Travis County Commissioners Court
August 12, 2008
Item 24
Number 24 is consider and take appropriate action on the request from -- appropriate action on request from the capital area transportation coalition regarding the hero roadside assistance program.
>> thank you. She needs one.
>> good morning.
>> good morning to you. Judge and Commissioners, good morning to each and every one of you.
>> good morning.
>> I'm howard faulkenberg, chairman of the capital area transportation coalition. I'm joined today by jeremy martin, representative of the greater Austin chamber of commerce, bruce byron, the director, and dr. Jody carson with Texas transportation institute. In the audience is previous -- bruce evans as well. We are working to organize a public-private sector highway emergency response operation in Travis County. These programs have proven their value through the years and the return on investment is, frankly, amazing. We are here today to ask your financial participation in this effort, and I'd like to ask bruce byron to introduce our request.
>> good morning, judge and Commissioners. We appreciate this opportunity to come before you this morning. The judge has been quite helpful in directing me as to how we might approach this, but this stemmed from an effort by take-on traffic and jeremy's role here at the dais is to sort of show the unity between the chamber and the real estate council and the home builders. We're all members of take on traffic and are trying to find cost effective ways to combat congestion. Dr. Carson is an expert in incident management and congestion reduction. You probably didn't know there would be experts in that field, but she is one. And she has been working very closely with the txdot district and bob bay and the ctek control center to find better ways to handle congestion. And when take on traffic looked at options for improving the situation, the motion obvious one that came up with the highest benefit to cost ratio sometimes -- if you look across the country at the programs, they range anywhere from benefit ratios of 2 to 1 to 40 to 1. Just amazing return on investment. As far as helping people, a, get on their way, b -- and what we're talking about here is when people are broken down on the side of the road, whether it's a flat tire, run out of gas, things that don't rise to the level of an accident where you have a major emergency response, but those things that do cause in all a major impact on congestion. And just as you well know, vehicles parked on the shoulder will back traffic up. Vehicles stalled in moving lanes really does a number on people. And these are the kind of things that can be handled with emergency personnel, but are very high expense. Now, this program was in effect for almost eight years, funded totally by the txdot district. They have five vehicles that roamed up and down i-35 within Travis County. And about two or three years ago they reduced that to three vehicles because of budget constraints. And in January they eliminated the program altogether. Again due to budget cutbacks at txdot. Now, in talking with the county staff, you know, there are various reasons why the county has other priorities. And because joe geiselman has roads to build and I've talked with major burrows at the sheriff's department, and they think that the roadside assistance program is of great value, but frankly if you had $75,000 to spare, they would soon have another deputy. I think what we're here to do today is to find a way to get this program funded. It's one of those ironys of life that there are which is the most cost effective is sometimes the easiest to cut and the hardest to get funded. There also are a myriad of ways these programs could be implemented. And when jody was looking at what was being done by txdot, it was sort of a textbook implementation, you get some pickup trucks, you have trained drivers, you put emergency lights on the pickup truck, and you schedule them to work 16 hours a day, usually from 6:00 a.m. To 8:00 p.m. And they are there to aid motorists, to pick up junk that falls in the road, to do the kind of stuff that otherwise would take officers off patrol. They serve another valuable function in the fact that they are there during major emergencies. If you ever noticed that in major emergencies you'll see several patrol cars up at the top of the hill to warn people that there's an accident down below. Well, that takes usually one or two more patrol cars off the street, and -- but it's necessary because many of the most horrific accidents start with someone stalled alongside the road. And many police officers are injured or killed in the line of duty, so I think second only to actual gunshot wounds in the line of duty, by standing alongside the roadway on a high-speed roadway and getting hit by adjoining traffic. So we have worked on this and we went to the city of Austin. The city of Austin is supportive. They have not spelled out how much exactly they would provide. I think it's going to be -- we asked for 37,500 from the city and we asked for 37,500 from the county, and we've had a public-private partner, state farm insurance, that has offered and has programs around the country where they put in up to 25% of the total cost of the program. So we sort of put a proforma together. In the brochure I handed you, the third page from the cover sheet titled appropriately the ask, outlines how if we started today to put a program together, it would probably be mid-year before we could get it up and operating. So we sort of figured we would need half funding for this year and the full funding for the following year. And so the first year's funding would be split between this fiscal year and next. So a minimal program using traditional pickup trucks is -- would be a three to five pickup truck dispersion was txdot was doing, and it would be -- I think it could be done for $200,000 split between 75,000 split between the city and the county and then 25,000 from state farm. Now, in return, state farm wants advertising rights on the pickups, but it's indicative of the fact that one of the things that has not been explored locally, and txdot didn't want to get involved with it because of the legal constraints of putting advertising on state vehicles, but you can find private sponsors who would be glad to support this effort because it has such a high popularity with the roadside -- with the drivers and citizens at large. So that is a potential source of revenue. This has not been explored greatly and just in the short time that we've daytona, we've been able to come up with at least this one sponsor who is willing to take a major role in this. But jody looked at what the region needed. If you were going to do a textbook implementation in the region, you would be looking at 22 vehicles on all the major highways. 183, 290, mopac, 360, as well as i-35. I've, of course, has twice the incidents that any of the other highways do. So if you boil it down to where the program needs to start and focus, it's i-35. We understand that the county's financial dilemma is prominent in all the public sectors in a down economy, and we empathize with that. We're here today to sort of raise consciousness about the fact that this is a program that of all programs deserves consideration for funding and can be funded at a very low level. And what we would seek from the county is encouragement to move forward working with the sheriff's department and the city of Austin and ctek to find a way to put this program together as cost effectively as possible. And again, the textbook example, full program with 22 vehicles, if you did it the way txdot did, would be about a $4 million a year deal. Even at 4 million, it would be very cost effective, but I think it could be done for considerably less than that. Just like I think that we can get three to five vehicles on the road for $200,000, where txdot booked it at three or four hundred thousand.
>> bruce, does jody have a technical word to add about the value of these programs?
>> well, I think bruce covered most of the different aspects. I did just want to add that although I can't speak for txdot, the -- the decision of discontinuing the service patrol program is not necessarily a unique thought process. These programs are relatively new in departments of transportation '. As transportation departments shift from focusing on design and construct activities to operate and manage activities, they are tim I believely isolated to urban areas and they are typically not well documented with respect to their benefits to the public. So they are kind of an easy target for cancellation despite the tremendous benefits that are noted elsewhere in the nation.
>> if we were to contact txdot and ask them why didn't you give this program -- rate it a priority, what would they say?
>> well, my personal opinion, and bob day would probably deny this, but I think that bob has always -- txdot funded this program solely and for eight years. And it never grew. It never got beyond -- in fact, it shrank. So he was hoping I think by -- he knew he had to make drastic cuts in his department, so I think he felt by eliminating this program we could restart it and generate a full-fledged program. More than just i-35. And I think, again, a combination of things, but I think the other factor is if you look around the country, say why doesn't the state identity. Now, it's mostly an urban problem, although some of the rural states who are dependent on tourism, the tourist bureau underwrites the roadside patrol. But in most cases it's a state d.o.t. Function. There are places like houston where it's privately funded -- it's a public-private funding operation, and there are mixtures of private and public funding around the country. But I think that -- I don't think we stop -- I mean we're desperately trying to get the program reimplemented because we think it's a meritorious program.
>> did txdot eliminate this program statewide or just in this region?
>> dr. Carson, perhaps you could answer that question.
>> they've eliminated it in a number of the urban areas. There are a few vehicles still in operation. One thing I wanted to add too is that we're also seeing in support of what bruce said, we're also seeing an evolution of traffic incident management practices and procedures here in Austin. A very healthy evolution. For the last -- since 2004, actually, we have been meeting with a group of emergency and support responders from both the city of Austin, the fire department, the Austin police department, Travis County sheriff's office, the medical examiner's office, a variety of region -- the region's emergency and support responders and working very closely to actually identify a list of things that would help them perform their jobs more safely and effectively. So we're seeing instead of these agencies kind of operating in isolation, which is what txdot did for a number of years with the service patrol program, we're now all of a sudden hearing about the cooperative benefits that everyone is realizing through the service patrol program. Law enforcement officers, officers feel much safer when they are out on the road with them because they offer their traffic control protection. They also feel a tremendous sense of relief knowing that the service patrol operators can take care of a lot of the minor incidents, vehicle disablements that they simply don't have time to get to. The response times to those types of incidents are very lengthy because of their other higher priority duties and responsibilities. So they are experiencing a tremendous sense of loss with this program as well. But as area operations are evolving, we really are seeing a much more cohesive and cooperative approach to the different incident management strategies, and I think that's what we're here to promote with the hero -- the new hero service patrol program.
>> judge, if I might ask jeremy martin with the greater Austin chamber of commerce if he has a comment on our proposal.
>> okay.
>> thank you, judge, Commissioners. I just wanted to highlight that regional mobility is the number one concern. The number one issue of the chamber and its members. Just getting goods and services throughout the region is of primary concern, primary importance to the chamber's members. Through the chamber's participation in take on traffic, we learned that congestion mitigation is one of the key strategies that we could pursue in terms of improving that regional mobility. And so that's why we are here today in support of the hero roadside assistance program to improve our regional transportation at the most cost effective strategy possible.
>> go ahead. I've got two or three more questions.
>> I can wait until you finish.
>> what evidence do we have today to show that the impact of this program has been such that we ought to prioritize it?
>> I think the return on investment calculations that have been done around the country suggest that bruce alluded to those. We might ask dr. Carson, who is most familiar with the statistics, to share a little bit more about the value of the program as seen in terms of dollars and congestion relief and increases in safety on our highways.
>> well, unfortunately we don't have a lot of hard evidence in Austin to document exactly what benefit fights we've seen from the former hero patrol program. What we do know is that during its ten years of existence, the hero patrols patrolled over 1.2 million miles and responded to 44,000 incidents. That's an average of 305 incidents per month. Later data looking at minor incidents indicate-or incidents occurring indicate that Austin experiences about 5,000, more than 5,000 incidents a year. About 14 incidents per day. Austin police department reports that 40 to 50% of those incidents are minor, vehicle disablements, stalls, breakdowns, things that a service patrol could take advantage of. The unfortunate thing with the txdot program, and this is common in programs nationally, is that they didn't do a good enough job of collecting the data and marketing that data to demonstrate the benefits of the program. What we've seen is in those areas across the country where they implement record-keeping system and a marketing system along with these programs, they are very, very defensible when that question comes up begin, when budget shortfalls arise, their benefits are defensible and those programs are retained. That was not the case in Austin because we didn't have a sufficient record-keeping system to go ahead and document the benefits that we're seeing. The majority of the benefits that are reported are anecdotal from a wide range of audience, from the motoring public up to the emergency responders and the other support responders. And the self-satisfaction certainly of the service patrol operators feeling like they are doing a good public service. So what we are having to rely upon is those other areas in the nation where they have kept the records, they have documented and they are reporting significant benefits and cost ratios. We do not have that for the Austin area. The other challenge is in the documentation, and this is a national challenge, not a local challenge, no one has a good consistent way of recording what we call secondary incidents. There's a vehicle on the shoulder, an unsuspecting approaching motorist comes over the hill and hits that vehicle. What's typically recorded is the first incident. That second impact from the approaching vehicle is just recorded as a distinct vehicle crash, not a secondary incident caused by that first disabled vehicle. So no one has a good indication of how many secondary crashes are prevented through a service patrol. Nationally secondary incidents are estimated at 14 to 18% of total incidents. So right there there's going to be a significant savings too with respect to safety and property damage prevention.
>> I would add just anecdotally again that as I drove to this meeting this morning on a city street, not a county controlled roadway, I came over town lake on mopac and there were two motorcycle police officers with lights flashing behind a suburban that was pulled off the road slowing traffic as it moved north, and these officers to their credit were changing the tires for the two ladies in the suburban who had had a flat and were stalled out there. That typically is the sort of thing that the unit we're talking about can respond to. So that we're not taking police officers' time, sheriff's deputies' time to manage these kinds of incidents. Now, it's true we're talking about a modest program, a starter program that would involve interstate 35 from the northern Travis County limit to the southern Travis County limit. But ultimately with the success of a public-private venture shown in that roadway and with keeping statistics that reflect the actual return on investment, we would hope that we can then get more and more support from the private sector as well as public sectors and the public at large to move this into other areas of the county and the city.
>> but this program is for i-35.
>> it is. It is because that's where the biggest need is and because of the limitations of a startup program like this, judge. Commissioner Davis, did you have a question?
>> how are you all doing today?
>> fine.
>> good morning. The backup was just released, just received the backup and I hadn't had a chance to review I of think, but I hear what you are saying and before I decide what I want to do I want an opportunity to review thoroughly the backup information that's before us. However, there are some questions that kind of came to mind just hearing what you discussed with us this morning. And one of the questions was that have any of these opportunities to take care of these secondary-type incidents been negotiated or worked out with our towing truck industry here in Travis County and Austin? I see them sometimes assisting and doing things on the road. I don't know if it was, you know, somebody called in and say my scar broken down, whatever, and they come out and take care of business. Have any of these opportunities been afforded to the towing companies here in Austin?
>> I think dr. Carson would like to respond to that question, Commissioner.
>> yeah, we actually -- that's a really good question. We actually work very closely with the Austin towing association. The president of that association is actually a member of the -- what we call the aim high team, the Austin incident management for highways team mode meets every other month. So the towing industry is well represented in these meetings, and their viewpoint is that -- they are first and foremost very supportive of a hero type service patrol program because, you know, they are private industry. They recognize that their biggest -- their biggest benefit to their business operations comes from the longer tow. Service patrol operators are intended simply to eliminate immediate danger. So they will be moving -- they move disabled vehicles simply just off the roadway. Preferably off the shoulder, but off the roadway definitely out of travel lanes. And then the towing industry takes over from there and provides the longer tow, which is where they can charge -- where they can make their revenue. So the towing industry understands very clearly how a program like this could benefit their operations. They have not expressed a strong desire to actually be those people.
>> I understand.
>> california has a similar program where they do contract with the towing industry. But locally here they have not come forward and said that. They would prefer to have a separate program and then take the tow once the vehicle is off the road.
>> right. So the service -- the type of service that you are requesting this morning, per se, would be the -- let me put it in another term, would be the offense and, of course, the first responder type situation, and then I guess the towing would be the backup.
>> exactly.
>> if needed. Am I getting that correct?
>> that is correct. And they see a real value in a program like this because they are, of course, not the ones in the roadway now hooking up those cars. They are able to operate off the roadway. So they see a personal safety benefit as well.
>> at one time I believe, I'm not sure, but if my memory serves me correctly, at one time I think the city of Austin was looking into doing something like that. They may have implemented, I don't know, but they were going to use the towing industry to take vehicles off the road whereby it would not cause these kind of congestion problems. Is that a true statement? I really -- but I kind of have little bits of images of what happened. Is that correct?
>> there is what's called a rush hour rapid response program that is operated through a contract with the towing industry and a.p.d. And it's limited to the morning and evening peak periods. I think three hours in the morning and three hours in the evening. And the intent is that the towing industry is required to have vehicles staged at different areas, key congestion points around the city and provide immediate response when there's a disabledment or a blocking vehicle. The struggle with that program, because we have talked about potentially as an alternative expanding that program to 24/7, expanding it to more of the roadway network that could potentially be impacted. The towing industry does not see it as a priority because it's not as currently structure, it's not beneficial for their business practices. But it is in place and it is currently operating. It's just not -- it's not growing, similar to the constraints --
>> have there been any opportunity to track the incidents? For as far as gathering data to really get a chance to really have the information available to us to see what -- how many of these deals per, per se? Are they a part of that data collection is this.
>> those incidents get roared as part of a.p.d.'s overall crash database that they maintained. As far as I know, they are not separated out. They are separated out by location, but they are not separated out as a separate program that would allow you to document the success of that -- those towing contracts.
>> now, we currently -- from hearing and jotting down things correctly, 37,500 if the county decides to participate in this 37-5 from the city of Austin, and you have the private sector involved at $25,000 here. But the point is with an exchange for them to advertise on the private vehicle or logo or whatever. My question, though, is -- is what would it cost if we were to look at each particular unit that is assigned to serve the community so many hours a day, what would the actual costs be of providing -- well, the unit, of course, would be privately owned by the person that would be working in that capacity. However, there would be other necessary things such as how they are going to respond to the next person that calls in and needs my service. There would have to be some capital somewhere involved in this. So are these figures all inclusive when you say 37 for the county -- the cumulative amount here that we're looking at, if you were to break that down per unit of operation, what would that cost? Including capital too because somebody is going to need to talk to somebody.
>> the only data we have locally is the txdot program which was $35 per vehicle hour. And I think that -- nationally that's on the high end of things. And no one can seem to explain to me how they arrived at that figure. So I think that what we're looking at here with the 37-5 is to put together a pool of money from which we could then work with ctek, because I think ctek has to be the -- the emergency control center has got to be the brains and operator of this because they are the ones who know where the incidents are and they are dispatching is imagine vehicles, they are the ones with the cameras. And so that is the brains. What the brains don't have, they don't have arms and legs. Right now those arms and legs are your sheriff's deputies and the city of Austin police. And so all they can do is dispatch people off patrol to go and handle, like these two policemen that are changing a tire, considering what you are paying for your licensed law enforcement officers, changing tires is probably not their highest and best use.
>> right. And that was my final question. And I think you answered it right there, and that is to -- have there been a cost breakdown. Any time you take a law enforcement whether it be sheriff, constable, a.p.d. Or hoofers, d.p.s., whoever, whoever is off line, the primary responsibilities -- I'm not saying they aren't to assist the public, I think that's part of it, but maybe the best use of doing something else other than changing tires. If you got somebody else to do that, then what would it cost per -- has there been a cost factor generated to see what the savings would be if that law enforcement person was not used to do the services that's being requested here with this particular program?
>> dr. Carson, you have an answer to that?
>> I do and tonight's the works. I'm currently working with the federal highway administration and we just finished collecting data to try and document that very thing. If we swap out transportation personnel or service patrol operator for law enforcement doing positive traffic control out there on the street, what is the cost savings? If we swap out certain technology applications for, again, the law enforcement out there providing positive traffic control, what are the savings that result. So the answer is it's a question that's on the mind all the way up to the national level. The answers are not quite there yet. But it's in the works.
>> judge, at the risk of extending this just a minute more, I'm not sure we answered Commissioner Davis' question about -- when I understood to be how would you use the money that you are proposing to collect from the two governmental entities and from the private sector, $100,000, approximately, to operate a program for a half year. What of that would we see going to capital, the vehicles, what of that would go to operators. Bruce, how are our calculations organized in that regard?
>> one of the things that we have yet to nail down in going forward is exactly what the labor costs are going to be. Obviously you know that's going to be the biggest part of this whole factor is what the labor costs.
>> exactly.
>> and there are numerous ways of providing that labor. I think that clearly the ownership of the vehicles and the ownership of the program has to be in the public domain because of liability. But as to who operates the vehicles, that is still -- you know, the txdot figure of $35 an hour is predicated probably on a fairly senior txdot field employee doing it. I think there are various -- one of the things that major burrows and I talked about with the sheriff's department was that there are sheriff's axillaries and other groups who might be very interested in doing this. The same with retired policemen and retired firemen who have fringe benefits and who can work at a substantially lower labor rate than a full-time employee. All of these things need to be explored, just as when judge Biscoe brought up about why the state isn't doing it? A.just because you enter into this starter program doesn't relief the state or the responsibility going to the state to see if they could further fund this as it expands. Additionally there are federal funds that we should look to, but we've got to start somehow and that's why we're here today.
>> I think Commissioner, in terms of capital costs, it might be that a vehicle or two or three could be provided by a private entity and put under the control of the county so that the liability issue or the city, the cooperating entities, so that the liability issues were covered but that there were not this sort of capital --
>> liability is a big deal.
>> judge, jeremy, anything else that you would want to say before re try to wrap up and let these folks get on about their business?
>> I don't have any additional comments.
>> > judge, we stand ready for additional questions.
>> during the last two careers, the most troublesome problematic highway in Travis County has been 71. I know historicry 35 because of its length, I guess, has generated a lot of accidents and fatalities, et cetera. But if -- when I think of e-mail agony, I'm thinking it's highway 71. Because of the number of accidents and the severity and fatalities that have resulted and our working with the state. But 35 is we think our number one problem?
>> judge, 71 -- and I recall a number of the incidents particularly the deaths over the last several years, those don't tend to involve the sort of situations that this program is designed to resolve. They result from speed, they result from weather conditions, they are single accidents that have enormous consequences. They are not the kind of thing where someone is stalled on the road and somebody else comes up behind and hits them. They are a truck pulling out, somebody turning in front of someone else, but they are not this kind of an incident. And, of course, Commissioner Daugherty and others of you have worked diligently to try to resolve the conditions that have led to the highway of death out there.
>> okay. We will take budget votes in about a month during what we call budget markup. I suggest we add this to the list.
>> we would be grateful if you would.
>> judge? Can I say something?
>> certainly.
>> you don't really need a lot of stats to justify whether or not there is a need to spend some money for doing this. I mean obviously it makes sense. It is a matter of budget. I mean, is this more important than the other 400 things that I have on my budget? That's really what this boils down to, I mean, because -- and everybody has to do the budget. The chamber has to do a budget, city of Austin has to do one. I think that we need to work towards -- I mean because -- let me go back. Txdot is not doing it because of budget. It just didn't make the cut. Whenever push comes to shove, what do you spend money on versus something else. So where I think that we need to try to go, I would like for the county to participate in a program and I would like for us to try to find some moneys to go towards this. The challenge will be can we find enough people that will put some moneys into -- into this thing. I see that we have 37-5 from the city, 37-5 from the county, 25 from perhaps state farm. And then you read the backup and it talks about some in-kind services like I'd be interested to know if txdot is really going to provide the fuel. I mean they may rather provide the 37-5 rather than the fuel what fuel costs today. But the point is is that I would like to see the county participate. Now, at what level we're going to be able to participate, it might be hard to bite off 37-5. I would like for you to know that just leaving the room today, which means that we've got more work to get out and do see if we can c on obble some other folks to put some dough in it. The chamber spends a lot of money in that particular line item, but that may be something that we go to the chamber and say, hey, could you all stick some cash, you know, into the deal. Because when push comes to shove, it's going to take some cash to make this thing work. I'd like for you to know that's where my thinking is and whether or not we can come up with some dough we'll see when we finalize our budget.
>> I think that's a great idea. I asked a lot of questions. I hope it wasn't too boring. But I was basically trying to uncover where I'm trying to get to with this. And, of course, I need to have the anxious to some of those questions. Can you get those to me before we mark up the budget, it would help me out a lot because I just think they are very necessary to see exactly what costs, what we're getting for the investment and I think it's a good program though. But let me just have some information on these things that I requested. If you can get that to me. I appreciate it.
>> certainly, Commissioner.
>> can you do that?
>> yes, we can.
>> okay. I would sure appreciate that. Thank you very much.
>> I think any additional information regarding impact would be helpful. The other thing would be maybe two or three weeks from now a status report on what parties you have committed. We can encourage you as many encouragement as you need but you need encouragement and money. If we can get an update in I'd say about two and a half weeks, it would be timely for us.
>> also seeing that txdot cut this program to be diskind January of 2008, I would be -- this is a tight budget year and I am concerned that an agency that is solely tasked with transportation has cut this and now an agency that is not solely tasked with transportation but also tasked with law enforcement, health and human services, courts and so many other things is asked to pick it up. As Commissioner Daugherty said, it's not that this isn't a worthy program, it sounds like it's very worthy, but in the competing needs in the community, congestion reduction on a state highway versus, you know, a vehicle breaking down on the highway versus a person breaking down and needing to be essentially towed to services, you can see how we've got a triage issue regarding the budget. But what I would like to see and I think might be valuable to look at over the next year, if this isn't funded, and I'll tell you frankly given the priorities I'm looking at, I'm unlikely to put this money toward a congestion reduction effort on i-35 this year. Since it's being discontinued in 2008, it light be very illuminating for the next budget cycle to see the effects on i-35 without the program in that interim. I hear what you were saying that there weren't great metrics kept during its implementation, but even if we looked at the proxies of secondary incident increase after it's discontinued, we might get at least a thumbnail on how effective it was. Controlled for population increase or vmt increase on the highway. So that we can continue to look at it as part of an overall congestion reduction plan, maybe even through campo, which might be the more appropriate place to review this as an overall component of our congestion reduction plan.
>> I think those are valuable suggestions, Commissioner. It generates one thought in my mind by the devolving responsibility from the state to the local area.
>> absolutely.
>> I think increasingly we are entering an era when we at the local area need to find funding solutions for congestion management and road construction.
>> and unfortunately those are going to be in direct head to head competition with health and human services, courts, law enforcement.
>> well, it's going to require new sources of funding whether it's taxes, new fees, new whatever to provide this on a local level. It cannot be one of the those situations like this court has experienced so many times, when you received unfunded mandates or when you were asked to take on something such as an expanded legal aid program and you were given funding by the state of a quarter million dollars and the actual cost was $1 million a year. We're going to need new sources of revenue if we take these things on at a local or regional level. That's going to be our solution in the end.
>> thank you so much.
>> thank you for your suggestions.
>> and thank you for understanding the devolution and perhaps with a little more time than we have with this budget session we could put together a-the most equitable pair met for what sounds like a laudible program.
>> on the legal end of this because I did bring up liabilities, just depending on how this is structured with be contingent on the liability we will incur. There may be some liability. Just depends how we go about this, if the court decides to do it. I just wanted to throw that out because the liability did come up. We've got to be mindful of that.
>> yes, sir.
>> what's the annual budget?
>> the annual budget would be $200,000 for the one-year program.
>> starter budget.
>> so did txdot have civilians doing this work or peace officers?
>> they had civilian employees. A.
>> okay. Thank you very much.
>> thank you very much. You've been very kind to hear us out.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, August 12, 2008 1:37 PM