Travis County Commissioners Court
June 20, 2006
Item 34
34. Receive notice of revised fee schedule related to livestock estray impound and storage fees charged by the Travis County sheriff as allowed by Texas agricultural code chapter 142. My notes from barbara wilson says don't place on consent. There's a reason for that.
>> judge, bill campbell with the sheriff's office. The estray statute is a little different, I will yield very quickly to the county attorney on explaining it. The sheriff's office has estray deputies that go out and try to keep cattle off the road, as well as ostriches, alligators, a number of colorful stories. We have what we call the estray fund that's set up by the statute. We use that statute to pay the expenses for doing all of that. And try to maintain enough funds in -- in that checking account so that we don't wind up using tax money for any of our expenses. We have seen particularly hay and feed costs go extremely high recently. It's good to get rain, but all of the dry weather makes the feed costs really steep. The number of animals that we get is beyond our control, so if we get a lot of -- a lot of poorly nourished large animals we are still required to take care of them. And what we would like to do and -- and I think ms. Wilson may explain this better than I can on how the -- how the statute works. We would like to go ahead and set the fees for estrays at the maximum of $25 to pick up an estray, $20 a day to try to keep them.
>> what's the fee right now?
>> I just drew a blank on it.
>> the current fees your honor for the impound vary by the type of animal. That's a pretty historic number that really doesn't work in practicality. The costs --
>> 10, 15, 20.
>> that's approximately correct.
>> make all of them $25.
>> it would standardize our fees across the board. The other fees are driven predominantly by the cost of hay. On a good day doubled, bad day tripled in price. Looking at the forecast for the state of Texas, the surrounding states as far as availability we do not see any lessening of those costs in the foreseeable future. In fact the long-term drought situation that you are certainly dealing with, not only for livestock but for individuals in our community seems to compound that. We have looked at several models. We are hoping that we can maintain our ability to break even on this equation and not have to be looking at taxpayer funding to supplement this.
>> ms. Wilson?
>> the sheriff has the authority to set these and the sheriff was looking for input from the court and from constituents and that's why --
>> that's why you didn't want it on consent.
>> yes, sir.
>> we have received input. Sheriff has the authority. 25 is set by the state legislature. Who are we to suggest otherwise >> [laughter] all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you very much.
>> such varied lives we lead.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, June 21, 2006 10:26 AM