Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, February 1, 2011,
Item 19
>> item 19, consider and take appropriate action on legislative matters, including a, update on legislative activities, b, additions on the priorities, policy positions and the positions on other proposals sections of the Travis County laugh agenda.
and c, resolution in support of house bill 443 and senate bill 374 relating to the amount of the fee paid by the defendant for a peace officer's services in executing or processing an arrest warrant, cappias or cappias pro fine.
>> good morning, Commissioner Gomez.
good morning members of the court.
cokes deece eckstein, intergovernmentals officer for the county.
I I’ll be brief as as I can because I know the court is very busy this morning.
just brief highlights in terms of the legislative process.
the first is that the budget documents have come out now from both the senate and the house.
those comments are online for user viewing.
both of council of urban counties and the Texas association of counties are working to do an analysis of the impact of the proposed budgets of counties both direct and indirect.
and that work is really an iterative process, but we're working to keep you up to date on that.
there's an update that I got from the Texas association of counties that I will forward to the members of the court.
but probably would like to ask the court's indulgence, maybe next week or the week after to take a few minutes and really talk with the court about what some of those cuts are and what the potential impacts for Travis County are going to be.
>> and deece, my understanding too is that if they don't deal with that shortfall this year,, it's going to reappear next time and it's going to continue reappearing before they take some real steps this time around to balance the budget.
>> that's correct, Commissioner Gomez.
there are a number of what they are now calling structural deficits built into the budget.
there are sources of funding that do not -- are not adequate to replace the revenue that they have been slated to replace.
and unless some of those problems get addressed this session, you're exactly right, there's a chance that we will try to work our way through a 25 to 28 billion-dollar shortfall this session and be back two years from now with another 10 to 12 billion-dollar shortfall.
so it is -- I think the state budget is in sort of a crisis situation and we're hoping that the legislature will address it with some leadership and in such a way as to not push down a lot of the roles that the state now plays upon counties and upon local taxpayers.
as you know, the state gets most of its funding from the sales tax, but county -- Travis County relies, you know, to a very great degree upon property taxes and that is a harder -- to me that's a harder source of revenue because it does put more stress on people.
so that is very important.
do you --
>> do you think that you're looking at a list of priorities where they would address the needs of -- the needs that the state and its constituents have as opposed to wants?
things that would be really great to have, but this time around it's not a good idea.
and instead do they have a list of priorities?
>> I think that the process is beginning now.
the senate finance committee began its hearings yesterday, Commissioner.
the house appropriations committee -- the house committees have not been named yet, but I expect the house appropriations committee will start meeting within the next week to 10 days.
I think it is their task to sort of figure out in this large universe of shortfall what the priorities are going to be in terms of trying to save or at least minimize the cuts on it.
but I think there will be across the board cuts.
we've heard from the k to 12 community, the school districts, and I think the legislators also want to hear from and need to hear from counties, county government about the services we provide and the impact on taxpayers if we can no longer provide those services.
so I think the process of figuring out what the priorities are is beginning now and I think we ought to have a voice in that process.
>> absolutely.
>> yes, ma'am.
>> deece, I wanted to thank you quickly for your -- for your schoollation of all of the county priorities -- consolidation of all of the county priorities, both the conference of urban county priorities, so that we can leverage efforts maximally there, and also your collaboration with the community action network partners to take all of the legislative initiatives of the community action network to maximally leverage our efforts there as well.
and I do want to make the court and the -- our sls of fans out there aware that -- to the extent that the millions of fans can help us in this effort to find collaboration in advance proactively in advance of the cuts so that we can minimize to the extent that we can through collaboration the really possibly devastating impact an across the board cut.
what is the percentage we're looking at for this point?
a 10 to 15% across the board?
will seeses of the shofort fall is probably in the -- the size of the shortfall is probably in tent to 25% range.
they're now talking about a 25% impact on the overall state budget and they're taking testimony this morning on the possibility that the medicaid program cuts will actually approach 30 to 35 percent.
>> it affects everybody in Travis County if that population is unable to get coverage through the medicaid system.
>> I would suggest that the extent that there is any silver lining in this manufactured fiscal crisis in an otherwise wealthy state that the silver lining is for us to find some unprecedented collaboration and take every dollar and get double, triple and quadruple bang out of it through collaborations with the school districts and the city and the other municipalities.
>> community college, the health care district.
we have been -- I guess there's nothing like being trapped in an elevator falling 50 stories in a building to get us all talking to each other.
>> it's a big old cum buy I can't and I appreciate you leading the choir on that.
>> I have to say with respect to that specifically that we could not do that without the help from really our county departments, particularly planning and budget.
katy peterson is working hard to translate the aggregate numbers coming from cuc, tac and the state budget into what are the impacts on Travis County?
sherri fleming and her staff are now on their third iteration of a document that would really analyze the impacts upon the health and human services populations and programs here in Travis County.
and as you mention thrud c.a.n.
trying to reach out to other providers and other nonprofits that are really doing a lot of these services to really quantify and personalize what those cuts could mean.
the second thing I wanted to mention is we have now crossed the one thousandth bill filed threshold in the house.
we are tracking a little over 300 bills right now.
I do want to salute everybody in the county staff.
as you know what we do is we assign bills to various county staff experts to look at bills and I decided I will give out a gold star every week to the person in the county who is really doing a terrific job of getting those answers back to us because as everybody knows it will be very time sensitive?
so our gold star for the week goes to randy nicholson in tnr and the analyst he works with.
we've gotten phenomenal turnaround.
we have the bills about the transportation reinvestment zones or land use authority and two days later getting an analysis back that's very pithy and very pepful to us.
-- helpful to us.
I want so salute randy and we will mention every week everybody who is doing a good job of helping us get the information we need to represent the Commissioners court at the capital.
and one of the things that the Commissioners' court has set is the hr 56, which is representative burt solomon's constitutional amendment to ban unfunded mandates upon counties.
the Commissioners' court two weeks ago passed a resolution in support of that and I’m pleased to report that two of the six members of the Travis County health house delegation have signed on as co-sponsors of representative solomon's resolution, representative donna howard and representative red di rodriguez.
we're continuing to communicate with the members of the health care -- I’m sorry, members of the county delegation about that.
there is a senate companion to that now by senator could reason in a.
and we have asked senator watson and senator wentworth to also sign off on that.
that is my report, Commissioner Gomez.
there are no changes that I would like the court to review this week on item b with respect to the legislative agenda, but I would like to ask the court to approve the resolution in support of the warrant fee proposal.
last week the court approve as a policy position or as a position on other -- a position on other proposals something from constable mccann and elfant to support increasing the warrant fee.
we have a resolution and I think the draft was in your backup.
we have it for the court if you want to review or make changes to it, otherwise I would ask that the court approve that resolution and ask us to distribute that to members of the delegation and others.
>> I would move approval of that.
>> second.
>> and I would just like to make one comment on it.
I fully -- I fully support this amendment.
I remain concerned with this large budget fort shawl at the legislature that there will be a March to increase fees on everything that they can possibly think of.
so I want to reiterate my basis for this type of fee and others of this same I will k.
the way I separate this out is this fee is directly related to the cost of the administration for the offense for which the individual is being picked up.
and that the amount itself is not in itself a punishment.
it's not so large that it is in itself a punishment.
I fear that we will we will March toward fees that are very high and exact a heavy burden on those least able to make up the budget shortfall.
these fees are about administrative costs.
they're not about balancing the budget on the backs of the least fortunate.
>> or being an additional sanction upon somebody who has either committed an offense or even been charged with one.
>> do we know how much of that fee will be kept by Travis County?
there are some fees that their percentage goes to the state?
>> that's correct, Commissioner and that's a good point.
on this particular fee we do keep all this money.
and that is collected by the law enforcement agency that serves the warrants and they do get to keep all that money.
I believe that on some of the other fee proposals we're going to see that Commissioner Eckhardt was referring to, there is some amount of money that is kept by the county and some goes to the state.
so we may see proposals that not only increase the fee, but that take the portion of the fee that was going to the county and just sweep that up to the state.
so it might be a 20-dollar fee, the county gets 10, the state gets 10.
they'll take 15 or 20 of it and we'll still be collecting that fee, but it will not benefit any of the work that that fee really was designed for here in Travis County.
>> right.
>> and that's a concern we have.
we actually -- we created a separate track just for fee bills.
>> do we have that included in the resolution?
I don't have it before me.
is that in here that we want to recognize it as an administrative cost?
>> I believe the language does go to the cost to us and that this is to offset the cost to us, but --
>> and it goes to the specific nature of this being targeted at the people who -- at the services that are being performed in making the -- in serving the warrant.
>> okay.
all those in favor of supporting this resolution?
unanimous.
thank you.
thank you, deece.
>> thank you very much, Commissioner.
and I have the resolution that with your permission I’ll start with comisser Davis and just ask you if you would sign it.
>> absolutely.
thank you.
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, February, 2011 2:19 PM
