. That I知 used to looking at the history of property. I have been a title examiner for five years. If there were a pattern of foreclosure deeds being particularly common in poorer areas, I would have noticed it because I have very sensitive antenna for that sort of thing. I have done title exams for property all over Travis County, tax foreclosure deeds are much rarer than mortgage foreclosures in the history of a property. And they are not as far as I have observed they are not concentrated in poorer areas.
>> thank you very much.
>> thank you.
>> now, move approval of the Biscoe proposal and that is basically that I will get with david escamilla
>> I promise to keep it brief, judge.
>> anybody else for brief comments? Final speaker.
>> I appreciate you letting me speak. I resolved not to speak, I won't speak very long. But I would say if the -- if the escalation of rhetoric today principally judge aleshire is in the least felt by you to be accurate, that you should do exactly what he says in every respect. Look no further at any of these issues. Don't question why we sued four to five times as many people in our community as other counties do. Don't look at the fact that the lawsuits that we visit on people in our own community are very regressive against the poor. Don't look at the fact that most of those are east Austin residents. If he's right, that -- that I知 a shill or that I somehow after 24 years of serving this county government took a job and decided to throw away every bit of ethics that my parents taught me, then follow his advice and don't ask a single question. I think that your proposal is good because I think it will ratchet down the rhetoric and you might get a truly independent review. You have got equity issues and the reason that the opponents of this don't mention the equity issues is they are hard to argue against. But you have a -- you have a serious economic issues to wade through and you need to get an independent analysis. I知 very much for that. And if you go through that, and you think that you shouldn't change anything, I think that you shouldn't change anything.
>> there are representatives of my labor union here, I think their opinions ought to matter. This kind of proposal, in the discussion, if it -- if it involves damage to the working people and in this organization, I think we should accommodate that and -- in whatever way it needs to be done. I will save my other comments, for some other time if we get into a review. I will not take the bait, I guess, to discuss people's personal motives if the rhetoric gets that far out of line. We should figure out what's the best thing to do and we should all trust it.
>> I don't think any good comes from the personal stuff and I think if I didn't think we had a responsibility to at least review this, look into it, I wouldn't do it. Where it ends up, I can deal with. The reason that I move the Biscoe proposal it gives us an opportunity to work and try to refine this over the next two weeks, if we come back and decide by then that -- that this is fruitless, then whatever the vote is, I can live with that, too. But I do think this gets us from this point to the next. Therefore I move -- approval of the draft, to give direction more that be anything else, but there will be a -- revised product for the court to review, revise, otherwise act on two weeks from today, June the 2nd.
>> second.
>> can I ask for a severing of the vote, please, I would like to sever out to vote on number one, then reject all responses, I知 happy for you to the rest of it all in a separate motion.
>> no, but if you have a substitute motion that's fine.
>> move that we reject all responses to the rfi and terminate rfi number 050079-[indiscernible]
>> second that. Discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. There was a substitute -- that was the substitute approved. Now my original motion is to approve the rest of the draft with the understanding that it is a draft. And it will be back. Do you second that, also, Commissioner?
>> sure.
>> [indiscernible]
>> because I want discussion.
>> it just clears the air for us to deal with the proposal, excluding rejection of the rfi that was before us. Any discussion of that motion? All in favor.
>> hold up. I want to discuss something. My discussion basically was what I had discussed earlier. I just want to make sure that the comprehensive portion, I don't know how that can be formulated in this, I don't think it is because it's not a part of -- I have to have -- this -- this -- I think that it's very important from the testimony that I have heard today, and the -- the -- the increased property values that been experienced in -- in -- in precinct 1, precinct 4 and other places in the county, but of course you heard the testimony where -- where 80-year-old persons aren't able to even pay their taxes, because of the facts of increase in property value, gone beyond that they are having to deal with that. What I知 looking for is still arrangement of all of the taxing jurisdictions to -- to -- to come up with some type of way of looking at this to make sure that this is addressed immediately and that's the part of what -- the direction that I want to go.
>> david and I will get together, submit to the court a revised draft, for the court to make any recommended additions, et cetera, then on June 6th we will come back and vote on them. There are two other three other things that have come up today that I think are important, however I am not sure that they ought to be added to this and sent to this committee. The homestead protection idea makes sense to me.
>> yeah.
>> but I don't know that we ought to send that to this committee. The likelihood is that they will not be able to get back to us in four months --
>> it's very important because I think that --
>> okay.
>> let me back off then --
>> you need an opportunity to work on your language anyway, right?
>> yeah. Because -- this committee I hear what you are saying, but I think what we are looking at here, the homestead exemption and a whole bunch of other stuff can be orchestrated within -- within the [indiscernible] I think as far as what we are looking at here as far as this -- [multiple voices]
>> we can do it a whole lot faster [indiscernible]
>> we could do it a whole lot fast her ear way if we want to do that.
>> yeah another way.
>> yeah.
>> if we want to add this, we can do it as we approve the final document. I知 saying it is not in here now because it came up during this discussion. This is not intended to be comprehensive or final. This is a first draft.
>> it's not addressing the concerns that I have --
>> it wasn't intended to. I didn't know of your concerns when I put this together over lunch.
>> yeah. The -- the unaffordability of a person residing in that area is -- that --
>> we would have to come up with a -- with a strategy or language that we would apply county-wide. I don't know that the law would -- would give us the -- that the law would authorize us to have a precinct 1 homestead protection.
>> no, I知 just talking about just period. I think there has to be homestead protection across the board, but I just know that right now as -- the testimony here today, there's -- and previous testimony --
>> if you add that language to this document, I would be happy to consider it when we do it. If you send it in a separate document, I will still be happy to consider it. I will give some thought to the homestead protection idea that -- [multiple voices]
>> any more discussion of the motion?
>> Commissioner, they would add those as we go along.
>> the language needs to be worked on as well as the law. I知 not sure what's authorized, I知 not sure what we can do. I don't know what's done in other areas. It may be that committee will do a real good job of it.
>> I知 going to abstain on this one.
>> that's fine with me. Any more discussion of the motion? All in favor.
>> show Commissioners Daugherty, Gomez, yours truly voting in favor. Voting against, abstaining?
>> I知 abstaining.
>> Commissioner Sonleitner and Commissioner Davis. Thank all of you for coming. If you are interested in getting a copy of the second draft, if you will make sure that we have your address or your e-mail address, we would be happy to mail it to you. Mailing address or e-mail address, we would be happy to get it to you. David's schedule is very, very busy, but by Monday at 5:00, we will have something to you. How's that?
>> that's a county holiday, judge.
>> I take that back. Tuesday by 5:00. Now going to the agenda, we ought to give ourselves 30 minutes for an executive session discussion on -- 16 consider and take appropriate action on posting and advertising of call for nominations to the Travis County healthcare district board of managers. That's number 16. We have done this once before. And so -- so the question is whether -- do we have a chance to review the backup that was sent us? Looked all right to me. Any issues, recommended changes. We pulled in the new ethics language, that's state required.
>> yes, sir.
>> and last time we published this in the newspaper.
>> yes, sir.
>> I move approval.
>> second.
>> discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Thank you very much, appreciate your patience today.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, May 23, 2006 1:12 PM