Travis County Commissioners Court
August 11, 2009,
Item 30
Number 30 is to consider and take appropriate action on interim charges for the 81st Texas legislature, including a, suggested topics for such charges.
and b, recommendations for proposing such charges to the appropriate members of the legislature.
>> morning.
>> judge Biscoe and members of the court, good morning.
i'm dietz eckstein, the intergovernmental coordinator for the county and very happy to be here in front of you this morning to talk about interim studies by the legislature.
as the members of the court know, in between sessions of the legislature, the legislature tasks its committees to study various public policy topics with a view towards making recommendations about what legislature might be done in the next session in order to address problems around the state.
those -- the assignments of those interim studies are made to the committees by the lieutenant governor in the senate and by the speaker of the house in the house, and within the last month or so, I guess, both of them have sent letters to the -- to their respective members asking them for input on topics for interim studies few the next year or so.
the time line is that the lieutenant governor and speaker have both asked for input to be received from their members and from anybody else who is interested by sometime in early September with a view towards actually issuing interim charges at the end of September or more likely sometime in October.
so what we're looking at is a process where Travis County is now trying to in a way I don't think we've tried to do before, have input into the process of actually selecting interim charges for committees.
as part of that, -- actually, the court suggested this during our evaluation work session on June 25th, the court said, well, we ought to maybe see about getting some strim studies done on issues we care about.
so following the court's direction, we sent out an e-mail to all the members of the court, all the executive managers, and all the elected officials in Travis County asking them for their input on possible topics for interim studies.
we did two or three follow-up e-mails to make sure everybody knew their input was welcome, and we received a number of suggestions from around the county.
we reviewed all those proposals, but I want to start by saying that you have in front of you all the proposals we received.
the review that we did was simply to see whether or not a, the topic had been reerched previously, and therefore making it less likely that the -- that a legislative committee would want to study that topic again.
and b, we did a little bit of political wind testing, if you will, with some of our allies both in the Travis County delegation and in the legislature at large to see whether or not what kind of feedback we would get about that.
and based on that igr is recommending to the court today that we suggest several interim study topics and begin the conversation with members of the legislature about that.
we're also recommending a few topics that have been suggested by either again members of the court or by county staff or elected officials that were recommending that the court not go forward with in terms of a formal recommendation.
the real point of this process is not that there's some kind of final product that we're going to deliver to the legislature and the legislature is going to adopt it, but that this will be the beginning of a conversation that we intend to have with members of the lieutenant governor's staff, the speaker's staff, some of the relevant committee chairs whose committees preside over a lot of the issues that matter to the county.
and of course with members of the Travis County legislative delegation.
last night I saw one of senator watson's staffers and talked to her briefly about trying to bring some topics to them or some information to them about topics.
so what you have in front of you are the suggested topics for us to go forward with.
as you can see, several of them deal with land use.
we have several bills that we worked very hard on with the county, with our allies during the session.
some of those did not make it through.
so we're suggesting further study by the legislature on motion of those issues.
we also have issues on water planning and water management for the state.
we particularly are feeling it with a lack of rain that we've had recently, but the truth of the matter is Texas is basically a semi air rid state and water planning and water management is going to be more and more important to the state as time goes on, particularly in urban areas like Travis County and particularly in rapidly growing urban areas like Travis County.
so we have a number of suggestions about topics.
we have heard some intelligence that the legislature did a bunch of interim studies and a bunch of work on water issues in 2005 and 2007, didn't do as much on that this session and that there may be some studies coming.
so this may be a good time to suggest some of these topics.
and finally we have a number of -- not finally, but we have a number of justice and public safety issues to present to the court.
we had -- we were very involved in the effort to do what was called re-entry reform this session.
there is still more to be done in that area and I think our justice and public safety people have recommended to the court that we continue to study some of those issues as well as some other issues having to do with how the criminal justice system and the mental health system in Texas interact with each other.
so those are the three areas.
i don't know if there are any specific questions or if you would like me to go over the specific proposals or not.
>> judge, I guess what I had thought about was that because of the growth of the urban counties, I think water is going to be one of those real serious issues that's going -- that we're going to need to address somehow.
and I know the state water plan -- I've kind of followed that a bit on their web page.
but it seems whatever we can do to make -- take some steps to really support that with a little more emphasis as well as I think growth also gets us to the point of needing to address open space.
and as well as congestion.
i mean, those things come up.
any time that there is growth.
and especially if we're not dealing with -- managing growth better than it's been done in the past.
and that can really get us into some real situations that are just not very good for -- either for the people who are already there or for people moving to the area.
so I'd like to see those issues fit into our program areas as we look into the future.
>> has a call been issued for recommendations?
recommendations for interim studies?
>> by the lieutenant governor and by the speaker.
they have asked the members of the house and the senate -- if that's your question, judge, they have asked the members of the house and senate to give them some feedback.
>> what's the deadline?
>> well, they're asking for feedback in early September.
i think lieutenant governor dewhurst has set a date and I think it might be September 15th.
the speaker's letter I don't think was that specific, but said that towards the end of August he would be cycling back around to the members to ask them.
>> my suggestion was about to be that we take another week or so, mull over this.
try to figure out -- I guess we need to land on whatever recommendations we have within the next week or two.
>> I think that would be very helpful, judge, because I had originally thought that what we could do is we could write out here's what we want you to study, theers the exact wording we want.
i have been counselorred by members of the legislature and by people at the cuc that the process ought to be more dialogue cel.
it ought to be what are you doing about water issues and how about you study that while looking at those other issues as well?
so I think now is the time to do that, not necessarily today, but soon.
for the court's information, not that it really should matter one way or the other, I will not be here this week if we want to have this back up, but will be here on the 25th.
>> do you think it would be visible in terms of pursuing a dialogue approach to rough out much in the way you already have, rough out basically bullet points under broad categories to spark that kind of dialogue with the delegation?
>> I think at this point this is the -- this is probably as much specificity as we need to get into.
my intent was that if we go and visit with the legislatures, committee share, someone on the speaker's staff, they say well, we're not hiking about doing this, but we might be thinking about doing that.
i would plan to come back to the court and at least update the court on what we're hearing so that we can have the best interface between what we're asking for and what they're thinking of doing.
>> but these broad issues are -- so I suppose in terms of what would be helpful to you from us should we just look at these broad categories and see if we think there are broad categories missing or that there are bullets under these broad cat dpoars that are missing?
>> I think if there are other topics that the court would like to add, the sooner we know about that, the better.
and I think the sooner we have authority to go forward and begin these conversations, the better.
>> do we try to reach out to others who work in the various areas here?
like justice area, re-entry round table?
>> I can't speak for -- I know that roger jeffreys and his staff work very closely with the people in the re-entry round table.
and I assume that the suggestions, for instance, about topics for interim studies that he has proposed are things that are consistent with their conversations and their internal workings.
but I don't know that for sure.
>> okay.
why don't we have this back in two weeks.
try to make some decisions that day.
i do think we ought to touch base with others who may be working in these areas who can -- they may have additional insight.
the other thing is that in addition to the legislative delegation, I assume that it probably -- you've already chatted with cuc?
>> yes.
>> Texas association of counties?
>> let me say this, judge.
i've chatted with tac and with the cuc about the process.
i've not run this list past them and asked for their feedback on it.
>> yeah.
i think -- not necessarily this list, but if they have items that they believe are appropriate for interim studies, I think we ought to know what they are.
i can chat with capcog, see if the tarc, the association of cogs statewide, has intermittent intrim studies and recommendations.
>> I think -- isn't there a cuc policy committee on August 26th?
>> yes, there is, and that is actually during the tac post legislative conference, which is going to be held here in san antonio.
i mean, I'm sorry, here in Austin.
>> should we set this actually for three weeks out so we would have the benefit of those two con fabs?
>> I think that would be -- that would be -- we would certainly have the benefit of whatever happens in those confabs, but I can visit with -- yeah, I think that would be good, Commissioner.
>> we're in danger of running out of time -- I hate to do a whole lot of work and submit it and be told that you missed the deadline.
>> I think I'm less worried about the notion that there's going to be some absolute deadline than I am about the fact that the sooner we begin these conversations the more likely we are to be able to insinuate ourselves into the thought processes of the committee chairs and of key staffers who will be actually formulating a lot of these topics.
>> so when groups do the legislative updates, do they also talk about interim studies in the next session?
liken vision central Texas is having a luncheon soon when they have legislators, members of our delegation will be speaking.
speaking speaking on various issues that the legislature addressed.
>> I'm not advised as to whether they're going to include that on their agenda.
I think that's always a good topic for conversation with the legislators.
>> are you invited?
>> I'm actually wrangling my way into it now, yes.
i'm working some back channels to see if I can go to that luncheon.
>> don't have you some in there, judge?
>> they tell me they know you over there.
>> [ laughter ]
>> we're a member of the group, so we ought to be able to get you in there.
let's plan to have it back on in two weeks to give yourselves a little bit more time.
if we want -- if we need to take another week after that, we'll just do it.
>> that sounds good.
>> with that I move that we recess until 1:30.
all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
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Last Modified:
Friday, August 7, 2009 3:07 PM
