Travis County Commissioners Court
June 10, 2008
Item 29
Number 29. Then we have executive session, right? 29. Discuss and take appropriate action regarding the following: a, creating an intergovernmental relations coordinator position for Travis County; and b. Instructing the planning and budget office to include this position in the fy2009 preliminary budget
>> this is essentially a rehash from the last budget session when we discussed this. But in light of -- of putting out a request for services for lobbying services, the next legislative session, I thought it would be good to bring it back up. I don't think that this intergovernmental position would be a replacement for outside lobbyists. But I think it could be a -- I think it would aid our efforts tremendously. And give us a great deal more flexibility in what kind of contracting -- contracting we do with outside lobbyists. I think we could be better prepared and better organized in our -- in our legislative effort for someone in-house, perhaps home grown as it were. Who really understood our issues. Specifically. As opposed to -- to county's generally. I mean, just in terms of our discussion of the fee for instance, steve sees incredible lobbying entity, p.u.c. Is an incredible lobbying entity, because they are representing 38 separate counties and travis will do something different with land use authority than bexar or Williamson, comal will do something different than caldwell, even given the same toolbox, one will use a wrench, the other one will use pliers, I was thinking an intergovernmental person, not just land use but myriad of issues, criminal justice to health and human services to road planning. Land use would be really beneficial to us.
>> I remember when we basically looked at this before. We kind of walked through the
>> [indiscernible] on this particular issue. The issue that is being brought up. But I’ve always in looking at these things discussed with the court tended to appear to me that there's definitely a need for this.
>> uh-huh.
>> I’m still where in the position that I was in before is to -- to support the need for creating this particular position. So my position hasn't changed. Sop -- for that effort and this discussion on that. So -- so letting you know that things are still the same. We do need some relief in my opinion.
>> I think that we've reached a level of sophistication where someone could spend, have a full-time job of doing intergovernmental relations, whether it's with the legislature or with the city of Austin or Williamson county, working with the capcog to coordinate efforts between counties, between counties and cities and between our county and the legislature.
>> this position would work year round as opposed to just during the legislative session?
>> uh-huh. And that way we would have a leg up on any kind of legislative fixes that would be desired and/or other coordinated perhaps interlocal agreements that would also or alternatively address whatever circumstances we had. So that we really would know all of our options and could weigh, you know, whether we wanted to -- whether we wanted to blow our chits on a legislative gamble or handle it through interlocal agreements between us and the city of Austin or through some coordinated effort through capcog or how we would want to address our issue.
>> I can see both sides of it, needing to do, the county needing someone to work with whoever we hire to deal with the legislative program for us. My only question at this point is given our -- the budget condition that we're in, how would we handle that, mr. Rhoades, would we -- would we put this in line with everything else that is -- that is in the budget? And given our -- our deficit position. Would this -- if the county, if the court wanted to have this as a number one priority would have to bump something else off.
>> what we would have to do is go back and add it in. If resources were available, offset the cost of the position with the available resources. As you know at this time we are about 1.1 million -- short and ongoing. And so -- so we'll just have to see what we can do to balance those. Atmosphere I said earlier, or last week, we continue to scrub those numbers and we are looking very closely so we would just have to continue to do so and try to accommodate, if that's the court's desire.
>> of course my hope is that in the creation of such a position you would see cost savings overall in our ability to achieve greater efficiency and also enhance funding sources, more equitable funding schemes through the use of an intergovernmental relations officer, coordinated efforts among other governmental agencies, cost savings, as well as the ongoing battle against unfunded mandates. I think the position would ultimately pay for itself. Again, it is a tight budget season. And we had run numbers previously in the last -- in our lasting around, last budget regarding what level we would slot this position, whether it would be in the nature of, you know, 60 to $70,000 a year job whether something much higher. I -- I have a personal -- my opinion is that it should be probably be home grown rather than bringing in somebody who has a whole bunch of -- people will differ, I’ve had conversations with others that say no, no, bring in a seasoned pro to take care of her. I do like the idea of having someone who is a county product, a Travis County product.
>> does anybody know where we are with our r.f.p. And what kind of responses we're getting for new legislative help. As of two days ago -- once -- the date --
>> I think we had about 10 days left. When we discussed this, this was Wednesday of next week. So a deadline is probably Friday of this week or Monday.
>> we don't have any -- somebody is really waiting -- where are they waiting?
>> what are they waiting on?
>> the city want to let us know that? You were probably on the way down here when we asked about the rfs or rfp or rfq, the legislative consultants. When you and I briefly chatted last Wednesday, we had about 10 days left. Had not received any proposals but they typically come in at sort of the last minute, last two or three days.
>>
>> [indiscernible]
>> really?
>> last day.
>>
>> [inaudible - no mic]
>> what is it, cid?
>> I don't know. The 15th
>> [inaudible - no mic]
>> what if it comes in at the last minute, not something that works for us. We would have to put it -- extend the time, extend the time?
>> try to find out the reason why, either reject all bids or move expectations. I guess my question about this is last time we looked at it, to do this right you could do it with one person who needed support staff space, et cetera, or you could have a small office of several persons and the model kind of differs. Some have a small staff, some have a single person with support staff. I think what we need to do, inclined to look seriously in this direction, try to figure out exactly how it would work. Seems to me if you bring in a high powered person, that person needs at least one support staff member, office for two like that. Be costed out. If we want to do it, go ahead and do it and start looking. Because as soon as we bring the person on board the better, the sooner the better.
>> cost it out with one individual one person in their space?
>> that one person with the ability to operate which I -- you know, one support staff could be anywhere from six hours a day to eight. To be serious, probably need 8 hours because this person will spend a lot of time dealing with capcog, cuc, legislators, somebody needs to be there in the office.
>> yeah.
>> I don't see this personnel piggybacking a current small office but if we think that will work space a equipment, not a whole lot of equipment but certainly a computer. Let's even throw in a phone.
>> okay. What the heck we will go for broke.
>> no fuel.
>> [laughter]
>> no fuel.
>> no fuel.
>> you definitely need fuel.
>> no air conditioning, no heat.
>> they could telecommute the whole time.
>> [laughter]
>> are we inclined to take a look.
>> I think this has got to relate to what we're going to do with -- with our legislative lobby team or whatever. It's -- clearly it is a very needed place for us or position for us to have. Because -- because lobby teams aren't going to come in and work with our department and say hey, you know, you really need to be looking at this. I have seen the legislation and it's bad for us, here's what you need to do. If you want to be in the collections business, for example, you really want to have every opportunity to do the things that we need, well then we need to try to go and get, you know, legislative help and relief and that -- this person is the one that spends the time I mean what we tried to do to date is try to get department heads and try to get people within the county to say okay, here's a committee, you all go, it's driven our two lobbyists I mean, you know, to light recreational drugs because of the -- I mean they are like how do you make this thing work.
>> they have never mentioned the ingestion of recreational drugs
>> [laughter]
>> what it is it's driven them crazy.
>> they have.
>> get to where we need to go. I agree with you, sarah, this is really needed but we also have to make sure that -- that we got a lobby team in place. I’m a little nervous. If you are saying that people are waiting for the last minute to -- to -- to submit and if that's typical -- well, what doesn't make me comfortable is the fact that we obviously are not going to have a lot. When we see the price tag we go oh, wow. So we have got some work. I do think that we need to look to that first and then look at this position because I do think that we need to --
>> okay.
>> we ought to know -- several proposals were submitted next Tuesday.
>> we probably will not have analyzed them that carefully. But at -- if 5:00 Monday is the deadline, we will know by Tuesday whether we have received two or three or eight or nine. Last time the proposed fee -- the proposed fee is different, from a very reasonable one which we took to very, very high, which we didn't understand. I would expect pretty much the same thing this time. I do think we ought to cost out one person with the support, one support staff. And then the other things that necessarily come along with this so we know exactly what fiscal impact we are looking at. Last time I thought we landed on we need a person like this, but didn't figure out whether it was one person or three or four and what the cost would be. I think we just dropped it. How is that?
>> sure.
>> sounds good to me.
>> be happy to work that out and bring it back next week.
>> we had more backup than we needed last time. But I recall part of it included cost estimates.
>> we did have some cost estimates and I think three or maybe even four different scenarios of how the -- the office would be organized. But I think this is better because this is one person, one secretary, one office. And --
>> all of the capital that goes along with that, you know, and -- we can see what's -- what the bottom line is.
>> do you all feel comfortable with this description of responsibilities? Previously there was some discussion of an ipo, is that correct? Ipo?
>> initial public offering?
>> [laughter]
>> no. Pio.
>> public information officer.
>> I am not comfortable with pio's at all.
>> I sensed there wasn't a feeling of comfort with that. I think really this should concentrate on intergovernmental relations
>> [multiple voices]
>> it ought to be kept small.
>> and concentrating on that is clearly a full-time job.
>> but the other thing is we're going to have to get it in line with every other request that is still not included in the budget.
>> that's my -- that's part of my proposal that it actually frankly not get in line with the others. That it be bumped to the head and go ahead and be put in the preliminary budget. If it can fit in there. Depending on the scrubbing. Is that we will have it on next week.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, June 10, 2008 2:31 PM