Travis County Commissioners Court
September 26, 2006
Item 1
Number 1 is a public hearing to receive public comments on the fiscal year 2007 tax rate and budget.
>> move to open the public hearing.
>> second.
>> all in favor? That passes unanimously.
>> this is the last public hearing on the budget statutorily required. Your budget process started last January, it is now almost finished. You have orders before you. The tax rate has been decreased by almost 5 cents, there is a decrease to the average homestead owner as a result in spite of increased average appraisals going up. We filed on Friday, all 10,000 line items. It is a balanced budget. And -- and I can go into as much dill as anyone would like -- detail as anyone would like.
>> this will be our third public hearing.
>> yes.
>> and we have other public discussions.
>> good news, in addition to addressing a tax rate, we actually have a tax bill reduction this year. About $3 for the average homeowner, double good news in my view. Would anyone like to give testimony in this public hearing on the tax rate and tax budget for fiscal year 07. Good morning.
>> good morning.
>> good morning to you all.
>> good morning to you all, good morning Commissioner Davis. My name is gus pena, speaking on my own behalf, not for anybody else. This is my 18th budget on the county side and my 25th on the city's side, so we have experience in working on budgets and working with various councilmembers, city managers, budgets. Set to be approved and possibly my recommendations, I guess it will not affect your vote. But I stated before, in my observations, Travis County needs more corrections officers. I am a former corrections officer. I have my identification with me, a thing a lot of us see, not only families that have individuals incarcerated and the families of the corrections officers that work to maintain the status quo over there, we see an imbalance of corrections officers versus inmates. In our opinion, if you ever worked as a corrections officer, one corrections officer for 30 to 50 or 60 is not acceptable. There's a safety risk factors there. Not only this year, but I'm past prior budget, also, so it's nothing knew that I'm bringing forth to you all. I know we have to maintain the status quo and fiscal responsibility to the taxpayer, taxpayer money, but I think this is wise and prudent expenditure to have the corrections officers maintain their safety and maintain the safety of the inmates, also, as -- as a lot of them, whether they may turn to the right or left, they still -- some of them are good people, others are just bound for crime. I do appreciate the patrol officers, also, because they have a vast amount of mileage to patrol, nonetheless, this is a different equation when you are in a building and the correctional facility, you have all of these inmates to one officer, that's not acceptable, judge and Commissioners. I know that you have to balance the budget in front of the line items and maintain fiscal responsibility for the taxpayers. Look at this, also. There are many other things that you have to fund, also, you have to maintain fiscal responsibility for the taxpayers. But remember that the -- that the safety, the health and well-being of the officers as well as the inmates. We are trying to work on recidivism, also, trying to work on prevention measures, a lot of these things could have been prevented, but, you know, that's the way it is. But anyway wait to thank all of the people who worked on the budget. I want to thank you all begin for having all of these public hearings. I told the mayor and the councilmembers, a lot of the public hearings are held more here. I think that you will have more meetings at the city council. I ran for city council twice, also. I will tell you that I do appreciate the hard work that everybody has done, I still think there are some things that you all really, really need to look into and maintain the status quo for the sift and well-being. Also maintain the funding for the poor, needy, have-not's, as far as utility. People say wait a minute. Well the poor are the poor. The gap widens, the haves grow bigger -- the have not's grow bigger than the haves. People coming into Austin, they think it's a great place to win. It used to be affordable, now it's not. Anyway thank you all. I do have some positives instead of negatives, I want to thank you all for the hard work that you are doing. Continue to March, god bless you all. Thank you.
>> would anyone else like to give testimony during this public hearing.
>> move to close the public hearing.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, September 27, 2006 9:54 AM