Travis County Commissioners Court
December 19, 2006
Item 44
The legislative item is -- 44.
>> judge, I think we can also do the elroy one quickly . 44. Consider and take appropriate action on legislative issues and proposed bills before the 80th Texas legislature. What's the number of the elroy road?
>> judge, on --
>> which one.
>> judge, on elroy there's one issue has some legal ramifications that I would like to talk with you in executive session first.
>> okay. All right.
>> okay. Okay. 44.
>> good morning, judge Biscoe, Commissioners, bob cam. We have two legislative proposals for you this morning. One to talk about on early retirees, the second one with where it of execution, I think constable bruce elfant is going to be here or attorney thomas, they should be down here in a little bit.
>> Commissioners?
>> the backup, I'm sorry, I didn't get this.
>> did we have some backup last week?
>> it was last week? Okay.
>> the backup that was provided was the pros and cons for the -- for the modification of the language that we are talking about on chapter 175. Currently the chapter is somewhat restrictive on what benefits it provided to early retirees. That's retirees under the age of 65. Or it -- more accurately stated, we would like to change the word in the document, to use the term medicare eligible retirees. Currently the requirement is that you provide the same level of benefits to an early or -- I'm sorry, to an early retiree that you provide to your active employees. What that cost is right now is $14,400 a year compared to for an early retiree compared to about $7,400 a year for -- for an active employee. It doesn't give much leeway for options to provide insurance to early retirees as an alternate to what we are doing now. So that we -- we have asked to be able to take a -- to -- a bill to the legislature that modifies the language to say that -- that public entities can provide a comparable level of benefits to -- to early retirees. The concept is if that language is adopted and approved by the legislature, it opens the door for organizations, whether it's a pool or an insurance carrier or an organization that wants to self insure separately from their actives, a plan that would bring a larger number of retirees, early retirees into the pool and spread the risk more than what it is now. The principal would be to reduce those costs down from what we are paying in Travis County, $14,000, something more reasonable. The -- the opportunities that -- that we would have to develop these plans we would be able to work with other organizations, insurance companies or pools, to -- to explore doing this. It doesn't in any way diminish the authority of the Commissioners court to make a decision to providing the benefits just as they are, but it gives you an option to look at other avenues of providing this coverage. So we are asking the court to -- to support the -- the proposed change in legislation.
>> so we working at putting together the -- the proposed language or recommended language?
>> we had -- judge, we have a draft already. And I think dan has it here. I am -- I sent it to your office Friday. I know that you were out of town. So it may not have gotten to your packets. But we had intended that you have an additional background and a copy of the bill.
>> okay. You may have --
>> well, I sent it to you, I sent it to your assistant yesterday again. I was hoping that it would get to you. You all don't have it.
>> I did. I didn't print it out. I did get it.
>> you sent it by e-mail.
>> by e-mail.
>> yes.
>> we are still working on tweaking some of the language in that contract and I think April and susan have brought some good points up on some of the language, but --
>> I guess, judge, one of the conceptual things is right now the law requires us to have the same plan and I guess that I don't have any problem with offering other plans as well. But I think that it is a departure to say that we will not offer the same plan as one of the choices. I guess that I don't like that at all. Because when you say comparable plan, what is that? Is it the same coverage, the same doctors, what is a comparable plan.
>> find out more susan --
>> I mean this is just my opinion. I'm just giving you my opinion. So I think that it's a mistake --
>> I understand susan's comment. But I think that goes more to the -- to the decision that the court makes when it adopts its plan. If your law says same plan, you don't have any options. If your law says comparable plans, you can offer both the same plan and other plans or you can -- or another county could make a choice to offer a plan that wasn't the same as that for their employees as well as -- I mean, another plan in place of that without offering the exact same plan. So it gives different counties different options and what you put in the law isn't necessarily what you end up doing. It just gives you more opportunity for choice in the future.
>>
>> [indiscernible]
>> no more wiggle room.
>> I don't have a problem with employees having more than one plan to choose. But I do have a problem if this bill precludes retirees from the same coverage that actives have. So I'm not -- I have not seen the actual bill. But if it does that, that is a big be departure from what you are doing now. If you want choices you can do that, maybe one or two other plan that's people could choose if they wished, I think that's a good thing. But I think that they should have the option to choose the same plan now. That's just my opinion.
>> yeah.
>> chapter 175, currently allows us to offer other things if we want to. But it will -- it's guaranteed -- it guarantees that an employee can continue on our current plan. It's my understanding that the intent of this bill would be to remove the -- the employee from having a right to purchase continuing coverage on the plan that the actives currently have, and force them into an alternative if the court decides to not offer, you know -- if the court decides to move everyone to a pool. And so that is the distinction that we are trying to carve. That would be the departure, the whole intent of chapter 175 was to give the employees a continuing right to stay on the county purchase, but be on the county's plan when they went into retirement and this -- this bill basically said no you no longer have that right. We can move you and put you into a pool or? Other plan if we so choose. So it's not just a flexibility. It's a major departure. Right now there is a provision in 175 that allows us to offer other plan ifs we want to. And still allow the continuing purchase on our -- on our active plan. So we have some flexibility currently. So it's -- they may be able to explain it better, but that's sort of my understanding is what this departure would be.
>> 175 is track code.
>> 175 -- Travis County code.
>> the local government code section that authorizes us, enables the employees to make that continuing coverage and thefn we have adopted -- then we have adopted our Travis County, I believe it's chapter 17 in part in reliance upon those sections.
>> okay. We need the specific language of the draft bill before us really before sort of going through this. It will be back on January 2nd.
>> very good.
>> the other item? Today?
>> judge, that deals with the issue of -- where it of execution, changing the statute there, clarifying the statute.
>> the one that
>> [indiscernible] was working on.
>> right. Constable elfant is here to speak on that.
>> good morning, I'm bruce elfant, constable of precinct 5. This bill came about through the cooperation of the county attorneys in dallas, tarrant, travis, harris, to try to respond to some of these, what we considered nuisance lawsuits around the state on writs of executions. Generally this is trying to limit the cap of damages to counties to actually damages rather than these outrageous amounts and to clarify what due diligence is. One of the issues that gets counties into trouble is the explanation of due diligence, if we spend 15 minutes, they say you should have spent 20. This bill attempts to more specifically defines what due diligence is so that the plaintiffs and county better know what's expected of them. This is, we had a conversation call with all of those counties, this is the draft that we -- I don't know if it's been forwarded to you, the Travis County attorney's office has taken the lead here. Travis and harris are taking the lead on get sponsors. Trying to get this passed. Trying to limit our liability.
>> the only thing that I will add, you may not have this, something sherene sent over in terms of who supports it. She has people will know that will support harris county, tarrant county, dallas county, Texas association of counties, conference of urban counties and the constables and jusdz justices of the association.
>> if everybody works their people this is an easy bill to get through. I would move approval of the endorsement.
>> second.
>> of this bill. Discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Thank you very much.
>> happy holidays.
>> back at ya.
>> same to you.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, December 19, 2006 8:51 PM