Travis County Commissioners Court
September 8, 2009,
Item 29
29.
receive and discuss as necessary the fourth revenue estimate for the fiscal year 2010 budget process.
>> good morning.
>> good morning judge an Commissioners, I'm blaine
>> [indiscernible] from the auditor's office.
good morning.
right toward the end of August, we distributed the fourth revenue estimate to you and it is the revenue estimate that you will use for markup.
it is not much changed from the third estimate, which was in your preliminary budget.
a couple of things that I would note.
when we got the -- the final-final evaluation, the -- the av went up a little bit, your tax rate went down to 42.54 cents to 42.15 cents.
the new property went down just a little bit, your current tax revenue went down just a little bit in the fourth revenue estimate.
there were some other new revenues that went up a little bit.
the change is down only about 475,000.
the nice news is our calculation of fund balance went up a little less than 2.4 million.
overall in the fourth revenue estimate of the general fund you have about 1.9 million more than you had in the third estimate.
and that -- that change in the beginning fund balance is pretty well split evenly between p.b.o.'s forecast of expenditures and our forecast of revenues.
we went up some on our revenues, they went down some on their expenditures.
so you have right now you are -- the -- the -- the fourth revenue estimate what you have is about $451.75 million in the general fund.
that's almost exactly your current budget.
it's about 50,000 more.
so you are -- you are playing with pretty much the same money going into markup.
i would note there were a couple of new funds.
in the fourth revenue estimate.
both of these were -- were statutorily required.
there's a new district clerk records technology fund, you approved that.
on August 18th.
and there is a county and district court technology fund, that was created by house bill 3637.
that's the criminal portion that's required.
if you will recall, a couple of weeks ago, you approved a fee for the civil portion.
and you will see that as yet another new fund.
in the -- in the fifth revenue estimate.
these three items will create three new funds in your budget.
you will notice that I'm going to have to start using two pages as a cover page, the revenue estimate, because we have so many funds now.
those were the significant changes.
this is a revenue estimate that you will have for markup.
we will finish the fifth one, I believe, September 21st.
so about two weeks we will have the fifth revenue estimate, which is normally the one that you use for budget approval.
we can do as many as necessary.
but it's usually the fifth one that is the basis for your proposed budget.
i will be glad to answer any questions.
that you have on the fourth estimate.
>> the point of clarification.
the two pages of funds that have been created, those are essentially in most respects fees for service.
is that correct.
>> pretty much, yes.
for one thing we have lots of technology funds now.
there's a bunch of -- yeah, these are normally charges for services.
the law says if you will keep the money separate, use it just for -- just for the certain things so we have created the fund --
>> the historical reference in your professional experience, when does this -- I'm detecting there's been sort of a fee explosion, when did the fee explosion, the establishment of the fees sort of explode?
>> we -- I've gotten to where normally in our internal budget process, when I'm looking at our work measures to -- to submit to -- to an order, when there's a legislator's meeting, I normally allow for two new funds.
as I point out to people --
>> [multiple voices]
>> funds.
>> there's 38 -- or 39 of these funds.
i can't tell many of them apart by title.
i have to go by fund number.
but that's just -- that comes out of the legislature, we have to do it.
>> all right.
>> the -- the revenue in the other revenues line item, drop by 10 million-dollars.
that's interest earning and what else?
>> well, that's pretty much everything except your current property taxes.
interest is probably the biggest.
we have lowered the budget on some things like e.m.s.
fees, recording fees are doing better, the county clerk, the budget is down for those.
it's -- it's more of a budget to budget thing than an actual to budget thing.
this year a lot of those fees are just down.
all of your fines.
that hit the general fund in this case, lots and lots of fees.
your development fees are down.
next year's budget just reflects that.
we are being conservative.
we are not assuming any giant turn around, although we would love to see it.
>> okay.
>> any other questions, comments?
thank you very much.
>> thank you, sir.
>> thank you.
do we have -- do we formally receive the -- the -- the revenue estimate of simply -- simply hear the presentation, discuss it, move on?
do we formally receive the revenue estimates?
or just -- no, sir.
it's not like -- not a statutory requirement.
>> no?
>> years ago, we didn't use to bring it to court.
we started doing that so that we could talk about that.
>> thank you.
>> if the news doesn't get better, blaine, we may go back to our old policy.
>> [laughter]
>> thank you.
are we ready for the tax assessor's office?
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, September 8, 2009 2:14 PM
