Travis County Commissioners Court
July 1, 2008
Item 14
14. Consider and take appropriate action regarding the following initiatives for the first phase of the star flight business plan: a, submittal of budget materials to planning and budget office that would provide the personnel and resources needed for staffing the second aircraft and conducting the first phase steps; b, work with human resources management department (hrmd) and advertise new positions to complete hiring process by October 1, 2008; c, work with hrmd to develop job descriptions for new county medical positions to staff the second aircraft; d, review with hrmd and the city of Austin a plan to transition current star flight city of Austin medical employees into county medical employee positions; and e, revised language: increase star flight fees for both transport and mileage effective August 1, 2008. Good morning.
>> good morning.
>> good morning. I'm danny hobby, I'm the executive manager for emergency services and today I'm here, I'm with my star flight program and we are here with the program manager. Casey ping to my left, to your right and to my right is -- is willie culpeson the aviation director for star flight and then stan our chief mechanic manager at the star flight program. I brought him today because, one, you don't get to see him very often, but he's behind the scenes making sure that our aircraft are being maintained appropriately. So we appreciate him being here today. What you see are a number of items that I feel like are important for us to -- to be successful in moving forward with the star flight program. We have developed a business plan for the program. We were here previously, I think this is now my third time back, along with staff, to discuss the various elements of the business plan and so today we are here to -- to discuss with you and ask for your consideration in regards to the first phase of the business plan. We have done a complete analysis of the program. We have looked at our past. We have looked at our current situation and most importantly, we have looked at what is going to be required for the future of the program. And when we talk about the program, of course, we're talking about the citizens of Travis County and how we best can provide them air, medical services. As well as those surrounding counties that we serve and we established in our history that we started out originally as a Travis County operation and then nine months after we started back in the mid 80s we began to go beyond our borders for various reasons, important reasons and so we established ourselves early on as a regional provider. And as I described and I won't go into detail unless you wish for me to, in the work session, we feel it is very important to continue our role for Travis County citizens as well as for the region. In order for you to do that we have initiatives that we would like for you to consider today. That is to do the first phase of the budget university, we would like to do a test during 20092009 which would allows us to staff the second aircraft. And as you are aware, we have two aircraft basically, though, we only have one that is 24/7. In operation. And that's for various reasons. You have to have a second aircraft in order to be able to do your maintenance schedules and -- and so it's not -- it's not appropriate just to have one aircraft. So what we would like to do is we would like to go ahead and based upon what we think due to our financial forecast that we have developed and I discussed that with you during the work session about how that we have now developed a model, a forecast, what we feel likely be the needs, not only for today but for the next four to five years. Now based upon that, we are anticipating increased transports, and as a result of that we must meet that need. We are also anticipating growth to continue as you are well aware of and you discussed it every Tuesday about how that our county is now becoming indeed busier both in population growth and in construction as well as -- as well as in all of the elements that make an urban county an urban county. And we can no longer just talk about the city of Austin, we can only just talk about the county. I think that we are talking about a county now that has demands that -- that are just like a city. And so we must meet that. So in a basically to start off with, we wish to have your approval to submit our paperwork in the regular budget process for fiscal '09. And what that would mean is that we would put in those positions which I will describe in a moment as well as those resources as well as those revenue projections that would make this first phase possible. And allow us to go through that -- that test of the -- of the forecast model. In regards to a, we've already prepared the material so it's not something where we have to go do it. P.b.o. Has already been reviewing some of those materials. But we would like to make it officially part of the process for '09. Our understanding is that this would probably not make the preliminary budget, that this would probably go into markup. That's due to several reasons. Number one is when we get down to the fees, which is in e, based upon our contract with the city of Austin, we have to comply with those elements and that is the court has the right to set the fee, but we also have to ratify that fee through the city of Austin since they handle our billing, so they will have to do a fee ordinance.
>> only pint because I was going to get to that. Point. I don't mean to interrupt your presentation, but on that particular point, does the city have enough time to deal with this type of setting as far as looking at the fee increase and all of these other kinds as far as their notification, what we are doing to look at all of the components of this particular plan? In a timely manner.
>> as I mentioned in the work session, this has not been an isolated business plan. We have been working with the city all along. This is not a situation where they have to get caught up to speed. They are well aware exactly of what we are doing.
>> okay.
>> the only element that they have to do in regards to the fee is just because of the fact that they handle our billing through the billing process, they do a fee ordinance, they will do that on the 24th. They don't meet again until July 24th.
>> okay.
>> so that's what we have to wait for. And that's where we are in regards to the timing of that. That's a. Judge, court, I don't know do you want me to go through each one, answer questions after I do each one. What's convenient for you.
>> I would like to just go ahead and move approval of the submittal of their budget materials to p.b.o. So we can at least start in reviewing what needs to be reviewed. The rest they can get to us on the ballot in that's the route to take.
>> any discussion of the motion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> in b, this is also very important for -- for if you decide to approve the budget for this is that we would like to request your approval to advertise those new positions that would be involved for staffing the second aircraft. I broke those out for you. In my backup to where it would include nine positions, three senior pilots, two flight paramedics, two flight nurses, one mechanic, one administrative associate. What we would like to do is go ahead and advertise early now so that we can then not have to worry about a hiring process which would take two to three months once we started in October. Realizing that this is not approving that we would actually pay or offer a job to anyone until October until you approve the budget, although we -- we do know that this sets the tone for that by you approving this.
>> move approval.
>> second.
>> I guess my question is the earliest delivery of the new helicopter is when.
>> that's another matter. Judge, we are not talking about a new helicopter in this first phase, we are talking about doing a test, if the test is successful, we wouldn't look at bringing the new aircraft, if the test is successful, the model, that would be physical -- fiscal year 10.
>> you are hiring nine people?
>> well, I'm hiring nine people for the second aircraft. Not the third aircraft.
>> I understand. Second aircraft that we already have and have had for years.
>> yes, sir.
>> we have been told that -- that you need two aircraft to make sure that you have one up every day.
>> that's correct.
>> how do we all of a sudden have two up?
>> well,.
>> staffing for two.
>> that's right.
>> that's what we have. So why doesn't that clash with everything that we have known about -- about the helicopters to date?
>> it does clash in that if we were trying to staff the second aircraft 24/7, but we're talking about staffing the second aircraft half time which still allows for those important elements that need done where regards to maintenance. These two gentlemen will tell you, I will let them speak here in a moment since they know more about the operations than I do, you about it is important for us to test this financial forecast. We will not want to do it more than a year. We would not want to test having two aircraft running as we are anticipating doing it in '09 more than this one test period here. Casey, willie, stan, would you all like to make any comments in regard to that.
>> the information that you have been given in the past about maintaining an aircraft available 24/7 is accurate. In order to do that, in our in service rate greater than 99%, in order to do that you really have to have two aircraft. As parts of the business plan we identified what -- that we could do a short term trial and try to maintain that in service rate at the same rate. You couldn't do that long term, probably talking about greater than a year. Because you are going to have periods where you are going to have a long maintenance and stan can talk about that, maybe engines, transmissions, those kind of things are due, really we are only asking for the staffing of the second aircraft in a trial phase hoping that -- we expect that we will deliver the number of flights and those kind of things for the test period. We wouldn't want to do this for two or three years because we would potentially get into a trial where we wouldn't have any aircraft available, that's very concerning to us because of our service commitment to Travis County.
>> okay. So this staff for the test period will cost how much? About?
>> it's -- it's in your backup, $1.2 million.
>> okay. The financial model that we saw was based on 3 helicopters, and in time as I recall, three or four years, we believe the public subsidy would greatly decrease?
>> that's correct.
>> what's the financial model for this 12 month test?
>> well, that is in the backup. I mean, when I showed you the three aircraft model, that had the 1.5 in it for '09.
>> all right. So we think that if we spend 1 point --
>> 2.
>> $1.2 million, we will generate how much in additional revenue?
>> 2.4. Again what we're doing as parts of this proposal, we're raising our transport fee and our mileage fee and if you look at the model, you will see that it continues to do a phase over through 2013.
>> okay. Well, how much of that new revenue would be certified.
>> that's the points there.
>> I'll need to appeal to my audit support staff.
>> that's the question right there.
>>
>> [indiscernible] from the auditor's office.
>> [indiscernible] has looked at it and done an analysis of it. What was certified, there's plenty of time to do it. It depend on what you approve. There are really two different things here, there's the additional transport and the rate increase. We don't see those as one question. We see them as two.
>> but if we approve these nine additional staff, we had better approve those, two, right? This is all or nothing seems to me.
>> uh-huh.
>> yes, sir.
>> but if we approve the two you just mentioned.
>> three.
>> will you certify at least $1.2 million?
>> about 2.3.
>> you will certify 2.3.
>> that's -- is that right, carolyn?
>> yes.
>> that was her last analysis. If you do both parts.
>> otherwise financially it doesn't make sense.
>> right.
>> right.
>> the commitment, though, is that at the end of the 12 month test period, we will make the call based on additional transports, additional revenue, compared to expenditures over the test period.
>> you will actually be looking at three things that are critical in regards to the forecast model. You are looking at transports, you are looking at the fee and you are looking at the collecteddibles.
>> any other relevant factors that the court want to consider.
>> and any other relevant factors that the court wants to consider.
>> all right.
>> all right.
>> that becomes much easier if -- if we're looking at generating $2.3 million.
>> I guess at some stage judge, I asked p.b.o., haven't had a chance to talk to audit, but I did inquire with p.b.o. As far as this particular item was concerned, make sure that -- that the-- fees an revenue offset what we are actually doing here. I wanted to make sure than a year is the case. Those questions that you ask are very much on target and of course hearing what the auditor is saying is kind of, you know, especially with the certification of the revenue, kind of seals the deal. But if my question though might be hypothetical. But anyway sometimes we've got to deal with hypotheticals, even though we hear them but -- in other words let's say that something does not go according to what we are planning, there is not an increase or the model does not forecast its prediction correctly. What would be the point, point where we would have to -- come back to the court and we look for adjustments? Would it be too late or would we be out there? In other words we get lock and can't deliver. I'm just concerned about that aspect, also. We can make projections I understand the certification of revenue, but if the revenue is not there, then there's nothing to certify. That is my concern is that possibility. I'm looking at the flip side of this thing. Knots for argument's sake -- not for argument's sake but just the flip side. What happens then.
>> I think that's a very good Commissioner that's something that we've had to analyze.
>> what did you come up with?
>> what we came up with is first when we started talking about the business plan, we were very careful that we weren't talking about adding another aircraft until we had in place those elements that would approve a third aircraft would be needed. So to make and ask you to make that investment we didn't feel was appropriate, as a result of that we came up with the test. We came up with the '09 as being a pilot year of where we just simply look at testing the model itself. The other element, though, is that if we look at the model and let's just say it does not do as we anticipate that it is going to do, then we have to look at the area of those three elements again. We have to look at the number of transports. If the transports do not make, we have to analyze where are we looking at those transports not making? Are they the transports that are not making in Travis County? Are they -- are they the transports that are not making in -- outside the areas of Travis County, which is the capcog, 83% of our -- of our medical admissions are within the capcog 10 county region. Is it an association -- is it in association with the hospitals, something changed in the relationships with the hospitals because we now have contractual relationships and understandings with -- with three of the primary hospitals here in -- in Travis County? And then there are elements even with that of -- of the type of -- of contracts that we do have. For instance, there's -- there's neonatal, there's maternal, there's organ transplants, so -- so you have to kind of analyze what it is that you are anticipating that you are going to have and if that does not work, then you cut back accordingly. And it's just like you would anything, Commissioner. You would have to cut back in accordance with what it is that you are not doing. And so that would mean a hard thing for us to do but you would expect me to do that and I would be coming back to the court and I would be outlining what the situation is and what our next steps would be and how we would handle that.
>> right. That is the point and I think that you -- that you exhausted that question very thoroughly and accurately. And of course at that time when we -- it would be left to the discretion of the court as far as how we act on it. I think the judge even made a point about something coming back to the court. In a lot of these instances for adjustment purposes. So okay thank you.
>> any more discussion of b?
>> Commissioner Gomez would you take a friendly amendment for --
>> any more discussion of b? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Commissioner eckhardt moves approval of c and d.
>> second.
>> discussion? That basically is getting with hrmd.
>> to go ahead and move forward.
>> iron out specifics.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> okay.
>> e?
>> I approve e, I move to approve e.
>> second.
>> e is the --
>> the money.
>>
>> [laughter]
>> the transport fee increase and the mileage. We think that the fee -- this fee increase will place us still below market.
>> yes, sir.
>> if we compare our fees to the private sector.
>> to like aircraft, that's correct. Of course the mileage speaks for itself, we are now playing over $4 a gallon.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you all very much.
>> thank you.
>> thank you, danny, thank willie, mr. Kulberson.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, July 1, 2008 1:51 PM