Travis County Commissioners Court
November 25, 2008
Item 14
Item 14, consider and take appropriate action on the acceptance of -- take appropriate action on the following, a, amendment to section 1.019. 14 b, amendment to section 1.019, county vehicle usage policy of the Travis County code relating to the use of toll roads and the payment of toll fees. 14 c, notice to county employees about changes in county vehicle usage policy. D, budget amendment and transfer of $4,821 from the general fund reserve to transportation and natural resources fleet services. And 14 e is authorize payment of $4,821 to the city of Austin for 64 outstanding traffic citations issued to county vehicles between 2002 and 2008. And the request. Mr. Geiselman.
>> these two items are two policy recommendations. One on the -- both are captured by the vehicle existing county vehicle usage policy that is a standing policy on Commissioners court code. That policy did not address the payment of traffic citations and it did not address the issue of paying tolls or tolls were a eligible expense. The toll roads are relatively knew and, of course, they are now gearing up and the laws have changed somewhat in that regard. I'll get to that in a minute. The first item, though, is really the payment of some outstanding traffic citations issued to county vehicles in and around the courthouse complex. And as you know, we have a fairly large fleet. That fleet is assigned to multiple departments and then once the fleet is assigned to the departments, the vehicles themselves are assigned -- in some cases assigned to individual employees, in other cases they are pool vehicles. Normally when a citation is issued for a moving violation, the police officer cites the driver, takes his driver's license, they know exactly who it is and the citation goes on the municipal records as the employee or the driver, the operator of the vehicle. In the case of parking citations, of course, the operator is not there and so the city has cited the vehicle by using the license plate. And they don't know what department has that vehicle or even what employee so they send the citation over to the county. Now, that could be practically anyone and it has been. If they look up the license plate, they find out Travis County owns it. Well, who do they send it to? Could be the purchasing director because she has -- her department has title of all county vehicles. Might be the county auditor. Might be one of the departments. Might be t.n.r. Because the mail room got the citation, this is a vehicle thing, let's send it to t.n.r. The fact there hasn't been any process where the departments can receive those, and first understand there has been a citation issued for a vehicle that was assigned to their department. That accounts for some of the failure to pay. Quite a bit of it, as a matter of fact. So when the city finally brought this and said look, you've got all these citations that go back to 2002 that haven't been paid, we finally sat down with them and gone to understand the issues. In the process we also understood that some of the vehicles that were cited are no longer in the fleet. Quite frankly, some of the employees that we attributed the operating the vehicle to are no longer county employees. So we were able to discuss these things with the municipal court and we came to an agreement that there are probably 64 citations on their books that they really -- that the county owes or someone owes for the citation. And these are mainly parking violation. They could be unpaid parking and unpaid meter, parking in a handicapped zone, parking too long in a loading zone, quite the variety in the type of citations and just as much variety in the part that's responsible. You have a list of the citations in your backup. We're recommending, t.n.r. Is recommending that the county go ahead and pay for the 64 outstanding violations so that the city is paid and they are on their way. And we then try to collect from the operators of the vehicle. Which may not be easy. I mean, there's certainly where a vehicle has been assigned and you can say absolutely that you know who the operator was at the time three or four years ago, you can have that employee pay the fine. If there is some level of uncertainty by the department or by the department head or the employee denies that he was in fact the operator, then you may have some difficulty collecting those things. The other issue is that up to this point we really haven't had a policy or notified the employees that we've had a policy about who is responsible for paying citations. I think probably we just thought, well, that's a no brainer. If you are operating the vehicle, you get a ticket, it's your ticket. Well, I think we probably need to explicitly say that in the county policies. As an operator of a county vehicle, if you get a citation, it's yours to pay. That's what this policy does. For the citation, it amends your code that says from now on, effective immediately, any operator, employee driving a county vehicle who receives a citation gets to pay for it. And that includes not only the payment of the fee itself but any resulting late fee charges or penalties or court costs or anything else. It will be just like any other traffic citation you and I would get if we were driving our personal vehicle.
>> joe, when it stated before, I stated then and I'm going to restate it again, I don't feel that the taxpayers of Travis County ought to bail out the employees of Travis County for -- for their traffic violations, you know, whatever arena it falls in. Now we're looking at tolls and all this other kind of stuff, but before even that came, we had violations of people parking in handicapped slots and that's ridiculous. And my whole point on that is that I don't feel that we ought to bail those folks out, and I still feel the same way that the taxpayers of Travis County shouldn't bail out these particular employees. However, the city of Austin, is there anything that we can look at, see because when you are recommending here is that we pay a little more than four -- a little more than $4,800 out of -- out of general fund, allocated reserve, general fund, same thing, to cover the cost of the violations that were created by some of our employees in Travis County. What I'm suggesting is this. That have we looked at any opportunity to -- where the city of Austin owes Travis County some money and that this may off set, where it would be a wash instead of just going and spending money to take care of the situation, taxpayers' money, because of this behavior, that the city of Austin may owe us the same amount of money somewhere along the lines to off set that. Now, I don't know if the auditor is listening to this or is there any possibility that we could get a washout of this thing? Has that been looked at?
>> no. Have not.
>> I would like toe sue if there is any opportunity for that if possible. Because if there's a wash, then we can start from all these new policies directives that we helped initiated and make sure the employees understand you park in a handicapped slot, you are going to have to foot the bill. The taxpayers of Travis County are not going to foot that bill foreweigh think we told joe at the last meeting to get with the city of Austin and try to negotiate a smaller total than the approximately $10,000.
>> yeah, it was 10,000 before.
>> at that time.
>> still a balance here. I'm looking at the balance. What I'm asking at this point if the county auditor can some way look shape, form or fashion look and see if the city of Austin owe us money and if it's legal for us to swap out, two governmental entities to swap out on money owed to each other, I think we ought to look at that and let it be a wash. Because it is a balance. It's still taxpayers' money. To bail out the behavior of persons that have violated the law and whether they parked in handicapped slots or any other type of violation in county vehicles. And I don't think it's appropriate for the Travis County citizens to bail out -- taxpayers to bail out Travis County employees.
>> ms. Wilson?
>> generally speaking, if the city of Austin owed us money, it would be under an interlocal agreement or that type of thing. I am not familiar with every single interlocal agreement that exists between the city and the county, but those I am familiar with do not include the provision that we would off set one amount that was due by us to them with an amount that was due by them to us. Generally -- as a general matter of law, in order for that to apply, you would put that in the agreement. Like when we do agreements with suppliers and contractors, we have a statement in there that says that if they owe us taxes, we will off set what they owe us for taxes against what we owe them for the contract. But as far as I am aware, and like I said, I don't know every single interlocal, that type of provision isn't usually included in the interlocals.
>> but it is possible for it to happen. Is there a possibility?
>> Commissioner, that doesn't mean that we can't reach an agreement with the city that we're going to off set sums that are mutually owed to each other. We can reach an agreement. We're not aware of any agreement we currently have with the city.
>> research that and knowing it?
>> but if you do that is correct we are still spending public money to salt is in control phi $4,821 of traffic violations.
>> yes, sir.
>> joe, what did you do with this list of 64 citations?
>> I sent it to each of the departments who had vehicles with citations and asked each department head to inquire about who was operating the vehicle at the time and ask for payment of those citations.
>> reimbursement to the county.
>> rebush administration yourselfment to the county.
>> and we can be as strict and tough as we see fit, it's just that I don't know we ought to shift this responsibility to the city. I think we ought to get it behind us and the new policy proposed today, I think will get to the heart of the matter. That is, you are in a county vehicle, don't get a ticket. You get a ticket, it's your responsibility. Plus, you get a ticket, it's your responsibility to report that to your supervisor and basically the supervisor should send to the city a nonliability statement from the county that says joan doe had this vehicle on this day. Pursue collection of the fine against john doe, not Travis County. And the city has agreed that lets us off the hook in the future; is that correct?
>> that's correct.
>> we spent a whole lot of time so far, but I think it's time appropriately spent, but the city has cut the total in a little bit more than half and I'm sure joe didn't make any commitments except he would recommend to the Commissioners court.
>> I just -- at this point the level of effort it would take to seek payment of 64 citations on an individual basis would probably exceed the amount, the value of what we owe. You talk about number of people that will be involved, the level of effort, it's just -- for me -- and quite frankly, it's not the city's fault. They just want payment. For me, it's easy to write a check to the city, be done with that and if we want to take time to pursue our own employees, we should be doing that, but not at the city's expense.
>> it is our responsibility and that's what we ought to do and it ought to be incumbent upon us to find out definitively who they are. If they, you know, question whether or not, you know, they were the user of the vehicle, that may have an issue. But if we can defin I feel determine who it is, then they ought to be -- I mean they are reasonable thinkers. They ought to know they are the ones responsible for paying these things.
>> and I have received some few e-mails from those who are operators said I'm willing to pay, how do I pay it.
>> good.
>> I can't say that's prevalent, but there are employees who have stepped forward and said tell me where to write the check.
>> judge, I would move approval.
>> of the remaining balance?
>> [multiple voices]
>> do you want to do them all together?
>> I think we ought to do d and then the policy. It's not those that support this like it, it's just that I think we've run out of options and I think the time has come for us to go ahead and try to get this behind us. At the same time try to get reimbursement. I doubt that we'll get 100% reimbursement, but we ought to get as much as we can. It's kind of like spending your own money at some point, do you spend $14,000 to get 4? I think you would say no, but that doesn't mean you wouldn't write a few letters and invest the cost of a stamp to request or demand payment, and I don't have any problem with threatening and applying whatever leverage we can. At the same time, there are other important county issues. I think that on this one if we adopt a proposed policy, we put ourselves in a much better position to keep this from happening again, which ought to be our goal.
>> and judge, I can support those policies, but it's just my whole point is that when this first came up is just the -- not having -- just kind of letting the taxpayers bail out employees, I just can't accept that. So the money part of this initiative I'm not going to support.
>> okay.
>> and reimbursement by employees, I think you ought to come forth on this 4800 and put the money up so at least in this goes through and at least we may get reinstated by the employees of Travis County, but on the off set -- I can support the change in policy, but the amount of money on the general fund to pay for this, I can't -- I can't support.
>> even though it's our responsibility?
>> pardon me?
>> even though it's our responsibility?
>> hopefully we can get the money.
>> well, I agree, Commissioner, if we can --
>> but right now it's almost like, you know, it's not going to happen. It's been reduced, but there's still an out standing debt. And my whole point is how do we recover the outstanding debt.
>> well, then maybe we ought to just divide it up amongst the five of us, the people that we can't -- the people that we can't identify definitively who owes it, then who is responsible for making -- we are responsible for making the policy. The policy has not been a good policy with being able to identify who it is that owes it. If we can identify definitively who owes it, we ought to go to them and demand collection. If we can't, then we as a county government have a responsibility to pay our debt and our debt to the city, they've already reduced from $10,000 down to $4,800, and we ought to pay our debt.
>> amen.
>> and try to get reimbursed.
>> and try to get reimbursed.
>> we've asked the supervisors of these employees, hey, so and so owes this amount in fines and fees and we want the county reimbursed.
>> my own example, not even half a dozen on the list, but one of the employees no longer works for the county so here I am, I know that one is not payable. So, you know --
>> that's you. Leverage.
>> that's joe geiselman.
>> and departments are responsible for carrying out the policy that we initiate from this dais. We establish policy. Once we do that, it's up to you guys to -- and department heads to carry it out. Now, it hasn't been carried out is my concern, and again, those persons know who they were and when they got those citations, they know exactly who they are. They know who they are. It's no big secret.
>> we've not had a clear written policy up to today. And in my view, I agree --
>> if you get the citation, you ought to pay it. That's responsibility. It's your responsibility to pay that citation and I think we let them off the hook. I really do. They know who they are.
>> my motion is to approve d and e.
>> second.
>> that is take to take 4,821from allocated reserve, send it to the city and the sick part of e is to -- second part of e is to request, and joe let's change that word to demand reimbursement from certain county employees, namely those who got the citations. And try to get the county reimbursed as much as possible. That was seconded by Commissioner Gomez. Any more discussion? Just d and e.
>> is that what I stated before, I think during the discussion, any employee out there that's listening to this and gets a chance to listen to this, you know who got the citation, come forth and pay that money.
>> if there's a call from Commissioner Davis or me, you'll know we're following up on this action today.
>> [laughter] all in favor? Show Commissioners eckhardt, Gomez, Daugherty and yours truly voting in favor.
>> Commissioner Davis voting against the money aspect.
>> exactly. A, b and c are policies that staff has put together.
>> move approval.
>> for our consideration.
>> I need to probably speak a little more to b before you adopt that policy.
>> okay.
>> which is the toll policy. It's a little different wring ole that one.
>> all right. Why don't we --
>> is that d or b?
>> actually he's talking about --
>> I'm sorry, b is the toll is is one I need to talk to.
>> that's b, okay.
>> okay. Can we go to a then?
>> you can go to a.
>> move approval.
>> second.
>> any discussion of that? That's the policy regarding fines and fees which we've described a couple of times.
>> is that including barbara's cleanup exchanges.
>> yes, the judge has the changes in the signature copies.
>> second.
>> all in favor? Show a unanimous court voting for that.
>> all right, now, on the toll, somewhat a different animal in that we knew from the beginning that probably at some point in time the emergency vehicles would be exempted from paying tolls. But the law didn't change it until after the toll roads had been established and they had already been collecting tolls. So -- and the definition is very clear now on what exactly constitutes an emergency vehicle. We know that for a fact. And so any -- I believe we're at the point -- and furthermore, two separate tolling entities. You've got the state of Texas tolling authority and the central Texas r.m.a. Initially their policies were different. I think they are finally coming together, but they are administered separately. So we have invoices from both entities. We believe that we'll be able to negotiate a majority of the tolls back to the emergency vehicles and say look, these were legitimately emergency vehicles and so take them off the -- off the i.o.u. List. There may be some others that were legitimately probably good business reasons for nonemergency vehicles to use the toll road. And I know a batch of invoices that if you looked at them, you would probably say, well, that was just a good business decision. It wasn't authorized, but it would still save the county money because of the nature of the expenditure. And there will be some others that, you know, we just don't have any good reason for the employee necessarily using the toll road and it was not an emergency vehicle. So we have those and we're still trying to sort those out. They go back to the beginning of tolling. What this process says, though, is, again, to have a policy that only those who are authorized to use toll roads, meaning the authorized emergency vehicles can use the toll roads, period. That's the way the policy is written. Any other county vehicle that's not authorized by law without paying a toll should not be using toll roads. Use the alternative methods. Now, that's a fairly tight policy and I'm going to suggest that you broaden it a little bit for legitimate business purposes, but let me get back to the policy the way it's written. And the procedure. Right now if the tolling entities have a list of what various county departments consider emergency vehicles. The problem with that is there are multiple lists. So the first thing we need to do is consolidate our list and have one authorized person at the county, and I'm suggesting the fleet manager, be the one sending the list to tolling entities. If it's on the list and the department has certified this can legitimately be considered an emergency vehicle as defined by law, then it goes on the list, the fleet manager submits that combined list to bowl tolling entities and they will go into a nonrevenue account. They will account for the use, but they won't invoice because it will be -- all the vehicles will be on this list. So that is one way of stopping the bleeding so we don't get all these tolling invoices for vehicles that are legitimately exempted. But what it does mean is that we really have to tighten up when a vehicle leaves the list and when a vehicle gets on the list so that we don't have people who are driving in a county vehicle with lights on and go down but it's not on the list, guess what, they are still going to get invoiced. We have to have some pretty tight control and continuous control on what we submit as a master list of exempt vehicles. Then any invoice that we receive for a toll should be forwarded to the department for payment. Because it's basically and you authorized use of a toll road. I would suggest, though that is correct the way the policy is written right now is there is absolutely no leeway for county to pay for a toll by county vehicle. There should probably be some leeway there for at least the executive managers to affirmatively authorize use of a toll road if it makes business purposes, but it be a discreet permission. And because I think there's going to be situations that come along where if you all saw the facts, you would say yeah, that makes all the sense in the world because it's going to save the county money rather than take some other way. I'm just leaving it open so we're not so air tight on the policy that we're not giving ourselves some leeway to use toll roads for some good reason.
>> joe, what would you -- to me that's too vague and it's going to put a department head in an executive manager, whoever the person is into a session where they've got to do too much fact finding. Why don't we just have something as simple as whatever vehicle that you are in, if you are in question as to whether or not you have a vehicle that is not going to be able to use a toll road without any sort of a fee, then you better make sure that that's the case. But if you get on it, if you get on the toll road and you don't have your lights going and you don't have whatever, then you are -- you are ultimately going to be responsible. If there is any question, you as the user of the vehicle, you've got to make sure that you know what vehicle you are in when you can use it and when you can't. I mean put it on the person that is in the vehicle, not bringing it back to the department or -- on but let me ask you this. Because I know this one case where it came out and everybody is looking at this and saying point a to point b. If we were only able to -- and there's a time period, there was a project that had a definitive timetable, had to be done in a matter of days. The haul from point a to point b was substantially abbreviated by a toll road t business decision was why not. It's going to ultimately save the county money by paying tolls than by not paying tolls.
>> then don't let the exception drive the rule. That's one of those things where you go occasionally you could get by with that and that would be okay. Before you know it, occasionally is going to mount up to where somebody -- you got more of these and you are trying to figure out who was in the vehicle and we're going to get back to this same $4,800 issue. Bless you.
>> I'm just trying to allow for an exemption under some special circumstance.
>> do we have the opportunity to have transferable tags so you can put one in a vehicle or move it to another vehicle depending on your use?
>> I don't think so.
>> no.
>> so do you have authorization -- do you have in mind authorization to use a toll road before the use age or afterwards?
>> yes. Yes, before. In other words, I think it has to be much more tight. It's got to be affirmative the department head got the facts and said to the employee, okay, this makes business sense. You have my authorization to use the toll row and furthermore I've got the money to pay for it. So there's an expenditure of county money to pay a toll only because it made good reason. It has to occur before the use. I'm just leaving --
>> otherwise going 70 miles an hour, what do you think about me getting on the toll? You need to let me know right quick.
>> is there a time limitation on that authorization? Of course everyone knows I have an action to grind with regard to toll roads, I do, but the verbiage is it's premium lanes and a gas tax alternative. One can quibble with whether that verbiage is true and that appears what we're doing today, there are certain circumstances where there is a time savings that would be down to the county. But it seems as if we were to do advance authorization for someone to use the toll for a specific project that there should be a deadline out, that the authorization should only last for a specific period of time after which you have to get reauthorized. Otherwise jobs are authorized rather than projects and someone gets used to their particular position having the benefit of being able to use tolls rather than the specific project or the specific purpose being authorized for the use of the tolls.
>> should we ask you to get with barbara wilson and councilmember up with draft language for us to look at and know exactly what we are considering?
>> let me do this. I think it's important that we have a policy adopted to -- right now, and then we can come back with an amendment so that -- let's just go ahead and adopt a very straightforward-type policy now and barb bra and I can work on the additional clause and bring it back.
>> I will make that motion.
>> to approve what's before us.
>> yes.
>> and if you want to proceed with the exception, you'll bring that back later.
>> second.
>> and we will also bring back the -- once we have our hands around all the invoices received to date after we have worked with the toll authority basically like we did on the city of Austin traffic citation, we'll bring that back to court too because there will be a residual of some tolls that will be owed to the toll or tolling agencies that are not exempt.
>> okay. Discussion of the motion? That's b, right?
>> uh-huh.
>> that's b.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. What should we do about c?
>> c is just, quite frankly, allowing me to put fliers in the paychecks that says to inform the employees that they are obligated for tolls, unauthorized tolls and traffic citations. And what we intended to is not only put out a notice to current employees, but then in each vehicle we're going to have a dashboard notice so that you can't miss it.
>> so moved.
>> second.
>> discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Thank you very much.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, November 25, 2008 2:38 PM