Travis County Commissioners Court
June 10, 2008
Item 23
23. Discuss and take appropriate action on request for a budget transfer of $925,024 from the general fund reserves to transportation and natural resources, fleet services for the centralized fuel line item, and on the implementation of fuel conservation measures. If we take this from the allocated reserve, what will be the balance?
>> I believe the peak oral article was all of the copies were stapled to the back of my backup alone. So -- so I’m passing those out.
>> I think we copied it four times, five times.
>> oh, good.
>> for everyone.
>> that's better.
>> sorry.
>> separate these?
>> uh-huh.
>> we're going to go get that for you, judge.
>> then here's my -- here are my ideas. Rather than granting this full amount, I would cut it, I would approve $450,000. Realizing that we may have to take a similar move two months from today. If that amount was intended to get us through the end of the fiscal year. Sometime soon, maybe when you bring us that two week report, we have a list of -- the departments specific departments who are the biggest fuel users. And the reason I don't think we ought to just deplete the allocated reserve is that we may have other emergency matters to address and if we know exactly who is using the fuel, say six to eight weeks from now, it may be that we may need to tap line items in their department budgets that are projected for surpluses. See what I’m saying? So that will give us that flexibility. So two birds with one stone really. One is that we leave more of this unallocated reserve for other emergencies that we don't know about at this time. And, two, is that with more information about what departments are using fuel, and how their budgets are looking closer to the end of the fiscal year, it may be that we want to tap some of their line items.
>> judge?
>> yes, sir.
>>
>> [indiscernible]
>> that's the motion.
>> judge, also, in that e-mail coming to you from precinct 3 constable that you mentioned earlier, how they have figured out a way to offset some of this, so something maybe creative that can be also in place to offset some of the costs. Because if you look at the -- at the percentages, Gerald mentioned one of them at 55%, but looking at these constables at 10% of the fuel usage, it appears to me that -- that precinct 3 constables have figured out a way to offset a lot of these expenses, so -- so and address a lot of things that -- that they are doing and I’m just wondering if that same opportunity can be afforded to -- to others based on what they have been doing. That's why I brought that point up.
>> okay.
>> I mean I’m assuming that the committee will look at what's working and -- in one department and ask the question why won't it work in all of them.
>> exactly.
>> about any ideas that come forth. For those watching this they need to know, I think, that in '08 we had what a gallon of gas, 2.45, today it's right around 4 bucks, that's a huge increase. And when we did our projection we projected 3.53.
>> well, we don't say the national tax, which is I believe 18 cents off the top of my head. That's part of that differential. The 2.45 that we were budgeted at two years ago, there was not a request last year. So this review was not done last year because we were looking like we were okay based on the budget at that time. However, as you can -- as you fully know, the prices have escalated.
>> and our problem is even if you use the same amount of fuel, because of the increase in cost, it's costing substantially more and unfortunately county owns a whole lot of vehicles. And a lot of employees simply cannot do their work without using them.
>> yeah.
>> if you are patrolling, if you are in the park, sort of monitoring the park, your constable is serving papers, you may be able to do your job more efficiently, but you have to be in the automobile to get it done. So -- but I agree with Commissioner Gomez maybe we can be a little smarter with our use. So -- so we expect the committee to help us on that. Any other discussion of the motion? We realize that we may have to address the same issue again a couple of months from now. But then we ought to have a few more facts --
>> just to clarify, the motion is to do an automatic transfer to allow p.b.o. To do an automatic transfer in the amount of what is it, 450,000 to t.n.r.
>> yes. And for those watching, too, this is not for t.n.r., this is for all of those vehicles in Travis County. This is central line item. Where we fund fuel for all of their departments. Take you off the hot seat there, joe. Any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, June 10, 2008 2:31 PM