Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, September 7, 2010,
Item 17
17 is consider and take appropriate action on fiscal year 2011 budget rules.
>> over the proposed changes to the fiscal year 11 budget rules, we would like to present these changes to you today.
we would like to day action until next week to ensure that all departments have every opportunity possible to make any comments or suggestions, and I also would like to say we generally start gathering these suggestions right after the adoption of the budget.
so we welcome comments throughout the year and obviously in the next week we would welcome any comments as well from the court or from departments.
I'm going to just go briefly over the summarized changes that are on the memo from p.b.o.
to the Commissioners court, the bullet points.
and let leroy go over additional information as well and answer any questions that you might have.
for fy 11 we are asking grants that involve multiple county departments assign a single responsible person with the contact information noted on the grant summary sheet.
so obviously that we can easily identify that person if we have any questions.
clarification has been made regarding the departmental transfers out of personnel line items. This will provide greater flexibility for p.b.o.
to make a positive recommendation on some limited transfers related to the core functions of departments and I think that issue came up a few times this year.
we made a change where p.b.o.
was not able to have that flexibility so we've increased that flexibility just a bit for next year and beyond.
an exception that's been added to budget rule number 9 for capital fund, we are now going to allow that bond c.o.s and c.a.r.
and grant funds be included to the county's allocated reserve unless a project is complete.
and these transfers are transfers that the Commissioners court has not been seeing but they are going on behind the scenes.
the deadline to submit 90 day old reports has changed from 30 days to 20 days after the end of the quarter.
that's under rule number 8.
that was a suggested change from the county auditor.
a new rule has been added, budget rule number 19, that impacts expenditures paid from discretionary fund and reimbursed from the general fund.
we have contacted the sheriff's office, the county attorney's office and the district attorney's office as well as I believe the constables with regards to discretionary funds, and I believe all issues have been worked out with the suggested language that's in the budget rules.
but again, we would like to day action until next week and that's one of the questions that I will follow up on as well.
also a new rule number 20 that clarifies, this was to come employ with i.r.s.
regulations.
per diem and actual pay rates have changed for fy 11.
the per deem rate currently is $39.
it's going to be suggested to increase to $46 a day but 15% gratuity.
append ix 3 has been reorganized.
there is repetition of some language that has been consolidated.
and the reimbursement rate for mileage, we always peg that to the i.r.s.
rate so that's been updated for now.
and I am going to hand it over to leroy to discuss some information about health care costs.
and I've got information to hand out on that.
>> the next paragraph in your backup that starts talking about the substantial change in the house we account for health care costs.
gentlemen's is distributing a somewhat revised update language -- jessica.
essentially under the affordable care act, the auditor's office is required to show the actual cost of health care premiums paid by the county on the employee's form starting 2011.
so in order to provide the documentation on that, we are recommending that we actually budget the actuarily determined health insurance costs in each department based upon the open enrollment, and then we would essentially budget the composite rate for those vacant positions.
and we do have a calculation that we would be doing those -- those corrections for the next Tuesday's correction to the preliminary budget.
so this would -- would bring us into compliance with the affordable care act.
and we have shared this with the auditor's office and I believe we're in agreement that the language that we have in this revised paragraph would meet the requirements that we need to meet.
so -- but we are still in conversations, and if we have any additional additions to this language, we'll bring them back next week when we ask you to approve it.
>> just a couple additional comments I'd like to make.
one is that we will be asking for the court to approve the budget rules next week.
we might be tweaking a little bit of the language here or there, but this substantially will be what we will be asking approval of.
however, we will need to update the appropriate pay scale information and indirect cost information and if that's not available next week,ly ask for the court's permission to include that once it's been approved by court and up to date so the budget rules reflect any action the court takes.
>> so the policy regarding insurance and employees -- employees health insurance, what does this change mean for the employee?
>> well, a couple of things, that when we get their w-2 form, and I think susan can probably speak to that a little better than I can.
>> what we've done in the past, judge, in terms of distributing costs in the budget is we looked at all of the costs and it was kind of equalized.
so per person there was a 600-plus amount put in each budget for that person.
what the new health care plan requires is that the actual premium or the cost, and that's based on claims, is to be shown this year on the w-2.
and I think that one could just see to the future that if it's going to be on the w-2, that the federal government intends to do something with that and it might be what they might be going to do is tax people on that, consider it a taxable benefit.
but it becomes important for that to be now the 5:00 you acty determined premium because for instance if it comes to the point, well, on a w-2 if you are a single employee, that amount of cost for your premium is less than someone who has a family on there.
and so looking ahead there may be some taxable implications so it becomes more important since we're putting on a w-2, that that w-2 reflects the insurance that -- that you have.
we weren't worried what the specific premium and claims were as we budgeted in the past because it didn't really matter, but it does now.
>> it didn't really matter per capita.
>> that's right.
>> I just wanted to make sure.
>> that's exactly right.
it didn't matter that we knew specifically what the claim would be or the premium.
because we're self-insured.
that's a very good point.
but now it does.
and so as we start attributing that to an individual employee was the idea they may later be taxed on that, then it really becomes important to have the actuarily determined premium if they were going to buy that for the services that they are actually getting.
so what this will show is, like if, you know, you get the ppo and you are single, that's one premium.
if you got another plan, you have family coverage, that's more.
so that's -- that's what --
>> but it's just more detailed information for the employee as for now.
>> yes.
that they need to know that -- we'll get lots of questions a year from now when the w-2's come out because they will see that.
but they will be once they see that on their w-2.
but it is not going to impact the coverage that they have.
it is not going to impact what they are paying.
it's just a required reporting that we have to do under the new health act.
>> it would be on the w-2 for the calendar year 2011.
>> that's right.
that's right.
>> is this similar to the pie chart that we get in our report from h.r.
regarding our salary and the valuation of our benefits?
I -- I don't know how to answer that.
I think what we did is we took the average budgeted amount.
>> for that purpose.
>> I think we didn't come down to the specific employee and the specific plan because it wasn't that critical to get to that level of detail.
so this will be --
>> similar but finer grained.
>> yes.
>> accurate.
>> have we included that 15% gratuity previously?
>> yes, sir.
>> this will be back on the court's agenda next week.
>> and I will send the court a memo late Friday if I receive additional comments that need to come to your attention.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, September 14, 2010, 2010 7:56 PM
