Travis County Commissioners Court
May 6, 2008
Item 23
23 is consider and take appropriate action on the following related to the 2009-2011 urban county renoofl for the community development block grant funds received from the u.s. Department of housing and urban development. A, whether nonparticipating, nonmetropolitan counties will be requested to join. B, criteria for potential participation. C, correspondence informing cities and villages about Travis County's participation in the urban county entitlement program. And d, other related issues. This is driven by h.u.d. More than anything else, I take it.
>> that is correct. Travis County health and human services. Good afternoon. Every three years Travis County is required to renew its urban county statistic with us the u.s. Department of housing and development. That status allows the county to receive community development block grant funds as well as the opportunity to in the future receive additional opportunities for funding through h.u.d. So what we're having to do is to establish that we have at a minimum 200,000 persons in the unincorporated areas of the county. That is the threshold for being considered an urban county entitlement, which we meet that threshold. We have approximately 214,039 persons based on estimated u.s. Census data from 2006.
>> this is outside the city of Austin.
>> that is correct, outside of actually any city limit.
>> oh, okay. So even the smaller incorporated areas.
>> correct.
>> populations are taken up.
>> there is an additional 65,334 people in the other 20 cities outside the city of Austin within the county. So with that being said, what we are having to decide today is whether to clu nonparticipating counties in our status. And the reason we need to do that is to determine if people want to join our urban county to see if they want to receive part of our funding that we receive through cdbg. Based on the guidance from h.u.d., we are not required to include cities or villagees. The reason we do meet threshold without their participation and that puts us in unique position as a county where the cities that are not participating with us can actually still access state cdbg funds. And typically a request to the state can be up to $250,000. If people -- or if cities or villagees join our urban county status, then they may not access those dollars. So by actually remaining a county without any participating jurisdictions, we could increase the amount of cdbg dollars that come into our county. Now, originally on the backup that we provided you last week, we had received verbal information from our h.u.d. Office that our allocation would not increase if we included cities or villagees that are not currently participating.
>> will you repeat that last statement?
>> we originally received clarification from our h.u.d. Office that if we included cities or villagees in our urban county status, that our allocation amount would not change. We received in writing from h.u.d. Washington office that that actually was incorrect. And that our allocation would potentially go up, but we don't know by how much. It would depend on how many -- what percentage of population was included into our urban county status, in addition to the level of poverty, the overcrowdedness, and there are a variety of different things that they take into account based on census data that would basically determine whether or not we received additional funding. Our data would actually be compared to other urban counties all across the united states and that's how come come up with our allocation amount. So at this point we actually are not sure how much it would increase if it did at all, but the administrative burden to actually include 20 additional cities or villagees would be extremely high. That would require cooperation agreements that have not yet been drafted. It would also include a large amount of technical assistance to make sure that any projects that cities or villagees had were done in compliance with the regulation. So at this time even though the information that we have received is different than we originally provided you, we still think it's in a best case scenario to move forward without adding cities or villagees to our urban county statistic iews would you send people a piece of correspondence, christy, about we do have this opportunity, but we will refrain from doing that and give an obvious reason.
>> right.
>> and by the way, that could also jeopardize your ability to get more money even if you were to come into our program because have you this, that gives us, you know, good, sound ground if somebody were to say why did you do that, we would say we thought we would be doing you a disservice and it would have the potential to take the few dollars that we get to deal with right now, so I think that would be very understandable.
>> I am -- I am in the same orbit here, sort of. I am very concerned about the small -- the relatively small amount of money, certainly smaller than we thought we were going to get in cdbg and how much -- how many match resources and the value of the resources we have to commit in order to administer the amount of money what we receive. I imagine even if the small municipalities were to get up to the $250,000, they too would have to issue -- having to spend a great deal of time, money and personnel administering it. Although I am completely in agreement with the idea that now is not the time we would actually reduce the overall funding available to the region if we were to consolidate, I would like to see us work toward a day either through changes in -- abdicating for changes or whatever we need to do locally so that we could be a grant -- serve a grant management role for a regional cdbg approach. I think that county governments are uniquely situated to serve that role, but if we were to serve that role right now, we would create the unintended consequence of reducing cdbg availability to us.
>> this is reviewed every three years so it's possible that after you make your decision today that before the end of the next three-year cycle, if it's the court's interest to look at this in greater detail, having conversations with some of the communities impacted, whatever your interest might be, we could establish a time line to make those things happen prior to your approval.
>> specifically what language did h.u.d. Use when it encouraged us to notify other cities in Travis County of this program?
>> well, the guidance that we received from washington actually specified two different issues. The first was that they recommended that the court needed to set criteria for adding nonparticipating jurisdictions. The reason for that is that at any time a nonparticipating jurisdiction can actually notify the h.u.d. Office, they don't necessarily have to notify Travis County, but they can notify the hed field office and indicate they want to be a participant. If the court settings criteria related to that, then it provides a -- I guess basically a policy so that we can let the interested party know whether or not or why we will or will not allow them to participate. So that's the first thing that h.u.d. Strongly recommended that we do. The second issue with relation to corresponding is that because it's unusual that urban counties do not have participating jurisdictions, the guidance that they provide typically says that you have to tell people about the opportunity to either opt in or opt out of the county status. And upon clarification, we have received that we do not actually have to do that. They recommend that we notify people, but they actually do not require us nor can they require us to do that. So what staff is recommending was just for transparency to let people know that this process occurs every three years, and at this time this -- whatever the court's decision is, this is the decision that the court has made, this is the reason why, and to remind them if the court chooses not to include participating jurisdictions at this time, the availability of state dollars.
>> do we know of any municipality out there that is not aware of the possible available funding sources that is being recommended? You said $250,000. Do we know of any municipality what may not be aware some of these things may be available to them?
>> right now I don't think I can answer that question. What we have done is we have started contacting every incorporated city or village within the county. And what we have found is that sometimes it's difficult to actually find a contact person or information. And so we're trying to do that for a couple of purposes. One, to find out about annexation plans for each incorporated area. And then also to create relationships. And so I can't actually answer that right now because we're this the process of making those ceexz I would very much like to -- I知 sorry, go ahead.
>> no, go ahead, Commissioner. I have another question, but go ahead.
>> I would very much like to see us spend the next three years developing these relationships to see if there is -- I don't think we are at the point now and this is not a problem, simply a statement of fact since we are sort of new to the cdbg world, I don't think we're at a point yet to be able to determine if we could get an economy to scale that would make the reduced funding levels worth it. But if we spent those three years developing those sorts of relationships and the web of municipal governments to find out whether a economies of of scale would make that kind of unified approach attractive.
>> the other thing that is important is that making a decision to include a municipality does not bind you to then allocate a certain amount of dollars, but it does in effect block them from the state dollars. So while they are not promised funding from you, they are certainly excluded from the state funding. So your decision has an unintended consequence for that community. The other thing is I think the administrative -- the administrative piece of this is something that we will have to be able to talk to the court about in great detail because that moves -- we're sort of in grant administration and project development, but that takes us more solidly into grant administration as we deal with other municipalities and their implementation of projects that comply with h.u.d. Guidelines.
>> and I guess what is leading up to another question that I was basically going to bring up, and that is probably for future allocations, I really don't know what and when we would look for future hopefully increased allocation for the growing needs that we see as a challenge for not enough money made available for the increased needs of Travis County residents out there. And knowing that, the risk factors that may be associated with not receiving funding from those municipalities, and also we have to look at that same risk factor of not having enough money to take care of the situations for those particular entities that are not within the incorporated areas. So it's kind of a balancing scale here, it appears, that I think is part of the challenge. But again, I still would like to -- you know, like an example, webberville, Pflugerville, Bee Caves, we have all of these municipalities, over 20 in the county, I知 I知 quite sure there are growing needs and I really don't know who actually
>> [inaudible] of those state dollars at this time for funding that may jeopardize that funding in lieu of what we're talking about here. I really don't have a sense of that relationship with the municipalities to know exactly what their role is at this point as far as acquiring funding for whatever needs there may be. And I知 going back to that $250,000. That was my followup question was that how can we determine hop is actually on board to receive state funding, the risk factor involved if you do acquire state funding, you can't participate in this and it may not be as much money available since we are struggling to have allocation -- we have a reduction in allocation, in fact. If a person was anticipating this amount and we end up getting a less amount. So there are risk factors involved. I知 just trying to wrap this all up weighing the factors and still being comprehensive enough to try and address those needs out there.
>> and there's actually a variety of things that we're trying to do right now. We have talked with a voter of entitlements and also with our h.u.d. Office about the opportunity to effectively use our cdbg money to either increase that through the use of section 108 loans or other federal dollars that may compliment, as well as looking at the possibility of talking to the communities that currently aren't participating, talking to them about their plans and see if there are any things that we can do to leverage dollars and do projects in cooperation. So there's a lot of opportunity in the future in terms of bringing more dollars in and trying to figure out how to use those and in what scenarios that makes the most sense. And the nice thing is is that we're hoping to be further along that time line by the time we come back to you next year with the selection of projects.
>> also with increased funding probably as far as what's out there now and to ensure that we may get more available funding for what is growing needs are?
>> well, in terms of cdbg, I mean it's a formula allocation that is set out by federal statute. And -- but there are opportunities that, to be honest, I have limited grand jury so it's hard to have a more indepth conversation about that right now, but there are opportunities in which we can -- we can borrow up to four times our cdbg allocation. I don't understand all of the details about that and we're going to be accessing training to understand that a little better, but in terms of the kinds of issues that we're seeing that are coming up from the community about water, wastewater and a variety of other things like affordable housing, it's going to make a lot of sense for us to make recommendations to the court. So looking at a variety of ways to leverage dollars and cooperation perhaps with others so we could make the cdbg dollars have quite a bit of benefit and impact and provide more -- more progress than we're currently able to make with our allocation of $800,000.
>> Commissioner Davis?
>> just a couple of quick observations. I do keep up closely with home funds, the home program in the state, and I know that none of the cities in Travis County get home funds or apply for programs. And I would be very surprised if any cities within the county have applied or do use any cdbg funds that are issued by the state. The second point is that a lot of programs to me seems like it's -- it is difficult to I implement when you exclude all the cities. For example, we have discussed using cdbg funds for home buy assistance program. But it would be very hard to implement a home buy assistance program when you tell home buyers and realtors, well, you have to find a home that's in an unincorporated area, you can't identity in floom Pflugerville or manor. It does make it more difficult to implement some programs and especially in the affordable housing field.
>> imhir Davis. Commissioners Davis.
>> I was just going to say to the person that was speaking before, sherry, I知 going to try to find out an example from the manor mayor and also from the village of webberville where they are and if they do see a need, I can do that, but I知 just still concerned that I don't want anybody to get short changed, but, of course, that's just something I was going to try to put forth. And maybe have them get in touch with you.
>> we'll be happy to meet with them. I would remind you also, though, that some of the challenges that we even have with cdbg funding, those communities would have similar challenges and certainly may not have the staff or infrastructure to be able to work with them just now. And then the second point is that I would ask you to keep in mind that you can't spend cdbg dollars on what's considered to be the normal responsibility of government. And sometimes a lot of the smaller municipalities have those needs where they certainly could benefit from a funding source, but cdbg would not be the appropriate one for that particular, you know, infrastructure need that they might have.
>> right. I understand.
>> Pflugerville has expressed exactly that, that there is difficult there any, in my speaking with them. In the letter that y'all have included, I would only ask that we add in a clause about, you know, cities inclusion in our cdbg program would bar them from application and participation in the state program and thereby likely reduce the overall amount of cdbg funds available to the region. I think that's an important point to make.
>> I felt that was verbally going to be said, but if it needs to be in writing.
>> next to the last paragraph. It ought to be more strongly stated. If I were mayor of a small city, I would wonder why you are notifying me of this and what we're saying I thought that h.u.d. Had pretty much said we don't require this, but we strongly recommend it.
>> correct.
>> they did say that, right?
>> yes.
>> and so I think that we need to do a better job of clearly setting forth why we believe that at this time we ought to leave it like it is. I think we ought to say that the next cycle is three years from now. Between now and then, we will be evaluating various factors and we'll revisit this issue. The other thing is if we say there's state of Texas cdbg funds available, I would touch base with the state of Texas and make sure that that's being funded every year and try to find out how much and what you need to do to basically attempt to access or apply for it. I壇 go ahead and put the name and phone number or address of the person at the state -- I mean, we may as well use this opportunity, if Commissioner Davis is correct and they are not taking advantage of it, it may be because they don't know about it. What we're trying to say is we'll get more money in the region if we keep spending the 800,000 we get in the same way we've been spending it, and the added advantage is if we do that, we leave you with an opportunity to access similar federal dollars administered by the state of Texas.
>> correct.
>> and I think it would be good to say -- because my first question would be if I were a city official, but is there funding for that. And whatever the annual funding is from the feds to the -- through the state, I壇 put that amount there. I mean, that way I think it will look like the letter is being a lot more helpful. But reviewing three years from now is another big deal. We may want to make reference to the -- it's an administrative burden. You are authorized to use 20%, but that's a fairly significant percentage of the total. And what we learned after that first cycle was the record keeping requirements and reporting requirements are such that to do it right, you really need additional staff. So --
>> that's true.
>> I mean, I think the letter is good, but I think we kind of diplomatically state some stuff. I would just point blank state it. Don't you agree?
>> agree.
>> do we have guidelines? I mean, criteria?
>> I知 sorry?
>> are we proposing specific criteria?
>> what we-the language that the staff recommended was that Travis County will not include additional nonmetropolitan cities or villagees in its urban county status as designated by h.u.d. Until such time as h.u.d. Requires it due to population numbers or by action of the Travis County Commissioners court.
>> we think that's sufficient to meet b?
>> h.u.d. Is providing no guidance other than to set criteria, and that way if a participating -- or a nonparticipating jurisdiction says we want to join, we have to say -- we can say we've made the decision not to do that.
>> why don't we indicate we will work on more specific criteria over the next three years also.
>> okay. We believe this recommended language allows you to consider it at any such time that you choose to, so it leaves it open for you to evaluate a person's request at the appropriate time.
>> okay. So a is the letter and the directions we give to basically sort of modify it, then send it out.
>> yeah, I think a is whether or not the court wants to request or not you want participating -- whether or not you want us to ask anyone to join. Do you want the urban county to remain as is?
>> the letter says we're not asking you to join.
>> right.
>> we're notifying you that there is a h.u.d. Requirement that allows it.
>> right.
>> but at this time we don't think we ought to take advantage of it, but we would be looking at this program over the next three years and may well change our minds by then. Move approval of a.
>> second.
>> the end of that.
>> with all those changes that we refer to.
>> that is not a request to join, but really an explanation of the reasons why.
>> correct.
>> second.
>> any more discussion of that? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. B would be the kind of general criteria you just stated. Move approval.
>> second.
>> discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> may I offer a point of clarification on c. The correspondence is basically notice that you all have acted to not include jurisdictions and here are the reasons why.
>> exactly.
>> that's not your letter?
>> that is c.
>> move approval.
>> second.
>> and this is with the added comments that you would like included --
>> hopefully.
>> it probably means less funding -- it probably means administrative costs and that we're going to keep looking at it for the next three years.
>> correct. And before you move to the motion, little right now we have the letter being signed by me. Is the court comfortable with that or would you prefer that letter come from the full court or the county judge?
>> if it comes from you, I think you should indicate that the Commissioners court addressed the issue on may 5th, 2008, and approved the letter. Approved this notification.
>> second.
>> approve this formal notification. I think it would be good to let them know we did think about this, discuss it, before arriving at basically a decision.
>> second.
>> that's just instructions, that's not a motion.
>> that's part of the motion.
>> it's part of the motion to put that in the letter, yeah. That way when you sign it, it is basically notifying them of action taken by the Commissioners court. They need to know formal action was taken.
>> right.
>> I guess is it discussion time?
>> yes, sir.
>> I guess what I need to find out is the when of all of this. After the court's action today, when will this actually go out in the form of the letter be sent or signed, all these other things we're dealing as we go through this a through c of this item, when will this actually get out to the folks that we need to notify?
>> well, staff would like to be able to make the changes recommended today and send them to you on your e-mail so that you will have have a chance to see we've made those changes.
>> okay.
>> and once there is, you know, not any individual comment that you might have, then we will begin the process of getting those letters out. I think in some cases we are still trying to figure out who it is that we actually send it to. So as we -- so we'll get them out as quickly as we can.
>> hopefully within seven to ten days after the court approves the language in the letter.
>> so no news from us means that we're okay with it.
>> correct.
>> all in favor? This is c. That passes by unanimous vote. Anything under d?
>> no.
>> thank you very much.
>> see you Thursday.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, May 7, 2008 8:51 PM