Travis County Commissioners Court
June 23, 2009,
Item 32
Now, mr.
epstein says that the legislative report will be short and sweet.
i told him it might be short but I guaranteed him it wouldn't be sweet.
32.
consider and take appropriate action on final status of Travis County legislative priorities for the 81st Texas legislature, regular session.
thank you.
>> judge Biscoe, members of the courts, I'm
>> [indiscernible] epstein, intergovernmental coordinator from the intergovernmental relations office
>> [indiscernible] is also here.
our legislative consultant greg knapp.
what we wanted to do is presents to you our final report on legislative parties and bills that the court had taken a position on over the session.
particularly with respect to the bills that actually made it to the governor's desk.
so the report that you have in front of you is really the same as what you -- last week when we provided you backup, we provided you the list of those bills without the checks and x's.
now since we have got the governor's report, we now know what there is and of the bills that were on the governor's desk, affecting issues that Travis County had taken a position on, as you can see, all of them were signed by the governor except one.
the one that he vetoed was house bill 3983, which was the bill regarding the homestead preservation district.
he vetoed that because there was another provision put in there in the senate by senator watson having to do with what's called a circuit breaker plan which is a way of trying to keep housing affordable housing by -- qualifying homeowner's property taxes went up by a certain percentage a year, it would so to speak trip the circuit breaker, they would only have to pay that 5% or whatever, whatever was above that, the taxing jurisdiction would eat that loss for that year and --
>> and the veto means that it's the -- the changes that were proposed in this session that were vetoed, but the rest of it that was approved, you know, in previous sessions stands.
>> yes.
the law as it was stands, the changes that we negotiated with --
>> for county.
>> no rodriguez.
>> county purposes.
>> had that we thought would benefit the county did not pass.
>> okay.
>> in essence the law as it stands now that created the district back in 2005 is what's relevant at this point.
>> Commissioner, there was -- there was an amendment to that law in 2007.
>> oh, 2007.
>> that was -- that is now the final status of the law.
>> uh-huh.
>> well, whatever that was, whenever that was.
>> yes, sir.
>> but there was no court action as far as this court is concerned in that level of the last law --
>> correct.
>> portion of the bill, is that correct.
>> as I understand it, the changes that were made in 2007 I don't believe the court took a position on those.
>> no, we didn't.
>> right.
>> so is circuit breaker another term that we have to kind of educate ourselves about?
it's new in Texas?
>> I think it is being used in other places.
senator watson called for the comptroller to do a study of it.
it wouldn't have implemented it necessarily, but it called for a study of it.
as I explained I think the idea is you would say take qualifying low income families, homeowners, if their property taxes -- the court would set a level like say 7%.
if the property tax is going to go up more than 7%, it would so to speak trip the circuit breaker, they would pay the additional 7% property taxes, but not above that.
>> okay.
>> and obviously that would have down the road financial implications for the county in terms of making up whatever was lost through that.
but senator watson only called for a study of it by the comptroller's office.
>> still pretty unpopular.
as far as that particular portion of the bill that -- that referred to -- to the purchase of property.
lave land trust and of course the funding of that last trust and in fact the person not owning the home that they would actually be living on and of course the -- the investment or the appreciation of that -- of that particular house or home would be shared by the -- by the trust.
by the land trust, so they would be -- is that on that property.
>> it would not get the full equity out of that as anyone else, any of the homeowners that enjoyed equity or appreciation.
snarringably -- arguably they would, they sold it to the last trust and the land trust gave them money --
>> not really.
>> this would be a good time to mention Commissioner Davis that there will be a community forum to try to educate people about these deals, the land bank, how all of that is supposed to work.
Travis County of course the co-sponsor will that forum, held Thursday night from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m.
at the rosewood zaragosa community center.
i forget the address of that, I think it's 6:30 p.m.
to 8:00 p.m., Travis County, city of Austin and I think representative rodriguez are co-sponsoring that.
i think as you indicated it is something just to educate people about how this will actually work and what the risks and rewards are.
>> right.
especially with the t.i.f.
and a whole lot of other things supposed to be used as money to actually go and purchase the land.
of course without the county involvement of course then there's no t.i.f.
i guess the city either the persons who is pushing it, but I guess those are the development corporations as far as the community development corporation, who who is pushing that, they still would have come up with the means to try to finance to purchase those particular properties and still go forward.
because right now as it appears, looking at the worst case scenario of the county and also the city participation, 50% which is 100% of a t.i.f., then you would be looking at substantial financial commitment toward purchasing that over a number of years, which is really in the worst case scenario you would be talking about $44 million, $22 million for the city, $22 million for the county, in these financial hard times, examining right now, trying to deal with this and then that money coming from the general fund, coming from the general fund to finance this t.i.f., because then we are talking about some -- some tough -- tough economic decisions, choices that must be made by the city and also the county.
>> yes, sir.
>> so that's -- that's a fact.
>> among the bills that did pass and were signed by the governor, just to highlight a couple of them.
you remember at the beginning of the session judge
>> [indiscernible] brought a concept to us for an idea that she had about making the handling of the
>> [indiscernible] disposition cases more streamlined.
that bill actually died but we were able to mainly through the efforts of our legislative consultant, greg knapp, were able to get it amended on to another bill.
that bill did successfully pass and was signed by the governor.
we also passed and had signed by the governor the creation of the presiding criminal court judge position here in Travis County.
that was house bill 3468.
and the final part of our trifecta with respect to judicial issues was the bill to permit the county at its discretion to offer a longevity stipend to a county court, to a judge who served both as a county court judge and as a state district judge but had not gained the necessary 16 years of longevity in either position to qualify for that benefit and so that bill also passed, that was senate bill 497 by senator wentworth, that also was signed by the governor.
and of course our biggest victory probably was storm water management bill, which senator watson, represent rodriguez fought very hard to pass and worked very hard to pass and was signed by the governor.
>> let me ask you a question, back to this meeting that's being held.
i would like to go back because I'm just wondering who gave anybody authority to hold a homestead preservation district with the community.
you are saying Travis County and the city is holding this.
under whose authority?
did we give -- did this Commissioners court grant that?
>> I'm not advised.
i have seen the flier for it.
>> but you made a public statement.
i want to find out who from this court authorized the county, Travis County Commissioners court to host a homestead preservation district meeting that you just advised me of.
>> community forum, yes, sir.
i will have to get back with you about that Commissioner.
>> you still didn't answer my question.
>> his answer is that he doesn't know.
>> but he made a statement, though.
somebody had to tell him that.
>> I had a flier that has been on my desk for a week about it.
i'm -- I think it was --
>> but it had to be a directive coming from this court to do that.
my question is when did the court give that direction?
>> and I'm not advised, Commissioner.
>> okie-doke.
>> $63 million in senate bill 1.
>> yes, sir.
>> for mental health programmatic funding.
>> yes, sir.
one of the priorities that the county --
>> let me ask my question.
>> I'm sorry.
>> do you know my question?
>> no, sir.
>> why don't I wait for that?
>> did the bill say how the $63 million is supposed to be used?
>> well, what it did was expand the funding for those mental health programs.
i don't think it diverted them to anything different other than the funding that currently existed.
but it raised the total amount of funding from $108 million to $171 million.
>> okay.
can we get somebody to phone mhmr to see if we have reason to believe that some of that money will come to Travis County?
>> let me follow-up with sherri flemming and report back to you about how --
>> david evans.
>> what we can anticipate would be happening with that.
>> david evans, Austin Travis County, mhmr.
>> all right.
>> he will able to direct you to the right person.
because we've been working on various mental health initiatives, if there's additional funding headed this way, we ought to know.
>> the question to use that for some of the programs, yes, sir.
>> how to access it.
anything else regarding legislation?
this is a -- this was our priority one items.
>> well, these were all items that the court either had as a legislative priority or had taken a position on and that made it to the governor's desk.
so obviously a much larger universe of bills didn't pass through both houses of the legislature.
but in this final report we just wanted to target those bills that -- that made it to the governor's desk and that were acted upon by the governor.
we will have a -- have a work session on Thursday at which we will do an evaluation of how the court felt that the legislative session went from the court's perspective.
we will have some additional information that I think most of which has already been provided to you about the number of bills that pass, what our priorities were and how those priorities did.
>> okay.
>> judge, let me just add one thing to kind of help you explain.
i think somebody put on there that Travis County is the sponsor.
i don't know that that's, you know, the right way to say that.
but I will tell you this, that I was present as a -- just as one person, but i, you know, appeared at one of the last time that the city was there to explain some of those terms.
i intend to be there again, whether the court lets me or not.
i'm a representative of precinct 4 and I think that I can go there and try to learn what all of these terms mean.
so that then I can, you know, translate those terms to constituents who may be interested in this housing proposal.
but I think somewhere along the line somebody kind of crosses the line a little bit in saying this is county sponsored, when, you know, it isn't, you know, it's just that the interested parties are present and so we'll -- it's for education purposes.
>> thank you all very much.
>>
>> [inaudible - no mic]
>> thank you, judge.
>> again, I want to make sure that he understands that when he says something, publicly like that, you must be able to back it up, especially if it's something that the county is involved in.
in other words, it has to be something that this court has maybe authorized.
i haven't heard any authorization on it.
but, you know, that's why I asked the question when you said it was county hosting and sponsoring it, I don't remember the court taking action like that.
>> thank you, Commissioner.
>> you have to be real careful when you make those kind of comments.
>> I will get back with you about that.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, June 23, 2009 1:31 PM