Travis County Commissioners Court
February 10, 2009, 2009
Item 24
>> 24 is to consider and take appropriate action on legislative matters, including, a, status report on drafting legislation to address Travis County legislative priorities, and b, draft legislative language for certain Travis County priority issues.
mr.
ekstein?
>> nice to be here.
my items today should be relatively brief.
there are really two parts to it.
24-a is simply a status report on the legislative priorities identified by the county earlier and where we are with respect to getting bills drafted and filed right now.
and if you look in your packet behind 24-a there is a three-page handout excel spreadsheet.
and if I can just call your attention to it, if you look at page 2 where it says tnr 1 in the left-hand column, that is going to be item 24-b-2, which we'll talk about in a minute.
actually moving forward with legislative language with these legislative priorities, if you look at the top of the third page where it says tnr-6, that will be 24-b-1.
right under that is admin 1, which will be 24-b-3.
and two slots under that is what we're calling steega, which is justice of the peace steeg's bill.
and that would be 24.
this is an update report.
our goal is with respect to our legislative priorities is to have language drafted and to have sponsors identified and ask them to file those bills as soon as possible.
we're still waiting for committee assignments in the house.
we anticipate that that will be done towards the end of this week and we'll have a much clearer picture at the beginning of next week about who we might want to ask to carry some of our legislation with respect to some of these priority issues.
there are 112 days left in the legislative session.
we've already had one month go by.
that may be the good news to report.
if there are any questions on item 24-a, I'd be happy to answer them or we can move on to 24-b.
>> any questions on 24-a?
>> no.
on 24-b, with respect to legislative priorities, court has asked for an opportunity to look at draft legislation before we take it to a sponsor in order to file.
in most cases we have been working on these bills for over a year now.
so what we want to do is present to the court those four bills or at least four bills that we're ready to go forward with today and see if there are any questions that the court has.
the first one has to do with utility relocation, and that's number 1.
should be in your packet behind the agenda item or the legislative action memo for 24-b.
and I'll just be prepared to answer any questions.
and fortunately joe gieselman is here who can really answer any questions that members of the court may have about the issue of the utility relocation.
>> the bill looks pretty complicated, but it's really in substance not that complicated.
it's just because we're dealing with so many different utilities in the right-of-way, it gives length to the volume of paper.
basically what we're trying to do is the county owns the right-of-way for the roadway and the primary purpose of the right-of-way is for roads and transportation.
but the law allows utilities to be located within the right-of-way.
that's all sorts of utilities from telecommunications to gas, telephone, water, wastewater.
but it does provide that if we need to go back in to the right-of-way and adjust the roadway, the utilities have to move those lines to enable us to do the construction.
the problem has been in getting them to do that.
what this bill attempts to do is legislate some timetables where the utilities are required to move their utilities so that we can go ahead and pursue our construction or face penalties for failure to do so.
the timetable we believe is reasonable.
it's a half a year, which is a good amount of time.
and thus far we haven't had the teeth in any legislation to enable us to get some movement.
so the utilities sometimes drag their feet.
this costs us delays in construction.
and so that's primarily what this bill does is it creates some incentives for the utilities to move their utilities or adjust their utilities out of the way of construction.
which they're required to do already.
but this just is some timetables and pebilities for failure to do it.
and it also adds a provision where they more precisely locate where those utilities are.
we now have the technology to locate utilities very precisely with gps and gis, and we're asking utilities to do that.
so when we come time to design a roadway improvement, we know not only where the gas line is, but at what level relative to the ground level, and that enables us to determine whether or not we even need to move it.
and if so, where and how.
so that's pretty much what this bill does.
again, it's fairly lengthy, but it's -- in order to do it, to address so many different utilities, you have to address different pieces of the law.
>> questions?
move approval.
>> second.
>> discussion?
have we chatted with other urban counties about the need for this?
>> this is a fairly common problem.
this will be a well fought bill.
we're up against some of the the -- utilities are known for their capability in the legislative process.
>> don't let them scare you, joe.
>> I won't.
>> good work.
>> all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
good luck on that one.
>> thanks.
>> item 24-b has to do with the regulation of storm water management.
this is in many ways a much simpler bill because the authority that we're seeking already is granted to some counties in Texas, and we're simply seeking to bracket Travis County within that authority.
joe, do you want to add anything?
>> yep.
it's just really having to do with the tpde.
that's the Texas pollution discharge elimination system, which is a federally mandated program that is now required of all urban Texas counties to monitor storm water runoff from -- into our -- basically our roadway ditch system or municipal utility.
as it's called in the law.
what this allows us to do is charge a fee as we're permitting to offset the cost of implementing the program.
both harris and bexar county have the authority.
what we're doing with this is bracketing Travis County and so we also may levee the fee to support the program.
>> move approval.
>> second.
>> discussion?
sphrs all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
the third.
>> the third item is a bill giving counties the ability to offer specialized early retirement programs to -- specialized health insurance programs, health benefit programs to early retirees.
dan mansour from risk management is really the subject matter expert on this, and I believe he's here today.
and is available to answer any questions that the court has.
>> we looked at this last session, and decided not to pursue it.
was it a timing matter or one of substance?
>> I believe it was a timing matter.
>> and the auditor got up and left when this came up.
is that -- does that mean anything?
>> I believe it was a timing matter with some other issues going to the legislature.
>> maybe --
>> does our -- does our -- has our subcommittee looked at it to make comment on it?
>> the employee benefits committee?
>> we've discussed this in committee and if the court aproves this language, we intend to have this before the committee again and meet with some other organizations who would have some interest in this.
>> the committee discussed it.
did they vote to support it?
>> regionally, yes.
this was about two sessions ago.
>> what about two days ago?
>> no.
we haven't discussed that?
>> move approval conditioned upon this being presented to the employee benefits committee.
>> second.
>> other appropriate persons at Travis County and report back to the court at the appropriate time whether it's next week or after it's okay.
>> I think the cost is going to be important to include, the cost to Travis County.
>> yeah.
let's dig up our old notes and try to figure out --
>> we can add that information for you by next week.
>> okay.
so really condition -- we'll move forward if the proart is there that we think is there.
>> okay.
>> all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
the conditioned approval.
>> yes, sir.
>> the fourth item has to do with the special court fees bill that judge steeg has brought to the court.
we discussed it in a meeting last week.
we're very honored to have her take time out from her busy schedule to be here and visit with us about it and answer any questions that the court has.
by the way, I just want to take this moment to recognize greg nap, who is our legislative consultant who has had scheduling conflict with trying to be at these presentations.
so we're glad he can be here today and he's I'm sure happy to answer any questions the court has in general about the -- about where we stand with the legislative process.
>> welcome.
>> good morning.
glad I was able to join you today and let you know I appreciate the opportunity to have submitted this proposal last year.
after I got on the job, one of the procedures I noticed was quite burdensome within our deferred disposition, the way our accounting or bookkeeping procedures were set up, it added a lot of procedure if we wanted to accept payment from a customer up front.
the fees were split.
the court costs were made at the time that they got the deferral and then at the end of the deferral period, typical 90 days, another payment was necessary.
well, as I learned more about court procedures, a lot of times one particular example is an officer may write two or three tickets.
a person comes in and pleads no contest.
they're only going to take one driver safety court dismissal and they have one or two tickets left and they may want to plead no contest and there really isn't any other thing they need to do other than make payment in order to earn their dismissal.
and so a lot of customers were actually asking, can't I just give you one check now?
and although I could say yes, you can, on the back end we would have to set up that extra money in a bond account.
basically what this bill would do would allow people who want to pay us up front to do so.
those who want to do it in two payments will still be able to do so.
and by our bookkeeping we'll be able begin with the auditor to take this money up front.
so again I don't know why the legislature originally set this up.
it was very specific in the law, but unlike I'm sure mr.
dpeez he will man's -- gieselman's bill, this one is short and sweet.
i consider it to be an administrative housekeeping matter.
i would appreciate your approval.
>> move approval.
>> second?
discussion?
all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
with Commissioner Davis temporarily off the dais.
>> thank you.
>> thank you very much, judge.
>> that's it?
>> yes, sir.
>> thank you.
>> good presentation.
>>
>> [inaudible - no mic].
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, February 10, 2009 2:00 PM