Travis County Commissioners Court
September 18, 2007
Item 20
Number 20 is to consider and take appropriate action on staff recommendations to approve an interlocal agreement with the city of Austin for the provision of public health animal control and other related services.
>> good morning, judge, Commissioner, sherry flemming, executive manager for health and human services and veterans service. As you know we have an interlog agreement with the city of Austin to provide statutorily required public health services to our constituents. I want to say this is a joint presentation with my colleague over here from the county attorney's office. As you know, over the last several years we have been working on modifying this agreement and have come to you a couple times to kind of work through some of the sticking points. I am happy to report that I think we are painfully close to having this approved. We did want to give you a briefup date today. I anticipate that we will xdhava final document to you within the next couple court sessions for your final approval. But there are a couple things we did want to bring to your attention in terms of the document that we will be asking for your approval on. The first has to do with the reporting of information on this document. As you may be aware, our discussions with you previously have been in relationship to reporting. So we did want to remind you that county staff had hoped to have the document reflect cost per unit reporting in as many areas as possible. I think that we have reached a negotiated point where by in some areas you will see a cost per unit reflected, but in many areas, you will see the impact of services delivered as opposed to a cost per unit. Why is that important? We believe that to be important because you have a statutory requirement to provide public health services. The level of public health services should fall within your decision in terms of how much money you want to spend to provide what level of services. In some areas of this agreement you will be able to see that and make those decisions. In other areas of this agreement you will not be able to see that and make those decisions. So that will be the distinction between the impact of services delivered versus the actual cost of services delivered. I think that this agreement is in many ways much better than the agreement we have been working under for many, many years. For that I am quite proud and extend appreciation to my colleagues at the city as well as coworkers here at Travis County. But we have provided in your backup the difference in the reporting instrument that staff recommended versus the reporting instrument that the city has expressed comfort with and has provided and that we will be asking you to approve as part of this agreement in the next several weeks. I want to stop there and see if there are questions about what I said. I can appreciate that it may be somewhat confusing.
>> are you about to highlight the points of disagreement?
>> basically I think that's it. We have a couple of legal language issues that we're going to go through kind of marietta both and i. One point of disagreement or point we wanted to make has to do with auditors office request to have a particular report included in the agreement. The auditors office has since said they will work with the department to ensure that they receive that report and that it does not need to be specifically in the agreement. But jose is here and I hope he will clarify.
>> okay.
>> jose kolasias. This is just a monthly revenue report from the city of Austin to tell us the total amount of revenues collected by program. That way it could be re soiled --reconciled to the daily deposit and make sure they are accurate recordings. But we said hss would have the responsibility to certify to us that that revenue is being deposited accurately and into the right revenue account numbers. So we deferred it to hss to say, do you want this report or not. How are you going to certified the revenue to us. That it is being deposited.. Deposited, daily deposit it, let say for example $15 thew this month and the city of Austin has recorded in their box $16,000, where is the discrepancy or how is that going to be reconciled, we left that to hss to certain fy to us that 15,000 was actually deposited in the right account number in the right revenue account numbers. We do have the supporting documents and receipts that we are auditingen they're going into our books. Yet on monthly basis whatever is collected on city side could very well not be accurately deposited in our generally allege so that is why we are asking that we wanted that report. Well, that is up to hss how they are going to certify to us that the daily deposits match in the supporting documentation there for us to verify that it's been accurately deposited.
>> sherry, do you feel you will have adequate information based on the interlog agreement to do that kind of certification?
>> I think so, Commissioner. We will have to work with the city staff to look at data that supports the dep positive its that they make. I believe that it will make an information exchange between the accounting staff at hss and appropriate staff on the city side to documents and that the amounts are equal to what has been collected. We believe there will probably be some type of report generated but we believe it will be on a more informal basis.
>> so where there is a discrepancy, they would get, hss will get with city?
>> exactly.
>> and tray too reconcile.
>> exactly.
>> when you said it should have been reconciled.
>> yes.
>> when it gets to the auditor's office.
>> right.
>> and we will be responsible for having in our records any documentation. My understanding is that we will be responsible for having in our records any documentation on how we worked out any discrepancy. And we can do that.
>> okay.
>> let me make a couple and ask a question. Let me ask a question first.
>> okay.
>> who else can perform the duties other than the city of Austin.
>> at this moment in time, no one.
>> then that's the problem because if you read the issues and opportunities, and then you go back and look at summary and staff recommendations, there is something very inconsistent there. I mean, because it's riddled with issues that the city wouldn't do this with us, I don't think. I mean, if we submitted a contract with central booking and there were issues, I bet you that it would be hard to get the city to sign off on some of these things. I know we have been asking some of these questions, you know, more than the last year or is. I recall, I mean, david painfully taking us through, well, that the just not the way that we do that. And I understand that. But I would almost rather see the issues and opportunities omitted. I mean, because it really depresses me to read that page and a half and then go back and see, but we ought to go ahead and sign it. You know, it starts out, there continues to be disagreement between the city and the county staff on reporting. If you go to the bottom of that, talks about the problematic, this is problematic because the court will be unable in some areas to distinguish the cost of services to meet itman dead versus the cost of services that far exceed its mandate. You know, the city has proposed an abbreviated reporting format but yet that is not really what our department is telling us that that is the way it should be done. The costs have increased substantially in the past two years and there has been the continued request of the county staff to have a menu of services and costs that will enable the Commissioners court to make inform decisions regarding the level of service. You know, then you get down to the auditors office and the auditor has an issue with that. And you can read on. County staff does not feel they should bear a proportionel payment of some additional cost.
>> so the county is subsidizing --
>> that was my next point. We are recommending that you exclude any use of county funds towards the employee recognition program. And that is included in your packet, a description of take program and I do believe that we have some wording changes that we want to make in here is. So we are sure that that is clear. I mean, we have added that language to the agreement but we had some discussions a few minutes ago that I think marietta is going to make some additional changes to ensure that is clear. But we are recommending that no county funds be used toward the employees recognition program.
>> the employee recognition program, is it an appropriate meta phore like employee based pay provision?
>> no, tab two is the detail of the city manager's employee recognition program.
>> probably sums it up just great with the last sentence on the issues and opportunities and background. It has been the desire of both parties to have an agreement that is clear regarding the service delivery. That kind of says it all I mean, I don't like to be put in a position, well, we understands that you have an issue with that and, but this is the way that we do it. You all want to do it knowing that we can't really get this thing done other than by the city. So I just like to think that there is a way for you to be able to write, we have reconciled that we are comfortable with, especially in the cost of service. I respect the city when the city you know, pushes us hard on the interlog agreement that we have with central booking, we're going to give you a cost. By god, we ought to tell what you the cost is, we ought to be able to clearly demonstrate. I don't think it's acceptable, I do not think that the city should accept the fact just, well, that is what we said it is show us what it is. It seems like that that continues to be a little bit of an issue with this kind of agreement. And I am willing to see the account, you know, push its sleeves up a little higher and say on carks if we need to get to the point, help you and say if we need to leave some of this stuff out of issues and opportunities so Daugherty doesn't read it and go why would I sign this thing, except for the fact that we foe we can't do it and you all are the only guys in town. I am at the end of the day, we probably would say, you know what, if you did it yours, you would be glad to sign up with us. And that is, that may be where we are. But if that is where we are, I'd at least like to know that and go, okay, I'll just kind of stomach that and hold my nose and go on and deal with it. But I think that there's still work that needs to be done. Not that we can't sign this since we have to statutorily do these things. I think the city understands where we are. Let me take something that I can take to the court and say, I'm okay with that, signing off on that cost of services there..
>> to your point, Commissioner Daugherty, I believe that is why staff is comfortable recommending a one-year agreement so that staff can move forward and continue to work on some of these issues. As I said earlier, I believe that we have made tremendous progress I believe that the document that we are working under right now, I think we all agree it is not the best possible agreement. And so this gets us closer. Are we a hundred percent in love with where we are going right now or where this document leads us? Of course not. But we feel that there's additional work to be done. We feel like everybody is still at the table and willing to do that work. You will be signing an agreement that is for one year so that staff will continue to work to be able to be more affirmative. But we felt that the responsibility thing to do would be to let the court know staff's recommendation and our concerns that still arise from some of the wishes of the city in terms of how we crafted this agreemen.
>> sherry, I think I would be a lot more comfortable doing that. Not to say that I'm not going to end up doing this deal. But I think it's the same song, third, fourth verse.
>> right.
>> I think I kind of heard this same deal last year about, I know there's some issues that we have, but we need to move forward, and we'll continue to work on it. And I belt you that we could go back two or three years and that we could, you know, have had this same deal. At some point in time you have to kind of, you know, capro, this is just the same deal. If it is, just go ahead and send the tape for next year and just say I don't need to show up to punch the button. I for one would like there to be a much had different write-up for thex year. I think we need to move towards that.
>> do we need to make additional changes to this before we act on it?
>> I think what we wanted was some direction on a couple of specific things and then we may need, we need to insert numbers, we need to, there may be some language that I think we agree on, but the language may not be--
>> how long do you think that--
>> oh, next we. I think we can bring it back next week.
>> next week.
>> if the court would direct us, I think, for instance, the employee reward program.
>> right.
>> I am hearing that that is no.
>> what is the case with the county contributing toward the city's employee reward program? What is the rationale?
>> the city asked us to contribute? Yes, they had included that language in--
>> yes, they included that language in the document.
>> okay. City of Austin health and human service department. Good morning. The point related to the employee recognition program, Commissioner, is just that it is part of our cost of doing business. In other words, we have not gone through our budget and identified specific expenditures within the health and human services budget and basically as part of our cost of doing business, and tried to separate those out and say we will or will not include, you know, these costs in terms of the interlocal with Travis County. Basically what we did is cost out what is required for us to provide public health services in the community. And we have included all of the costs related to that. So, we weren't aware that there was an objection on the part of Travis County for our employee rewards program anymore than there would be an objection in terms of salaries that we pay and that sort of thing. So that's basically it. I mean, it's just part of our cost of doing business. It's incorporated in our budget overall. Our intention with this agreement was to have a partnership and sharing of costs associated with what it takes for us to do business. As was indicated, it goes through a formal process, it's reviewed and approved by the city manager's office. All of this is standard practice in the city, all the departments are allocated a certain amount of money for employee recognition events and so forth. It's often used to recognize people who go above and beyond what is normally expected. It is in addition to our pay for performance program. Just to put it in context, we have about a $55 million budget within health and human services and 475 employees and about $16,000 that is part of this employee recognition program. Judge, if I have a chance at some point this morning, I with like the make a couple additional comments if that would be appropriate.
>> right now is fine.
>> thank you. First I'd like to say in response to Commissioner Daugherty's comments, I would hope that you look at this partnership in terms of the benefits provided in the community and the excellent work that your public health agency is doing locally. So although it may feel like it's kind of couched in terms of no one else is ready right now to step up and do this work, I really hope that you have experienced and observed the good service that is being provided to people throughout Travis County. This is a long-standing, very positive working relationship. Our objective here is to maintain that relationship and continue to build upon it. I just want you to know from our --per --perspective, we're not presenting this in terms of this is our only choice. You do have other choices. But I really would hope that you can see the positive benefit of this relationship in terms of the community overall. As was mentioned, the existing interlocal is obsolete. We have a couple dozen amendments associated with that. If you come pair that with what is being presented to you today, this is a much clearer picture in terms of services being provided. It does have a cost methodology and does break it down by various program areas. And the other thing I would point out is that it includes performance measures that are actually far in excess of the current performance americans that you--measures that you have under the preexisting interloca.
>> the preexisting interlocal is truly an asset. Could come pair as improvement is not the same.
>> I understands. That is another option. That is what we have been working with. From our perspective--
>> I don't think that is advantageous to the city either.
>> right.
>> I think it's far more comprehensive and explicit interlocal is a benefit to the city as well.
>> yes.
>> am I correct?
>> absolutely correct. I think this is a much clearer description, much more specific about expectations and performance. Frankly, it's much more specific in terms of cost methodology and cost sharing. There have been a lot of compromises, as misflemming has pointed out. We have worked very hard on this. You might recall we started with a totally population based methodology. We have add just that had to now have a blended model with populations based and some that are directly tiled --tied to services for the city in the county. You will recall the city had proposed a fixed price advance payment on annual basis. We are now looking at quarterly payments at the end of each quarter rather than in advance. We have added a number of performance measures. As ms. Flemming has pointed out, not totally what the county staff or frankly what the city staff would tote all like to see. We built in a truup we we did not have previously. We added additional reporting and pilt in ongoing reviews so we will continue to dialogue and find opportunities where we can improve this. It very much stream lines the whole administrative process associated with this agreement. We both know going into it precisely what it's going to cost us. So we can budget accordingly I think to the community's benefit, it really enables us to focus our investment as much as we can on direct services to the community. The final thing it does, which we think is important from a public health perspective, it's a model that recognizes the importance of a system that has sufficient capacity to address the public health need throughout our community and then has a cost sharing formula associated with that. Because you probably are aware, public health is focused on communitiwide wellness, disease prevention, and protecting our community in total from disease outbreaks, environmental hazards and epidemics and so forth. It at any time so much a widget or unit of service and individual program. It's a population based program and that the why we thought it was important to use a population based methodology in term of financing for this. Again, there's been movement and we have identified specific areas, for example in animal services and in the restaurant food inspection programs where we have made it specific to the volume of service and amount of service provided for city as compared to county residents. I can't speak in terms of the document that the Commissioner is referring to that was developed internally here, but I would not characterize it that is a disagreement. I feel like we have a lot of areas of agreement and we've made great progress. I'm appreciatetive, ms. Flemming and staff of county, the law department and so forth, in terms of the hard work that's gone into this. I think the areas where we both have tried to compromise and build something that will enable us to sustain what we think, Commissioner is a really positive relationship. I hope and I think that it sort of stands up to judge Biscoe's standard test, which is neither of us are totally happy with everything in this, burr I think most, if not all of us, feellike we with live wut it--with it. Thank you.
>> david, I'm certainly not disparaging of the program. I agree, I think you run a good program. It does cost to run that kind of program. I understand that. And I for one, you know, have always kind of bought off on the population deal. I mean, it probably is the simplest way to do it given the fact that you all have these issues. Even listening to you articulate employee issue, cost of doing business, and a part of overall. It seems like the constant issue that we have is something about just really identifying some of these costs. I know that if toby or whoever read this page and a half that I read, they would say, david, go and work on this a little more. Because you have some issues here that just stick out to the elected officials. I can't answer that. And so, of course, with the auditor coming forth and saying, hey, I mean, we do need some of these things. And they have been, you know, reoccurring I'm not displead necessarily with the overall program. I think we'd all probably like to see some of the issues go away with the controversy and all the animal control stuff. And the issues that continue to be, you know, on our plate there. I do think that either we need to sit down with sherry before she writes the page and a half next year and say okay, let's reword this unless there's something that needs to stay on there. But it's pretty constant what we have at issue here. And it may just need to be determined that, you know, this is really a population based thing. This is what it costs us to operate this, whether you all are in or not in. I don't think that you all have ever given me the impression about, hey, this is the way it is. Just take it or leave it. But I do know, because I've worked on some interlocal agreements with the city from the other side, and the city is pretty tough on, when you put something in there, they want to specifically know and they want justification for it. And think that is really, you know, all that we are asking. If there are a couple of those areas that we continue to see, somehow we have to find on way to say okay, here is what the answer to that is. Maybe the answer is simply, this is a cost of doing business kind of thing. And if you really think that you are just getting messed over on this deal, let's discuss it further. I mean, so.
>> if I could just add judge in that regard, we did agree to providing some data at the midyear point in terms of actual costs so that we can use that information in negotiating going forward am that's also an opportunity to look programmatically and again this is a blended model. We have some programs here that we think, we feel strongly are a partnership and there's a city and county contribution. There are others that are more specifically county focused, services within county facilities or locations or whatever that are negotiable. If you all decide you don't want on spend that much money, we can add just back to that.
>> you are going to look at these changes and hopefully bring back whatever we need to look at next week. In other words, we need another week or so. If there are any other questions or levels of conflict that may not be achieved, is there any opportunity during the course of this one year we are looking at, is there any opportunity to revisit those comfort levels? In other words, we are not bonded for a year of being uncomfortable.
>> I think what you are, you are bound to determine the agreement for a year.
>> all right.
>> there will be reporting midyear and reporting at the end of the year. Now, end of the year reporting you won't have before you hit your next budget. Basically you will have your midyear reporting. And I think that is why, and sherry can correct me if I'm wrong. The information in the memo was to say, here are some areas where we still have some concerns.
>> rightnot.
>> right.
>> not that we are not recommending that the agreement be approved. But these are the areas we didn't get.
>> --
>> comfortable.
>> and we need to look at then after we have actually had had it in place for six months.
>> right.
>> let's look and see. Because this is so different and great improvement over what we have now. What will we really have. What are way really getting. And are there areas where we are going to say, this is good and where we are going to say, we have to get more information on this area. I think that is why the recommendation to say, we have struggled, we have struggled since I came, 15 or 16 years ago to try and get a better agreement in place. I think we have come very far. To say that the recommendation with the acknowledgment that these are areas we need to continue to monitor and to see, okay, if this agreement is in place, what are we getting that's good, with a are we not getting that we still need. And way really won't know that until it's actually, we're moving under the terms of the new agreement. So I think there were a couple of issues, employee recognition program, I think even the attachment c which is the reporting form, you were given both for informational purposes to say this was our dream attachment. This is the attachment that the city has acknowledged they can fulfill. It was for comparison. Not to say we don't think this attachment is going to be any good, the one that the city has agreed to. It's good. It's better than what we have. It's not our dream. After six months, after a year, we look and see, okay. And every renewel period is a time for amendment, renegotiation with any renewal. The court can come in and say we want to renegotiate that. The city can come in and say, you know, this isn't working for us. We thought it would, but it's not. So there were some parts of the agreement in a lot of places we were putting in this applies to the first term and the first renewal. We took most of those out. Every renewel term, the time period leading up to each renewal will be a time period for evaluation, identify case of problem areas, areas that need more work. So that will be available to the court. I think what we wanted to do was address this. The employee reward program. I may need to get back to you on that. There are some statutory issues, providing compensation for activities that have already taken place. I don't know that the county can do that. That may be an additional. So we wanted, that was a very specific thing that kind of came up just in the course of looking at stuff when we were trying to be more specific. The reason we hadn't voiced an opinion on it, it really came up in just developing more specifics. Like, oh, by the way, that's going to include our employee recognition program. Oh, okay, we need to look at that.
>> right.
>> the attachment, we wanted the court to say yes, let's pull this agreement forward with the city recommends attachment c, which is the reporting form so that we can go back , write back a 9 9 percent clean agreement with all the numbers and all by next week. I think we can do this.
>> from the auditor's standpoint understand also we are agreeing it's a better agreement from before. However, we are losing the control of the expenditures that we have tor right now. Right now we have a month to month billing and we're exactly knowing what they are buying and what we are paying for. This agreement we are not. Just paying a lump of sum, quarterly basis. That is it. So we are just going to hss that they are certifying that those are accurate and being expend the as it is. Currently we do return a lot of allowable expenses back to the city that we do in the pay for. But that is something we are losing on this agreement also. So that is the thing that also everybody agreed on. That is understandable.
>> so the payments with the interlocal or monthly?
>> e ms we do monthly payments, advance payments on that.
>> monthly payments in e ms and central booking.
>> central booking they pay us.
>> monthly or quarterly?
>> they pay us quarterly. We bill for those.
>> quarterly payments are better in terms of efficiency.
>> yes.
>> but that assumes that you have the proper documentation.
>> on this interlocal we will just receive an invoice with the amount. That is all we will get.
>> okay.
>> we will certify that the expenses were complete with the interlocal.
>> you can see how that would cause a commission some pause.
>> this is a different model.
>> I know. I totally understands what you are saying. I understand the need for public health to be an integrated model. And I think, this isn't news to you, really more for the people listening to this debate. This is, we will never really get over a continuing give and take on I wanter logs of this nature. We will continue to struggle with it. And it's a good thing, actually. And it's in recognition that city government and county governments generally speaking, we have different mandates.
>> right.
>> so while you are addressing your mandates, we are attempting to purchase services that are a subset of your mandate. Because the viewing public, we only have that authority that is specifically vested by us in the legislature. Whereas you all have all the authority that the legislature doesn't specific deny you. That make yours mandate very different with significant overlap.
>> I just wanted to clarify, if I could. Although it is quarterly fixed price payment, we are not eliminating tracking system in terms of except . There's a requirement in midyear that we provide a report in terms of actual costs in each of the program areas and a true up at the end of the year that goes back and counties for what our it will costs are and then recall--recalculates the formula. All that is subject to review and audit. Although we initially did propose a fixed price agreement and put ourselves at risk saying if it cost us more we just eat that, if its less, fine, we come ut, you know, in a positive position. But we agree to go to this additional reporting and the true up so that it isn't month to month voicing with all that detail--invoicing with all that detail. I want to be clear there is an ultimate accounting and we do have to demonstrate to you what our actual costs are the and all that information is subject to open review. Thank you.
>> I would agree in the true up they would come in if there's any differences that they could put in. That's what the true up would be for.
>> you need to depend on hssthat's what you mentioned on five and six.
>> yes.
>> five, attachment, the attachment five is the document that staff drafted after we came to you and discussed this agreement back in August, I believe it was. And then six is what is proposed and what will be a part of the department's recommendation to go forward. Your first opportunity to see reporting on this agreement will be sometime around April, the midyear, just prior to the onset of the budget process. So at that time you will be able to see these documents living and breathing and be able to determine whether or not that reporting meets your needs. And it would slow give us an opportunity to look at how we wanted to go forward in the next year's document.
>> we'll have this item back on next week. Anything further today?
>> the last point was that the growth cost of this document is about--garrote cost of this document is--gross cost of this document is about 2.6 million dollars. There is a personnel adjustment of $166.000, that's sort of left over from the old agreement. So the net of the document is 2.4 million. About 2.466421 million is the value of the interlocal agreement.
>> we have that amount in the oe budget?
>> yes.
>> okay.
>> we'll have it back on next week. Try to reach it earlier.
>> okay.
>> danny and joe, I think we are looking at probably about 1:50. We have the corporations that will take ten to 15 minutes. We will calm those two items up first, okay. Move that we recess until 1 30.
>> second:30.
>> all in favor.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, September 19, 2007, 18:30 AM