Travis County Commissioners Court
September 5, 2006
Item 6
6. Consider and take appropriate action on methodology, proposed fy '07 budget for furniture, fixtures and equipment at 5501 airport boulevard.
>> good morning, executive manager for administrative operations. A couple of weeks ago when we had our budget hearing there was some question as to how facilities management evaluating existing furniture to be reused in new facilities or when we move to -- to the least facilities or the construction. What roger has passed out is a process map that shows how we indeed evaluate existing furniture to be reused. Wronger do you want to go through that?
>> good morning, roger el khoury director for facilities management department. What I have a process first it's a -- it's a -- the furniture, sometime when we start the new project, really we don't know how much dollar we have to add to the project for furniture until the design starts. And after the design starts, when we are on the design development or construction document, at that time we know what the status of the furniture is. That's why sometime in the budget process, we say we have to put the number in there, that is not the real number. But once the project moves toward during the design, we -- what we do, we do an assessment of existing furniture. Then the you are say in the design [indiscernible], user group. Sit down with them, tell them the methodology to purchase or replace furnitures. Then we send them a [indiscernible] form to use, the forms is in your backup. And on that form it shows the issues and the number of furnishes and they have to -- to rate them. As you can see, each department has a form and they have in each department will have -- will have the -- the step listed and we know how much, how many furniture they have, what furniture they have in their offices. Then we ask the user to inventory their furniture on our form. Cord to the rating as you -- according to the rating as you see on the lower -- it says ff and e rating, one excellent, two function well but minor cosmetic damages, three is some functional problems or damages for -- four, does not function has major defect or damages. So when the user rate the thefurnitures, we review them, any furniture rated 1 and 2 reused automatically. As you see an example in the backup, also.
>> [indiscernible] example looks like a owe like this. It's rated 1, 2, 3, 4 and the first one you will see classrooms pause that's general furniture. The other pages you see are individual, it has a -- the names of the people in that particular office. Each rates the furniture in accordance with the condition of the furniture. The example is 5501 airport, same we use for all.
>> furniture rated 1 and 2 will be used automatically, then furniture rated 3 or 4 would be subject to verification by ffe staff. We go there and take a look at the furnitures rated 3 and 4. If we find out that 3 and 4 [indiscernible] we will reuse those furnitures. If we determine the furniture rated 3 or 4 by the user are indeed 3 or 4, the furniture will be replaced, the furniture rated 3 and 4 will be sent directly to [indiscernible] warehouse. When they go to warehouse, like three, some other department they go individual staff they go and pick up like say a table or chairs for the office, you know, so those furnitures rated 3 can be reused by other departments on a needed basis. This is only one step, which is on the -- on the left column I put like abcd, this is only one process for a for existing furniture. But again when we design project we have to have additional lobby, additional reception, additional break room or conferences. Those that didn't have a we will go ahead and buy those furniture. Additional classrooms, those three additional three classrooms they have to have new furnishes. Number d is a new approved program, never been existed. Women's clinic at the airport boulevard or the human resource division they have their training room at the airport boulevard. They don't have it right here. So those are additional. Then additional storage or larger storage. Finally not in the airport boulevard at this time, it's when we have an existing furniture to be -- they have to be replaced by [indiscernible] due to design or location those will be replaced. As you can see, we have a project right now. We did lots of surveying and we went to this process for the airport boulevard phase 2 and airport boulevard phase 2 as you can see on the second, the sheet we gave you, it's a layout of the furniture for airport boulevard phase 2 for the first floor. As you look at the first floor two color. The color blue and the color red. The color red means new furniture we are going to provide. This gives you a visualization about what the existing furniture we are going to reuse them and the red new furnitures for that floor. Owe the second floor, the second sheet for airport boulevard, as you can see again, the blue are the existing furnitures, that you can see to the right corner, the right side of the sheet there's a classroom has a lot of blue color, this is its training center. We are not providing anything because they are bringing their own furniture to the new location. As you can see, the -- the classrooms, human resource division classrooms, that value to provide all of the tables and chairs. And --
>> quick question. One of the reasons that I think that our eyes popped when this item came up during departmentals, was the fact that this was a blended request between 5501 airport which is the phase 2 of airport boulevard, buildout there, further along than the building next door, which is 5555 airport, a lot of fives there, but where the sheriff is going. That one I think is one where you put in a place holder related to the sheriff that quite frankly is one that hasn't been scrubbed, might not even be close to reality because those are folks moving from an existing building over to -- to a new facility as opposed to what was going on over at 5501 is there was an -- there was some adds of things that didn't preexist anywhere else. Is that a fair comparison? 5555 there will be good discussions but we are not anywhere close to validating whether that place holder is anything close to reality.
>> that's correct.
>> we are in the process.
>> I'm seeing on it's pretty darn close whether we like it or not on airport boulevard face 2, which is the 5501, these numbers are getting pretty darned close to what you have thought at the time that you had to submit your budget request. Is that a fair statement?
>> the budget, the lengthy part of the budget marker?
>> yes, sir, there on your sheet.
>> these prices come from a county contract?
>> that's correct. We don't have a county contract -- we have -- what we do is initial cost is going, look at the circle debt, manufacturers schedule of pricing, that's what we do. Once we have selected the manufacturer presented the -- based on some processes that we have to go with purchasing, then we know the exact number at that time. So this is -- the cost as you can see, in that table right here, judge, is based on what we have purchased before similar items.
>> all right. But we don't have a county contract.
>> I think we buy for some time from the board or something like that. But we don't have an existing contract. We can't go in and take furniture from that particular company.
>> seems to me if you go in and bias much furniture as we are here, we ought to get a significant discount. Some of these price that's I look at fairly substantial, some I guess are what I would expect. Others are much higher. On some of them looks lying it may be a combination of furniture rather than just a piece. So the total of all of this at 5501 airport boulevard is how much?
>> it's 2 -- 270,000, which show right there if you look at the third page, judge, it shows 285,168, but it has also the move in there, which is 14,400 recommend understand the preliminary budget, so the total would be 270,000. Plus or minus.
>> so what we are saying is looking at all of the other department's furniture, what they have in existence right now, this amount of money to be use understand lieu -- in lieu of what they have already? In other words they -- they aren't able to move any of their existing furniture, stuff like that? [one moment please for change in captioners]
>> we're adding five new classrooms. $30,000 worth of furniture in each one of them. 152,000 for five new classrooms.
>> yeah. It's not only classroom, yuj, there's some -- judge, there's some offices also. If you look at the --
>> 152 is the total.
>> the total price. If you look at the page for the first floor at airport boulevard, then you can see also not only the classroom, but there's lots of other offices and the lobby area.
>> yeah, reception, intake, admin offices, counselor offices and classrooms, breakroom and storage.
>> we're not taking much from the old location.
>> we are taking a lot on the offices. As you can see also in the blew color right here on the second one, yes, we did.
>> ought blues we're keeping.
>> we're bringing with us the new project.
>> ground floor plan, 5501 airport boulevard is the one I'm supposed to be looking at?
>> yes, first page. Just to give you a little visual about we're talking about what are the used furniture we're using and what the new furniture we're buying.
>> I understand. How many new offices are they getting. How many offices above the number they have right now?
>> I need to find out for you. At this time I don't have the program with me. I will have to get it to you.
>> this $150,000 strikes me as incredibly large number. If I go by the building over on east 51st and 35, I can see the furniture that's there now.
>> absolutely.
>> roger, I've got -- I've just sat down this morning and tried to compile this list along with all the other write-up that we had, and martin and I really have some questions about the numbers. I can't question it. It does seem odd to me that a stack chair costs 1 fif dollars apiece. $175. Next team you see a stack chair somewhere, grab me by the arm and say that's a stack chair so I can see what it is. I mean, 175 bucks for a chair is a lot of money.
>> especially if you're buying more than one.
>> I'd like to have a little bit of time to have roger come by the office and go over this, if you wouldn't mind.
>> sure.
>> roger, if -- why wouldn't our thing be to appropriate a significant amount and basically tell the department, here's what you've got to work with. I mean, it's like buying a new home. You prefer not to bring your old furniture with you. And I guess if money doesn't matter, you wouldn't. Just furnish it with all new stuff. My guess is is that taxpayers would have a problem thinking that that was our approach. And it's for the like we have gotten requests from ces for new furniture in the past. And I'm not saying that some of the stuff that's there shouldn't be replaced. And I'm just saying that even if you look at the blue and the red, then they're take something is stuff with them, but most of this on floor one is it red is the new stuff. Red is new, right?
>> right.
>> blue is is old. Every time I see an old chair, I see two or three new ones.
>> and as I said, they have right now nine classroom, we're moving up to about 12 to 13 classroom. So you can see lots of red.
>> let us get you the information, judge, on when is the last time we bought furniture for ces and I think that may give you a better idea of what condition it's in.
>> yeah. We want our offenders to be comfortable. But Commissioner Daugherty would say we don't want them to be so comfortable that they want to come back.
>> or they want to stay.
>> [ inaudible ].
>> and you may be right. We may need to look at the -- let's look at the stacked chair for $175 and see if a fold be chair would do.
>> how about bring your own chair? [ laughter ]
>> well, we really wouldn't want them to do that and they bring -- [overlapping speakers].
>> I think it's kind of excessive, bow the way to work tomorrow morning, I'll pop in there and look.
>> thank you.
>> anything else on this item today? [ laughter ] then let's recess until 1:30 for lunch. All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, September 5, 2006 4:29 PM