Travis County Commissioners Court
December 5, 2006
Item 28
28 ought to be quick. It's to receive update and take appropriate action on county bond rating trip on December 13th through 15, 2006. We do have a bond rating trip coming up. As I indicated in my e-mail, normally we discuss management highlights last year looks like we discussed about 11 of them. And this year my recommendation is that we probably do a smaller number than that because we need to leave some time for gas gasb 45, which is a real big issue. I'm a little -- a little note that I September out yesterday, I indicate what I think the 8 important ones are. I tried to do six, but I think some of those really ought to be pretty fast. But -- but that one that you may not understand is the county city collaborations there. That's always a big issue. And I worked with a -- with the managers, we came up with 10 or 11 pages of that, so you really can cover it in about a minute or two. But I think that it's important because some of them are pretty major and really if you don't think about 'em, you don't -- they don't surface for you. Not on your radar. It's a pretty impressive list. And what happens is that the mayor and I met with arrow a few months back, they -- I was trying, we were trying to explain to them how we collaborate on different things because they were lamenting the lack of cooperation between the two of us. And I said well, you know, we -- we cooperate a whole lot more than the average resident would know. They wanted us to put together a list. I did, I was really kind of impressed. Since that already exists my thought was just to kind of hand the list out say here's what it represents. I think in every community there is -- there is hope that the governmental entities will work together more cooperatively and so -- so that -- that demonstrates that more than anything else. We did brag about the cdbg grant last time we were there. We talked about the $2.4 million. Yeah, I don't think that -- I don't know that we need to say a whole lot more than that. We can cover these quickly I think.
>> it was very
>> [indiscernible]
>> right. The new civil courthouse we ought to go ahead and put that on the radarment it's going to be a few years in the planning, we may as well just lay it out there. So that's my list. Any other ideas or --
>> huh-uh.
>> there was a --
>> one --
>> there was a whole lot of -- I said most of these are on her list, too, it was a lot longer. What I tried do was -- was pick the brightest of the highlights from her list. I think that I added maybe a couple of others. Susan?
>> I'll be presenting the county's financials as we always do. As the judge said gasb 45 is a huge financial issue and we will have significant discussion on that. Not having that in the past other than a short discussion. So I do contemplate this will take longer. We are bringing bond counsel with us this time for the first time because of the magnitude of this issue. It could have a huge physical impact now and later. Others ought to be as concerned as we are.
>> susan, is that something that you have been in touch with the other folks? Does everybody go to new york? Did all of the other governmental entities, did they all go to --
>> I think part of it depends on how often they issue debt, what's the size of the debt. Debt issuances. And I know some do and some don't. We normally do because of the size of the issuance. People in new york, this time we felt that it was important because of the magnitude of -- of gasb 45 and there are -- there are officers in the bond rating companies that we deal with that have been publishing and speaking on this issue. And so -- so we wanted to be certain that we talked to them specifically and so -- so our financial advisor has a range for them to be at that meeting, so we will talk very specifically about our situation. The county, as you know, one of our concerns with this is that -- what is the legal status in Travis County. So we paid for our legal review, one of the things that we want to do is bring that legal review up there, which shows facts for this government and have -- have at least two of the attorneys that worked on that review, they are to specifically answer questions that they have and then -- then, you know, I can relate to them the accounting ramifications of that. But they make that decision, Commissioner, based on need. You know, what you really have to talk about sometimes we have met in dallas, one year after 9/11 we actually met here, the raters came in here. Just depends on the complexity of the issue and the things that we need to discuss.
>> we are looking at issuing maybe $70 million worth of debt, which is a big number. The other thing is that I didn't realize until I -- I hadn't thought about it a whole lot. Looks like they sort of implement the gasb rules by the rate sneers they have a lot to do with it.
>> they expect governmental entities to comply with gasb standards. So they are a player in terms of implementing gasb 45. Kind of like a gasb 34. It costs us a whole lot of money to implement. Some of us are still trying to figure out public benefit to derive from that.
>> I think we need to make that very strong message to the raiders. Gasb comes out with the rule, the auditors enforce it. Then they have bond raters out speaking on it, saying we want to keep the bond rating. You need to be doing these things. The judge is exactly right. We have taken those very seriously, we have implemented things and we have seen basically -- basically no impact on that. No use of the data. It's very expensive data to collect. We were willing to do it to meet standards because we thought we wanted it. But I think it's four years since it's been implemented we have really not seen a substantive question on gasb 34 at all. This pronouncement on the heels of it, the question has to be asked, to the bond raters as well, we need to know directly from them how important this data is around that they understand what they are doing. The real critical issue about 45, just for the public's viewpoint is that -- is that they have -- the governmental county standards board has redefined liability. They have basically not talked about a legal obligation or an obligation that cannot be avoidable. This is totally different. From the way governments look at money. It is a huge departure, it is of material consequence. The truth is the way governments create obligations, under Texas state law and the constitution is that in counties you are the ones that -- that affirmatively vote to establish an obligation to find exactly what it is that you find in the contract. This is a huge departure from that. Very significant. And it also, judge, I think your comment was exactly right by looking at this. Kind of like a precursor now. How many more of these do we see. This is a government. These financial statements need to reflect what this government legally is object gated to do, has done. There has been information out in the press, 45, they are all talking about well it would be interesting to know. The county's audited financial statement is not a planning document. It is a historical document based on rules for a period that reflect what happened. It is not what we think is going to happen or what we contemplated. The actions that have been taken liabilities that you have agreed are liabilities, expenditures that you have authorized. That's government. There are enormous issues in this involved. Not just the pronouncement. You need to have an eye-to-eye talk with them. The judge is right. They are the ones out speaking on it, we need to know where they are on this.
>> we meet with one on the --
>> on Thursday morning and the other on Friday morning.
>> of nexrad doppler radar.
>> next week, right.
>> have a good time in new york.
>> thanks, Commissioner. I hope we are not going to be facing a blizzard up there. We texans do not have boots and winter coats.
>> we will discuss these highlights briefly. Okay?
>> okay.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, December 6, 2006 9:34 PM