Travis County Commissioners Court
December 1, 2009,
Item 17
Based on who is on the front row now, the hint is that 17 will be a very short item.
17, consider and take appropriate action on provisions to fees by the transportation and natural resource department to be effective January 1, 2010, including assessment of increased fees for recovery of Travis County storm water management program and development review costs, and b, increases in on-site wastewater fees.
>> good morning, judge, Biscoe.
Commissioners.
for the record, I'm tom webber, transportation and natural resources.
with me are anna bolin and stacy, also of t.n.r.
we're here today to recommend final approval of fee increases to improve our cost recovery of services to support t.n.r.'s development and on-site permit programs and begin to achieve cost recoveries for our storm water management program.
we presented you a lot of detailed information about these increases in September.
we had a public meeting in October 20th.
several comments and after the hearing you requested that we work further with the commenters and return with a final proposal.
so we're here today with that.
the increases were too steep to implement at once especially considering the current economic recession.
today we recommend the follow increases.
for on-site wastewater fees to proceed with our original proposal that's described in table 2 of your backup.
mainly because these -- these fees in particular have not kept pace with program costs, new program requirements and they've not been increased since the middle 1990s.
for the development proposals, we are recommending a two-step set of increases effective January 1 and then on June 1.
altogether this would increase fees depending on the various permit types by either 20 or 30% after the implementation of those two phases.
we -- we recommend placing the other two storm water fee proposals on hold for some further study, and at the recommendation of the home builders association, we additionally recommend that a detailed and updated analysis of what it actually costs to run these programs be carried out.
this would aid, I think, internally our own organization, you to learn more details about the cost of these programs, and folks outside the county would have a better understanding and education of the costs that we do face.
and then after that study was concluded, we would potentially come back for subsequent fee increases reflecting the results of that effort.
>> this would be a third-party independent studying ?i.
>> go ahead.
>> we talked about that certainly a possibility, but I think we have resources here in the county and even some in t.n.r.
we can use before we spend on an external study.
>> I agree.
>> questions?
>> there was just one other quick thing.
we also do recommend a future fee increases that they are more frequent and more cyclical in nature and we don't get as far out of whack as we are right now with our on-site fees and some of our other fees.
>> are we looking at a possible escalator so we could write into the plan so that it escalates on a regular basis at a pre-determined increment when -- the alternate escalator indicates?
>> that's something when we do our fee study that might be one of the recommendations that come out of that.
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>> so I have no problem with it, per se, as far as the frequency of when you have to impose an increase in fees, I think that the development community, everybody else, would like to probably be in that cycle, so -- so it won't be of such a significant bite if you don't do anything for that many years out, haven't done anything as far as the cost of -- you know the cost much recovery aspect -- cost of recovery aspect of things.
okay.
>> so remind me again of the fee increases that would be effective January 1, of 2010.
>> first of August taking it to -- January 1, table 1, we -- we have shown the -- the permit types in phase 1 that would increase by 20%.
and the ones that would increase by 10% on January 1.
>> all right.
2010, if I look at table 1, all of these increases are effective January 1, 2010.
>> the third column of that table 1 is what would be -- what would be in effect January 1.
the fourth column says phase 2, that would be June 1st.
just taking the first row as an example, $37 now, be $45 on January 1, it would be $50 on June 1.
so you can kind of see now phase 1, phase 2 costs.
>> > then the little problem that I have is a legal one.
it's rather based on the language of 17, we can approve those June fees.
and we can give -- you want us to -- chris, give you a chance to get with john hille between now and this afternoon.
it's kind of a technical deal.
i am just looking at the cost resale effective -- if we so we can do both of them.
if not, today we can approve effective January 1, 2010 and then figure out when to bring back the June increases.
you see what I'm saying?
>> yes.
>> as far as I'm hearing from the court, we don't have any problem with the lists for January 1, 2010, right.
>> > no.
>> the question is whether we can do both of them today or whether we need to concentrate on January 1, 2010 today.
>> yep.
>> so with that, let's just hold off on this item until this afternoon.
chris may be able to get that answer between now and about 1:30 p.m., 1:40.
so we will revisit this number 17, call it up after noon.
>> okay.
>> with that, I move that we recess to 1:30.
>> second.
>> all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
>> 17 was the fee, quick open meetings act question.
>> [indiscernible]
>> oh, okay, I forgot about that.
thank you, ms. Porter.
I was just trying to keep you on your toes over there, make sure that you were watching our meeting.
so t.n.r.
understands that we are posted for the January 10th, 2009 action, not the other.
>> the June.
>> the June.
the June --
>> bring that back next week for you.
>> move approval of what's posted to be effective January 1, 2010.
discussion?
all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
with Commissioner Gomez surprised by this action.
and temporarily off the dais.
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, December 15, 2009 12:13 PM
