Travis County Commissioners Court
May 29, 2007
Item 36
Number 36, receive stat ut report and take appropriate action on various legislative issues and proposed bills before the 80th Texas legislature. I asked my staff to get me a copy of the an article that appeared in the Austin american stateman yesterday that does a decent job of summarizing what the legislature has done and where the governor is on it. I was thinking of y'all always, my staff provided copies for everybody.
>> thank you so much.
>> there is one for ms. Porter. Good morning.
>> good morning judge.
>> first is the legislature adjourned ?
>> yes.
>> are the legislators out of town ?
>> yes and no.
>> they are leaving.
>> they are leaving.
>> thank you. We will proceed however you want. But what we are going to do is to highlight priority one and priority two bills and answer your questions, and then decide what we want to do is come back in self weeks and and--several weeks and give you a more detailed report. What happened in the last couple days, if you have been following the pains, was very unusuallve typically yesterday is just a day for technical corrections and signing at afternoon. But they went as you know late until last night, passing conference committee reports. So there are a number of large bills out there that we have not sorted through yet. So there are some things there that we are not able to report to you this morningmorning.
>> so if they pass the conference request report, does it have to go to the governor govern ?
>> it does. Which is the other part of our core layer. We have to wait until the 17 17th because anything that we talk about today can be vetoed by the governor.
>> okay.
>> with that you to have the priority one bills. There were seven bills that you asked us to work on and to try to pass, and we did that. We are happy to report that all seven of those bills passed. Special kudos to auditor because of the gas by 45 bill passing. Thank you susan and your staff. Which is probably also the time that we need to thank you all, the commission,rs because we know we pulled you over to the legislature many times and interrupted your schedule. Also your staff. You had so many folks that helped us on a daily basis. And it was certainly, we could not have done it without that position. So we are very, very thank thankful.
>> I don't want to interrupt you, with you just to take opportunity to thank daniel bradford in my office for helping me out so much. And he is leaving me. Leaving me at the end of this week to go down to the the county attorney's office office. It was instrumental in, yes, really instrumental in helping us out in the legislative session.
>> great job.
>> also would like to recognize the other elected officials in Travis County because we did work with a number of them on different pieces of legislation and they were all very cooperative and helpful on those bills. With that, the if you have any questions about priority one bills, we're happy to answer those. Then on the priority two bills, what we did, there's 18 pages and we just divided those, I have six and tallia has six and chris has six and we're going to highlight one or two bills in those and then answer any questions if you have questions about those at this point. On priority two, I have the first six. Very first bill, house bill 15, the reason that is not in there, that is where they put some money for the county, $5 million to help pay for the election on may 12. Then also a provision that was put in hb 556 which also did pass, to allow the secretary of state tostate provide that reimbursement to the county promptly. So you will get some reimbursement for the election coming up. We're estimating it's about 50 percent of what your costs are going to be. I think those costs were estimated somewhere in the area of $600,000. So we are hoping that travis is going to recover some $3 $300,000 for the may 12 election. The very next bill, h b 345 by flynn, this was the collateralization of public funds. We had talked about this bill many times during the session. That bill you all had recommended changes, and that bill did not pass this session. Let me pick out maybe one other bill. Hb 541 on the, which is about the third or fourth bill down, passed. And that will allow, this relates to your blue warrants, and will allow some of those folks to be released on bond, which has not happened in the past. Again, hopefully that will relieve some of the backlog in the jails on the blue warrantswarrants.
>> do we have a feel for where the governor stands on some of these bills?
>> well, I mean, yes. We have heard various things things. For example, on the last one I will mention in the first six pages on mine, hb 2006, which is the eminent domain bill. In the house, if you remember from last week's meeting, the senate had put a number of amendments on that look to help the government entities a bit. The house concurred in those amendments so the version that you look at last week is what is going to the governor. But there has been some rumor because of the potential cost to the state and other subdivisions, that the governor may end up, you know, looking at that bill very closely. So bills like that are going to be scrutinized but we don't know, of course, at this point what will happen and how that will turn out.
>> okay. The blue warrants will be an allow, that is what made me think about. Do you know where the governor stands on it ?
>> I do not.
>> okay.
>> but I have no reason to, during the course of the session, I don't think that, we didn't hear of any extra concerns that they had about that bill.
>> okay.
>> with that, I'm going to turn it over to tall iaand she is going to cover a few bills for us.
>> starting on page 7. There are a couple of bail bonds bills that we were reviewing this session. None of of which have passed passed. 3319 on page 8, this is a bill that picked up an amend amendment that would allow counties to have a roll back election. The amendment was removed from the final version of the bill. Something that came up late last week and we were able to remedy that with the respect of urban counties.
>> somebody had a watchful eye.
>> sorry ?
>> someone had a very watch watchful eye on that.
>> luckily, we have a lot of good eyes on county legislation.
>> you're going to learn to take credit for stuff like that.
>> laid it out there. You didn't want to grab it ityou just say thank you Commissioner, that will do it.
>> thank you Commissioner. Senate bill 11, this is a big homeland security bill. This is another bill that really didn't affect us until late last week when an amendment was added that would restrict county authority to declare disaster declaration. Our Travis County e ms guys were right there to help us and gave us some really great backup information as to why that would not be a good idea. So we were able to work with the author and have some compromise language so that as the bill is passed it doesn't impact our ability to issue declarations.
>> how long were our declar declarations before? Now it pertains to 60 hours unless extended by the governor.
>> I don't believe the current law stipulates a set time.
>> can we have con declarations of 60 hours to declare another one ?
>> the way the amendment is written, it would just say that upon request of the county judge, the governor would extend the declaration declaration. It doesn't say anymore than that. So I guess it's up to interpretation. My an understanding is that the judge would just need to explain to the governor that we need this declaration to be extended because the bill exists and he would okay it.
>> good relationship with the governor may pay off yet.
>> the last bill I'll highlight, actually two more senate bill 12 is the big clean air bill of the session, that just passed yesterday. We are still going through some of the last minute changed but overall I think we are happy with this bill. It's going to have a good impact on the county. And sb 103, this is the big Texas youth commission bill. It pick up an amendment that will allow Travis County to receive additional funding for juvenile probation dents dents. That is is--departments. That is something the court has been monitoring. That is it for me. Unless you have questions about any the other bills in those pages.
>> good job.
>> thank you.
>> existers and judge, and-- and--Commissioners and judge judge. I'm on page 14. 11 107--1107, I the hospital district bill, that allows the hospital to directly employ physicians. They came to the court I think and talked to you about that. Sb 1295 on page 15, I just kind of used this bill as a general opportunity to tell you that the legislature did in fact fund in a very significant way di versions from jail for people who are mentally ill or substance abusers. The legislature funded. Kind of depend which versus listen to. We have not read the final bills yet. But several thousand new beds rather than new prisons new treatment beds. Those dollars I think, judge are truly going to make a difference over time for the number of people that are in the county prison, county jail facility. That is a very very positive develop. Legislatures spent a lot of time on tyc, as you know, as well as on the issues that relate to prison population. Sb 1502 at the bottom of page 15 is the emergency services district bill. Commissioner Daugherty, I think you particularly asked about. It allows two cents to be il posed throughout the district in the places that are not at the cap. So that also passed. I would point out that the transportation infrastructure and planning district bills, which I think the court is very well aware of, 1688, 89 and 90, all did not pass and they are of course listed on this page, but they did not pass. Then the last one that I would note on these pages is the guerrero-mcdonald rest that that--resolution that the court had keen interest in. That also died.
>> in your opinion, looking at those 1688, 89 and 90, what is your gut feeling as far as maybe the future out outlook on these? I just think it's still something that we really need to consider, sb 1690 is very critical to the county, especially dealing with the isn't h--sh 130 un unincorporated area out there so we can have some type of I guess handle on land use authority because of the county not having, being authorized.
>> right . We really do need to have something out there with some control mechanism, otherwise we may have all incompatible lan use through throughout the un unincorporated area. My question is, what is your sense of flavor on those, especially 1690, as far as at the capitol, what is the talk? Do you think it's something that we can continue to pursue ?
>> yes, sir.
>> which I'd like to see.
>> absolutely, I think you can continue to pursue it I think the need is so obvious and overwhelming that the issue is going to continue to be on the agenda agenda. I thought that senator watson came much more to the middle than has ever been done before. Frankly, I thought that was going to be enough for those bills to pass, or at least some portion of them. I was surprised at how close the parties got, much closer than in previous sessions, in my opinion. But it all ended up not passing in the end. I think it will be back next time, and I think it will be an issue that the court will you know, be interested in probably every legislative session.
>> okay. Thank you.
>> there was a bill to use some of the funds for rail relocation. What happened with that bill bill?
>> I believe.
>> the amendment, I guess.
>> it was corrected, revised so that it would make the program eligible for terp funds but did not directly allocate the first 25 million per year to the program.
>> what does that ultimately mean ?
>> overall it would be better for the other entities participating in the program because it no longer gives the rail relocation program first dibs on the tunds. It just makes them eligible for them.
>> I think if there's a balance, if I understand the amendment correctly, I'm not sure I do, I think there is a balance at the end of the fiscal year or the biennium, then those dollars would be available there has been a balance in the funds each of the last several years. Possibly rail relocation will get what it is seeking but only if the money has thought been previously committed.
>> what pressure can be applied if an agency, not this one, of course, simply refuses to allocate dedicated funds? Legislature is gone. Funds are rolling in. Applications throughout the state. The regulatory agency simply won't allocate the money. Meaning they will allocate a percentage of it, 30 to 50 percent, but not nearly 80 or 90, when the money is clearly there and the need too.
>> well, one thing we can do is the court can take dredge dredgely--directly to the agency and we can initiate those discussions. And then there's other touch points that you can do to try to push that forward. I suppose if none of that worked, it can get bumped over to the lawyers and they can consider what type of legal action to compel them to do something that their legally required to do. But I would say that if we run into that, if you can allow us to assist on that, to contact the analysis and to see if we can help that along.
>> kind of like severalies ago when the legislature allocated $15 million for substance abuse in the tdc. A year or two years later the legislature took that back to balance the budget because the money wasn't being used I mean, wardens that had never done substance abuse services in my view had no idea how to put the program in place. The money is there, sort of sitting. And when the legislature comes to town, unspent funds basically are jep tise-- tise--jeopardized.
>> there is so many reasons that can happen, junk, and therein lies the problem. If none of the counties submit qualified prongs prongsprongs--projects, then the agency has no authority to spend the money. There has been an argument that one of the reasons central Texas, san antonio and Austin in particular, have received so much less money out of the funds is because we simply haven't submitted qualified projects to the extent and scope that houston and dallas have done done. I don't think through that is completely a fair characterization, but that statement has been made a number of times. So it's a very, very tough issue. I think the best thing we can do is make sure that we are doing everything possible to apply for, with qualified projects, those funds.
>> it also just raises the issue that we have discussed before, and that is what involvement the county has and the legislative consult consultant during the trim. So much happens during the interim that if we can keep active during the interim, we may be able to fend off some of these issues. Of course, then be ready for the next session as well. There's so much, you know, once the legislature leaves town, as you said, it gets taken over by a whole other set of individuals. If we can keep everybody involved, I think that helps out a whole lot. On the same note, we would like to visit with the court within the next month while the session is still fresh in mind, to review, you know what has happened during this session and what we have done and the channels of communication and how we can, you know, what work, what didn't work, how we can improve those and how we then lead into the interim of what we do and what you would like us to do and what we don't do.
>> okay.
>> I really think,think, judge, if we can be more active in the interim, I think we can be more helpful to y'all.
>> okay anything further? Thank you all very much.
>> thank you.
>> you will let us know when to put this or a similar item back on. Okay.
>> thank you.
>> thank you all for your work.
>> thank you all so much.
>> don't party too much today.
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Last Modified:
Wednesday, May 30, 2007, 8:00 AM