Travis County Commissioners Court
August 5, 2008
Item 21
21 consider and take appropriate action on request to revise Travis County code section 10.0535, on-site residence for park staff and the ranger residence policy.
>> yes, we had presented -- presented to you both in our fy '09 budget request and also a couple of weeks ago, a policy that would allow us to continue our practice of having park ranger residents within selected parks in the county system. We currently have three parks where we have resident rangers. Bob wentz, pace bend and northeast metro park. In only one of those do we have a new structure, that's at pace bend park where we constructed a new residents from anew. The other, northeast metro basically taking a home that was there, pretty dilapidated state, the park ranger resident is living in that residence with his family. The proposal is to add three more immediately to the system. That would be the east metro park, we would reconstruct the current residence at northeast metro and build another one, a new one at southeast metro park. Eventually, we would foresee there would be a ranger residence at milton reimers ranch park out on the pedernales ranch river. If we ever develop arkansas bend on the north shore of Lake Travis because of its remoteness and in an area of the county that doesn't have any ranger residence at all, we would also propose one for there. What it boils down to, though, is cost. We are conscious of the fact that the construction is not cheap. The facilities management originally estimated that the cost of these would run about $275,000 apiece. That's -- we believe it's a little on the high side, but that's what our facility engineer believes it would cost. If he bid the construction out under his program. We have proposed that perhaps we lower this by first phasing the construction over a multiple years, not trying to do it all in one year. So phase out the -- the construction over three year period. We also, more importantly, propose that we do the construction with the -- with one of the programs we are currently engaged with, the american youth corps. They have a casa verde program that they use to construct homes and they have various contracting agencies around the area to contract homes. They do about three per year. We estimate that the cost of having a ranger residence constructed by ayw would range somewhere between 170 to $190,000. So we can basically save a substantial amount of money by using the youth corps. This is really a job training program. They take youth who are basically without skills and they give them skills. They teach them how to construct. They also come out and -- with a g.e.d. Some of these students would -- would not even complete high school without this program. So they are getting their high school equivalency. They are getting a job skill. They are getting some on-the-job training and ultimately we feel that the same group of young men and women are potential employees for the county parks system as well as the county road and bridge system. We have already employed some of their graduates. So we can see this as possibly a vertical integration where we take students, we not only -- we have helped getting them trained, we put them to work on capital projects at the county and ultimately then begin to employ them when they are graduates. So -- so we would like to try this, but I think the first step in all of this is just a determination that -- that as a matter of policy that we would have ranger residences in our parks. We believe to have ranger residences is really an insurance program for the parks. At this point we have invested anywhere between 15 to $18 million in our metropolitan parks. They have as you know sports fields that have professional quality turf that are irrigateed and we have pavilions, restrooms, and in some cases very nice pavilions that are on the site and we believe like any other campus they deserve some -- some monitoring. After hours. That is in part what we are having these rangers do. They are on the site, they are there 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Even when they are just living there, they are not necessarily patrolling the park all the time. But their presence there we know is a deterrent to any type of a crime or vandalism in the park. We are not asking for a park ranger residence in every park. We believe with the ones that we have, geographically distributed, these same rangers can then patrol the same other parks within the district covered by the ranger residence. We are not the only ones to be doing this. Williamson county also does it. The state of Texas and all of their state parks have resident rangers. And so we believe that there's -- that there's -- we're not breaking new ground here. We're just acknowledging that we now have a fairly extensive capital investment in our parks and this is one way to -- to ensure that it -- that it is not harmed. In -- in thering to -- in listening to what you have stated this morning and then rehashing what we have discussed earlier, on this issue, on another agenda item, same stuff, the -- the difference that I'm seeing now is that the possibility of american youth works coming in to do the construction -- let me ask this question, would the design still be done in house? On this particular project? Or would -- would american youth works do both? How would that --
>> no, no, they don't -- american youth works does not design. We do have a -- a typical design that we used at the ranger residence at pace bend park. We believe for the most part that would suffice for these other ranger residences. There may be some modification of the design given the site. But we are not asking ayw to do any designs whatsoever. They would take our plans, implement them as we have designed them.
>> okay. And -- and we have one resident -- well a ranger that is housing themselves at the northeast metro site presently. If the court decides to move forward with this particular policy, I guess a policy initiative first and then the funding portion of this -- this is something that -- that I think we can work on. Especially if the court decides to use the other folks, it's something that seem to be pretty feasible. What would the -- what would the resident ranger do, what -- in other words, would they have to relocate and all of these other kind of things? If so, what -- how would that be accommodated? Wouldn't that be an expense to -- if -- if this -- if it's decided that this will have to be upgraded, this particular ranger station at northeast metro?
>> he would have to -- well, he would probably continue to live in the structure that he's in. The new structure would be built somewhere close by.
>> okay.
>> so I don't think there would be any relocation necessary during the construction phase.
>> okay.
>> and of course would the assignment of -- has anything changed or anything different other than what we discussed earlier on this as far as the number of parks that would be under the jurisdiction as far as that particular resident ranger? For example -- for example precinct 1 the park ranger situation hopefully will be there at the east metro park; however, there are other parks such as big webberville, little webberville, also ben fisher. Is that still the gist or radius of parks to be under that particular patrol of that particular resident ranger?
>> yes. It's the same as we presented in our original backup. There was a map that showed the districts and east metro, as you expressed correctly, those were the parks within the district that would also be covered by that resident ranger.
>> okay. I have some other things later, but I -- you know, my colleagues would maybe like to comment on their end because one of the things that we wanted to do was develop on this initiative when it did come up before us, another budget cycle, year, it was a policy that we were basically needing to establish. So what we are being asked today is a policy and then also the possible funding for these particular -- for this particular request? I see the funding has changed. What we're talking about now, a possibly -- a 1350, 1300 square foot resident. That was the cost then. But if I'm hearing you this morning, the estimated cost of -- of per ranger resident would have -- would have had a significant decrease from the 275,000 to 170 to 190,000 if -- if the court decides to -- to allow american youth works to actually do the construction. Is that correct?
>> that's correct. Actually what's on today's agenda is merely the policy we would bring back the -- the budget decision, during the budget cycle there has been a request both in t.n.r.'s budget as well as in facility's budget for the funds to cover 3 resident rangers. That's a separate decision that would be made during your budget discussions.
>> but today what you are asking is just the recommendation is to -- to -- of the policy initiative as far as --
>> that's correct.
>> what you are describing.
>> so you know the fiscal impact of the policy, we went ahead and laid it out. In my -- p.b.o. Has not made any recommendation on the budget in part because there has not been a policy adopted --
>> I understand. Thank you.
>> I have a couple of questions. Does american youth works have the capacity to construct these residences --
>> we understand that they have -- they are under contract right now with the city of Austin to do three homes and they have to complete that contract. They believe they can do three homes per year. We understand this is a -- this is a job training program. So they are going to take a little bit longer than you would normally take to build a home because they basically put windows in, they take them out, put them back in again until the students get the skill set. So -- so they tell me that they can do three homes, but -- but it may be taking longer to get it done.
>> okay.
>> then quite frankly, we have just recently discussed the possibility of doing three homes at one time, so that's -- that was somewhat of a curve ball to them that they didn't say no, but they want to work with us to see how that can be done. They just have other commitments that they have to meet and before they go launch in and say sure we can do this in fy '09, they want to talk with us a little bit more.
>> that design you mentioned a moment ago, where did that come from?
>> we did that in-house, working with facilities management, actually we hired an architect to build a basically a model ranger residence and that was the one that we used to build the one at pace bend park. We believe we have the layout, that one works, in place, we see it. It may take further modification when you start applying those plans to another site. I don't think we need to do any -- these are not unique. They are going to be just about the same everywhere we put them.
>> I would like to see a few pictures of the one that we have done.
>> okay.
>> I can't recall it.
>> I can take you out there and show you, walk you through it.
>> pictures here in the courtroom would be fine
>> [laughter] on this taxable value, I guess I understand how the formula works, how do we factor that into the salary of the ranger assigned to a residence?
>> it's added on. It's basically the ranger is taxed for the incremental value that he gets by living in the residence. If he's paying taxes on that value that you saw in the backup.
>> his salary is not offset by the taxable value?
>> no it's added value. Rights now the ranger is paying taxes on the benefit. It doesn't change his pay scale or anything else. Just paying additional taxes on the benefit.
>> so how do we determine what rangers get a residence and which of them do not?
>> I'm the chief park ranger. In the policy, excuse me, we have proposed that it's going to be somewhat of a lottery. A ranger has to make -- meet certain qualifications, for instance an acceptable job review. Our annual performance appraisal. After that it will be a lottery, we will choose from there.
>> does this create any inequities between those park rangers who do get housing and those who do not?
>> I don't think any tangible inequities. There might be some that would apply for residents and were not chosen that might like that. But I think that it's a pretty fair system that we have proposed.
>> is there any kind of a rotating system. Not like you want somebody moving out after a year but is it like if you get four years do you get --
>> well, we actually didn't address that in the policy. I suppose that's something that we could consider. There it's some benefit to have someone in a residence for a while, they get familiar with the neighborhood and the type of the park and if they have a family we don't want them to have to move out and move their kids from one school district to another.
>> there's also an obligation that comes with being a ranger resident that not all rangers likes.
>> that's true. Not everybody is going to want to live in one.
>> because?
>> well, some are actually purchasing homes so they won't want to leave there and move into another house. Some really don't like the aspect of the after hours component of the response out of the residence that you are required to do.
>> okay.
>> judge, I think that it's a great idea to work towards this. Especially, you know, with some of these parks like joe said. I mean we've had a lot of expense in these things. And this is I think something that would really be beneficial to the county. Obviously there is a fiscal impact and, you know, whether or not -- I think when you do the policy I mean showing that -- that you know this is something that we want to move towards, then -- then it's a matter of, you know, can we get it funded, you know, this year. But I think that I would like to see us move toward the concept because I think the concept is sound. I think it's something that would benefit us.
>> phasing in would be --
>> phasing helps us. It helps us with the -- especially with the cost of the thing. So I mean I -- I guess some people would ask why are you going to implement something and not move forward with it. Well, I mean I think that if it can somehow make the cut, you know, from a -- from a fiscal standpoint we do it, but we certainly indicate that the court would like to let you move in that direction.
>> we question
>> [indiscernible]
>> one resident.
>> that's correct.
>> and one --
>> [indiscernible]
>> judge.
>> yes, sir.
>> judge
>> [indiscernible]
>> seems like that we have a real positive thing to work with in listening to and hearing some of the concerns about the security and all of the other things that we hear. In our park system. The incident and a lot of other things that park rangers really do. They really do a lot of work and really I think it's desperately needed. I need to make a motion to approve this particular item, 21, and make sure that we are moving in that direction as far as just the policy is concerned. And we'll look at the funding aspect during the budget cycle. But I think that it's a good move.
>>
>> [indiscernible] move approval of the policy of establishing a residence in the county parks.
>> yes.
>> specifically the ones listed in joe's backup. Trying to add one a year beginning in '09 is the motion. So you have in mind a written agreement with the american youth works?
>> we do. It may be just a modification of the current agreement. We do need to talk about -- about their overhead. The training money that -- that they may -- we're still in discussions on just how that is paid, whether that is paid by -- by the -- as part of the project costs or whether that's separate from the project costs. And that is something that I just need to get with -- with a bond counsel on.
>> but for us to consider this during this year's budget cycle.
>> right.
>> you need a -- a specific figure.
>> okay.
>> we will certainly work with p.b.o. And ayw and sherri to come up with that number.
>> judge, my second is -- does not mean that it will make the budgetary cut for me. I mean, the policy wise I mean that's what I'm concerned about here.
>> I think that's what joe said this morning, a little -- like
>> [indiscernible] to reiterate what I think he said, he was saying today he wanted to initiate, get a policy directive and during the course of the budget hearings, budget cycle we will look at the funding aspects. I believe that's correct. Joe am I --
>> that's correct.
>> I joined a runners club one time but I never ran with it. They didn't like me a whole lot. Any more discussion? For qualifications? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Congratulations, mr. Gieselman.
>> thank you all.
>> thank you.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, August 5, 2008 3:51 PM