Travis County Commissioners Court
October 23, 2007
Item 26
26 is consider and take appropriate action on request from the league of women voters. We are considering another tax abatement request and I wanted us to review that letter. We did have ms. Francis mcintyre to visit us on August 28th, and when I look at the letter, what they are asking for is a transparency, accountability and for us to really include that as an item during our budget process, which makes sense to me. And this may require us to be a bit more formal about the accounting and the discussion during the budget process. Which I think would be a good thing to do. Any problem with that?
>> the only suggestion or the only question I have about it is whether it would get lost in the budget process. Perhaps it should be an evaluation that occurs right before budget starts up.
>> like around preliminary budget time?
>> uh-huh.
>> because we normally get it in July.
>> that seems like it would give it more air time, as it were.
>> okay.
>> and it might also give us the opportunity to do any kind of adjustment to our tax abatement policies based on whatever results we're seeing from that kind of annual audit.
>> what we are suggesting is that the county have a public accounting on a yearly basis of these costs and allow for public comments so we can post a public hearing, okay? We'll do our public accounting and post for public hearing in the event that there are comments, and I guess more than anything else we're looking at revenue to the county as a result of the project as well as taxes abated. So revenue that we lost as a result of the project.
>> and judge, I think the biggest thing that we need out of this report, because I think it's the biggest hook that everybody always wants to bring us, is the employees and how many people got hired, how many people they hired, what they are making because I know that moves -- moves us a lot. That's one of the major things that people bring to us. And I don't have a clue whether or not the folks that we have done these things with have hired all the people that they said they were going to hire, have hired them at the salaries they said they were going to hire them at. Do you have any idea about --
>> christian smith and I have discussed this and I think it would be good and we may need to take each agreement in place and kind of tailor a reporting form that would allow us to give you the taxes that the county received, the taxes that were abated. Perhaps even the taxes that would have been received without the improvement. Because a lot of times you've got land that there's nothing on and you were getting very little to begin with, so even half of what's there now is more than what you were getting when it started. So a column for that and then a column for other, employment, training, because a lot of these agreements have other categories. Not specifically financial, but we might want an other benefits column. And a lot of that we get anyway because we have to before these companies receive their abatement, they have to report on those items. So that would just be a matter of putting that information in a format that the court could have. And we need to check and see, their reports are timed according to their agreement. So we would have the latest information, some of it would be more current than others depending on the report timing from each agreement.
>> and I think that would be understood that it was the most recent reporting. Also, under the bullets that the league of women voters includes, of course the number of jobs created is included as well as the incentive amount granted to the business. The third bullet I think also is very important, the cost of the infrastructure necessary to support the business. So we would have to get the input of t.n.r. And any other -- any other division that could be responsive on that.
>> that is going to be city -- the ones located within the city, then the infrastructure is going to be city.
>> that's correct. But I think that --
>> I think our commitment ought to be do it for the county. Five bullets here bus there's an other category. The fifth really picks up a whole lot of stuff. In addition to cost, though, and for voters we need to put the benefits. The idea is some point we would be able to look at the pros and cons versus costs.
>> and I would suggest we may be able to partner with the city because I think the cost to the city since, of course, the majority of our population comes from within the city limits, I think logically it should be included in any kind of overall audit of the benefits of the tax incentive. Usually these tax incentives are both city and county.
>> but the city agreement is not always the same as ours so there would be a limit possibly on what information the city would provide, but we certainly could ask for that.
>> if you read the article that was in the paper today, you know, by the time the chamber loads up all -- that's the reason you have the variation in what one group says that this generates versus somebody else because the chamber really does load up and bring the folks, you employ them, you know, what do they spend, you know, their salaries on, how much sales tax does it generate. You can get very complicated about how you real dedeuce, you know, the stats that they show.
>> and again, the city stats will be much more complicated because they do have sales tax, they do have electrical, they do have streets, they do have permits that we don't. We're fairly limited to property tax on ours. If we could have a copy of the letter, then maybe we can put together --
>> we'll get you a copy. I don't know what schedule the city will be on. I think we ought to get our house in order first. Make sure we're doing it. Maybe send a copy of that to the city as a hint. Then have Commissioner eckhardt follow that hint with a phone call and words of encouragement. Move approval.
>> second.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, October 24, 2007, 18:30 AM