Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, March 15, 2011,
Item 17
Number 17 17.
consider and take appropriate action on legislative matters, including: update on legislative activities; e bill 507, relating to notice for certain transactions involving local government entities; c, house bill 1906, relating to the idling of motor vehicles; providing a criminal penalty; b, legislation relating to the powers and duties of criminal magistrates in Travis County; and e, amendments to the priorities, policy positions, and the positions on other proposals sections of the Travis County legislative agenda.
>> good morning, judge Biscoe, Commissioner Gomez and Commissioner Davis.
it is the policy of the court as you know not to take action on the legislative items unless four members of the court agree on it so I want you to give me direction on the fact that there is 6 members off the dyas right now.
>> my direction to you is take advantage of the three of us before you.
>> can I do that?
>> sure, you can, indeed.
>> well, in that case --
>> I didn't say get a vote.
I said take advantage, saying make your presentation.
>> we will make our presentations, okay.
that will be another way to do it.
judge, we -- let me get to the three items that we have that are specific items and then there are a couple of general comments we want to make but we do have some people standing by to brief the court on some of the specific items. Let me call up first hb 1906 which is item c on the court's agenda, this has to do with idling motor vehicles and providing criminal penalty.
this is a bill filed by representative donna howard who is member of the Travis County delegation and here to briefly explain the bill and to recommend the court support that bill is adell.
>> the purpose of this is to establish a purpose statute so the county doesn't have to rely on the water code in order for enforcement of heavy duty idling.
it focuses on heavy duty idling during the ozone season which is between April and October 31st.
under the current statute, the penalty for counties -- when they find a vehicle that is idling is anywhere from 1,000 to $50,000 per violation and up to 180 days in jail.
this bill would establish a set penalty as a class c misdemeanor with a penalty up to $500 per violation.
this penalty is expected to result in active enforcement, other bills because right now there are several counties who are are reluctant to enforce under the current Texas water code due to the high penalties associated with this.
the clean air coalition has already sent a letter supporting this bill and so have several other counties in this area.
I am available to answer any questions you may have about this bill.
>> yes, I have got a couple of questions.
number 1, is what is considered a heavy duty -- what is considered a heavy duty vehicle.
just describe that to me first, what is a heavy duty vehicle?
>> a vehicle weighing 14,000 pounds.
an example of it is a dump truck, an 18 wheeler, a large 40-foot rv, recreational vehicle.
a school bus.
greyhound bus, those type of vehicles.
>> so I guess -- I have two concerns, number one, I know we had looked at this, not this, per se, not this bill, but we discussed before the court, we told -- we discussed off road vehicles, you know, off road, when it is idling and heavy duty equipment and a whole lot of things.
this doesn't apply to that.
but I am concerned about the traffic congestion that we have here within the county.
I mean, you take any day given, you go out there on ih-35 and you are going to have a whole lot of things idling.
at the same time, you know, and during the ozone season, that doesn't stop the traffic from congesting just because we need to look at it as far as those peak times of when we need to watch our ozone, so I am concerned about congestion, also.
how will that apply to congestive situation, where you have the 14,000-pound vehicles or greater on our road and they are stuck on congestion where everything out there is idling?
>> this bill, unfortunately, does not address that issue.
however, where it does come into effect is for a vehicle that is idling in a residential neighborhood, and this does go on, on a regular basis or an 18 wheeler or a delivery trucks that delivering goods and services to a store facility.
this would stop that from happening.
>> so not on the main roads of -- like an interstate, but it would have to be a road -- in other words, I am getting kind of --
>> correct.
>> I think the intent of the existing statute is that if a vehicle is, for instance, stuck in traffic, it is not considered to be idling for purposes of this statute.
rather, it is a situation, adel described where somebody is making a delivery or a dump truck waiting to get on construction site or something like that, where they have pulled off the road, not in traffic anymore but are just idling their vehicles and the intent of this is try to address that situation, Commissioner.
>> off road?
>> yes.
>> off road situation?
>> yes, under the current statute, if a vehicle cannot idle for more than five minutes.
it can idle up to five minutes.
anything over five minutes is subjected at this time to the Texas water code penalty is 1,000 to 50-dollar penalty and up to 180 days in jail.
where this bill we simplify that and make it a class b misdemeanor and the penalty $500.
>> the enforcement of the bill is what?
>> the enforcement is up to local law enforcement agencies.
>> okay.
>> and the concern that the bill is trying to address is because the penalties are very strong, local law enforcement agencies are reluctant to get involved in it because they would have to -- correct me if I am wrong -- they would have to arrest the driver of the vehicle, impound the vehicle, you know, bring them down to the county jail, that sort of thing, so it makes it very burdensome for law enforcement to enforce it.
the idea is a deputy sheriff or police officer will be able to give a traffic ticket.
it is essentially a traffic ticket.
>> okay.
>> in that case, is the ticket given to the driver or the company -- the owner of the trucking company?
>> it's actually try forward.
you can ticket the driver of the vehicle, the owner of the vehicle and delivering goods on private property, against the owner of that property as well.
everyone would get the 500-dollar penalty.
>> do you have anything relevant to this conversation?
>> I want to discuss that maybe a potential problem is that by -- so lessoning the penalty and making it easier for our officers to enforce it, it might be just emasculating it and say that is a cost of doing business, we will let it idle.
it is a cold morning, we will says the cost of doing business and a risk they feel like taking.
is has that ever crossed the threshold?
>> I am trying to find a correct balance where enforcement so burdensome that it is not done at all and enforcement that may not adequately deter the behavior we are trying to deter, we hope it will lead to some enforcement of the law and deterrence and there might be some people who say that we will eat this as a cost doing business, but, remember, we are not repealing anything else in the statute having to do with the more strict sanctions, those would still be available and it may be that a law enforcement officer or a law enforcement agency in concert with a county attorney or district will say there is a repeated pattern, we have given these people 20 tickets the last month and now we will kick in the other stuff.
we aren't taking away those options.
we are just trying to make it simpler for an on the street police officer, law enforcement officer, sheriff's deputy to at least be able to deter this behavior.
>> sorry, I didn't pick up on that mechanism.
that those pen tell aties penaln there, and you can use them.
>> correct.
>> thank you very much.
>> judge kennedy here on d?
>> yes, sir, we have judge kennedy and leon brazard who is a magistrate with the criminal courts of Travis County.
here to speak on d.
this is a piece of legislation that the judges and the magistrates are bringing forward in order to clarify the types of proceedings in which the magistrate may, if you will, take assignments from the judges and to expand the duties of the magistrate with respect to those proceedings.
>> john, a legal question, the answer to which I can get later is whether our staff would be able to brief a member of the court not present at this time later today on what we have discussed in open court so that we can call this item up later in this meeting?
can you get that answer to mr. --
>> are you going to the legislature after our discussion?
>> I will be back and forth, yes, sir, but I will certainly will happy to come back think time.
>> you have your cell number.
>> yes I am very findable these days.
>> sorry, but that would apply to that.
>> yes, I appreciate the intelligence of that question, yes, sir.
can I turn it over to judge kennedy and judge krizar to briefly explain to you the bill they are proposing.
>> let me generally state on behalf of district judges I am here to support the legislation that is being proposed for the magistrate expansion of duties.
a lot of it is to clear up house keeping matters we believe were overlooked initially in the legislation in enacting our county magistrate position, much of which is already in place in many other jurisdictions.
some of which, though, that we have found to be unnecessary that it is not in place, a couple of items that are not in place in other jurisdictions that we have found to be necessary to fully make the position, I guess, helpful to the district judges here in Travis County.
a lot of it is, I guess, more of a time saving, as well as a meaningful -- making the process more meaningful to us.
a lot of it is just paperwork and that saves a lot of time.
if you have been over to the criminal district courts lately, there is a lot of administrative processes going on with paper and a lot of things that are being processed which I will get judge grizard explain to you is a lot of signing paperwork as part of the plea bargaining process, we refer to the magistrate daily and there is a lot of things he cannot sign without our signature first and there is a lot of plea bargaining process taking in place in front of him and he is not able to carry think without our signatures so a lot is matter of clerk or aid running back and forth to get us to sign in the middle of the process which is time consuming for him as well.
there are some things that are being proposed as well that are causing interruptions in our docket process as we split them up as far as the district courts, many of us are in jury trial and many of us are carrying on morning dockets as well as far as our evidentiary search warrant processes and these are things he is going to explain to you as well, that we would like for him to be able to process as well and believe that he is qualified to do, that causes us to have to interrupt our process, whether it be jury trial or morning docket in order to take care of those processes, and stop our dockets in order to do that, to read and do some law enforcement in the middle of our morning dockets and he is certainly able to those things and qualified to do so as well.
but I wanted to come in support of him and express the unanimous support of the district judges in support of the legislation that he is about to explain to you.
>> good morning.
>> thank you very much.
I think that the attachment that was provided to you that is labeled the duties of criminal magistrates in Travis County really settles it out very -- sets it out very well, mr. Epstein summarized very well the various aspects of the proposed bill.
I know you don't want me to read this aloud to you but I would add to what the judge said, is that this is very little new ground.
almost everything is entirely day to day, routine type of paperwork that needs to be signed.
I do not conduct jury trials except sometimes on mental health related matters of competency and, therefore, I am available on a docket every morning, I am available in the afternoon, whereas they are doing jury trials about half the time, which cuts down the number of judges available to sign these things.
in addition to making it more helpful to the district judges, hand in hand with that is making it more helpful to the law enforcement agencies and the district attorney's office dealing with grand jury matters.
I have officers coming in my court once or twice a month or sometimes more or trying to find a district judge to sign a certain type of warrant that I am not authorized to sign at the present time.
a municipal court judge, who only has two years of experience, at a minimum and is appointed by the city council can sign these warrants, whereas a magistrate for Travis County with a minimum of four years experience and unanimous approval of all of the district judges that handle the felony matters in Travis County is not authorized to sign those warrants.
so we think these types of warrants have been approved by the code of criminal procedure since our magistrate statute was passed originally, about 20 years ago and so this is an update.
there is, in fact, on that matter, a bill that is pending perhaps to allow all of the magistrates in the state to sign those at the present time, the bear lake the bear lakemagistrate has they to sign those -- the bexar county magistrate has the authority to sign that and there is one thing put in a the request of clerk dawson brown with the district attorney's office which is to allow the magistrate with the permission of the judges to consider warrants for trap and trace devices for vehicles which are used in criminal investigations to retrieve records of stored communications and pin registers.
none of these are wiretaps.
there was an article in the statesman about the use of wiretaps.
none of this would require the magistrate to sign those, it would be a district judge, but routine nonlistening in on people's type of phone calls are becoming more and more useful thing for law enforcement and that is new ground.
this bill would allow the magistrate to sign those with the permission of the district judge.
we have cleaned up some language.
the bill has not been amended except for one minor approval process part in the 20 years since it was adapted.
I went through and looked at all of the magistrate statutes around the state, tried to make sure ours covered all of the things they did and added a few things, such as allowing the the magistrate to recess a grand jury for the weekend.
that is not a criminal case, per se, but it is a criminal related matter, so we wanted to put that language in there to allow the magistrate to, at the direction of the district judge perform those types of routine, day to day duties, if there are any specific questions from any of you, I will be happy to address them.
>> so has the bill been drafted?
>> yes, sir.
we have a bill and we have a draft back from the legislative council.
they have also informed us in their opinion this is a local bill which has certain procedural requirements which we are going to meet before we file a bill.
the bill has been drafted but not yet filed.
we are required to public notice of our intent to file the bill in the newspaper.
we are hoping to have that in Thursday's newspaper, and then afterv to wait a month before we can file the bill.
but we are -- we want to move forward at this point with the court's approval in this regard.
just by way of context, judge kennedy and judge grizard both mentioned the magistrate statute.
there is a sub chapter of the government codes that related just to the duties of the duties of magistrate county, I believe there is one for harris county, dallas county, and so this is updating and a rewrite of that statute as regards to the magistrate in Travis County.
>> we don't have a copy of the bill yet, though, right?
>> we can get you a copy.
>> all right.
because if we -- assuming we approve it by a supermajority, we normally see the bill.
>> I will have those delivered to your offices right away.
>> I don't have any problem with it.
I will feel a whole lot better after eyal balling it at least a few seconds.
>> yes, sir.
>> questions, comments?
we will see if we can get a fourth person engaged -- in Commissioner's court engaged in this before the day is over.
if not, we are looking at next Tuesday.
okay.
>> the third specific item that we want to --
>> do you have questions about this one?
>> yes, I wanted to express my concern about the fourth amendment -- I am assuming that has been looked into as far as the -- yet another reason to undue searches and seizures.
has that been -- is that part of the whole program here, or what?
>> there is nothing that would change any power of the magistrate or the duties of the magistrate in -- just to apply the existing law as defined by the supreme court of the united states.
>> okay.
>> and the courts in Texas.
>> okay.
there is no way that any state law can change the constitution of the united states.
>> that's great.
I am so glad to hear it.
thank you so much.
okay.
>> final and specific item to come before the court is house bill 507, item b of your agenda item.
this is a bill having to do with the authority of a county to give public notices through its website.
as members of the court are aware, under current law, counties have to give public notices of certain kinds of bidding processes, sales, that kind of thing, through advertising in newspapers, what are known as newspapers of general circulation.
this is a -- I believe that the ads have to typically run for 14 days as a legal notice that something is happening, and what this bill would do allow a one day publication in a newspaper for local government entity that has a website and then it is published in the newspaper.
there is a reference to the website and on the website, we have notification of that bidding -- that sale, whatever it is.
the bill as drafted would apply to a number of local governments in addition to counties but does apply to counties.
this is a bill that sid grimes has recommended that the person of association of -- and the person of urban counties is recommending.
there are some in the newspaper industry and so there will be some controversy about this bill.
but sid is asking the court recommend it.
>> okay, is this notification on the county website?
>> yes, sir.
>> and it's a supplement newspaper notice or to replace it?
>> there will be one day of newspaper notice and at least 14 days of notice on the county website.
>> where is the original -- is there a variation for selection on the one day notification in the newspaper, which I guess would actually tell actually the website, I am assuming that the website is da-da-da, Travis County, da-da-da, and then of course, that in itself would be the advertising in the newspapers, just for that one day, am I understanding that?
>> one day.
under current law you have to advertise for these things up to 14 days.
>> all right.
but my question, I guess, though is we have several vendors, newspaper vendors here in Travis County.
we use them for advertising purposes.
will that be a process whereby we can still utilize those existing vendors even if it is one day?
I don't really know.
whether the website is published and then of course when it hits the newspapers, everyone can go and look at that website to get all of the necessary information about the advertisements?
>> Commissioner, I would have to check on that but this bill, as far as I know, is permissive and ha county can continue to do exactly what they do now, by way of giving notice.
>> so this is a may.
>> this is a may, exactly right.
>> all right.
and I think that the posting requirement is for one newspaper but if a county chooses to publish in several newspapers, I think that would still be up to the county to do that.
>> what I don't want to -- what I don't want to see happen is we cut the throats of the some of the numes we have used in the past and I want to make sure that the process is equitable because we have minority newspapers in this county, also yes, sir.
>> and of course I want to make sure that they are still involved this this process, period.
we look at them, but is it going to be pervasive to include a minority newspaper?
>> and it is part of getting the word out to the community.
>> yes, sir.
>> as I understand the bill, a I am sorry sid could not be here today, but as I understand the bill, none of that would change, this has to do the number of days which it is to be published.
>> I understand.
the election process will not change as far as who the vendors are and who we have done business with in the past as far as advertisement of whatever service and good that the county is dealing with, that won't change.
that's what I am hearing, right?
>> as far as I know, yes, sir, and I will look at the bill and try to confirm that for you.
>> yes, sir.
>> I want to make sure of that.
>> yes, sir.
>> thank you.
>> those are the three specific items we wanted to ask the court for its approval on, to take action on, also there is a general item which is in the back of your packet which is to make changes to the Travis County with respect to the 82nd legislature, this is with respect to the last couple of weeks and today, if it makes its decision today.
let me walk through them quickly.
we would add criminal magistrate's bill present to the court to priority section of the legislature agenda and add restoration of 9-1-1 to the policies section as well as the adding clean air water and other environmental laws which is based -- which will be a broader statement of the issue that was in house bill 1609 that adel just presented to the court and then we would also have a policy position having to do with giving counties greater freedom in providing legal notices to their residents which is really tied to house bill 507.
these are all, if you will, broader statements of the policies embodied in each of the bills we have brought before the court today.
our goal in asking you to support those would be that our -- that we would be able to not work only on those bills but on any legislation that would accomplish those same ends --
>> and I am not sure if the person who is have heard today, in the overview of those bills, especially on the one that I spoke with adel on, I want to make sure they understand this bill -- this here is off road idling of these heavy vehicles
>> yes, sir, I don't think this is intended to affect people who are stuck in traffic.
they may be sitting for five minutes without moving.
>> right.
>> I don't think under lawcurrently they would get a ticket.
but we will let you know if something is added to the bill to that.
and the third is to add to the position of other proposals, remember the court the last couple of weeks have considered item of the leasing authority of the central health district.
the court approved legislation to change that authority to modify that authority last week and this policy position down here, position on the proposals would simply reflect that.
>> why don't we take the three specific bills in reverse order.
>> reverse order?
>> yes, sir.
>> if we need to take another week, we will do that.
>> I have one question with regard to the magistrate priority.
my apologizes to being late.
I have a sick child.
with regard to 18.1 provision, I read we would only be the county that vests its magistrate with the 18.21 authorities?
>> what is the 18.21 authorities?
>> this is the ten register and tracking devices -- the pin register and tracking devices.
>> I believe so that judge grizard said something to that effect when he was making his presentation a minute ago Commissioner, that this would be unique to Travis County.
it is something that he said had been requested by the district attorney's office.
>> I would like a little more to look at that portion of it.
everything else is totally fine.
but I would like another week to look at that one specific aspect of it, because it is -- my understanding from the backup, anyway, is that would make us alone in the state, in vesting magistrates with that authority and I want to be more confident on it.
>> let them know that, okay.
>> okay.
>> one member of the court wants more information.
clara dawson brown or somebody needs to contact Commissioner Eckhardt to discuss that and let's discuss it further in court next Tuesday.
the other matter --
>> house bill 1906, this is the bill regarding the --
>> the one whoa just discussed.
>> the class b misdemeanor for violation of idling restrictions.
>> let's cover the purchasing item that Commissioner Eckhardt heard part of the bill for.
>> house bill 507 changes the current requirement that counties publish legal notice of various bids of sales, auctions, that sort of thing in newspapers for 14 days and replaces that with a requirement that they publish it in the newspaper once and then if they -- this applies only to counties that have their own website and then publish it on their website for at least 14 days.
>> the intention, I guess, is to reduce the costs?
>> the intention to make sure that that people who are not getting their information from newspapers can get their information in other ways as well through the county website.
it will also have the effect of reducing costs some for the county.
>> I move inclusion of it in our policy positions as stated in 2a of your backup -- or 2c of your backup.
>> second.
discussion on the motion?
>> I want to make sure that whatever means is possible for those particular persons that deal with Travis County, through the purchase of goods and supplies are still afforded the opportunity to do that even if they don't have complete access or things like that?
I want to make sure it is pretty well -- and I want to make sure the minority newspapers are continuously used as they have been in the past as far as advertisement purposes.
I want to make sure this does not preclude them from any future activity with our purchasing agent when it comes to Travis County in the advertisement.
I want to make sure that is the case here.
>> mr. Bryce, can we track over time, where vendors say they got their information so that we know the efficacy of the website versus the newspaper?
>> I am sorry, Commissioner, can you repeat that?
I was zoning out, I apologize.
>> no problem.
I was wondering if the purchasing department could track or may already, where vendors ha say they got their information, whether it was from the web or whether it was from the newspaper advertising.
>> we don't currently do that.
I would have to get with staff to see if we can devise a system.
it would probably be something as simple a question, that goes out in solicitation, where did you hear about this, the majority of our purchases, the majority are heard of through -- we do advertising in the chronicle but the majority of our respondents are through the third or parties.
>> and we want to see if the newspaper advertisements are useful and if so, to whom and what extent, so we know whether we are using the dollars most wisely.
>> I understand.
>> this is well and good but I think a specific agenda item would be required toe to dothat, requesting that makes sense and as part of our goals makes sense to me.
actually doing specific stuff would require more formal action after an appropriate posting.
>> would you like us to post that, judge, or a member of the court post that?
>> get with Commissioner Eckhardt and Davis after today.
>> yes, sir.
>> any more discussion of this motion?
questions?
all those in favor?
this passes by unanimous vote.
the idling matter.
>> house bill 1906, again, this would create a class c misdemeanor which we believe would enhance enforcement of current laws regarding vehicle idling during ozone periods.
>> questions?
the clean act coalition already supported this bill.
there is no enforcement under the current statute because it is onerous, basically.
>> move approval.
>> second.
discussion?
all those in favor?
this passes by unanimous vote.
move that these two be added to the county's -- what do we call that list?
>> legislative agenda.
>> legislative agenda.
>> and there are a number of other items, judge, what you have done in effect is to add -- let me see if I have this here.
>> the others we by a supermajority support it.
>> I suppose the only one that would be pending now would be, yes, sir, the others you did support by a supermajority, I think on the motion that you have in front of you, you would have to remove one, which is the adding of the criminal magistrate bill to the priority section.
>> okay, we will bring that back next week.
>> you would be adding one on 9-1-1 funding and one on the health care district leasing authority.
>> my motion is to do that.
is there a second.
Commissioner Gomez seconds that.
discussion on the motion?
>> what was that again?
>> the two other things we want to add is the discussion you had last two weeks about the 9-1-1 funding for cap cog and the authority of the Travis County health care district to do leases which is what you talked about last week.
>> to purchasing?
>> yes, sir.
>> right.
I am for that.
>> any more discussion?
all those in favor.
this passes by unanimous vote.
anything else on the 17?
>> just a couple of comments for the court.
we have our legislative consultant greg nap with us today.
he has been very busy during the session and as long as he was here I wanted to see if he had anything to share with us.
I want to tell the court, as the court is aware, a lot of the discussion is focusing on whether or not the rainy day fund will be used to plug the hole in this year's budget.
we have not crossed the bridge of serious discussion on whether or not it will be used for the future years but it is probably an indication of the mood of the legislature that we are having such a tough battle just to try to bring some consensus together as to whether or not to use the rainy day fund to pay the $4.000000000s in bills that are already due for this biennium.
so that is obviously dominating a lot of political discussion over at the capitol.
I would also mention, as I indicated in the supplemental report that you received that the state representative donna howard who won her election by four votes, as the members of the court know, she was challenged by dan neil.
he has taken that challenge to a select committee of the house.
they are going to meet tomorrow.
they will hear presentations from the two parties.
they may decide tomorrow, they may not but obviously that will have some bearing on Travis County and the legislative delegation depending on what decision they make.
you also have in there information about the bills.
I think as has been mentioned, the court, we have about 1500 less bills filed on the bills -- as of the bill filing deadline than last session.
I think that is largely because people had bills that had some kind of fiscal note, they were going to cost $100,000 or $12 million and people deneed at not too file them because the budget constraints are difficult.
although a number of bills that has been filed the legislature has gone down, the number of bills tracking has gone up.
so we are tracking about 400 bills more than we were last time this session.
but there is good work being done by the county staffers who are out there turning around bill analyses and getting us the information as quickly as possible and that is making our jobs very -- they are not making our job easy, just making it a little easier.
greg, I don't know if you have any comments?
>> well, I would venture to guess a big increase in the number of bills that Travis County is tracking has something to do with the appraisal bills filed in session.
every member of the legislation this session assumed to have file not just one but two or three appraisal bills so there going to be plenty of vehicles moving this session.
I just wanted to add to something that dee said about the appropriations process, every session has generally a theme, but this session even up to this point has been really hard to even put your finger on it, and it is because there are so many things that are moving to that do make it difficult.
we talked before about redistricting, the budget.
I would say the budget is even more of a challenge than I expected, which is yesterday, for example, you had the house appropriations committee meeting and expecting someone from the governor's office to come and give their okay that chairman pits, chairman of the house appropriations could use excess of 4 billion-dollars from the rainy day fund to help with our current shortfall.
nobody from the governor's office showed up and there was confusion of whether or not they actually gave notice and whether or not there actually are going to give the approval but the committee chair wants to know the governor will approve the budget if attend of the day they get a budget to him this session.
in his opinion, he doesn't have a straight answer on that.
then you had appropriations that were set to meet today and they canceled the hearing for this morning and then they renotised it again on the house floor in their meeting today at 1:30, so they are really challenged.
they have extremely difficult decisions to make, one freshman house member -- republican house member made a comment it's kind of a deer in the headlights look when the budget was rolled out and I think they are announcing the enormity and the impact on human live that is the budget is going to have and it is difficult for everyone, across the political spectrum.
and so the house now hopes, if they can't get -- if the appropriations committee can't get it out today, they are hoping to get it out tomorrow.
then you move over to the senate where generally this point in the senate, all of the senate has broken up in its individual workgroup that is deals with the individual articles of the budget.
they aren't even there yet.
they are still in a medicaid workgroup and an education work group and generally they split up in the finer groups, that process is bogged down and as of 2 hours ago, senator ogden has not even set a timetable for those two workgroups to complete their group so they can then go into more specific groups and deal with challenges of yet other agencies and services of the state.
and so, again, it's -- it's really slowing down the process.
I still think they can get a a budget done in this -- in legislative session without a special session but that's not to say they won't pass a budget and then come back potentially next fall to try to address the rest of the budget because I think if revenues do increase and they see the impact of the budget, that they are going to want to come back and come up with a new budget, at least for the final year of the next biennium.
and so, again, it's a great are challenge, and it's slowing down a lot of the legislative session.
the house, again, continues to meet on the house floor but they aren't really hearing any bills except for a couple of the governor's emergency items and here we are 60 plus days into the session.
>> when you mention appraisal bills, are you talking about bills imposing appraisal caps?
>> yes, sir.
>> or --
>> all of the above.
>> and revenue caps.
>> do we think any of them may have legs or...
>> they -- they have legs with them.
how well they learn to crawl is a question, judge.
I think there is a mood over at the legislature that they know they are going to be pushing a lot of stuff downstream to local governments.
so I think that the urgency of imposing appraisal capping or revenue caps on local governments is mitigated a little bit by the sense of we don't want to push a lot more work on to you and take away the resources.
you have to do that.
I think that's at least what, if I have to say the conventional wisdom over there, I think that is the sense.
but I think certainly people are committed on putting those kinds of limitations on local governments and we will have to be very vigilant in opposing that.
>> at some stage in all of this process, it appears to me we are going to need to have a handle, especially on shell legislation that is coming from the state, that is coming down to the county that is going to affect us locally as far as having to fund it.
I don't really know where we are on a lot of things but I do know there may be a possibility of shell legislation coming downstream, where we as local government also have to pick up the tab.
right now, it is kind of -- it is not too early in the process, but somewhere in the process, there is going to be an indication to us, as local elected officials that we are going to have to deal with that.
right now, I don't hear as much of that as I think I need to hear, especially -- it probably hasn't revealed itself thoroughly yet, but it appears that there is a -- an indication that legislation may be heading that direction.
especially with those shortfalls.
>> I think that's a very good insight, Commissioner, and my sense on how that is going to happen the a lot of those bills are out there already.
they are in that 5,000, 700 -- 500,000, 700, 800 bills we are expected to hear from, and we had again from 1 bills scheduled to hearing a few weeks ago we were tracking to having 59 bill this is coming week, so the pace is picking up and I think you are right, Commissioner, I think we will be seeing a sense of what are some new mandates or new shells as you say that will be coming down to this session.
>> is item 51 on the new man dates bill.
>> we actually were in support of that bill and testified about that bill last week, we are trying %o get the members of the Travis County delegation in support, I believe there are 81 members of the house who are signed of as coawe ortors of the constitutional amendment.
we trying to get everybody on that.
we have two of the 6 members so far.
>> two.
>> yes, representative rodriquez and representative howard have signed on as coauthors, we are on a conversation daily with representative dukes, representative workman and representative m a ashak to try to encourage them to sign up.
>> theyghave issues with the bill.
>> ?
>> I think a couple of them do have issues with the bill.
I think a couple of them are taking their time to decide on what they want to do about it, but I am trying to be my usual persuasive and charming self.
>> that may be our problem.
>> [laughter]
>> I clearly admit that, judge.
>> anything else on 17?
I was saying it in humor, as county judge, there is humor there, deeks.
>> yes,.
>> thanks very much get's indicate my attention to call up item 22 and item 19 after that and then the after that if we get to redistricting item if we have time, 22 is
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, March, 2011 2:19 PM
