Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, June 1, 2010,
Item 5
5. Consider and take appropriate action on budget amendments, transfers and discussion items. Actually one item there listed for discussion involving constable precinct 1. Request for a transfer to cover cellular air time.
>> that's correct. They want to use some temporary salary savings because they are projecting an overage in that account in the cellular line item account. And currently they don't have the ability and any of -- in any of their operating lines to cover that. Traditionally they have been using temporary salary savings to cover things like this. With the new rules that ability has been taken away. When they took over in -- was it january 9? Focusing on a lot of things. Getting the office straightened out. You know, you are tackling a lot of different issues. One of the ones that they didn't really capture during the fy 2010 budget process is the fact that they vastly increased the use of cell phones and
>> [indiscernible] air time. Something we are addressing for fy '11, we don't anticipate this occurring again.
>> have we taken a look at -- i imagine cell phone usage has become quite a major tool in many of the services that travis county provides the public. Have we -- did -- have we looked at the trends of cell phone usage and done any kind of update or considered any updating on our cell phone policies?
>> speaking from p.b.o.'s 7 point the constable's offices, i have really only been looking at it in terms of their offices, this has been the case for most of the constable's offices. Actually for fy 2011, we are addressing for three of the five. Outside of that i can't speak of it.
>> budget rules, the.
>> policy referenced.
>> f weather 2010 budget rules.
>> fy 2010 budget rules would have been adomentsed by us.
>> -- adopted by us.
>> the fy 2010 budget, we were attempting to put a few more restrictions on the temporary salary savings in order to meet our projected salary saving goal for the entire county, that was the reasoning that we recommended that budget rule.
>> okay. Do we expect them to stop using cell phones or --
>> no, sir, of course not.
>> we wouldn't ask for -- again as they are getting a better handle on their new
>> [indiscernible] they have got so to speak, they really are working a lot harder on warrants, doing a much better job --
>> this constable took office january of this year, he wouldn't have been around during the last budget process.
>> that's correct.
>> judge, i'm not going to move approval of this. Build like to just -- but i would like to just say this, maybe it would be a good policy, also. I guess especially if there's a transition in leadership where we know that -- that there may be a new elected officer coming in place, especially with those particular situations that do use cell phones. That part of the tracking mechanism may be available to the -- to the person that is coming on board that these are the things that you have and -- available to you, this is the -- the number of minutes that were used. So at least in the elected office, the elected office person will be familiar with past history of expenditures for that particular department. You -- you sometimes come into a situation where -- where -- you are left with some things on the table from a previous situation that -- that you may not be fully aware of. I think this is a pure example of what i'm talking about. So, again, it's a transitional type of situation. Transitional type of expenditure. Because of that, i would like to make -- i moved approval, but i'm still concerned about how p.b.o. And the elected offices can, especially those transitional situations, can be made more aware -- i'm not saying that you didn't, but it would help me a lot if i know, if you knew that it was -- it was the case. That -- that it won't recur again.
>> commissioner, just a comments on that. P.b.o. Will be involved in kind of like the -- the commissioners -- the new commissioners, we do a little review. We do intend in january when the new elected officials come on board, which we have several coming on,.
>>
>> [indiscernible]
>> that we will doing --
>> second the motion.
>> i do think we ought to do the policy when we go through the budget --
>> yes, sir, we've talked about that ourselves internally, that's something that we realize that we need to do.
>> we're going to give you all a hand today hopefully,.
>> thank you.
>> any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous show commissioners davis, he could heart, yours truly -- that passes by unanimous vote. That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank y'all.
>> thank y'all.
>> thank you, p.b.o.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, June 1, 2010 2:35 PM
