Travis County Commissioners Court
May 26, 2009,
Item 26
26 now, number 26 is to consider and take appropriate action on a, status report on the 81st Texas legislature, b, status report on Travis County legislative priorities, and c, status report on Travis County legislative activities, including a lot of house bills, a lot of senate bills and house joint resolutions.
and d, -- no, and d, and dad, status report on legislation of interest to Travis County including another list of house bills and senate bills.
e, senate bill 312 relating to the regulation and certification of medical examiners and the conduct of autopsy and inquest investigations by justices of the peace and medical examiners; providing penalties.
and 36-f, house bill 1506 relating to the imposition of conditions on certain defends charged with an offense involving family violence.
morning.
>> judge Biscoe and Commissioners, good morning.
just our way of overall status report on the legislative session, as I'm sure the members of the court know, the legislative process has been dominated for the last three days by the slowdown -- otherwise known as the chub a thon in the house of representatives.
they began a local and consent calendar on Friday that is typically a relatively routine occurrence, and that lasted until late Sunday night.
and in fact, into yesterday.
so the -- they have begun once more talking about that this morning, and I was going to give the court an updated report, but they've not actually began working with the local and consent calendar.
if in fact on the third reading of all the local and consent calendar bills that they've spent all weekend doing on second reading they move through it very quickly, then there's a chance that the other legislative priorities will be reached, including, of course, very controversial voter id bill.
what is -- what seems to be at this point, from everything I can gather, is more likely is that they will slow play the third reading of all the bills and the house will spend all of today just doing that.
under the calendar, of which I think y'all have copies, under the calendar the -- today is the last day on which the house of representatives can consider senate bills on second reading.
so many of the bills that are on local consent calendar have already had their second reading, but many of the substantive bills such as the sunset bell for the Texas department of insurance and some other --
>> can I interrupt you just one minute.
you're here on 23, right?
the auditor wants to be here -- it will be real close to 12 noon, I think, before we finish these two items.
can we just say we'll be back at 1:30 to discuss the auditor's item as to revenue.
we may have questions that we want to discuss anyway.
why don't we just do that, okay?
>> I may not be here in the afternoon.
>> okay.
but that will give the auditor a chance to be here and save blaine some time waiting here also.
>> okay.
>> sorry to interrupt you there, mr.
eckstein.
>> the point of all this is what we have -- a week ago when I reported to the court, what we are hoping that we would be able to do was to pass some of our bills -- for instance, senate bill 2474, which is the expansion of the boundaries of the barton springs/edward's aquifer conservation district, that was on the -- we anticipate that would be on the senate calendar.
that actually is on the senate calendar, has been since Friday, but they've not reached it yet.
so there are some bills like that that are part of the legislative agenda that we just have not been able to get to.
we have also spent most of the weekend scrambling to find other vehicles for some of our bills such as our impact fee bills and many others.
and in some cases been successful and in some cases have not.
we have two bills on the local and consent calendars in the house that I want to just talk about them very briefly.
senate bill 1291 is the storm water management bill that ran into some opposition on second reading.
we think that opposition has been resolved, but frankly we're not out of the woods on that and we're hoping number one they may not reach it at all today.
i think it's on page 11 of a 37 page agenda.
so they may not reach it at all today.
or there still may be some objection to it.
the other bill that is on the local and consent calendar, which we worked to get set on the calendar for tomorrow, there are two bills, senate bill 1266 and senate bills 497.
1266 is the billboards bill for highway 71 from the Austin city limits out to llano.
senate bill 497 is the longevity fix that the court approved back in December.
so what we're hoping is that all those bills make it off the house calendar today.
there are a number of bills in the senate -- committee substitute to house bill 15 15 four.
you remember that judge steeg had a process for deferred disposition.
we have added that on to another bill and that bill is set on the senate's local and uncontested calendar for tomorrow morning.
we're hopeful that it would pass on that calendar and that the house would then concur in the senate amendments.
i do want to report that house bill 3468, which sets up a presiding criminal court judge for Travis County, passed this morning on a senate, local and consent -- a local and uncontested calendar, which means that it is now the law of the land.
and -- or at least is on its way to the governor.
absent a veto by the governor, we're hopeful that that bill would be signed.
there is a senate bill 654 is the bill that we put our early retiree health care benefits options language on to that has run into some trouble.
we may be able to keep that on the bill, but we may have to take it off the bill in an arrangement with senator zaffirini.
but we've run into in opposition for that bill.
those are really the bills that I have to report on at this time to the court.
in terms of our legislative priorities.
we have been -- as you know, we've been watching a number of bills having to do with appraisal caps, revenue caps, appraisal reform and so forth during this session.
and some of the status of some of those bills are indicated on the back of the sheet that you have.
the only comment I would make about that is as you can see, some of these bills have passed.
what we're mostly concerned about with some of the bills was that they would become vekd for added on amendments.
so if they're actually passing without those added amendments, then it reduces the danger that the bill at some point will jump up and bite us.
we're still concerned about senate bill 771 by tommy williams from the woodlands area and by house bill 2291 by representative dan gattis.
both of which are ready for discussion on the floors of their respective bodies and could be vehicles for additional amendments.
>> remind us of what 771 is now.
>> 771 is the bill that says that the -- it is an appraisal reform bill, if I remember right, and 771 says that the appraised value of the homestead for one year is presumed to be the appraised value for that homestead for the next year and that if a court is going to change that -- I'm sorry.
not the appraised value.
if the overall tax rate for one year is presumed to be the tax rate for the next year, so it's really not an appraisal reform bill, it's -- it could be a revenue cap bill.
what it says is the appraised value for this year -- I want to -- I hope I've got this bill right because I may be confuse bd this.
the appraised value -- the tax rate for this year is presumed to be the tax rate for next year, and if the court changes that, then the court must announce that and must inform the public that it is either lowering or increasing the tax rate.
so it's a combination of --
>> we don't do that now?
>> I believe that you do not announce that it's an increase in the tax rate.
as I understand it.
>> I thought the truth in taxation newspaper ad required us to do just that.
>> let me -- if I can, judge, let me get back to you on that.
i may be getting some of these confused.
house bill 2291 by gattis is a bill -- it's also along the lines of truth in taxation and would require Commissioners court when it makes the motion to change the tax rate to say in the motion that they are increasing the tax rate.
as it is drafted, it is not really a bad bill, but again we're concerned that it could become a vehicle for other legislation.
and that's house bill 2291.
>> where you have indicated dead, you mean finally dead, no way to take this as an amendment to add to something else?
>> what I mean when we say dead is that the bill itself as a vehicle is dead.
whether we can get the -- like in terms of some of our legislative agenda, judge, we're trying to find other vehicles for the concept, so just as an example, if we can -- if we can take the billboards bill, if that were to run into trouble and we could draft it on to another bill, we are still looking for ways to do that, but what is meant on this sheet when it indicates that something is dead is that that vehicle itself is no longer able to move forward.
>> so on bills for which we were hoping a quick death would come, other sponsors are trying to do the same thing.
we're trying to do with ours, they're trying to find ways to amend --
>> right.
on some of these bills for instance that we're concerned about, the fact that they're dead doesn't mean that the concepts are not being grafted on to other bills.
now, if you will note on the back of the page, there were bills that we were mainly concerned about becoming vehicles for other bad stuff, and if those are dead, then as a vehicle they're no longer a danger to us.
>> so bills such as the one by representative (indiscernible), especially the buffer zone bill --
>> I'm sorry, Commissioner.
>> the buffer zone bill, house bill 4175.
>> 4175.
>> and it was other bills that were out that maybe had some similarities.
i don't really know.
but has that been able to be amended?
it's just stag nate?
>> we are working on a potential vehicle tho fo that bill and have not gotten a commitment from the house sponsor about it.
we're also working on a potential vehicle for the early -- for the impact fee bill.
so --
>> there was nothing else in existence at all concerning the bill that was sponsored by representative dukes, the house bill 1195 dealing with --
>> I do not believe she has found a vehicle for that bill.
i can go back and look and see if there are vehicles, Commissioner, but I do not believe she has been able to find a vehicle for that bill.
>> okay.
>> and of course, having a vehicle assumes that the vehicle will move, and right now at least the house is pretty much in lock down right now.
so it's not clear to me whether or not an effort to find other vehicles is going to be fruitless at this point.
what the senate has been doing for the last two or three days is as they are passing out bills, they are are -- if a member of the senate had earlier passed out a bill that was remotely germane to the bill now, they are adding that on to the amendment.
so for example, the txdot sunset bill passed out of the senate last night and I believe that there were something like 34 other bills that had already passed the senate graft odd to the txdot sunset bill on the theory that the txdot sunset bill may survive all this confusion at the end of the session, but that many of those other bills would not.
i think that's my general report for now.
i would be happy to visit with the court about the two specific bills we wanted to talk with the court about, unless there are any questions.
>> I don't have any questions.
pretrial services, do you have a particular bill you're here?
>> yes, they do.
>> what did you have in mind?
>> let me bring that up now.
let me give a quick update.
one of the bills that we continued on the agenda for this week is senate bill 312, which is the medical examiner's reform bill.
we wanted to be able to keep the court informed of if there was any sort of a break in the bill in terms of resolution of some of the conflicts being resolved bring all the different stakeholder.
we have no additional report to give the court this week.
so that's my brief report on senate bill 312 that.
does take us to house bill 1506.
>> on 1506, the changes that were made pleased us, so we came around to support that bill, right?
>> not yet.
we wanted to bring this to the court because there was an amendment on the floor of the senate last week that would require in cases of family violence where somebody was being asked to wear a gps monitor, require that they also post a surety bond, and that was -- that concerned us.
>> I was talking about the medical examiner's bill.
>> I'm sorry.
>> you had just said we came around and supported that one.
because of changes made.
>> well, the biggest concern that I presented to the court had been resolved.
there are still some fine details being worked out on some of the other issues in the bill.
and those apparently have not been worked out yet.
and that bill -- that could be in trouble now just because of the backup.
again, today is the last day.
that bill has passed out of the senate, it's over in the house.
today is the last day for that bill to be considered on second reading.
tomorrow is the last day for it to be considered on third reading in the house.
so that bill could be in trouble.
>> okay.
>> on house bill 1506 there was an amendment placed on the bill last week that would require the use of a surety bond on anybody who had a gps device put on them in a case involving family violence.
because our courts now have a range of options, including a surety bond, a personal bond or a cash bond, we had a problem with this amendment.
that amendment got stripped off; however, another amendment got put on and I just want to let ms.
guerrero and Ron morgan visit with b.
that other amendment and their current recommendation about this bill.
>> good morning.
one of the things that we looked at from the pretrial aspect was that it did limit the authority of a judge to release somebody on a family violence case under gps.
it would ultimately put everybody on a gps family violence with a surety company.
so right now the judges have discretion to order it to be a gps with personal bond or a gps with a cash bond.
we didn't want those limitations to take place.
they went and changed the wording of the bill, but they now attached a new amendment in terms of asking that the offender or the defendant pay $75 a month.
and that causes problems for the county because right now gps is totally an offender funded program.
the county doesn't subsidize any of the funding, so in terms of it costs about $315 a month for an offender to pay for his own electronic monitoring services.
and the new amendment would limit that to only 75 and then who paiks up the rest -- and then who picks up the rest.
does the county -- I went ahead and I'll have Ron morgan explain.
we went ahead and touched base with the judge because it really involves a lot of the population that he serves.
and to give that message that he conveyed to Ron gorman.
>> -- Ron morgan.
>> I met with the judge this morning and he explained to me his take on this bill even after the amendment stripping away the surety provision, it limits his judicial discretion because if the county sun able to fund the balance, the difference between the three 15 that she just mentioned and the 75-dollar cap placed on the amount that a defendant can pay, then he as a judge is ordered that as a condition of bail because you have no funding stream to afford it beyond the $75 of the defendant's ability to pay.
so he's asked me to communicate his concern about the bill because it does limit what he's able to do.
beyond that, what we are asking the court to do at this point is it to take specific action in regards to this bill, authorizing dietz -- assuming that you agree with this.
authorizing dietz to communicate with the legislature the court's opposition, and then authorizing us to draft a memo to representative herrera, who is the original author of the house bill, as well as to the Travis County delegation that essentially the bill is redundant of existing law enforcement the code of criminal procedure allows the judge to set the procedures necessary to ensure the safety of the community, which could be read to include gps.
what this does is creates a redundancy in the statute by narrowly targeting a specific set of offense.
the 75-dollar cap provision, which was the most recent amendment yesterday, is not good public policy in that it essentially creates an unfunded mandate to the county because if the county wishes to allow individuals out of jail on gps, somebody is going to have to pick up that gap or fill that gap, if you will.
and then finally, we would ask you all to ask rement herrera to not concur with the senate's amendment, to ask for a conference committee that would strip away the amendments that have been place odd there and also to ask representative herrera to attempt to protect the bill against any additional amendments that could potentially restrict an individual to being released on a surety bond when they have gps, that first set of amendments that dietz had mention understand his -- that he had mentioned in his opening comments.
>> this is a representative or a senator?
>> the bill has passed out of the senate and gone to the house.
representative herrera, who is from corpus christi, is the house sponsor.
senator hin know jose is the senate sponsor.
what we would like to do is the bill goes back to the house now and the representative herrera is entitled to make a motion as to whether he concurs in the senate amendments.
we think the senate amendments are bad for the bill and therefore we recommend doing a letter to him asking him not to concur in the senate amendments and to appoint a conference committee to strip out particularly the 75-dollar provision and make sure that we don't -- in the conference committee that we don't load this surety bond requirement back in.
>> is the cuc in opposition to the amendments?
>> yes.
>> move that we follow that recommendation and basically generate a document that does just that.
and communicate that to the sponsors as well as Travis County legislative delegation.
>> we recommend that it be also cc'd to the Travis County legislative delegation.
>> the letter will set out the reasons why this is not a good idea.
>> it would be our intent to draft a letter for the court to review before it adjourns this afternoon.
>> before we adjourn?
>> yes, sir.
>> you better be quick.
>> quick better.
>> may I ask you, I haven't seen the recent amendments, so I'm trying to wrap my brain around the intention behind it.
some have argued that this advance in technology is available -- is just as available, only for people of certain means.
because it is offender funded.
is the 75-dollar amendments, is that the -- is the intent behind the staff-dollar amendment to try and address that?
>> I watched the portion.
it was senator west who added this amendment on the end and his intent was to shield defendant from having to pay a significant amount of money, so in that respect the answer would be yes.
>> I would like to see us -- I would concur with the cuc's opposition to this bill at this stage, but I would like to see us work towards some way to address what is a fact that we are seeing advances that are in public safety that are frankly only available to certain defendants.
>> you're absolutely right.
>> which is not appropriate and not something that we support as a county.
>> sure.
>> right.
>> but I don't know that we support the county paying for these different methods of pretrial release either.
we need to spend in the interim and try to find common ground.
why would we suggest there be an interim study or something?
>> I think perhaps an interim study at the legislature, but also a study internal to our own process fees to find out the tipping point between a day in jail and a day on an electronic monitor.
because I think that's really the equation that we're looking at because some folks, not being able to afford the electronic monitor, their choice is jail, surety bond or that's it, jail or surety bond.
>> and you know, pretrial services, we do the indigent screening for individuals that are incarcerated and also out of custody.
so there could be an opportunity for us to take a look at that and see how we can tie it to an indigent defendant and maybe the county then subsidize some limited services for those individuals.
>> maybe if we look took that upon ourselves internally to look at, that could be some valuable information provided to the legislature in the interim to come up with -- come up with a well crafted bill to address that disparity rather than an amendment at the 11th hour that may or may not be really a bail bondsman amendment.
>> so in your example, if the offenders' cost is capped at $75 and electronic monitoring costs 315 for the county to use that, we would have to pick up the difference.
>> roughly 240 a month.
>> correct.
>> see, that's the problem I have with it.
we should be able to work around that given time.
but it would take time and study.
now, did we think that the other counties use the same options that we use.
like corpus christi?
>> I really don't know about -- like the surrounding counties because it really has hit us hard at Travis County on the gps.
and we're coing the best that -- we're doing the best that we can to monitor and still have it offender funded.
and -- but I would like to entertain that idea about the indigent screening and kind of combining where maybe the county can subsidize some individuals, not a total program, but in certain areas take a look at that.
we can check with our surrounding counties to see what they're doing, especially when it comes to this device, the gps.
>> it would be good to know, it really would.
>> it sounds to me like the court is very aware of the concern of unequal access to justice and to freedom of movement among people who are in the system depending upon their ability to pay.
the problem here of course is this -- in its current form this is almost an unfunded mandate to counties.
>> do we think that those who get out on electronic monitoring have jobs for an independent way to cover this cost, like I guess a family member or --
>> they do, but it may be helpful to court to know there is a provision or there still is a provision in this bill to require that a defendant, if he is indigent, do more service, do community service in order to ostensibly accommodate for his inability to pay.
however, if you think with a larger lens, you now have a guy doing work service or community service who isn't going to be working those hours that he's doing work service, which means he isn't going to be making the income that may or may not allow for him to pay for his attorney or -- it really does become a cycle that I really like dietz's focus on this essentially, currently being an unfunded mandate without further study.
in all fairness, what we're calling the 75-dollar amendment was at 2:00 yesterday afternoon sort of thing that we weren't quite ready for.
we were ready to come in here and talk about the issue of the surety restriction, and the 75-dollar amendment kind of came back as a surprise.
>> it sounds like the intention on that amendment is good, but it -- we need to think it all the way through and be a helpmate to the legislature and truly addressing the intent.
>> yes.
>> tomorrow is the last day the senate -- that the house can pass senate bills on third reading.
it is also the last day that the senate can pass any bills.
so after tomorrow everything is going to be conference committee reports.
by time I visit with the court next Tuesday, god willing the legislative session will be over, and we will not be in the special session.
i believe, judge, that you asked me last week what the prospects were for a special session.
i think they were significantly higher than they were a week ago.
>> if I had known that would be the answer, I wouldn't have asked that question.
>> [ laughter ] okay?
>> may I ask -- I'm sorry.
go ahead.
>> we do have a motion outstanding.
any more discussion?
all in favor?
show Commissioners Davis, Eckhardt, -- show a dmans show a unanimous court voting in favor.
>> thank you, judge.
that's all we have.
>> judge, can you advise me as to the court's current disposition as to its schedule for today?
>> well, on the revenue, I think I indicated we would call it up this afternoon.
so we'll do that then.
we'll call your other item.
is that what you're asking about?
>> oh, that's right.
i had forgotten about that.
>> and if you're asking about other business, we only have one other item after yours here.
>> it would be my intent to have a draft of a letter available for the court certainly by 1:30.
>> okay.
>> with respect to house bill 1506.
>> all right.
we were asked to call back up one item, that is item no.
26.
the matter involving considering and taking appropriate action on legislative matters, and we discussed one of the bills this morning.
voted to take a position on it, the one we voted to oppose.
>> yes, sir, we have a draft letter for the members of the court.
we are passing out to you right now.
as the court recalls, this is the legislation dealing with conditions of -- of pretrial release for somebody who has been accused of an offense involving family violence.
and the underlying legislation has to do with the use of g.p.s.
electronic monitoring during -- in that situation, there were a couple of -- there was a bad amendment that was put on and taken off, then another problematic amendment that was put on in the senate and this bill asks the -- the house sponsor of the bill not to concur in those senate amendments and to strip that amendment off the bill.
>> somebody probably ought to just walk us through the language that's important.
highlight the important language so we know exactly -- because it will take too long -- is this medium sized print or ultra small?
>> [laughter] we think this will probably work at the capitol?
are they used to seeing it this size?
>> we may try to make it a little bigger.
this is the letter we are probably going to ask the members of the court to sign, we will go and buy little magnifying glasses for the legislative offices.
i think the key paragraph is the first paragraph of the letter, where we ask representative herrera to oppose house bill 1506 in its current form and then we set forth the major problem that we are dealing with right now which is the $75 per month cap on a defendant's costs for using a g.p.s.
monitoring system during the time that they are -- released.
i guess that I would also note in the fourth paragraph we mentioned the earlier amendment that was put on that had to do with the use of a surety bond in all cases involving this.
i think one of the themes of the letter that was written by ms.
guerrero and Ron morgan is that judges right now have discretion to fashion the best kinds of situations for defendants in these cases and that this bill and particularly these amendments reduces some of that discretion, we think, not necessarily for the betterment of how the courts administer the system.
>> judge, if I can, this letter is pretty much as promised recitation of what we talked about a little earlier today in that it does exactly the two key issues that he's pointed out.
the $75 limit for defendants is an unfunded mandate and that we are asking the sponsor if he does in fact refer it to conference to please protect it against any add-ons that would restrict the means in which a defendant can be released from custody.
it does sort of strictly follow those two parameters that we discussed early this morning.
>> we also are letting know representative guerrero that currently under current procedures, the code of criminal procedures, the judges have that flexibility to let somebody out with the condition of g.p.s., whether through personal bond or surety bond or cash bond and I think that the bill was written in a way where they are concerned about victim safety and that's already part of the -- of the system that is in place.
so we kind of also put that into the letter.
>> what was that vote this morning, ms.
porter?
>> 5-0.
>> okay.
>>
>> [indiscernible] opposed.
>> okay.
>> I guess that I would put in the first paragraph, that next to the last line, equally significant I would have put financial there, but we do explain it later on.
you think the later explanation is sufficient if.
sufficient?
>> if lieu at the second paragraph it talks about how this represents an unfunded mandate to the county.
>> I saw that.
i guess my question is do we think they'll read the whole letter?
>> we can move it up.
>> we can certainly amendment it if that's the court's pleasure.
>> that's the only word that I would put there, that's really what we're arguing, right?
we make the unfunded mandate later on.
that's fine.
but as to the county they are shifting financial liability over and above $75 to us.
>> correct.
>> we're saying it's an unfunded mandate and the explanatory part.
it's been a long time since I worked at the legislature, but during those three sessions, I cannot recall that they -- that they developed a good reputation for reading the whole document.
>> we can certainly make that change.
>> maybe what we could do, judge, I'm conscious of the court's time here.
maybe what we could do is --
>> this is a working court, we'll be here today.
>> okay.
>> at least for the next hour.
>> good, okay.
>> if you make that one change, I would enlarge the font a little bit.
can we try to get it on two pages?
>> I think we can actually enlarge the font a little bit at least, maybe one point, possibly even two and still get it on two pages.
>> uh-huh.
>> the cc down, there just do two columns.
>> we can do that.
>> I do this all the time.
i'm an expert at how to get larger font on the same number of pages.
>> we will make those changes.
>> yeah, we would be happy to make those changes if the court is comfortable with the overall sense of the letter and it's -- its thrust and tone, we would be happy to make a few modifications to it and then bring those around to the members' offices or back to the court if the court will still be in session.
>> the court will not be in session, we will beat you out of the courtroom if we are lucky.
>> [laughter] successful.
>> move approval.
>> of the letter.
>> second.
>> discussion?
with those two changes?
all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
of the four present.
>> thank you.
>> thank you.
>> thank you, Commissioners.
>> no further business.
>> move adjourn.
>> all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
2:16 p.m.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, May 26, 2009 3:54 PM