Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, September 21, 2010,
Items 22
22, discuss and take appropriate action on fiscal year 2011 budget issues.
>> the first item that we're going to go over with you today under this item is the using of existing certificates of obligation for fy 11 capital items. This is a process that we do every year, better known as the scrubbing process. And basically what we do is we review the actual balances. As you recall last week you approved actions that allowed us to rebudget into next year, the existing balances, and the co's and the requested rebudgetted projects of the co's, certificates of obligation. So this week what we've done is looked at those balances in the allocated reserve and matched up projects that were eligible to be used with those balances, and that's what we're presenting to you here today. At the end of the fiscal year we'll look at the actual balances and work with the auditor's office to ensure that the rebudgetted projects are available for next year, and move forward with the actual balances and any additional funds will have the reserves in those particular c oovment's. If pb on is able to recommend additional resources after the close of the fiscal year, we'll alert the court in the october, november time frame. I have listed for you, there are 10 reserves that we're going to be using, and you will notice actually that the first five or so are leaving very small balances after the recommended projects. And that's because in working with the auditor's office to close these out i've been told we should spend down the balances to the minimus amount, which what i've tried to do with these recommendations. Basically what this will do, we'll take $4.1 million off of what was in the preliminary budget for fy 11 co's, what we anticipated to have for fy 11 co's. It will reduce the amount by 1 point 4 million if the court passes these today. I did call the county attorney and was able to talk to david escamilla yesterday. He has reviewed the recommendations and these are all capital recommendations and eligible for what we're asking for you today, for you to do for us today.
>> since a lot of these sort of vehicle related, why wouldn't we take this money and address our vehicle issues?
>> the co's that are listed there are eligible to be used for vehicle purchases. These recommendations pr vehicles that slated to be replaced in fy '11 for vehicles. If the court wanted to they could also increase the co next year for additional vehicles if the court chose to do so. It's just giving the court greater flict in the fy '11 co.
>> if we see balances here, though, that means as of today there's no intended use.
>> in the allocated reserves, that is correct. The intended use is the one that i've laid out for you in the attached charts.
>> you've used up everything that is available for vehicles, for vehicles.
>> i have to say that i leave a little bit of allocated reserve in each one of these because what happens at the end of the year is sometimes the revenue estimates are a little bit off of what -- because expenditures are a little bit different or revenues are a little debit bircht. And there was one year i had to come back to court and ask for a modification of our recommendations because there wasn't sufficient allocated rrches to complete -- reserves to complete our recommendation. So i try to leave a little bit, especially in the newer co's, i should mention also because these are ongoing projects that might not be complete. And the department should have access to those funds first prior to reallocating to anything else.
>> aside from the prudent contingency, all co's that were available for vehicles were rebudgetted for vehicles.
>> i could not answer that 100% because there might be some co funds out there that were slated to be closed.
>> okay. But in any case, you came awfully close.
>> yes.
>> there was 1.8 requested and you did 1.75.
>> right. And there are some balances that after the recommendation, like you said, $3,000 left or $2,000 left or $12,000 left.
>> what about fund 513?
>> right. That is a newer co and there are many active projects in that co, and that is -- that is why i was saying earlier that if these resources are available in october and it seems prudent at that time to allocate additional projects to these, we would come forward to you at that time and we would make that recommendation.
>> you will know in october what i plan to ask you about.
>> no problem.
>> questions, comments? Now, we did leave some of those vehicles concerns unaddressed, right? I know we kind of postponed compleelings of that discussion -- completion of that discussion after it became clear that really all the constables had law enforcement vehicles anyway, it looked like. Sorry to cut y'all off there.
>> we would ask approval of the recommendations listed in the memo from pbo.
>> so move.
>> second. Discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> we do have a second item today. It's similar continuing corrections to what jessica is distributing to you. It's slightly different than what we had distributed as the backup. It's kind of a correction to the corrections. On this first page 1 of 5, other changes, all funds, those are the actual line item adjustments in order to align the budgeted health care cost in each department with the results of the open enrollment where we're required to actually take the actual expenditure for health insurance for each employee and their family and display it in fy '11 on their w-2 form. You can see most departments had a slight adjustment there. That goes on through three of five. You can see on page 4 of 5 there is an adjustment there. For the health and human services the budget adjustment that you did today on home repair for 61,500 where they were going to leave that amount in their fy '10 budget and the request in that budget adjustment this morning that y'all approved was to reappropriate that 61,500 into the home repair budget for fy '11. The other increase, the 20,000 there, was for the district attorney. We did get the $20,000 of revenue in the fifth revenue estimate for the downtown district attorney interlocal. The other adjustments on that page have to do with the other funds and basically balancing to that fifth revenue estimate. You will see on the third to last entry on page five of five of those other changes the reserve entry, the 384,393, that is the adjustment that we needed to make to the unallocated reserve in the general fund due to the increased fund balance of revenue in the fifth revenue estimate. Those others are balancing to the fifth revenue estimate. The next area are the cost neutral changes, page 1 of 4 there. You can see it's the same thing on the other funds, essentially doing the actuarially determined health care benefits from open enrollment. We did have some more on page two of four, we did have some more change in funding sources that were absorbed inside the tnr general fund budget. You will see they essentially were changing the funding for some of those slots that are identified there from another fund to the general fund. They did have those positions vacant in the general fund, so they utilized those to do that. You can see on page four of four that the net effect of all those cost neutral changes was zero. It was just moving between funds. And i can answer any questions, but we would ask that you take a vote to approve these corrections, and we will incorporate them in the proposed budget that we are scheduled to file this friday.
>> so move.
>> second.
>> discussion? Questions? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Thank y'all very much.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, September 21, 2010 7:57 PM
