Travis County Commissioners Court
February 17, 2009, 2009
Item 13
>> 13.
>> consider and take appropriate action on issues related to the fiscal year 2010 budget, including a, fiscal year 2010 budget parameters and b, proposed fiscal year 2010 budget guidelines.
we did discuss this in our work session last week and there were follow-up questions that we needed to discuss today.
>> yes, sir.
we do not need any action taken on the budget parameters piece of the agenda request.
we did want to bring to the court's attention the item on the other outside agencies that were discussed.
we do have three options.
we are recommending the third.
i'll let jessica walk you through those at this point.
>> good morning.
as rodney stated, we do have before you a legislative style and a clean style of the revised guidelines that were discussed last Thursday.
are you missing a copy, Commissioner?
travis will get you one.
>> and I don't have it either.
>> I have a version, but I don't know if it was --
>> travis is that the legislative or the cleaned up version?
>> that's the version of h?
>> it's actually the whole -- I'll draw your attention to the page where the --
>> what page is that on?
>> it's on page 9 of the legislative, page 8 of the non-legislative.
while he's doing that, I can go through the other changes on the legislative, but I'm really going to concentrate on h, so if you have any questions, just be sure to stop me.
you will see -- I'm not sure if you're looking at the non-legislative or the legislative.
it might be easier to look at the non-legislative.
>> we have the three options before you today, Commissioner, to discuss.
on item number h, this was looked at on Friday after we had our work session on Thursday.
and you'll see that one of the first things that has changed is that the deadline for outside agencies is now March 27th.
and that's really an effort to let the department that those outside agencies will be working with give them time to review that request.
because they will need to submit it to us in a priority order along with all their other requests.
given the availability of resources, the fy '10 proposals should at a minimum demonstrate one of the following.
one it leverages the county investment in order to receive a proportionally amount of new outside resources to address a compelling community need.
and two, the proposal seeks to restore a loss of community resources that if less than funded with result in a compelling and unsupportable impact to those most in need.
we're still asking the county departments to advise the related community groups of these requirements and then I will show you down at the bottom there where it says additional language to consider, there are three options before you today.
option number 1, any request not commit schmidted within the approved time frame will not be considered.
option 2, any request not meeting the deadline above will need to be submitted directly to the Commissioners court.
please note that the Commissioners court may be reluctant to consider such proposals.
and option 3, any request not submitted within the approved time frame will not be considered unless there's an extraordinary and compelling reason to do so.
as an example, the ability to leverage county dollars for substantially larger amount of outside funding.
>> this is from here on out, but what about the other ones that we have talked about that we're already part of the pilot projects?
>> the r.f.p.
for this year?
>> no.
it was others like -- for instance, the 400,000 that we had set aside for the mhmr judge, the mobile van.
i thought we had said that we wanted to put that into the target budget.
>> right.
i think the idea there was to go ahead and try to get it into the preliminary budget.
what we have -- what we have asked the court to consider is that we go back and review the performance measures of those pilot projects and make an appropriate recommendation based on the outcomes.
>> but these rules are from here on out.
>> they're from the fy '10 budget.
>> I might add this is for new requests, things such as the mobile cries outreach team, after school programs, those have been ongoing requests.
i wouldn't say -- if mobile crisis outreach team wanted additional funding beyond the 400,000, I think this would apply, but the requests that have been in the last few years would just fall through the same process.
>> great.
>> if the court decides to support this, my question again will be the notification to make sure that everyone involved in this process, the nonprofits and whatever else that's involved in this will be identified in a timely matter, where about everyone understands what the intent of the court is.
so I'm still challenging the department and whoever puts out -- whatever solicits the notification that this is what the court is dealing with, the parameters and guidelines.
so I'm still challenging the department to make sure that the notification is taken and made available to the nonresponsive profits or those that are involved.
because again I do not want to repeat what we have had challenges during the budget session.
i guess there may be circumstances that may happen, but again, it kind of throws the budget process off.
it's not fair I think to the executive manager and the budget office, nor to the court, but sometimes there are unusual circumstances.
so barring all of that I'm concerned with the notification and the timeliness of the notification.
so everyone can adjust to what we're doing here today.
>> I was just going to say, so you know also, the budget guidelines, once they're approved, will also be folded into the budget manual.
the budget manual is then used by departments to formulate their fy '10 budget submission.
it would be our intent that the departments send out that budget manual to those community groups that I guess in the past have at least submitted requests.
and we can work with the departments to do that.
>> okay.
>> sherri fleming, executive manager for health and human services.
we have e-mail and contact information for everyone who is currently -- who currently has a contract with Travis County through health and human services, for example.
so we could certainly e-mail the full document to everyone once it's approved.
once it's approved, we can e-mail it.
we can also ask that a link be put in to the community action network, listserv that they have just hundreds of people.
i think the chance, though, is we don't know who we don't know.
so the best we can do then at that point is to direct people to our website, to our television station, and any other applicable resource because that would be the only other way for us to get it out.
does that help?
>> that helps a lot.
>> so departmental budgets are due when?
>> April 27th, Monday.
and we will be having -- traditionally each year we do have -- we schedule some time to meet with departments in this room, the financial staff, to go over the guidelines as well as the budget manual.
that will be on March 18th and 19th.
i believe on the 18th it's at 3:00 p.m., which is a Wednesday, and the 19th, which is at 10:00 a.m.
on a Thursday.
>> again, judge, Commissioners.
what we are recommending is option 3.
it doesn't completely close the door to continue discussions, but it certainly puts some limitations in term of any requests that are made after the 27th.
there are obviously some circumstances where agencies might be able to leverage significant dollars if the county is able to assist.
and we didn't want to close that door.
>> so in option 3, the intention is for that proposal to be submitted to the Commissioners court.
>> it can either go through the Commissioners court or through the appropriate department.
and then to the Commissioners court, whichever you prefer.
>> do we need to make that clear?
>> we can.
>> I think option 3 ought to be there because there might well be a proposal that has a modest local requirement where we can access substantial state or federal dollars and I think we ought to leave that open.
>> would you prefer that that comes through the Commissioners court then?
>> if it comes to me, I'm going to contact the department head anyway.
there's no way the department head can get around doing the work.
so I think either will be fine.
but I would set out -- you can file it either place.
and the department head should know that -- I guess the agency or person would have to conclude that the proposal in question complies with the criteria set forth in option 3, sort of make that claim.
and if the claim is made to the department head and the department disagrees, I see that department head coming to the Commissioners court anyway, don't you?
>> yes, sir.
>> would that -- would we be adding on then a sentence to option 3 at the end that says such request should be submitted either to Commissionerrers court directly or through the corresponding department?
>> yeah.
and you may want to put with an explanation of how the requirements set forth here in are met, something like that.
>> I try to get away from words like herein.
no disrespect to our lawyers.
>> [ laughter ]
>> could we use whereas?
that was a joke.
>> I have a question about that procedure.
if the request is coming directly to the Commissioners court and bypassing the executive manager, the relevant executive manager, should we not require that at least one Commissioner sponsor it as having an extraordinary and compelling reason?
otherwise I could see, for instance, going out for r.f.p.
on this $350,000 on workforce development and if you are one of the entities that don't get the 3 fist thousand-- $350,000, you're going to go straight to the Commissioners court for a second bite.
>> you're talking about the 2009 money?
>> uh-huh.
or the 400,000-dollar.
any one of our r.f.p.
procedures.
or another outside funding circumstance regarding transportation.
it seems that there should be a sponsoring Commissioner who had -- that they've at least convinced one of us that there is a substantial and compelling need before they can go directly to the Commissioners court.
otherwise I believe we may be undercutting the authority of our executive managers.
or county judge, of course.
way better.
>> [ laughter ]
>> I don't have a problem with that either, but in the past what I've done, folks have contacted my office and of course I send them straight directly to the executive manager of that department.
i think the executive managers are the ones that really have the expertise in what they're asking and also if it falls within their prioritization as far as looking at budget requests to be made.
so I'm going to continue to lean on the executive managers as I have done in the past.
and of course I think what you have just suggested, I think if you add on that particular language, if there are compelling needs and things like that, that someone should sponsor from the court, I think it's a good move and then yet not undercutting the executive managers.
>> we can do both, can't we?
i would like to -- issues the two changes make sense to me.
>> I would like to continue sending all of these issues to the appropriate executive manager.
then if there's still agreement, then somebody can sponsor it for Commissioner court.
>> move approval of option 3 with those two changes.
>> second.
>> I have no problem.
all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
any other issues we need to address today?
>> we do need to get a vote on the entire guidelines, if there aren't any additional questions.
>> move approval.
>> second.
>> discussion?
all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
prars.
>> thank y'all.
>> anything else?
>> no, sir.
>> thank you very much.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, February 17, 2009 2:10 PM