Travis County Commissioners Court
May 29, 2007
Item 34
Number 34 is to consider and take appropriate action on request to approve hotel and mileage for employee attending training on June 1 11 through 13, 2007, in Round Rock at the dell facility.
>> thank you, judge, Travis County clerk. Let me start with one brief correction for a typo. The training session I want to send this employee to runs June 11-15. It should be 15 instead of 13.
>> okay.
>> typo I noticed. Okay. So what we have here is a situation where I've got one of my computer guys that I need to send to dell draining. He lives in kyle. And on a normal basis he is on call and works a varied schedule. And it's not very often that I have to require him to be on I 35 right in the midst of the 7:30, 7:00 traffic. This class would un ununfortunately put him in that position. So what I had suggested was, since we are not talking about a lot of money here, this is a few hundred, what would be better, let's go ahead and station him at a hotel right next to the conference, inexpensive place so, that he doesn't have to drive back and forth and the county will get the benefit of him being able to network and communicate with the class members while he is taking the class because they are all doing the same thing. You know how it is when you're at a group like that. So rather than bogging us down with the rules which would call for reimbursement of mileage from the courthouse to Round Rock, I thought, what if I present this, you know, situation to the court and ask for your consideration. The employee would be traveling 34.6 miles round trip, which would amount to, I think the reimbursement just from the courthouse to Round Rock would be approximately $83-$84. The cost for holding a row tell room, the difference between the two, is $353. We do have the money in our budget. So what I'm asking the court is to help the auditor and I out by allowing me to do a little more humane assignment of this training. I think it will be better for what county gets out of it. Thank you.
>> the requested mileage would be approximately 173 miles for the week. That is incorrect--
>> it should be 17.3.
>> not 173.
>> so the double of that would be 34.6 round trip. I apologize for the typo.
>> that's all right.
>> do we have a policy directly in point here ?
>> well, no, we don't. The only thing we have here is mileage we don't have a problem with, it's the lodging for the irs regulations, this lodging would be taxable to the employee because it's the cd and generally area that they consider that would be income to the employee. So in that regards, if you approve it, that is fine, we are not against it, we are okay with it. The only thing, the hotel will not be able to be paid up front to the employee as we usually do. The employee would have to put the funds up front and pay for it. We would have to reimburse through payroll.
>> you are referring to the hotel.
>> yes.
>> that is about what it is. That is the one, the pork of the bill that the employee will have to be responsible for.
>> no, the whole amount. It's a taxable income to the employee, the whole lodging will be taxable to the employee.
>> benefit.
>> a been benefit to the employee.
>> the employee can turn around and write it off.
>> yes, they can write it off on income tax as an expense.
>> between the irs and the employee.
>> exactly.
>> so you are asking, does the mileage go away and we basically authorize the hotel ?
>> we still reimburse for the mileage.
>> but it's only 173 piles.
>> from the employment to the training facility. The like lodging will be the only one that will be tax taxable.
>> right.
>> okay.
>> we can raise the mileage in place--if are you just worried about the dollars we we--
>> if you are just worried about the dollars and you want to hold it to a minimum.
>> I'm also worried about the precedent.
>> that is why we are asking for permission for the individual case because this is an on-call person would lives in kylewe have had inquiries in the past and we have always disourged.
>> what is the ruleright now now? What is the policy now? For lodging it has to be out of town and overnight stay.
>> out of town, overnight stay.
>> right.
>> and the out of town, the irs considers it the city or the general area surrounding the city.
>> I move that we forego the mailage and authorize and pay for the hotel, which is $353, and my rationale would be that if you are driving from kyle to Round Rock, it would make sense, if are you doing it four or five days, it would make sense to stay there.
>> yeah.
>> and what it says though is that if other employees are in a similar circumstance, then we would do the same thing.
>> second.
>> the only difference is that the mileage will not be taxable to the employee if we reimburse him for the mileage. Even if you substitute the mileage for the lodging, the ing will still have to be paid by the the plow plow--
>> plow ee.
>> the employee unders this. The employee will pay and get reimbursement and he or she has a problem when they file a tax return. What it does for us is put us in a position in the future, really, kyle to Round Rock during the busy time of day.
>> it's a hike.
>> yeah.
>> a long hike.
>> but I would guess that there are many employees that have a daily commute that is 30 to 40 miles round trip. I mean, it would be really difficult to distinguish this guy from what I imagine is a large percentage of our workforce who on a daily basis travel 30 to 40 miles round trip to get to work. I'm having a hard time distinguishing his five-day training from anyone else's five-day 52-week a year commute.
>> but if he were coming to work, he wouldn't driver the additional 17.3 miles. He would come to this bull bulling.
>> that is correct he is coming to the courthouse, not to round rock. So it does double what he would have to drive.
>> but it is part--
>> this is part of his job.
>> to go to this training.
>> I mean--
>> I'm just throwing out an example. You know, an assistant county attorney who most days is driving from their house to this building but on many days is, a certain number of days, is also driving out to the jp to do the docket out in the jp. I'm having a hard time--
>> they would get mileage in that case.
>> I would be incarryinged to find out if any of the county--intrigued to find out if any of the county attorney have ever asked for mileage on their jp trip.
>> they usually do.
>> I never did. I missed out.
>> when you leave.
>> leisure leisure--learn something new every day.
>> was that on your bicycle ?
>> no.
>> on this case we will be put in a bind also because I am having inquiries, and do you want all this type of travel to be coming to you or is it considered precedent to everybody else in had the county.
>> that is what I'm concerned about.
>> what if one of the--
>> everybody else can come up and request the same thing.
>> what if one of the social workers out at hss or ces, a better example, a c erk s person gets stationed at del valle for some limited period and they living in george town. We then provide them a hotel in del valle for the five days they are out there?
>> this is a training class that is out of the normal realm of his work assignment assignment. Yes, it is related to the job and certainly good for county government if we keep our people trained. But this is a class and it's a one-time thing. I wouldn't characterize it in any other general tys than this, a special situation having to do with a class with a very long distance.
>> for me it's an addition to the job.
>> yes.
>> an addition.
>> I want him to go.
>> to the job.
>> I'm just concerned about the precedent. It does seem to be within our municipal area.
>> perhaps it helps your precedent if we made it very clear that this is for the purpose of a short period of time, very few dollars, you know, for one employee to do a class.
>> you have in it your budget and we want to foster training. I can see the difference here what it does though is similar circumstances in the future, it seems to me that we would lean over backwards to accommodate the employee. But in the example I heard so far, because we have a lot of employees, including especially law enforcement officers, who drive great distances to get to work. That is not quite driving great distances and then going to training. I think that if you make that driving by the time you get here in the morning, you are pretty much worn out because all that traffic coming in is when it's rel heaviy. So I can, it is precedent setting for us, just that I'm not sure, I don't know that i think it's a bad precedent. I think that it's fairly narrow. If we can leave it to this, then I don't see harm resulting.
>> may I ask ask--ask one question, judge.
>> we corrected that, john. Sorry, while you were gone. It's 11-15.
>> that was corrected in the posting ?
>> not in the posting but todaylve we we--today we may have to ratify the additional days if the motion passes.
>> thank you john.
>> anymore discussion? All in favor show Commissioners Davis, Gomez, dougherty, yours truly voting in favor. Commissioner eckhardt here but not voting. Okay. Thank you very much.
>> thank you.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, May 30, 2007, 8:00 AM