Travis County Commissioners Court
September 4, 2007
Item 34
Number 34. 34 is discuss and take appropriate action on feasibility of creating position to perform public information, intergovernmental relations and legislative duties at Travis County.
>> there were a couple of changes to the draft that I had suggested. And I think there's --
>> [inaudible]. These are three proposed descriptions of intergovernmental relations, legislative liaison and public information officer. And then I think Commissioner Gomez, job descriptions from bexar county.
>> bexar county, uh-huh. And probably some of the qualifications that are listed in the August 25th memo from your office, probably lists at the bottom some of the things that we may look for in a person which, you know, in the bexar county job description, they are listed on the second page. The excellent written and verbal skills, legislative experience, public speaking, familiarity with county government, local government operations. You know, so those are kind of in there and so we can probably just make sure that we include everything that we're looking for. Because those all seem to be good points that we would want the person to have.
>> and the way these three job descriptions have been laid out, the intergovernmental relations, the one suggestion I put in, the only sub taken substantive one, if the t.i.o. Position was created in addition to intergovernmental relations, that that person would report to intergovernmental relations. But intergovernmental relations is broader than the other two standing alone.
>> yeah.
>> well, we start markup tomorrow so how many persons would we think we would need?
>> I envision one, judge, to start off with the intergovernmental relations manager. And kind of give the person a real opportunity to define what this person is going to do for Travis County. We know what the other folks do for some of the other urban counties, and -- and start there to develop that position. Then this person can also -- with a familiarity that he or she has with local government and especially Travis County, I think from there it can go to what else do we need to do. And I know that we're not totally utilizing all of the resources at our disposal such as the web page, the channel 17 and, you know, other things. And especially with our customers here in Travis County, what do they need from us. And I know we have a lot of things that can be posted in different places in terms of it being public information that -- and just as an attempt to be transparent with the public. And they need a lot of things from us, but we need to know what those things are. And so I think that would develop from this position. But I think to start with, I think we could start with one position and then let the person come back to us for next year or after that as to what else is needed. How can we serve our customers better. So that we're giving them something meaningful.
>> I think to start, the intergovernmental relations person would probably need a designated person inside the county attorney's office to liase with and I would imagine it would be the open government, open records attorney.
>> well, I think we also kind of assume or we should say it out loud that any time we have these positions, they have to collaborate and communicate and coordinate with other people in county government whether they work for elected officials or for the Commissioners court. So I mean that's kind of like a given, isn't it?
>> you would think so. You would hope so.
>> yeah.
>> an immediate need would be get in contact with all the i.t.o. Positions from the various departments.
>> [inaudible]. Certainly one individual would have plenty to do.
>> I think there's enough for them to develop where we're going from here. But that would be my comfortable -- my position of comfort with the position.
>> and I would think -- I would think that we probably wouldn't be able to accomplish a hiring for six to nine months, so ear mark of 160,000 would probably be more than enough prorated to accomplish the task.
>> and I guess at some point we need to bring in belinda to work on space if we go that route.
>> yeah. Belinda or somebody else.
>> or somebody to deal with the space issue.
>> this is on the budget work schedule, isn't it?
>> it's on the budget work sheet.
>> okay.
>> it's on the budget work sheet as a Commissioners court request.
>> okay.
>> well, now, would the 160,000 be for one person or two?
>> we put it down as 160 just as a place marker. If it's just one person, that's obviously more than adequate particularly if it's prorated to six months or three months in f.y. '08. So the 160 is just a place marker.
>> do we have anything comparable to what -- Commissioner Gomez, do you have anything to suggest what the person down in bexar county, the manager --
>> what she makes? No because they have, I think, a three person department. It's like 1.069 million for the department. But I don't recall the individuals, what the individuals made.
>> there was a suggestion by some
>> [inaudible] served in this capacity before that the -- the salary would have to be adequate to cover a lot of things that you couldn't expense for. Things like just, you know, lunching with others -- with other governmental entities. And I think the way we cost it out for one position, what grade did we put it at? The level 20 or 21 position?
>>
>> [inaudible] well, maybe just a per diem.
>> that was the implication of a couple people have said that the governmental entity shouldn't pay for lunch.
>> [inaudible].
>> I don't think our expectation for them should be for them to buy lunch really, except on occasion. We're going through this campaign with mclain air force. If you set yourself up to do that, where do you draw the line. Per diems are available, but they are incredibly low. My own view is if you hire one person, you've got to have some sort of support even if it's just temporary or part time. You know, there's -- I think what we ought to do is try to come up with our job description, but go ahead and try to fund appropriately tomorrow.
>> we'll work on a number.
>> you've got it posted anyway. I think we ought to hire one person and try to -- even if it's a part-time support person, if this person is doing a whole lot of phone answering, you don't get much real work done.
>> perhaps look at a local 20 with a level 14 or something in that range?
>> a good support person, you are talking about 35.
>> someone who can field some questions and learn fast maybe and they will know the field and be able to --
>> keep the calendar.
>> give some answers so that the person doesn't have to keep calling back or follow up. Let's see what we can come up with for the one position and support.
>> if we set aside a certain amount, if we come in under or above that amount, we can adjust it. The other thing is we may have to prorate it, but depending on how many other things we prorate, that can be a real big hit next year when you start annualizing. The sheriff has requested that if we don't -- if we can't fund a full amount of his requests for additional law enforcement that we try to prorate. If we do that, we've got the full hit next year. So where we end up, I think we have to factor in all of them. Let's do that, and Commissioner Daugherty will be here tomorrow, right? We kind of talked about this one long enough to go ahead and do it.
>> yeah.
>> anything else on number 34?
>> so you want the intergovernmental relation person.
>> and one support person.
>> and hopefully we can find the space in house and I don't know about supplies and stuff like that. You would think we would be able to cover this. Okay. Anything else on that one? We'll put this back on when we want to, okay?
>> okay.
>> probably in two or three weeks since we've got a little momentum going.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, September 5, 2007, 18:30 AM