Travis County Commissioners Court
September 23, 2008
Item 18
18 is to consider and take appropriate action on interlocal between Travis County and the city of Austin for public health and animal services. I don't think whether there is for action or discussion. We're going back and forth with the city.
>> sherri fleming. Yes, sir, today we needed to update you on our negotiation process with the city of Austin. And as you may recall from the budget process, we did budget approximately $2.6 million for this agreement, which is somewhat less than what the city had requested. It is less the administrative costs related to this agreement. Once the -- once we completed the budget process, staff resumed negotiations basically to advise the city staff that the court had budgeted the administrative costs in reserve account and that we would hope that we could continue to negotiate this point. We received back through their attorney no indication of their willingness to continue to negotiate this point or to approve a document that basically was less the amount of the administrative costs. So we sent over proposed documents. Those documents were rejected. So just recently, however, the planning and budget office had the opportunity to address this issue with the city manager, and at that time the idea of a extension came back to the table and so today what you have before you is a document that requests from the city an extension of the fiscal year 2008 agreement at the 2008 cost structure, which would include the administrative costs we paid last year. It's important to note that. Basically where we are, this agreement will expire September 30th. It has no hold swroafer provision. So therefore the city of Austin would have no authority October 1st to provide these services on your behalf. If some agreement is not entered into prior to that time. So it is important for me to advise you of that, that there are agreement will expire. And marietta can talk about that from a legal aspect if you have questions about that.
>> give an example of the service. I have a question, but give me one example of this service that's provided.
>> animal services, public health services, disease abatement, persons who might have a need of diagnosis and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases. There's h.i.v. Outreach, teen pregnancy services. So all of the services that you might think of related to public health and public health education.
>> okay. Those are basically the -- the big driving subject matter of the issue.
>> yes.
>> okay. Go ahead. There was something else, but anyway, go ahead.
>> okay. So in terms of your options today, judge, Commissioners, certainly you have the option to approve the agreement as it was submitted for about $2.9 million in costs including the administrative costs. Or we have prepared and submitted an extension that staff would recommend if it's your choice to send over the extension that it be sent with a letter from the county judge to the attention of the city manager. Because at this point we have not been able to strike an agreement with staff. So we would require the city manager's intervention in terms of getting this extension approved so that we can continue to negotiate. So I believe that there are is where we are at this point.
>> is this the extension?
>> I sent you the -- the attachments will be the ones to give you the description.
>> I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you.
>> I had completed my testimony, Commissioner Davis. We're at a point where the agreement will expire so we have an agreement for 2.9 million in resources and we have a request -- or we have a draft of an extension. So it would be the court's choice which direction you would choose to take today.
>> so the court doesn't have to sign this extension?
>> we'll need to do it next week, but I don't know that we have agreement on both sides.
>> one option is to go ahead and approve the extension.
>> but I don't know that the city --
>> we understand that.
>> has accepted.
>> ment us just to approve the extension and send it to them and see what they do. I don't know that it is best to have an interlocal in place in writing signed, but there was a time when government entities like people shook hands and kept
>> [inaudible] rather than harking back to those days, I think our strategy on saying the money is in allocated reserve, we question these suspensions. It may well be they are the best thing in the world, but if they are the best in this contract, why don't they also -- also the best in other contracts, you know, what we would receive the administrative expenses. That's my thinking. The other thing is that for several years this has always come up. We have always kind of backed down and they have kind of had a, you know, western mentality, I think. Either you pay this money or you don't get the service. Just this last week it was the same thing. I think we ought to say we're not taking that anymore. Let's sit down and do this like honorable people and if we can't we'll just move to we have to go. It is $290,000.
>> can we insert into the contract both parties will jointly work to increase the efficiency of the delivery of these services by utilizing performance indicators described in this agreement?
>> well, there are some performance indicators.
>> and then monitor the progress towards mutually agreed upon goals? I understand the central booking contract doesn't include us charging them.
>> but we have a knock down drag out over performance measure last year. Their thing is it's population based. That we are a certain percent of the population, therefore we ought to pay a certain percent of the cost. If we've got 90 days, I guess we can raise them. If you put them in here, it will seem we're muddying the water with several issues rather than just the administrative overhead item, which is the biggest one now.
>> that is correct, judge.
>> our threat last time was if we don't like the performance measures, we'll just do it ourselves. Carrying out the threat is a big deal because you have duplication and probably end up spending a lot more than this because there are efficiency of their doing it for both of us. Kind of like central booking.
>> very much like central booking.
>> start with you sending a letter to Austin?
>> we're kind of beyond that I think. I think we ought to approve the attention today, have the -- extension, have the court sign it and send a letter to the city manager as well as the city council indicating our position that we really ought to try to negotiate administrative overhead costs, what they are, whether they are appropriate, and we have the money in allocated reserve. If we reach agreement on that and we owe more than in the contract today, we amend the contract and provide the additional amount and pay.
>> second that, judge. And --
>> how would you address the -- this three-month extension does include administrative costs. Now at '08 levels, but it does include them.
>> in the cover letter, I would tell them that. We don't have to like that. We should indicate I think our displeasure but say we put the administrative costs for '08 at the '08 level in the extension.
>> another option would be to negotiate for a 12-month calendar contract that would start with the new term.
>> but if we negotiate overhead expenses and our attitude is what's good for the goose is good for the gander, that will be a big deal. And so we are kind of at the contracts running consistently with the fiscal year.
>> that's correct.
>> part of the problem is our budget information and budget timing doesn't give -- and the reporting doesn't give enough time to do budget negotiations.
>> yes, and legal and I have discussed the pros and cons of the fiscal year versus the calendar year. And certainly there's more discussion that should be had. But I agree with marietta, part of the -- I think the push here is that we go through the budget -- we submit the budget as requested, we go through the budgeting process, and then we're really at markup before we actually know where we're going to land. Certainly if we land on these administrative costs, that-may be the most pressing issue during the budget, but it does not leave us a significant amount of time to negotiate should we make budget decisions that impact this agreement.
>> judge --
>> if we think we have three or four issues, I would put them in a cover letter and say if we're going to spend time negotiating, we may as well put two or three other issues in that have bothered us for years. And one is timing of it. Because they want a true-up, right?
>> we requested a true-up.
>> it doesn't make sense we would do the true-up in July or August when we are looking at markup and adopting the budget. In order to get the true-up earlier do we need to do maybe June?
>> you will have a true-up from the '08 agreement that will take place in anticipation of the fiscal year 2010 budget, if that makes sense. Because once this contract expires, there's 90 days, I believe, before the true-up actually is completed.
>> bee beyond the September 30th date?
>> yes, the true-up doesn't take place until after the contract term.
>> that answers my question I was going to ask.
>> why don't the true-up take place
>> [inaudible]?
>> they will have 45 days to do the true-up on those items.
>> the more issues you put that need to be discussed the more it will look like we're just trying to get out of paying. We're trying to figure out if these are really legitimate expenses that we should pay. Then we're trying to figure out what are they.
>> well, I would agree, judge, that the most pressing issue right now is the extension. So the reason we are requesting the extension is because we are -- we have not completed our negotiations related to the administrative costs. There are certainly other points that we would -- we can raise in our negotiations, but the extension in terms of the continuation of these services is the most pressing item. And I would agree with you that if we could keep it specific to that point, that we all agree that this contract will continue, then we are in a position to negotiate from that point.
>> that's what I would do and send to it the city manager and city council. Basically we've been negotiating this overhead expenses that you all refuse to give information on. And in our view we should not approve a new contract that includes these administrative expenses until we've reached agreement on them. Right now there is not agreement. So we propose to extend the '08 materials and conditions for 90 days and give us an opportunity to land on administrative overhead and any issues that you may have, we may have some more too. Leave that out. Don't put that part in. But until we can land on administrative overhead. And send it to them. And I would have the court sign that and a place for them to sign and send it back.
>> judge.
>> yes, sir.
>> I think that's exactly what we need to do. I mean, we've got to do this extension, but we need to understand as a court we're not going to get anywhere with this. Department has been dealing with this issue every year, and what you got is you got a city department that's holding their own because the administration is saying this is what you do, you go get the most money that you can for us and this is how we calculate things. And knowing unfortunately that they do sort of have the trump card. Y'all want to do -- y'all want the business done, we can't do this business unless we really get into a very expensive process. Because we're not really in that business. We've generally had this taken care of. So I think that it's going to be that the elected officials from this body is going to have to make some connections to the elected officials of that body and say, you know what, let's just be fair. I mean that's what we're dealing with. This whether never get done on the department level. I mean, we can assign this three-month deal and sherry will be back and say you know what, we can't move them off that. I don't think we have any choice but to do the extension, but we -- and then I'm not piling it on you. Maybe there are a couple of us that try to sit with some councilmembers and say hey, work with us.
>> put that in the letter. Two members of the council, two members of Commissioners court get together and try to negotiate.
>> you know, we do have, you know, sort of an agreement, Margaret and i, you know, work with the council people, although we haven't had one of those meetings because everybody's schedule is so hard to get together when you try to get four people together, that's difficult. Then you really have difficulty in identifying the subject matter that you really are going to try to get. But I do think that that's one of the things that we probably need to try to reinstitute and say let's get together and be specific about because there's nothing any longer than some of these interlocal agreements we have with the city. I mean, be it central booking or, you know, all of the health care stuff and the public health, you know, and animal services. But I've watch this, I mean and this has happened at least for the last three to four years where sherri never gets -- because david lourie comes and talks to us. Sign this deal, but a couple of us need to --
>> that's my motion. An aproof the extension to give us the opportunity to negotiate administrative overhead and indicate to the city that we have included overhead at the same level as the '08 contract and we theodosia them to keep providing the services. That we have the money available in allocated reserve should we reach agreement on the city deserving more administrative overhead than in the '08 level.
>> judge.
>> yes, sir.
>> is there a second?
>> I already seconded it from the earlier point. But with this particular recommendation, this motion, will that come back to us, the court, in a format of a letter that will be presented to city staff or how will that be done?
>> there's something on the city's agenda Thursday. I would try to get this delivered today.
>> okay.
>> to the city manager and city council and at the latest first thing tomorrow morning.
>> so something signed by the court or by you?
>> I think the whole court ought to sign it.
>> that's what I was trying to get to.
>> I've got friends at the city. I don't want to lose them. I think the whole court ought to sign.
>> that's what I was trying to get to is what will be the vehicle of getting it to the city.
>> I think it will mean more with the whole court.
>> I agree. Some written correspondence to let them know we mean business and not that -- I know they know we mean business.
>> in the '08 contract does the city council sign it or the mayor or --
>> actually david lourie is authorized to sign it.
>> I'd put david lourie and may put the city manager on there. Any more discussion? All in favor say aye. That passes by unanimous vote. That ought to get us off dead center. We'll have it back on next week just in case.
>> yes, sir.
>> thank you, sherri.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, September 23, 2008 3:05 AM