Travis County Commissioners Court
August 4, 2009,
Item 32
A couple of items we said we would try to call up early.
the matter involving the veterans, number -- what number is that one?
>> 32.
>> 32.
32 is to consider and take appropriate action regarding house bill 3613, which provides a new disabled veterans residence exemption.
a, request to link to a disabled veteran fact sheet on the Travis County website.
b, request to distribute fliers with Travis County employee payroll checks announcing the new law.
and c, any other actions designed to educate Travis County veterans about this new exemption.
morning.
>> good morning.
>> good morning.
nelda wells spears, Travis County tax office.
judge and Commissioners, we are here as instructed to ask you to approve --
>> as instructed or as requested?
>> you told me I had to come back.
>> [ laughter ] so here I am.
i was hoping you were going to put it on the consent a minute ago.
but since you didn't, we're here again asking that you approve these informational and educational items for disabled veterans because they can't -- I think it's very important that we provide this service to the disabled veterans community.
we want to get more information out to the public so that the veterans will be aware that the new exemption exists and can take advantage of it.
they can't use it if they don't know about it.
and I'm afraid that there just hasn't been enough information.
so we've developed a flyer which we would ask be included in all the county employee payroll checks and we ask that you provide a link with the fact sheet regarding this bill on the county's website.
it's on the tax office website and it's on the appraisal district website.
we want to ask you to put it on the county's website.
this is an exemption that provides for a veteran who is 100% disabled or unemployable as determined by the u.s.
government to be exempt from property taxization.
>> so we think that these two actions, a and b, are basically the least that the county can do.
>> the very least.
>> anything more exotic that we think may educate our veterans?
>> I don't know if you would consider them more exotic, but we would like to make use of local broadcast media, perhaps in a public service format to get this information out to the public.
and a message on the Travis County tv that either is a crawl message that goes across the screen or is a separate message by itself.
i think a separate message by itself would be best.
it woulding more attention getting and people would pay more attention for it.
i think you could help us get these -- this information out to the public.
>> okay.
>> why don't we see if the city of Austin did will do on on their channel also.
>> thank you.
>> I move approval and thank you for applying with the court's office that we take this action.
all in favor that passes by unanimous vote.
thank you very much.
thank you for your patience.
>> appreciate it.
>> I didn't ask if mr.
brown, the chief appraiser or mr.
pope from veterans services wanted to add anything.
>> when I said anything further, that included them.
would y'all like to add something?
i wouldn't have singled you out like that, but the tax assessor did.
>> from everything ms.
spears would like to do, I would just mention also that the appraisal district has done a mailout already to all of our dv 4 veterans, which was about 2600 mailers and then we've also just recently decided to mail out to another 2200 individuals who are on the db 1, 2 and 3 list, which are people that have a disability of less than 70%.
so we have done that at the appraisal district and we also have a little bit of information on the website as well.
and I believe some links as well.
>> we have the application as well as the frequently asked questions posted on our website and our customer service position are primed and ready to take any and all phone calls from taxpayers with questions regarding this.
>> okay.
>> okay.
i'm with the veterans service office.
i just wanted to recognize the individuals that we have really spent some time to make the fact sheet and the information that's going out is correct and pertinent to the issue.
they have really picked my brain about different issues about 100% service connection and the va and this and that.
and we've worked together and I think we're going to have a good product at the end, getting the correct information out to the veterans the first time.
>> would you give the 1-800-number and also the local number for those folks who may have missed last week's opportunity to capture that information, yet they will be able to share maybe looking at it this week?
>> yes, I will.
to the va, the 1-800-number is 1-800-827-1000.
now, individuals may be able to get the information, the award letters from the outpatient clinic and that's the va Austin outpatient clinic.
their number is 389-1010.
but it would behoove the individual to go to the clinic and make that request in person because identification is required to obtain that letter.
and also at my office, my phone number is 854-9340.
>> thank you.
>> thank you, sir.
>> thank you very much.
appreciate it.
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:
Friday, August 7, 2009 3:34 PM
