Travis County Commissioners Court
September 22, 2009,
Item 1
Item no.
1 is a public hearing to receive comments on fiscal year 2010 tax rate and budget.
>> move that the public hearing be opened.
>> second.
>> all in favor?
that carries unanimously.
>> good morning judge, Commissioners.
the -- we want to run down real quickly for you, if we could, just some of the highlights of the proposed budget for fiscal 2010.
the total budget proposed is 655.1 million.
of that 455.7 is the general fund budget.
just a note regarding the general fund budget, 55.8% of the total budget is dedicated -- of the total general fund budget, excuse me, is dedicate the towards courts, public safeties and corrections activities.
we have purpose to -- to -- to try to maintain strong financial management position by balancing one-time expenses to one-time revenues and ongoing expenses to ongoing revenues as well.
we do have -- included in the budget maintained 11% unallocated reserve, which is -- which is higher than the rating agencies require.
but we feel very strongly that that is a -- that is a good percentage of unallocated reserve.
included in this budget, there are no compensation increases.
and approximately 4.2 million in department cuts that were proposed as a part of the budget submissions and accepted through the preparation of the budget process.
the tax rate is a reflection of -- of approximately a 9/10ths of one cent increase, that is from 4122 to 4215.
that is slightly less than 3% above the effective tax rate calculation.
the tax base increased this year.
from 95.1 billion to 98.4 billion.
and 2.92 billion of that is an increase in new value.
by comparison, for the fiscal 2009, the -- the tax base for new value increased 3.9.
so we had about a billion dollar drop in new value from 2009 to 2010.
the average homestead had a slight increase based on the certified roll from 281,409 to 287,732.
at this point I will turn it over to leroy, he will walk you through the numbers and if there are any questions we will be happy to answer those for you.
>> you can see on the slide, just the estimated consolidated tax bill of average Travis County homestead, the important part there, I think, is that your taxes, the Travis County taxes amount to about $922 per year on the average homestead, which represents about 17% of the taxpayers' tax bill on their property tax bill.
you also see that the -- that the school district, aisd, represents about 55.4% of that tax bill with the city of Austin represents 20.3%.
if you go to the next slide, just a little graphic of where the money comes from, when you do the all funds analysis, you can see the taxes represent 60.8%, we have a beginning balance of 19.7 and then you can see the charges for services is about 10.3%.
where does the money go when you analyze it according to all the funds?
you can see that -- that it is -- as rodney pointed out, that when you add the justice system, the corrections and rehabilitation and justice that you are over 50% of your budget are involved in those functional programs.
when you -- when you do the analysis against the general fund, the taxes represent money coming from, 73.1%, so you do have -- you do have a vast majority of your budget is based upon the property tax, with charges for services representing about 10.8%.
likewise, on the general fund, where the money goes, the justice corrections and public safety from the general fund represent over 50% of your budget.
just -- just to recap, about the Travis County's financial shape.
the county finances, although during the last year we did have some reductions in our investment earnings, as everybody did, we have maintained our triple a bond rating.
we have managed our resources very carefully.
and with cooperation of the departments.
have proceeded satisfactorily through some very difficult economic times.
we actually increased our fund balance.
we do -- we have paid particular attention to our adopted -- the adopted budget guidelines that you have adopted.
we tried to -- we match ongoing revenues with ongoing expenses and one time expenses with one-time funds.
we have been focusing on preventing preventive steps to avoid cost increases and recommending to you and you have approved what we feel are adequate allocated reserves to get through the challenging year of 2011 after this coming year.
we've -- of budget does meet the county's existing contractual and programmatic commitments.
as rodney indicated we had no compensations increases, but we did not have any layoffs.
health insurance rates were stable for the third consecutive year, with no increases required for fy '10.
>> most of the credit for that goes to the employees, doesn't it?
>> that's correct.
it's a team effort from all of the -- of the 4500 Travis County employees.
the wellness clinics have played a big hand in that.
the court did approve the 1.6 million increase that was required for the employee retirement contributions.
this budget does not provide any programmatic growth and funded only the most critical maintenance of current efforts request.
the next slide, essentially, summarizes for you the -- the all funds total budget, 66.1.3 was this current year's total funds.
we are at 655.1 total funds for 2010.
let me point out a couple of items.
you will notice that the road and bridge fund dropped from 24.6 this year to 19.8.
that drop was the majority of that drop, the beginning fund balance, dropped about 2.5 million.
and the -- the revenue from registration of automobiles dropped about 1.5 million, which represented about a 12.6% drop in that.
the debt service funds you can see dropped about 3.7 million.
and we did have a drop in the employee insurance as you're aware.
we've been pulling that fund down for the last three years.
so ...
that's the representation of the all funds.
our central reserves we have maintained the 11%.
i believe this is the 14th year that we have maintained it at 11%.
$43.8 million of unallocated.
allocated reserve, the regular allocated, which you directed us in the preliminary budget to essentially any additional revenue to put in the allocated reserve, which we did, and it's at 6.6, which is slightly above our current fy '09 allocated reserve.
our capital acquisition resources account, 454,000 reserve.
redo have special purpose reserves.
juvenile justice tyc at $250,000 reserve, future grant requirements of 500,000, we don't know what fuel and utilities are going to do, so we thought it was prudent and you approved in the preliminary budget a million dollar reserves for utility and fuel.
emergency reserve of 4.9 million, which really is an intent to help smooth out the funding that we're anticipating for fy '11 that could -- could be more challenging than the fy '10 budget and we have a little smart building reserve of $43,000.
this budget includes a net decrease of 6.77 f.t.e.'s, all of those decreases that are listed on this sheet were vacant positions as I reiterated.
there was no one that was laid off during this budget cycle.
the sheriff's office changes.
as we indicated, the departmental reductions totaled over 4 million-dollars.
we took the majority of that was from the sheriff's office.
as you realize, about a third of the entire Travis County general fund budget is the sheriff's budget.
we had -- we had inmate population estimates for fy '09, that due to the -- to the many programs that you have funded and the cooperation of the d.a., county attorney, the sheriff's office, and pretrial, everyone that was involved, they have been able to effectively drop your average daily population of inmates and we believe that 2475 is an amount that on the average, for fy '10, that we can maintain.
that depends on many factors and we will be monitoring that number.
by dropping the average inmates to 2475, which is 175 inmates average less per day than fy '09, we were able to take the substantial savings from the sheriff's budget.
that was in conjunction with sheriff hamilton and his staff that work very hard on that.
capital recommendations.
you have approved the car account of $8.2 million.
the detail you can see on your screen, short-term certificates of obligation of $15.2 million.
other filings, mostly road and bridge of 431,000 and your long-term voter approved bonds of 9.9 million.
you will be revisiting your capital recommendations in the fall.
>> as leroy mentioned, we will take up additional capital discussions in the fall.
these are all the numbers that are currently including the preliminary budget.
a couple of things that I wanted to point.
during the fy '10 budget year, we will continue to monitor the average daily population as we go forward.
and should we see any issues that -- that might come up, we'll be sure and bring that back to the attention of the court.
in addition to that, we are going to be mindful of -- of the -- of the indigent criminal defense fees, we're going to continue to monitor those.
those are on our radar screen, so to speak, in terms of some of the things that we need to take a look at.
in addition to -- to investment income, we're going to continue to seek monitor and look for opportunities to -- to increase our return on investments.
and so those are issues that -- that we will continue to watch.
just a couple of other fy '10 issues that we will watch that are budget related items, the conversion to facts for the j.p.
offices.
that is scheduled to be completed in March of -- at the end of March in 2010.
we will continue to monitor that.
that will have a fiscal impact if those dates slip and we've been in contact with its and -- and are working very closely with them on that.
then the impact of the tyc funding shortfall, any grant reductions that might come about as a result of the juvenile -- juvenile probation funding issues.
so those are just a few items that are on our agenda or on our list of things for fiscal 2010.
i want to talk briefly about as we prepare and go into 2010, we've had discussions about -- about the impact of 2011.
we anticipate that -- that the softening of the commercial market and new construction will be an impact on us going into 2011 and so I just wanted to make that -- the point to the court, that we anticipate that as we go into 2011, we're probably going to look at about a billion dollars additional loss in new construction.
if you recall early on, we talked about going from 3.9 in 2009 to -- to 2.9 in 2010 we anticipate another billion dollar drop in 2011.
that's just something that we're going to be monitoring.
and then looking for a way to fund those pilot programs that we have continued to fund with -- with one-time money as an ongoing resource, we will continue to try to -- to monitor those as well.
and then -- then something that is on our radar screen, obviously, is -- is based upon the outcome of any recommendations for the compensation committee and adopted policies by the Commissioners court, any kind of compensation related activity that -- that might be available to us in 2011 we're going to continue to work on those as well.
i want to take just a minute, if I could, to -- to say a special thanks to all of the departments who -- who really just worked hard with us this year in giving us the 5% reductions, everyone really chipped in and worked with us very well and I want to thank them.
a special thanks to the auditor's office and for all of their work.
susan and I and leroy met continuously throughout this process and I think it was very helpful for us to do that, hopefully that will be something that we'll continue to do.
the sheriff's office, as leroy mentioned, have been very gracious with us and I want to thank them, especially, for all of the work that they have done in trying to get to where we are with this.
and then -- then of course this man to my left, couldn't have made it without him.
so I want to thank leroy and the budget staff as well.
and the Commissioners court for all of your support.
so, with that, we're -- we'll be happy to answer any questions that you might have.
>> for those who want to see the budget, it's really about two inches thick.
i assume that's not available.
is it on the internet?
>>
>>
>> [inaudible - no mic] we do have electronic copies available for the public if they would like it.
but there is a pretty good overview, which is -- much more manageable.
it's available, too, for those that want to see it.
they can contact the budget office or a member of the court.
>> sure.
>> and we can make this available.
this really has pretty much all of the highlights.
>> yes, sir.
>> okay.
now, this is posted for a public hearing.
so if you would like to give comments regarding the proposed tax rate and county budget, this is the time to do so.
looks like we have two takers.
and one more chair.
so don't be shy, please come forward.
mr.
pena.
>> judge, good morning, Commissioners, gus pena, native east Austin night.
i would like to thank you and the Commissioners court for the leadershipship that they provided.
also rodney stated very appropriately, all of the department heads, especially their employees who are not recognized for doing the hard work and research et cetera and you're right, Commissioner Gomez, the employees.
i used to be a bailiff here at criminal district courts and attended the sheriff's academy and left because I ran for elected office.
i did a bad job of it but had to leave anyway.
but that's okay.
one of the things that I want to mention about the budget you read in the paper today more families facing poverty, social service agency funding.
how many times have I come over here, many years, when judge renfro was judge over here and stated we need more help for the poor, needy, have nots.
i want to thank you all very much for fully funding all social service agencies, the need is greater, have nots and gap widens.
i think rodney mentioned correctly about the -- about the inmate population, but I needed to ask a question if it's appropriate.
the -- the number of inmates, is that to date or current or -- the number of inmates currently incarcerated.
is that as of yesterday or -- as of when?
>> no.
the average daily population over this is on the screen is a -- is an average over the -- every the period of time -- over the period of time.
the actual average to date was 2623 I believe was the number I came down.
that fluctuates throughout the year.
that is the average daily population.
thank you, having said that -- having said that, being a former federal corrections officer.
also I was supporting my fellow brothers and sisters corrections officers, if possible for fy 2011, consider we're going into christmas, we're going into thanksgiving season, traditionally, I should say traditionally, statistically this is a period of time where people do not have to provide for the families, I'm not saying that they do it because of -- because of the criminal activities because of the situation, they want to provide for the families outright, but nonetheless you see an increase of people being incarcerated, if he wants to help them family because of the economic downturn.
but anyway I would like to throw this verbiage out for the next budgetary process.
we need more corrections officers, more patrol officers, crime it's an increase, talk about quickly about the youth.
i think -- I think mr.
leroy nellis and I appreciate him and others very much for -- for volunteering to become mentors and tutors, to keep our kids in could as I always -- in school.
as I always said.
i thank you all very much for fully funding for the summer job programs for the youth, we need to keep the youth occupied and active and organized, special, productive activities, keep them involved in working situations instead of being involved in organized crime.
juvenile crime is on the increase.
you see it out there.
statistically another way.
we see in it the community because we need to fully fund these programs and interventions and prevention programs.
we need to lower the dropout rate because that is going to affect, it's affecting the budget now as we speak.
judge and Commissioner Eckhardt, you were involved in the meeting with the Austin independent school district officials and city officials.
i was in the drop outtask force for the school district close to 3 years.
none of our activities or recommendations were funded base of the lack of funding.
that's a bunch of you know what, we had a lot of funding at the school district before dr.
forgione became our superintendent.
we need to look at this.
provide more mentors and tutors as mr.
nellis and his group has done an outstanding job of.
we need to do our part keeping our kids in school, graduate on time and go to higher education.
it's going to take a degree and a four year college to get ahead in life.
you can't do it without -- with the high school diploma.
anyway, I will leave it at that, I want to thank everybody, everybody for doing their part and listening to this old map because I bring a lot of stuff in the community, sometimes, you know, people say you talk a whole lot.
let me tell you something, I only come here because people ask me to represent their ideas and present their ideas and complaints to y'all.
otherwise I wouldn't be here.
i love y'all very much, but I have somewhere else to go.
but anyway thank you all very much for the hard work, rodney, leroy and all of the -- all of the social service agencies members, excuse me the agency heads and their employees for putting their hard work that sometimes not recognizing this and -- and continuing to March next year will be more critical, more critical thank you very much, judge, and economics, Travis County employees, thank you.
>> thank you, mr.
pena.
mr.
castro?
>> thank you, judge.
good morning, judge Biscoe, Commissioners, my name is jimmy castro, I'm here to speak on my own behalf.
also a former member of the millwood neighborhood association.
i'm here to speak in support of the Travis County budget.
i would also like to thank rodney rhoades and leroy nellis and the entire county staff for the work on this year's budget.
i do have slides to show you this morning.
this first slide show, Texas county government is generally an extension of state government.
focusing on the judicial system, health and welfare service delivery, law enforcement and road construction.
county governments in Texas have no ordinance powers other than those granted by the state.
the goals in this year's fiscal budget was minimize the service level, impact assistance to Travis County.
seek efficiencies in our current programs to maximize the resources available.
and, third, preserve our most valued resources, Travis County employees, through the avoidance of layoffs.
this slide shows the court instructions in February 2009 that the preliminary budget should be at or near the effective tax rate.
number one, reduce an adult jail in nuevo laredo nail populations with special attention to inmates with mental illness.
second, substance abuse.
third, workforce development.
adult training and new jobs.
this is a slide that shows the pilot programs that are approved by the Commissioners court.
for example, the children's partnership triad for $215,000.
also the council at risk youth, cary, for $100,000.
as mentioned where does the money come from?
62% from taxes.
where does the money go?
to consider, 25% comes to the justice system, 23%, where does the money go?
23%, corrections and rehabilitation, that's where the money goes.
the chief appraiser for the Travis County appraisal district projects a total property value to increase from 95 billion certified in fiscal year '09 to 97 billion in fiscal year '10.
the -- the -- the fy '10 budget is balancing a tax rate that is likely higher than the fy '09 adopted rate.
33 million was included in the budget.
for example from -- from the general fund acquisition resource, car, $6 million, debt from certification obligation 16 million.
$16 million.
another slide shows the general budget history for the 10 largest departments from fiscal '08 to fiscal '10.
if you notice the highest is the sheriff's office has grown 120%, juvenile probation has grown 38, close to 40%.
this shows that -- that the county and the city we do have a juvenile crime problem.
as gus pena mentioned, we definitely have got to focus on this.
judge Biscoe who sits on the committee with the city and school district.
whenever that comes up, you are exactly right at that last meeting where you said you didn't want to see a report, you wanted to see an action plan and you are characterly right.
we have to be proactive, not reactive.
just as pena mentioned.
the other reason, why we have to work with the school district and look the at dropout rate.
the average property taxes and volume valued at $211,000, 3% goes to the hospital district.
4% goes to -- goes to a.c.c.
18% goes to city of Austin.
19% goes to Travis County.
but 55% of your taxes go to the school district.
finally, the Travis County again has a triple a bond rating confirmed by two national credit rating agencies.
the aaa bond rating reflects a long commitment of Travis County to prudent fiscal management particularly in terms of maintaining a strong financial reserve and matching recurring revenues with recurring expenditures.
it should be noted that Travis County is one of five out of 250 counties in the state of Texas that receive such an honor.
thanks, judge, Commissioners.
>> thank you.
>> thank you, mr.
castro.
mr.
reeferseed.
>> well, thank, judge, I would like to thank jimmy castro for being so well prepared as well.
thank all of the departments for -- for voluntarily
>> [indiscernible] especially thank the leadership shown by the Travis County sheriff's department and don't forget, people, lesser penalties for marijuana offenses help everyone and that -- thanks everyone for keeping up the good work and allowing me to cheer with everyone here this handy citizens rule book.
it's a jury handbook.
and it's -- it's also the -- our sacred constitution and our bill of rights and communist manifesto and a few other relevant items.
i just again wanted to thank, I'm proud of this county and the leadership of cost cutting.
it's obviously a great idea.
thanks so much.
>> thank you.
>> anybody else to give comments during this hearing?
public hearing on the proposed tax rate and county budget.
>> move that the public hearing be closed.
>> second.
>> all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
and this will be covered in action items number 33 and 34 today.
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:
Tuesday, September 22, 2009 1:30 PM
