Travis County Commissioners Court
April 24, 2007
Item 29
And are you here to discuss with us briefly number 29? Receive and discuss as necessary the fiscal 2007 mid year revenue report.
>> good morning judge, commissions, duane
>> [indiscernible] for the auditor's office, as we have done for a number of years, sort of start off the next budget process by giving you an update of this point of where we are in refuses. In the current year, we have used the same format, given the category, a brief description of what's going on. Telling you of the percentage of the budget where we are, where we were last year. Then for the special revenue funds, give you a line for each fund. I'm happy to say that -- that at the midpoint of the fiscal year, our revenue seemed to be doing pretty well. General fund about 87.5% of the budget. A little behind last year, still a very good percentage, we did very well last year, we think that we are going to do well this year, as we were last year. We are helped up this year by the assessed valuations being a little higher than the number that we were given by the budget. Of course we have the use the number given in July by the appraisal district. Sometimes it goes down, the last couple of years it's gone up. It's been a little higher. We are very glad to see that. So we are not anticipating a problem at this point with our tax revenue, our category. The other revenue category seems to be doing pretty well. Intergovernmental revenue behind last year, quite a bit. This is a fairly small category, only about 1.8 million. If one payment comes in in March, the next in April, it can make a big percentage difference. We don't see real major problems in that area. Charges for services, a little behind last year. But that's largely because we just raised the budget some this year. We were a little underbudgeted last year for that category. Of course that's a huge category with many, many long items. So we actually have more revenue than we did at this point last year. We just have a higher budget. Defined revenue is doing well. Interest revenue as you might guess is -- is doing quite well. We -- they have that one, we may have used a little low interest rate on that. We will see by the end of the year. We have to anticipate what's going to happen for a whole year ahead. Interest rates right now are a little higher than we budgeted. At the beginning of the year they were lower. And if we knew what the federal reserve were going to do, then we would probably be someplace else investing in the stock market, not here. But that's something that we just have to deal with to see what the interest rates are going to be for the whole year. Miscellaneous and other financing sources are doing fine. I would note under other financing sources which is transfers, remember this year there is no corporations transfer. That gives you -- that changes the percentage a little bit compared to last year. Special refuse new funds seem to be doing well. We did highlight a couple of them in the cover memo. One is the expo center. Since we did this, excuse me, allergies, the
>> [indiscernible] and I met with the expo center folks and they realize the situation that they are running a little hyped but, -- a littlebehind, but in fairo them they have control over the expenditure side. They know they can't exceed their budget. They had a little bigger beginning balance than we had budgeted. So it's not as good as we would like it to be, but it's not totally awful either. I think we all knew this year was going to be a hard year to predict because the first year of many years without the ice bats, we had to get through one year without the ice bats to see how their revenues were going to do. Finally the elections contract, we highlighted because the governor has called a constitutional election. That changes the financing of that quite a bit. County now is going to have to bear a lot of responsibility whereas normally it wouldn't be a county function, we would get a lot more revenue from the entities for whom we conduct the election. That one we are just going to have are to deal with the best we can. It's one of those things that -- that we don't know --
>> don't know exactly.
>> [indiscernible] as far as how much the county have to put out --
>> as far as the expenditure
>> [multiple voices] I can't answer. I think the --
>> pardon me?
>> do you know how much revenue? It's not that much that we think that we are going to get.
>> well, I guess as far as the governmental entities, let me hear --
>> the revenue side of this special election, they only expect approximately $50,000. In reimbursement. As opposed to 1.2 million that we had budgeted. Back when we thought it was going to be somebody else's election.
>> I guess in order to hold the election itself, what will be the difference of that --
>> well, it's county responsibility now that it's a constitutional election. Instead of having it in November when we -- when we anticipated having an election, we will have to hold the section in may and that makes most of it our responsibility. So the only thing that we get reimbursed for are special issues with school --
>> my question, though, is how much do we feel that that election, special election will cost the county?
>> I'm sorry, I don't know the expected --
>> recruit somebody. But then again we will be out a lot. I'm trying to balance and see what the difference is as far as what the election will actually cost.
>> Commissioner, plan and budget, I seem to recall last week you appropriated about $650,000 from the allocated reserve for this election.
>> right. I'm just saying the actual costs I guess we will have to -- that was just a ballpark, bill.
>> we won't know the actual cost until the day after the election. The county clerk estimated around 650,000. If we get reimbursed 50,000, we -- we eat mid year unexpected unbudgeted et cetera. Which is why it's so bad. State legislature --
>> pardon me?
>> state legislators, which is why it's so bad.
>> [laughter]
>> I know that we will have to -- I didn't know what the entities would be putting in altogether on this. And at least they have got flushed out because I didn't have that number. So I wanted to see what would be the offset. So -- I got my question answered, so --
>> for our residents, the election is important but it could have been better coordinated really to avoid a huge expense.
>> exactly.
>> and probably increase the voter turnout. Voters complained about having to go to the polls so much. We complain that the turnout is so low and those in the know believe that so many elections reduces the -- the number of voters per election and so we could have -- it could have been a win-win by the court -- to try to coordinate this with an already planned election with something else on the ballot to give -- give voters I guess other motivation to go and, you know, cast their vote. So it's an important issue, but we could have -- we could have better coordinated election day. The legislature could have.
>> if we had, I believe that the -- that the clerk just received an award from the state for -- for Travis County having the highest voter election turnout in the general election. So -- so those combined elections really helped.
>> they listen to us, we will reduce these costs and increase voter turnout at the same time.
>> thank you, judge
>> [laughter] thank you for the answer. I appreciate that because I wanted to get -- kind of suspected and that's one of those unfunded mandate deals y'all. So okay, thanks.
>> those are all of our comments, judge, Commissioners. If you have any questions.
>> questions? We did get good news on that tobacco fund. Most of that goes to the health care district. But we get some for medical expenses in the county jail. Do we think that our share will exceed what we budgeted or did we budget anything?
>> we budgeted 350,000. But I think our share is going to exceed that.
>> 350?
>> yes.
>> okay.
>> my guess is that we probably need additional money for medical expenses in the jail anyway, right, bill?
>> questions? Thank you all very much. We seem to be pretty much on target. Some items a little bit less than expected and budgeted. Some have exceeded the budgeted amount. Overall we are probably in pretty good shape?
>> we are doing pretty well compared to what we anticipated when you approved the budget.
>> okay. We will give you all credit for when we exceed the budget and blame you all when with you fall a little short
>> [laughter] thank you very much. Appreciate it.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, April 25, 2007, 8:34 AM