Travis County Commissioners Court
March 31, 2009,
Item 32
>> now we've got two or three other items that we need to get to before the legislative item, if we can.
>> 32 is to consider and take appropriate action on request to request golfsmith as a Texas intraiz project.
a Texas enterprise project.
can somebody hey out the nature of the request for us?
>> good morning, judge, Commissioner.
i'm dusty mccormick with the city of Austin growth and redevelopment office.
probably about a month ago we approached Travis County and the judge's office to facilitate a meeting and to see if we could get this local company to be nominated as one of the enterprise projects.
bryan is their representative and I will go ahead and allow him -- let me introduce --
>> media, we need more volume.
>> okay.
let me introduce him at the table first.
i have with me ms.
janette ramirez who is with golfsmith.
she is the comptroller.
ms.
jenny kissling with ryan and as well as jonathan folkson with ryan.
and mr.
adam gluts is with ryan as well.
>> good morning.
thank you, judge and Commissioners.
my name is jonathan ferguson as dusty said and I'm with ryan, inc.
and we are working with golfsmith to basically achieve a nomination from Travis County to the governor's office as a Texas enterprise project.
so we are here to answer any questions that you have regarding the enterprise zone program.
and the process and/or any questions you have about the specific golfsmith projects.
>> just as background, this is one of those state programs where local entities basically can I guess recommend projects for a Texas enterprise project designation.
no fiscal requirement or money requirement would be on us; however, there are specific things that we would have to do.
so the question -- the we got a list yesterday from marietta yesterday a list of what the state law requires.
so the question is how much of that will you take responsibility for doing?
>> I believe what you're referring to is if the Commissioners court decides to go ahead and schedule a public hearing to consider passing an order which would establish the county's participation in the enterprise zone program and also nominate golfsmith as a project, there are three statutory requirements that would have to take place before that public hearing.
that would be a public hearing notice that would --
>> the public hearing part is easy for us because we do them all the time, but a public hearing would be required.
so then you compete basically for state money.
>> yes, sir.
>> and if the state chooses you, there are a whole lot of things that have to be done, reporting, etcetera.
my question really is will you take responsibility for doing that -- all that reporting?
>> yes.
there is an annual report that the governor's office requires from the nominating jurisdiction.
and we -- it is due to the governor's office October 1st of every year and the information provided in it covers the preceding year.
and we would definitely assist the county in preparing that report.
it really -- it is more of a qualitative survey essentially that surveys the county as to how the enterprise zone program and the companies that it has designated in its jurisdiction have helped to achieve the goals, revitalization goals in the community as well as provides a quantitative analysis of the amount of capital investment and jobs that were created or retained in the community as a result of participating in the enterprise zone program and nominating a company to be designated.
so that's an annual report that has to be filed with the governor's office.
and we do that as well for a lot of other counties and cities that we work with on enterprise project designation, so we would definitely assist the county in preparing that and then submit it to you for your review and approval and then subsequently forwarding on to the governor's office.
>> so I guess marietta if we wanted that commitment in writing on some sort of memorandum of understanding, we could put that together.
>> yeah.
>> now, dustin is with the city of Austin, and why isn't the city of Austin doing this?
>> well, judge, as you know -- and Commissioners court as you know, each municipality as well as county has six designations that are throughed to do biannually.
we have about six -- of that six we have four that are committed, two outstanding, but are pending commitments.
so therefore when ryan approached the city of Austin and asked for that assistance, we were not able to provide that assistance directly to them.
so that's why we approached the counties to try to assist with us in this particular effort.
with counties there is a provision within the law that allows three of the six, the county gets six, three of the six can be used within a municipality.
so this is one that would be within the city limits of the city of Austin, so we asked the county to assist with this particular one so that we could get this obtained.
>> in short, you have used up your six.
>> yes, sir.
exactly.
>> any other questions?
>> I have a couple.
i'm a little caught flat-footed because we got a lot of the really material information late yesterday, so -- how is ryan innovative solutions related to this?
i'm confused about the relationship here.
>> we're the consultant, the participating consultant that is helping golfsmith prepare the application.
>> so you work for golfsmith?
>> we've been engaged by golfsmith to help them prepare the application, yes.
>> okay.
and then I just frankly need more time because I don't understand our full commitment here or the -- or all of our options that are available.
i'm just caught a little flat-footed.
>> we can take another week.
>> yeah.
>> at least a week.
>> at least two?
>> that's great because as I'm looking at it, as I'm looking at the page --
>> how many?
how much time?
>> at least a week, maybe two.
>> at least a week?
okay.
>> I'm still trying to understand our oicialtions as well as the opportunity -- our obligations as well as the opportunity presented to the county under the state enterprise zone program itself.
because as I look at the summary, I'm very intrigued by the golfsmith proposal, and looking at some of the recipients, though, I'm curious as to what the -- what the goals are under the state program because the other recipients are very large, 3m, alcoa, exxon, wal-mart, lowe's, boeing.
and I'm just curious as to how all this fits together.
>> the purpose of the program is to induce investment within Texas and also to generate a commitment from companies to create or retain jobs in the state.
and going along with the commitment to create or retain jobs, there's also -- they have a requirement whereas the company would commit to hiring 25 or 35 percent economically disadvantaged individuals or residents of an enterprise zone for its new or turnover positions.
so that's basically it.
and like you said, it is a state incentive and the benefits of the company that is designated is a refund of state sales and use taxes that have already been paid.
>> and I would much prefer to see golfsmith receive such a tax bait than boeing or -- a tax rebate than boeing or exxon.
>> [ laughter ]
>> good point.
>> I just need more time.
>> Commissioner Davis?
>> thank you, judge.
i guess at one point you said a commitment to hire -- y'all know where I'm coming from when it comes to employment of disadvantaged -- economically depressed persons in this community.
my concern is that since the county has not designated a zone, per se, enterprise zone, and you did say that the intent is to locate or have at least 25 to 35% of the employment opportunities to go to disadvantaged within that zone.
how would that work without the county not having a designated zone area?
would they have to use existing zones or somebody else that's already been defined to actually capture the 25 to 35 percent of the disadvantaged employment that golfsmith would be looking at?
>> right.
the way that --
>> how would it work?
>> the way the program currently works is counties and municipalities don't designate zones themselves.
they don't draw up a zone themselves and say this is our enterprise zone.
the way enterprise zones are determined are by looking at the u.s.
census track blot groups.
and a blot group that has at least 20% or greater poverty is considered an enterprise zone.
>> well, that is still not answering my question.
i'm still trying to see -- you use the census track, so -- because the census is county-wide, but what I'm trying to get to is how do we define who those disadvantaged persons are?
looking at a census track -- I just want to make sure that that is not eluded or not eroded.
that 25 to 35 percent of the economically disadvantaged not having an opportunity to have employment and follow it.
go ahead.
those are the major concerns for me.
>> the way it's tracked is the addresses of the employees that are hired can be mapped to a specific census track blot group, which is a much smaller geographical error than an overall census track.
so whenever we map an employee's address to a specific blot group, we can go back and look at the census and determine the poverty level of that blot group.
if they come from a block group that is an enterprise zone as defined by the census, then their enterprise -- they're an enterprise zone resident.
another way is to implement post-employment forms, which are forms that golfsmith would distribute to their new hires on a confidential and voluntary basis.
there's seven criteria for what would classify an individual as economically disadvantaged, which would be different than an enterprise zone resident.
that would be, for instance, they were unemployed for 90 days preceding their hiring by golfsmith.
they're receiving some sort of public assistance, etcetera.
>> well, the judge had a good question awhile ago, and I guess the commitment to track this information, by whomever is going to do it and also the reliability of that information that's being tracked, especially if we're talking about hiring folks and what's the benefits to Travis County.
we're going to hire, 25, 30% of disadvantaged, economically disadvantaged persons in Travis County, well, that's a big deal for me.
but again, how do we track that?
>> and one of the things that -- the comptroller's office is actually in charge of tracking that.
>> all right.
>> the comptroller at golfsmith?
>> the state.
the state of Texas audits the job certification process as well as the refund claim process and it is golfsmith's responsibility, though, to track their employees based upon geo coding to see if they live in a zone as well as seeing if it's following one of seven criteria.
so golfsmith tracks all of that and we as a consultant assist them throughout the process to make sure they're meeting all the commitments of the program as defined by the legislature and the government code.
all of these criteria are in the government code.
>> well, I guess you've got that government code.
>> oh, yes.
i know that the 25 percent applies to new hires.
not to people who are already employees.
and what is the plan or the goal of new hires under this development?
>> well, we would be submitting this project as a retention project.
>> okay.
>> so as far as meeting the wife percent hiring criteria, since golfsmith is located in an enterprise zone, that would be on turnover replacements, that that is where they would be meeting their 25% hiring criteria.
>> turnover replacement?
>> right.
instead of new hires, tracking the enterprise resident zone status or if they're economically disadvantaged for creating jobs, we would track that for the people that are hired to replace any turnover that occurred within the existing jobs.
>> existing employees.
>> there's a call center component which has, I imagine, a degree of turnover higher than other positions inside golf smith.
>> there is a call center component.
>> yes, that's correct, we do have a call center in our headquarter facility.
>> this would be the expansion of the facility on 35?
i-35?
>> yes, it's that facility.
35 and braker.
>> I think we ought to have it back on next week and decide whether to do it or not.
the deadline is June 1?
>> yes.
>> but the public hearing notice, etcetera, will take some time.
i don't know that we have to have all the work done next week, but we ought to be able to know if we will do it.
>> yeah, get started.
>> we'll have it back on next week.
we appreciate your patience today.
>> thank you.
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Last Modified:
Tuesday, March 24, 2009 1:42 PM