Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, June 29, 2010,
Item 23
23. Receive and discuss the second revenue estimate for the fiscal year 2011 budget process. Mr. Keith?
>> good after noon, judge, commissioners, i'm blaine keith from the auditor's office. We finished last week and distributed the second revenue estimate for the 2011 budget process. As it normally the case, this has almost all of the funds in it w. He don't do the intern -- we don't do the internal service funds, we don't have the information for that just yet. But it's our first shot at the other funds. The -- the tax rate remain the same as in the first estimate. There wasn't enough new information to justify another tax run. So the rates stayed the same at 46.98 cents and the revenue stayed the same. I do -- i should stress that we're still some way from getting the final assessed valuation. So obviously these tax numbers will change as we go through the process. But it will be a while before we have those final numbers for you. The general fund in this estimate is 485.1 million. I am more than happy, i'm thrilled to say that it's not very different from the first estimate, which is of course done on a very broad manner. It's about 1.88 million more than the first estimate. And most of that is in fund balance. We -- we reforecast revenues and p.b.o. Reforecast expenditures and so we got a -- almost a $2.5 million bump in fund balance, that was most of the difference between the two estimates.
>> can we crow a little bit on the d.a. For that, just for a moment.
>> i was just going to mention that we listed some key items there, we do -- we did put at the top that the d.a. Was able to donate 2.1 million. Which we were very happy to see. And that helped us a lot because usually there is a difference between the first and the second because they are very different estimates. Different approaches.
>> that came in on an environmental prosecution outside of the county, correct?
>> yes. And showing up as a d.a. Revenue right now. So we're very happy to see that. And that was included in our list of key items because we wanted you -- we wanted to put that at the top because we thought the d.a. Deserved credit for that.
>> thank you so much.
>> and a couple of things that i might just highlight. If you look at it, you saw the interest revenue is almost not there. That's because interest rates are so low, that's affecting us two ways. First of all, obviously, we are not earning a lot on our investment. Secondly, i talked to the auditor, we agreed that in our budgeting we would need to start reflecting something that we had not done before. We obviously had taken care of an accounting but not budgeting. That's the monthly adjustments to reflect the current value of the county's portfolio investments. Over the years, we've had that. But it's sometimes positive, sometimes negative and usually not very large. But because interest rates are low and are staying there, these -- these entries have become significantly large and persistently negative to the point that we felt it was just the irresponsible in budgeting not to allow for that because we just said unless things change dramatically next year, we don't see it yet, that's just going to affect the revenue that we are getting in interest. So we are taking that into account now. And that's -- that's one of the reasons that your interest revenue looks so low compared to what's budgeted for this year. And i always feel constrained at this point to mention that in the current budget, there are a number of contracts and items that we simply don't have reflected in the 2011 side yet because we simply haven't gotten to them. We don't know if they are going to be -- some of these contracts are going to be extended or sources of revenue are going to turn up. Some of them don't even show up until mid year during the year next year and get certified as they come in. If you look at the departments, categories, you will notice they are done. One of the reasons they are not quite apples to apples yet. Some of these will be taken care of as we go through the process. Some of them will not show up until maybe next year. /?Txuin summary you have about 28.3 million more in the general fund than you have in the current budget. About 17 million in beginning balance and a little over 10 million in new revenue. One other fund that i was going to stress is the road and bridge fund. That of course keeps going down because of the statutory requirement each year to -- to move additional 10% of that auto registration revenue that we get from motor vehicle sales tax. Over to the general fund. It's nice for the general fund, but doesn't do a whole lot good for road and bridge. It's down about 2%. From our -- from the current budget and probably looking at it right now, if we had not had that statutory requirement, it would be about the same. It's just auto registrations are there. We're just having to put more of them in the general fund. And of course the -- the road and bridge fund like all of the fund is dealing with that interest situation. If you look at the interest revenue on these other funds, it was very small, in some cases we haven't even put any in yet, we want to be sure there will be some because they're so small. That's just a persistent problem that we're going to have through this whole budget, we are going to have to deal with interest. Like i say, this is our first shot at just about all of the funds. It's -- there's a lot of work yet to be done, but it gives you a pretty good idea of where we are right now on our funds. We will do of course one more estimate before the preliminary budget. This is where we are right now. And this is information of course as of the end of may. We would be glad to -- to answer any questions that you have on this one.
>> we are so well briefed.
>> good job.
>> okay. So if -- we normally get four or five of these before we finally adopt a budget, right?
>> we normally do five. We have been known to do more than that. We will also do one when we close books. But sometimes we will do one or two additional ones if necessary in between. So -- so normally, the budget, the preliminary budget is on the third one and the final budget is the fifth one, but we can always do more.
>> as far as we can tell, the -- the expenditure level today is about where it was last year? The departments are generally spending at about the same level and percentages is what they were last year and they did pull back last year. We did experience additional funds in the fund balance because the departments were being very careful. In answer to your question, yes, going about the same rate as they did last year.
>> at about this time last year we sent an encouraging memo, that department heads responded to favorably.
>> right.
>> do you have a copy of that memo still?
>> i'm sure we do.
>> i -- do you think we ought to send it out again?
>> we do have a draft memo that we will be sending out shortly involving that we could include those experts from last -- experts from last year's memo, kind of asking for some abbreviated budget hearings and the departments that we have talked to have been very cooperative in -- in honoring those requests. So we will incorporate that language in that memo when it goes out.
>> i think we ought to bring that memo to court as well as a -- a schedule. Sort of budget hearing schedule or lack thereof and have us discuss that openly, land on it, so we can get some formal communication to department heads, even if there's only three here next year, i don't see anything real controversial about it. Money being as tight as it is, last year what we said was we would be happy to entertain a discussion with you, but we wouldn't call it a budget hearing, right?
>> right.
>> if you want to give us a summary of your program, we can accommodate you during the work session on a thursday or on a tuesday or thursday, but frankly we think you may be wasting your time if you are coming one a significant budget request. I do know there are some budget issues that may be left unfunded. And some department heads may simply want to put us on notice that what they perceive to be problems don't go away just because we don't fund them. So they may be here next year. So if there are those then i think that -- that between next week and the -- the final adoption of the budget, if they want an audience with us, then, you know, we ought to --
>> sure.
>> we ought to accommodate them.
>> we can get a draft for the backup and -- and discuss these issues next week. Brows what we normally do is have any department that wanted to come before the court present their backup or the points that they would like to discuss and essentially send it to p.b.o. So that we could brief the court on the potential con teantd whatever and let the court decide whether or not you want to hear 'em. If that was something next week that you would like to implement, then what we would do is send that memo out to departments, receive those requests and then the day after we drop the budget on july 26th, the day after is -- is tuesday, we could brief the court on those that we had received those packages and essentially you could decide then when and how many that you are interested in hearing.
>> if we do it next week that will give roughly three weeks before the preliminary budget. That will give them sufficient time to think about it, i think, don't you think?
>> yeah.
>> i think coming from us formally would be a good thing.
>> sure.
>> well, we'll have an agenda item for next week and get you a draft.
>> that doesn't increase the revenue, but will get us on course.
>> depends on the printing press.
>> i think that's a real good idea. I won't be here for next week, but what i'm hearing seemed like something that i can definitely support. Is -- is getting that letter out. To the different department heads. Making sure that they understand where we're coming from. Since i am hearing it today, i can leave it --
>> let's be careful not to blame commissioner davis since he won't be here.
>> there you go
>> [laughter]
>> since i won't be here, right.
>> [laughter] thank you.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, June 29, 2010 2:35 PM
