Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, March 22, 2011,
Item 22
Item 22, consider and take appropriate action on legislative matters including, a upstate on legislative activities.
why don't we take these in the order they are listed, mr. Eckstein.
will that facilitate your decision or should I read the whole item?
>> if you want to, why don't we go to the action items, which I think are b, c and d.
>> anything on a?
>> I have plenty on a, judge, but I just wanted to get to the action items.
>> b comes next.
>> yes, sir.
>> we'll put those in reverse order next week.
how is that.
>> yes, sir.
I just wanted to get to the action items while we could.
we have, as item b has to do with the powers and duties of criminal magistrate in Travis County.
>> b is legislation relating to the proceedings that may be referred to and powers of a criminal law magistrate in Travis County.
c is legislation relating to implementation of the military and overseas voter empowerment amount including senate bill 100 and joint resolution 37.
d, house bill 1490 relating to the accumulation and payment of sick leave for employees in certain sheriff's departments.
and e, amendments to the priorities, policy positions and the positions on other proposals sections of the Travis County legislative agenda.
mr. Eckstein, take those in whatever order you prefer.
>> thank you so much, judge Biscoe, members of the court, thank you for your time today.
I would like because we have a couple witnesses here, I would like to start with item b which has to do with the issue we held over from last week.
as you remember, there was some discussion of a proposal to draft new legislation that would refine and expand the duties of the criminal magistrates in Travis County.
Commissioner Eckhardt had some questions.
I understand she did some research.
and I do have some judges here in case there are questions about the issue.
Commissioner Eckhardt, I guess the ball is in your court.
>> thanks so much.
I'm sorry for dragging you over here because I did the research and I'm satisfied with it.
I'm good.
>> move approval.
>> second.
>> questions?
comments?
all in favor.
that passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you so much.
>> thank you.
>> great presentation.
>> and I might that had that is a local bill.
and the notice that is required by the constitution was published last Friday.
so we are well on the way to getting that bill filed.
that will be filed sometime towards middle of next month, which fortunately is permitted bit rules of the house and senate.
the second bill I just wanted to bring about today is the move act.
this is the military and overseas voter empowerment act, a federal law passed in 2009.
took effect for the 2010 ee election.
there is a number of pieces of legislation, there are a number of pieces of legislation that have been filed this session in order to conform Texas law with the federal law.
and what we want to do is just brief the court about that today.
we not asking the court at this point to take any action on that.
the main issue is to make sure that ballots can be received by military and overseas voters in time for them to be able to participate in elections.
so the bill as drafted would require that.
although the bill does not mention that, there will have to be some reconfiguration of the election schedules to follow in order to comply with the move act and with how the state is approaching it through this legislation.
there are two consequences that you want to call the court's attention to.
one is that we may have to move some of the election dates back.
for instance, if we continue to have our primary election in March, it will be impossible in terms of trying to comply with the move act, to have the runoff ee election in April as we currently do.
so there is now discussion of moving the runoff election for primaries to the same date in may as what would be typically for city council ee elections or school board elections.
so as you know, we have a primary election date in March, then a run-off in may.
we are talking about move that back to comply with the move act.
that would be one consequence for the county.
of course we would not be having run off election in April but there would be a more complex election to minister in may.
our elections people I think are confident they can handle that but there may be some questions of resources allocation that come up.
those deadlines and details probably will not be known until we get closer to a final version of the bill and some secretary of state ideas about how they want to implement that.
the other consequence that the court should be aware of is the so-called resign to run provision.
again, because we are trying to get ballots printed in time to have a may primary and distributed to overseas voters, the timetable that the secretary of state and elections administrators are recommending would have to begin earlier than the current timetable.
right now, I think there's about 20 days between the filing deadline and the time the ballots are sent out.
they are saying they need more time.
the solution that is being discussed for that is to move the filing deadline back into the previous year.
instead of having a filing deadline on January 1, 2, 3, somewhere in there, there will be a filing deadline probably sometime in December.
the reason that is significant, and just ought to be aware, members of the court ought to be aware of it, there is a provision in the Texas constitution that says if there is more than one year remaining on your term at the time that you announce that you are going to run for any other office, then you must resign, you are deemed to have automatically resigned yours office.
for example, if an electioned official here, say a constable, had decided to run for justice of the peace, if that constable announced his or her intentions before a year, before the January 1 of that final year, they would be deemed to have automatically resigned their current seat.
this is called the revine to run provision of the constitution.
in order to address the problem, the senator has also filed senate joint resolution 37 which we repeal the resign to reprovision and allow elected oh fishinged to run for another office even if the there's more than a year remaining on the term of the office they currents will I hold without having to resign.
>> that is the only thing that says if you are running for another office.
>> only if you are running for another office, yes.
these are just considerations that we wanted the court to be aware of.
I have been talking with dana and marry pharaoh and people in the ee elections office.
they are trying to follow this.
it is very much a process going on.
there's a lot of negotiations going to fine tune the bill.
we do believe that the senator's bill will probably be the vehicle at least in the senate on this issue.
so we have been working with her staff, the other county's have been working with her and her staff.
so we are hoping that this will all get resolved, but we did want to brief the court even an at this early point.
that is all I have unless there are questions about item c.
item there's do with house bill 1490, a bill that would permit sher ef's department employees to accumulate unlimited sick leaf.
and upon separation from the sheriff's department to be paid in the lump sum for the cash value of up to 720 hours of accumulated leave .
under the current policy, in the civil service, this applies to both officers and civilian employees of the department, are entitled to accumulate up to 480 hours of sick leave and upon separation can get paid in a lump sum for up to 24 hours.
that is for one half of that time, up to 240 hours.
so this would theoretically triple the amount of sick leave pay that an officer would receive upon separation from the sheriffs department.
it has a significant fiscal impact on the county.
I believe the number is is in the $9 million range.
I know that travis gat lynn from pbo is here in case the court has specific questions.
in your backup you have a memorandum updating previous research that has been done on the issue.
you also have a chart originally prepared by bill deery berry a couple years ago that shows the policies of the other major urban counties.
this bill as drafted would apply to all those counties as well, so those counties obviously have great concerns about the bill.
it is our recommendation to the court that we let representative nashad, of course a good friend of the county and a member of our legislative delegation, know that we oppose the bill as filed and see if we can work with his office in order to see if there's any legislative fix that we can do that will I think create a more acceptable solution for the county.
>> I know there was a bit of disagreement between travis's numbers and the numbers that the sheriffs offices have.
is there a chance that y'all can come together on that to understand where the numbers are coming from or how they were reached?
>> I'm happy to work with them.
just going back and explaining how our number was calculated, a couple years ago when the bill came up, bill deery berry in our office took a snapshot in time of the leave hours of the sheriffs department and calculated what would be the incremental cost, taking a look at all the accumulated sick team for those people that had more than 240 hours up to 720 hours.
calculated the cost benefit and that was about 8.8 million.
that would be the worse case scree.
if everyone in the sheriffs department left at that one time a one had ever time impact.
we recognize not everyone is going to leave at one time.
but in looking at it, I would think there would be at least a million dollar annual cost as people are leaving.
probably what would happen, may be even more than that because I think people's behaviors could possibly change.
may be that people could try to accumulate as much sick leave time as possible rather than using second time while working for the county.
in addition, people are paid at sick time at their salary when they terminate so they could be earning sick time at higher rate but being paid at higher rate.
as time goes on typically salaries in the counties increase over times.
so it's likely that could happen.
in addition, when I looked, I want to thank the auditor's office and gray jacobs in particular in the payroll department.
some of these numbers are hard to get to.
but when they ran the numbers at the end of fy 10, so that is September 30 of this year, there were 681 sheriffs office employees or about 46 percent of those that were on the payroll at the time that would receive a benefit for this bill.
they would receive extra compensation above the 240 in practice.
there were 251 sheriffs office employees that have accrued 720 or more hours.
so that is the big pool of people that likely would retire at some point in time in the near future.
know there's been a recession, so probably a slow down of people leaving the county.
we have seen that.
we know it's coming.
we just don't know when.
but I think especially this group of 241 people likely would if this bill passed, likely retire sometime in the near future.
in addition, there's 251 that have over 720 hours accrued and 430 that have between 251 to 720 hours.
I'm happy to share how we worked on that.
>> and what is the price tag for the 241?
>> it would depend on what their salaries are.
>> approximately.
>> if I just did a very quick calculation, I will just take a salary of say $30 an hour, and that is probably a little bit low.
typically the people that have the high accumulation of sick time are the more higher paid employees.
>> right.
>> 30 is about an average salary.
if I take 251 times 30 times 480 plus the benefits, that would be about 4.3 million.
>> okay.
>> and that is just for the 251.
>> uh-huh.
>> not counting the 430 or the new people that continue to accrue second time.
this number is constantly changing.
>> 251 or 241?
>> 251.
over 720 accrued sick hours as of September 30.
>> okay.
>> compensated absences are booked on our books.
you fund it.
even though travis is exactly right, when you leave and you pay them out, but we are book those.
the accounting rules require that is an obligation that you have.
so we carry a fairly significant liability on our books.
what this would do, that would increase that liability.
we do for everything at the end of year, we look at the liability we have out there, we calculate the new one, and whatever the difference is, we add.
there's an expenditure on the other half of that liability.
so we are, those are really numbers that you have to really budget, I guess that is my poin.
>> you say we book it, we put an amount of money in reserve to cover that liability.
>> yes, sir, we do, yeah, we do.
>> that is how bill arrived at the $8.9 million.
>> well, I don't know how he arrived at that, but they are looking at cashout, I think.
you know, when they leave, we oh them cash.
and that is one part of it.
but the other part of it, that is right, we look at the entire liability for all of compensated absences.
and debit and expenditure on there, and we credit a liability.
when you debit an expenditure you have to budget.
in the budgeting process we are budgeting that.
you are right, judge, it's sitting in a reserve is where it is.
>> kind of like retirement really.
>> yes, sir.
>> as you earn retirement, we basically fund it.
>> yes, sir.
>> when you retire, the money is there.
>> exactly right.
yes.
>> currently we are only funding up to 240 hours, the maximum accrual, correct?
>> right.
we just book what the rules are today.
and travis is exactly right.
one of the things that makes the number change is when people are paid more because we are calculated at the hourly rate that we may have to pay out.
and so that does change every year.
but exactly like retirement.
>> that is what I tried to explain.
mr. Tiler, any comments?
>> yes.
>> come forward, give us your full name.
this is sergeant sag and company officers of the corrections association.
>> meanwhile, with regards to the policy, this is not the policy for, our current policy is not for the sheriffs department is not the same as for ranch --ra in, k and file employees, right?
>> sorry?
>> the current policy, sorry, the 240 hours for sheriffs deputies is not the same as our current policy.
>> same for all employees.
>> full name, happy to get your comments.
>> okay, I'm james jim, present ptsoa, also a sergeant with Travis County.
been there 23 years.
at this point in my career I have probably about 800 hours sick leave and quite a few folks that are in our group that have a lot of sick leave.
for us &, when these folk into their careers, we are seeing folks being punished for being good employees.
every year I see this pie that shows my sick time and one of my benefits.
if I'm healthy and go through my career without taking sick time, at the end I lose.
240 hours, that is good.
reappreciate that.
but I think that we have folks now realize going to lose their sick time and folking that sick time.
being a sergeant, I have to pay overtime in many cases when these folks are now start to go use that, burn the sick time because they know they are not getting paid for it.
I have folks every time they are having a baby, they are taking the 12 weeks off because they know at the end of their career they are not getting that money.
I understand it does have a large fiscal impact on the county, but I'm looking here and seeing the impact the county has every day by pag the time and a half and also the sick time when a person does call in sick.
in el paso county, they currently are getting paid sick time when they leave according to the collective bargaining contract and are able to carry the sick team.
and the pay there is similar to here.
>> hold on.
you said the county of el paso is doing this currently?
>> yes, the collective bargaining contract, they pay 740 hours of sick time when they leave.
and at bexar county they carry a limited amount of sick time but each year they can sell back I think a hundred hours of sick time at 50 cents on the dollar.
for us, we lose all that.
I'm hearing the figures and I went to the legislative session I guess last year when they did this.
and the figures are so, I couldn't get a grip on where they came from.
because what I saw for Travis County was the highest figure than what I saw for harris county.
and harris county had more employees and I couldn't understand that.
I know we make more money but three times the employees, seems like somewhere the numbers would be higher there.
8.9 million, I think we talked about.
that is if everybody retired.
when I sent you guys an e-mail a couple days ago, that e-mail showed six people going a year.
I don't think right now we have 50 employees retiring from the sheriffs office per year.
the figure I used was at $30 an hour, and I'm not sure minus benefits, that is not high.
most of the folks are deputies and officers, not supervisors at the higher rate.
I think those guys top out less than 30 bucks an hour.
for me, I'm looking at $1.1 million, I guess in that figure I did.
but a third of that is already done in the 240 that we are already doing.
so we are talking about an additional, I guess, $800,000-plus a year to add to that if everybody retires, you know, 50 people retire a year.
I think travis already said that is probably not going to happen.
we know by past experience that is not what happens.
we would just like to see hard work and dedicated that come to work every day get based for that when they leave.
they are finding a way to get that money.
I just had a guy retire a couple months ago.
he went out on family medical leave in August.
excuse me .
June.
retired toward the end of the year.
but he missed almost the last six months of work.
he had that much sick time and had family medical leave and was able to get an extension.
>> thauce because he had a legitimate family medical leave reason.
one should only take sick time if they have a legitimate reason for it.
>> right.
>> my name is nate gel is pi.
I'm also on the board and am sergeant, been with the county 23 years, 17 as a sergeant.
while we would like to believe most people are honest about their fmla, when it comes time to retirement aspect of having the hours, it's easy go to the doctor and get a note or execution for some ache, take your back, for example.
there's no real legitimate way to figure out whether somebody actually has a back injury that is going to keep them off work for 12 weeks.
by the time you find out, they have already spent the 12 weeks, we have already used the overtime.
there are ways to get around the fmla plan where you are supposed to have a doctor's excuse or note.
nowadays you can go to the doctor pretty much and get an excuse for just about anything that can keep you off work and qualify for fmla.
if you go in, even if they don't find anything, they will give you time off because you are claiming the pain and can't make it to work.
I can't stand up, can't walk a lot.
when those things happen, people get that time off.
I did have one that also worked for me towards the end, matter of fact, to give you a comparison, these two guys worked together, lived two houses down from one another, and both retiring at the same time.
they were both out on fmla the last six months of their career.
coincidence or finding way to use the time that I did not use because I was a good employee.
>> because you were a healthy employee.
you didant have to take the sick leave because you were healthy.
>> correct.
because I was a healthy employee.
they find a way to use it at the end.
it costs us twice as much because now we are paying the sick leave accrual for them to be out when they don't have to be out.
in most cases, I would say probably about 75 percent of the time, we are going have to find, depending how many people are out, we're going to have to find somebody to pay overtime to.
the same people we are talking about who make the most money are the same people coming in and working overtime and getting the most money.
the overtime rate is at 30, 45, versus the $30.
I think that needs to be considered.
>> one of my concerns, an and I stated before as we go through this process, that money that really isn't, I'm looking at this is a shell option, I think, with this particular initiative.
right?
>> yes, sir.
>> so since it's a shell, it's something that the county must do.
in other words, we don't have no choice.
it's not may whatever.
in other words, if this bill happened to pass or whatever, this is what we have to do.
I want to look at a cumulative tab if possible.
we know how much this is going to cost, as far as I'm hearing in the discussion, it's additional funding.
with this shell option.
there is a whole lot of things that I think are going to come from the state allege --legislature under the shell option.
we don't know exactly what that will be.
as I stated earlier, to meet sove these shells and not increase the tax rate is going to be a hard thing to sell on this court.
we rel are--really are working hard to meet that end.
right now, I asked deese, I would like f we can possibly do this, I don't know, but possibly this is a good example today.
and other examples that I mentioned in the past.
if we can keep a cumulative amount of the shells, the dollars that are coming, mandated from the state legislature, if legislation passes, if we can keep cumulative, even though tentative, a cumulative tentative schedule on what and how it's going to impact this year's budget, I think it's something that we need to really really start doing, I think now more than later.
because of the fact, what I'll hearing here today is I think something that probably needs to be done.
then again you have other employees, rank and file employees also that work hard and do the necessary things and probably want the same consideration even though the bill is not addressing that per se.
but as county employees, I think we ought to be treated the same in my opinion.
what would be the cumulative effect of that?
to treat all county employees the same, dealing with the sick leave policy.
something that I think we don't really have arms around at this time.
really needs to be some number crunching here to let us know how and what we are going to proceed in the future, since we looked at the swigs as we --situation as we go through the budget process, kind of in an arena and still some very very vivid unknows money-wise.
I'm just really concerned about the other expenses.
even talk here, if you heard other governmental entities, they are laying off persons.
laying off persons as we sit in these chairs up here today.
of course, I made a commitment to not do that.
to lay off county employees.
but it's getting to the point where the more we take on on unfunded mandates coming from the state legislature, the more things are going to have to be taken into consideration to how we get to the end of the day.
because this is a tough one on everybody.
not only this fiscal year, but the next upcoming fiscal year is going to be just as onerous as this one.
I want everyone to take this into consideration when you come asking for these, what is the overall impa k on the Travis County family, what will that impact be on everybody else in the county as we look at our individual situations, we need to really look real close.
it's going to be an impact.
I can see it coming because of the unfunded mandates that are coming with the shell option.
I'm going to say shell.
that means if it passes we have to do it.
no choice.
>> speaking of family, are you here for the constables?
is.
>> I'm here for myself.
we as a group didn't get a chance to discuss this.
I'm an in complete agreement with Commissioner Davis, an I'm opposed to this bill.
think all county employees whether law enforcement or rank and file or clerkel should be treated the same on this issue.
one thing that I would like to refloat, even though this is a difficult budget year, I still think it's the right thoi do or we should be looking at, because it's compassion at right thing to do, I have always been interested in the idea of the excess sick leave if someone has cancer or a car wreck and have outrun their sick leave annual vacation time, I would like to have the option to donate some of my sick leave to some of our employees that are struggling to get by because of injury or health issues that are able to come back to work and not eligible for long-term disability.
I would just like to throw that into the mix in the discussion.
>> okay.
as to the sheriffs budget, when we budget over time, do we budget overtime for law enforcement separate from corrections?
>> that is correct.
>> approximately what amounts do we have budgeted today?
>> off the top of my head, I would say maybe $1.5 million.
sorry, I don't have it with me.
I can confirm that.
>> get that to us between new and next Tuesday.
>> all right.
>> I indicated in my e-mail what I thought our position may end up being.
now, we would not just look to the 50 a year.
we would look at the total liability and we would fund that.
so the amount that we deal with may be larger than larger counties because you fund them in different ways.
from our perspective, those, it's the liability is there, then you really ought to be able to pay it.
now, if 50 on average retire annually, you never know whether one year it may be 30 or may be 70, 75.
one reason it's less significant is that you have got the amount in reserve anyway.
so we would have to change that policy in order to reduce that amount.
but it would be, from our perspective, rirvingy.
right now a--risky.
right now a the lo of government entities are having problems funding retirement because they don't fund as they go and all of a sudden this e have a lot more retiring one year than they are accustomed to and the funding isn't there.
one way we deal with that is to fund not at a hundred percent, but at a high level, up around 88, 89 percent of the liability.
but why don't we bring this back next week, okay?
>> yes.
>> what is the status of the bill?
where is it now?
>> it's been filed and referred to committee.
it has not been set for hearing yet.
>> bring those back and let's look at them.
the other thing let's try to find out in fact what counties have a total in the range of the 720.
you said el paso.
>> it's in the contract.
>> the only one?
>> that is the one I know of.
>> the one you know of, okay.
>> if I can call the court's attention to the chart at the back of your backup about this, you will see what the policies are for the other five big urban counties and for elago county.
sergeant hadge is correct in saying el paso is the only one that has the policy for 720.
>> let's bring it back next week and take action on it then.
>> also, may I ask though that we direct h trompt take a look --h trompt take a look atting with--hr to take a look as well?
I'm wondering if there isn't some apples to oranges in the chart.
we might take a look from a hr perspective as well.
>> mr. Eckstein, anything else?
>> just to report that hb 662, the county's land use buffer zone bill, is going to be heard in the house land and resource management committee today at noon.
so I will be going over there shortly.
>> okay.
>> I have quite a few folks that have been notified about this.
>> yes, sir.
>> we have contact add --contacted a burving of folks.
hopefully they have responded.
>> we have tom knuckles, our county land use attorney as resource witness for the committee, for representative rodriguez.
as Commissioner Davis mentioned, we have done quite a bit of outreach through his office to people in the community who have in the past expriested interest in land use issues and hopefully will take the opportunity to testify to their legislature.
>> I understand that the bill for county authority to regulate off premise signs has a hearing on Thursday.
>> that is correct.
>> I will not be able to attend that.
do we have anybody from Travis County that may be planning to do testimony for that one?
>> we do not have that planned.
we certainly plan to express our support for the bill, but we did not have that.
we can certainly, I'll certainly be happy to work with you on that, Commissioner.
>> thank you.
>> anything else under 22?
>> that will be it, sir.
>> how did the hearing go on the appraisal caps?
I guess revenue caps and the other caps.
>> our county auditor testified to the committee yesterday.
all the bills were heard and left pending in committee.
I think that there was a very lively testimony, particularly about the revenue cap legislation.
>> lively against, in favor, or just lively?
>> mostly lively against.
by senator williams was there to ask questions, obviously is very engaged in the issue and interested in passing the legislation.
there were also a lot of witnesses testifying against the appraisal cap legislation as well.
that too was lively.
>> made me tosand turn last night, mr. Eckstein.
>> I don't know if the auditor would like to give a report to the court about it.
as lively is probably the nicest way I could describe it.
>> senator williams knows the subject matter.
in the senate you can only testify for three minutes.
so it's difficult to get much out there.
bruselfon testified against the bill on behalf of tack and did a really nice job.
tomorrow afternoon I'm going meet with senator williams and really tack talk more no depth about our issues.
as I said, three minutes isn't a lot of time.
there were county and city officials throughout the state testifying against it.
>> keep us posted.
that is pretty important.
>> thank you very much.
>> thank you.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, March 22, 2011 6:49 PM
