Travis County Commissioners Court
April 3, 2007
Item 19
19. Consider and take appropriate action on a proposed policy regarding use of toll roads by county employees. Carol joseph, t.n.r. Several weeks ago we presented to you the issue with the toll roads, with the opening of loop one and s.h. 45 north, and then the opening of 183 a. What has happened is several of the county vehicles have been riding the toll and the auditor's office have been receiving the bills. The issue becomes how do we pay. So joe suggested a committee of the auditor's office, the planning and budget and purchasing and emergency services. Recent bills in the -- in the house -- house bill 937 specifically is -- is in the house and probably will be passed that will be -- that will allow emergency vehicles to operate the toll for free regardless of whether they are running red lights or not. The problem here if we have two issues, what happens between now and the passing of the bill and what happens after the passing of the bill. So what we have brought before you was a -- a policy for the future as well as recommendation for the current, which is that the bills coming into the purchasing office, we -- t.n.r. Will then divide the bills, the bills are coming income the lists they charge an extra 33% for the bill plus an extra dollar for the invoice. And they come in and they come in by license plates and then we have to -- to define who -- who -- which department has those. We will send those bills out to the various departments and we are recommending that the departments pay those bills. The issues are that they don't have a budget currently for it and but I don't think that anything is excessive that they won't be able to find the moneys in their bills, in their current budget. Most of the vehicles that are using the -- the toll roads right now are particularly either the sheriffs or the constables. So they are technically emergency vehicles so we would expect that you would see even that -- that usage to go to 0 because the bills will be passed through the house hopefully and they won't have issue after September 1 if that's the date that they use in the house this year.
>> the bills that are coming in, just holding on to them.
>> right now we have them. We have sorted them, are sorting them by department. Prepared to send them out. What the auditor's office designing is certification form similar to the one we do with the cell phones so that the departments -- heads can certify that those -- those bills were -- were for county business. And therefore the bills will then be paid. They will establish a p.o. And be able to receive on the system and then the auditor's office will be able to pay those bills. That would happen to the current bills. We will recommend that the -- that the other departments pay the bills, in our department, the t.n.r. We recommended that our employees not ride the toll roads so we have minimal usage of the toll roads. For the future in the policy what we are recommending is that you -- each department established whether or not they need, have a need for -- for the use of the toll roads and purchase particular textags for the number of vehicle, particular vehicle that they expect to use the toll roads, we recommend that is what the policy goes through.
>> since the money to pay comes from a common fund, why wouldn't we have a common set of rules. Why would you leave it to the --
>> the money to pay the bill comes from each individual department.
>> but in the end it comes from the general fund.
>> that's correct.
>> see what I'm saying? Our concern is not that you use a county vehicle on the toll road when you don't have to. It's that you use the toll road and the bill comes to the county. There's a difference there. Let's say that employee joe has the car, going to lunch, he decides well I'm going to take the toll to meet the guys down at joe's barbecue, but I'm paying the toll fee. That doesn't bother me at all. See what I'm saying? It bothers me when he's going to lunch and the bill -- the bill for the toll road comes to the county. It is a management issue. Very much like the cell phones. You have a policy that every department manages just how much cell phone usage a department need. It's not cheap. The employee can use that county cell phone for personal calls, but he's got to reimburse the county 40 cents per call to use it. So I mean it would be very difficult for t.n.r., for instance to manage a common pool of toll users without any sense whatsoever of who is using it and why they are using it. So we believe that it's better placed within the department's budget, let this department head determine whether or not it's a legitimate use and how much of that that particular department need to use in any given year. The money is going to have to be approved by the Commissioners court. Going to have to be a line item, just like any other line item in the budget. It's a way of controlling how much toll usage any one department is going to use in a given year. And I just think that you will have better management control over the use of the toll roads if individual departments are doing it rather than it being a centralized line item.
>> on cell phones, you say if you use a cell phone for personal use, you ought to pay for the bill. We ought to say the same thing about using a toll road. That is my recommendation.
>> two, we say about alternative routes. What we really mean is a non-toll or free road don't we?
>> we are saying that you expect it to use county employees travelling in personal vehicles are expected to use we say alternative routes. We really mean non-toll or free roads.
>> that's correct.
>> okay. B there what we say is pretty much we leave it, you have got to get the approval of your department. I think there ought to be some real broad standard that guides the -- the department official that's making the call. It should not be open ended. It needs to be a broad standard of something that we can apply across the board. I'm sure we have those in the cell phone policy somewhere. I'm not saying you have got to do exactly the same thing, but I'm saying the broad policy is unless there's an emergency or.
>> of that nature, you expect it to -- not to use the toll road and have the county pay for it, right.
>> well, yeah, I think the general policy is that saving, using a toll road is saving time and time is of the essence in whatever function that person is using. For me, for instance, t.n.r., let's be specific I would buy a toll tag for our four emergency response vehicles that respond within one hour to emergencies after hours. Only those four vehicles would have toll tag. I would budget every year to pay for their tolls when they have to respond to something within an hour. I would have total control over that, I think that's probably a legitimate use of the toll road. But otherwise take the free roads.
>> you don't want to have to make the decision every time joe blow thinks that he wants to use a toll road to call you and ask. Floo r.
>> no. Those vehicles, any time those vehicles need to use the toll road, it's automatic.
>> or -- that's what I'm saying. Three outing to say something like that. In that case it's consistent with the departmental policy. Even if you leave it to the department.
>> three us use of a personal vehicle.
>> but the terminology is what gets us involved. You use the personal vehicle any way that you want to. If you want the county to pay the toll, whether it's the county vehicle or your vehicle, there are certain standards that you need to have to meet.
>> we have two types. One of them is county vehicles, statements from txdot that will reimburse the county or will pay the bills. Certification form identifying what is personal and business that the department will sign for that. The other issues is the reimbursements to personal vehicles, which we don't have any statements from txdot. Are you going to allow reimbursements to -- for personal use like knowledge or that sort of -- of reimbursements.
>> I guess my question is why should the vehicle that you drive matter? What matter is that the total bill is coming to the county. If you are using your vehicle on county business, it's an authorized use consistent with county policy, we have said in advance we will pay the bill.
>> if -- if it's personal, it will go to the employees. There's a difference.
>> consistent with the policy, yeah. To me it doesn't really matter whether it goes to the employee and we get the bill or the bill comes straight to us. If you are driving a county vehicle, we are not assuming that you use the toll road all that you want to, right? You have still got standards that you need to meet.
>> onlies r--
>> but the bill should come to us when you are using the vehicle, take a county road, right? Under the policy. Is all that I'm saying. I'm saying I'm not sure this really gets us there quite yet. I would focus on that. Otherwise who knows where we will end up. But this policy outing to be at least general enough to set forth that the policy will have in place if we are going to leave it to 3. The departmental approval that's obtained from the department director because right the standards for approval is set forth in the policy.
>> you want a court policy that basically sets the principle that the county would reimburse on. Why would anyone doing county business use a toll road? You want something that guides the departments in how they would allow usage of that fleet.
>> okay.
>> makes sense to me.
>> the other thing, this will be my final. The other thing is that -- is that if unauthorized use of toll roads -- may lead to disciplinary action, it's too subjective. Either it will or it won't. So I would say it will. There is although level disciplinary action, it can get real serious. For this to have teeth it really should be will short of shall. If there's a departmental policy and you violate it, it's just like violating any other departmental policy, there are consequences. The disciplinary action the first time may be just an oral reprimand or slap on the hand.
>> they pay --
>> yeah. But at least it's something.
>> well, if you are not careful, john doe violates it and -- and he's -- he's slapped on the -- on the hands, john does the same thing, he's not. Which is not the consequence that we want. So ...
>> my comments are similar to the judge's. Pretty much contained in four, which reads county owned vehicles are eligible for tex tag stickers if purchased and monitored for the department. I think it should be included in 4. That -- that eligible for tex tag stickers if they have the demonstrated need for speedy reaction time to complaint blah blah blah blah blah blah, and are purchased and monitored by the department. My concern is that -- I mean, currently according to the rma, the ctrma, there will not be any -- you know, there will always be a non-tolled alternative to all of their projects. That's not the case with txdot projects, however, like the 130. My concern is that cell phones we will become so dependent on the convenience of them, many departments will find ways to justify a text tag on the vehicle that really doesn't have a need for speed. They have a desire for convenience. So I think that we would do well at the threshold to define what that need for speed is. So that we don't slide into a desire for convenience.
>> why don't you just take it away from that then and take away all of the -- subjectivity of it and just say if you are in a county vehicle and your department head has bought the tex tag or whatever for it, use it. If you are using your vehicle, you use it, you pay for it. I mean, you know, the last thing that we want is kind of -- we spent a year on the -- on the phone deal here. This will be the illegitimate child of the phones, of the cell phone thing, like oh, mercy.
>> I'm not sure that I see us budgeting toll tag. What I had in mind was -- I didn't have that in mind. I had in mind maybe as part of the vehicle, inventory control --
>> we tried to give it to joe.
>> [laughter] we just sort of -- this is like we just bringing this to you all, this is our first attempt at what we thought, you know, would work. Jose and I and some of the debates were let's take a case worker going to do case in hhs, sherri's group and they are using their own vehicles and they are going 20 miles and we reimbursing them at 46.5 cents a mile. They can get on the toll and go half that distance and the -- so there might be some cost benefit, because if we are reimbursing people for their personal cars, they are going to be on the toll way, less mileage. That's why we tried make it not too specific and give the department heads some leeway to look at their department, their travel budgets, all of those nuances that joe and I don't know what the other departments are doing.
>> who wants to get --
>> my people are not.
>> let's not open this thing up to the point where then it starts really getting ridiculous.
>> [multiple voices]
>> the court can set that policy, I mean, if that's how you want to do it. Say you are only going to reimburse the emergency vehicles. We just sort of brought this to you because there's an issue. We got fines coming in, we needed some sort of a policy for right now and then if you all want to do something different in the long run we can change it. To say no.
>> I think we ought to do exactly what I told residents. You don't have to take the toll roads, there will be free roads from a to b. If you have to get somewhere in a hurry, you have extra money on you, the toll road is there. We have been operating without paying a toll fee for years at the county. But I agree with you it doesn't make sense if the mileage would end up being $5, we can take a toll and save time, we ought to be able to capture language, though, that allows for that. It's kind of common sense utilization basically.
>> that's not even -- a realistic example of -- of oh, the -- the toll charge would be less than if you put them out there on the actual mileage.
>> [one moment please for change in captioners]
>> why can't we do the simplest thing and that is to do what joe said. If you've got departments that have vehicles that are emergency vehicles, those four vehicles, the department head says this car or vehicle has to respond and they have to toll tag and you budget for it. And the rule is that you tell people, we do not pay for tolls on personal cars. Now, if you just want to get there and you say I want to get to that spot because I want to make sure that I have the ability to go to lunch where I want to go, well, do you know what? Then get on the toll road and use some of your toll tag. That's up to you. We shouldn't put people in -- I especially don't want to put the auditors office into this.
>> I have not spent hours th business. I don't know how you can verify that. So I think what we need to do is for any reimbursement or toll tags, someone signs an affidavit that it was just plain old county use and the department head signs off on it as well. I mean, I don't know what we can do other than that. We don't know if they're getting a toll tag and putting it on their takehome vehicle and driving home. There's no way we can verify that. You're right, how many hours does one spend? By the same token, the county can't be paying tolls for personal business, legally we can't. So I think that what we need to do maybe simply is they sign an affidavit and the department does the sign. Turn it in and under oath they've said that this was just on business use. And someone's going to be having the county toll tag and jump on for personal business and then they need to reimburse the county.
>> or be fired.
>> but that's going to happen.
>> fascinating. Do we need this back on in two weeks. We'll keep workogit.
>> [ laughter ]
>> do you need something on whether it's a cost benefit or not or do you want say no tolls except for emergencies?
>> well, at this stage someone has to tell susan because we have them continuing to roll in. And unless people know -- but I would think if they're watching this thing, they go, do you know what, I don't think that I ought to get on the role with my personal vehicle because my department head may go, I'm not signing these.
>> we've told them.
>> at least we can clarify now that the bills that we currently have we will send to the various departments and they can certify --
>> county business certified by affidavit.
>> so we will continue to do that at least until everything --
>> two weeks. : let's land ona policy in two. I think our purpose should be do not use a toll road unless absolutely necessary, and whatever language captures that. We don't expect to you use toll roads except on some sort of county business. 'The wording we can objectively apply seems to me. The other thing is I think you want the policy to be kind of short and to the point, but I would have that the violation will result in disciplinary action, whatever language is in the personnel policy now for violations of the policy. You two weeks to mull over it.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, April 3, 2007, 9:34 PM