Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, May 24, 2011 (Agenda)
Item 23
23.
consider and take appropriate action on legislative matters, including: a update on legislative activities, b, fiscal matters affecting Travis County including the state budget.
c, redistricting the congressional and legislative districts and implications for Travis County; and d, amendments to the priorities, policy positions, and the positions on other proposals sections of the Travis County legislative agenda.
>> mr. Eckstein.
>> this is the pentultimate briefing that we will give you before the legislative session ends.
next Monday is the last day of the session.
I would like to quickly go through some of the big issues that are moving and Travis County's key legislative issues right now.
we are getting to the end of the session, most of the legislators feel like dorothy in oz, clicking their heels and saying there's no place like home.
everybody wants to end this session and hopes there won't be a special session.
we have one week to go.
the big hangup right now, of course, is the budget.
as I reported to the court last week, the key issues that the legislature is facing right now is the budget.
the key issue in the budget is how much money to put into education funding.
they broadly agreed on all of the other elements of the budget except public education, they have been debating this week over that one.
what the -- what the house and senate confer yeast agreed reduce public education by $4 billion from the level we are at in the currents budget year.
not counting for enrollment growth in our schools, not counting for any inflation factors or any additional costs to provide the same level of educational services, not even factoring that in, we're going to reduce k to 12 education spending by $4 billion.
the big debate now is over how to do that.
you could just spread the pain equally across all of the districts.
there are -- there are hold harmless formulas, though, that will favor the wealthier districts, other formulas that favor poor districts.
so the legislature really is debating right now particularly in the house how to allocate this $4 billion worth of pain among the 1,000 plus school districts that we have in the state.
last night, the key build that was going to become the vehicle for that debate, was going to feature all of these arguments was kimed on a point of order in the house, so as of right now, there's not a vehicle for having that discussion.
there is some talk of attempting to take one of the other fiscal matters bills that is already passed and amending it in conference so it addresses these issues.
if they can do that, then the legislature can probably adjourn without having to have a special session this summer.
one option that they do have is just to leave the current formulas in place with no -- with no plan for how to do those reductions and in fact to spend money at the current levels until we run out of money.
which we sometime in the spring of 2013.
one option even being considered is that the legislature will have to come back at the beginning of the next legislative session and put more money into the school finance system just to make up for the current biennium that they'll be in the 18th or 19th month of by then.
so this is all going back and forth.
it's obviously the focus of much of the news coverage having to do with the legislature.
in addition to the issue of how do you allocate the school finance moneys that they are reducing, they also have issues having to do with changing class size, if her lowing teachers and so -- furloughing teachers and so on, changes in the substantive law that need to be made for this level of reduction to work, those bills are all stymied too right now.
there's some work that has to be done by the legislature before they can adjourn.
if they are not able to do that, then they will either have to be some uncertainty in the public school system in the state or there will have to be a special session this summer.
we I guess will know about that by next Tuesday.
yesterday, I sent out to the members of the court an update on several of the bills that are Travis County items and I just wanted to mention briefly some of them.
house bill 1174, which would clarify the authority of the Commissioners court to delegate the -- the lifting of a burn ban, either to the county judge or the county fire marshal is on the governor's desk.
awaiting his signature.
we have two other bills, senate bill 1044 which expands the county's options for protecting open space land and senate bill 1330 when give judges the option of ordering youthful offenders to participate in a specialized driving safety course.
both those bills passed out of the house today on the local and consent calendar and are on their way to the governor.
we have good news to report as we go into the last week of the session.
we do have bills, also, that have died in the last week, some of which I think are good news for the -- for Travis County and for the residents of Travis County.
senate bill 1771 and house bill 874, both of which were revenue cap vehicles, just ran out of time and are now dead.
as you know the idea behind the bill, a revenue cap vehicle is that it would lower the threshold at which a -- at which a roll back election would have to be held in case of a -- in case of a budget increase or a tax increase.
and -- and roll back elections, because they are inherently complicated and politically dangerous, the counties believe and Travis County believes that the current threshold is adequate and does not need to be lowered.
so there's been quite a bit of controversy over that issue during the -- during the session, we're glad to report that for now at least we think that we're -- we think that's dead.
>> go ahead.
>> but they may be revived, some of those bills I guess they -- they die and the next thing that you know they've been added to some other bill that's moving.
>> we've got a careful eye out, but the problem is that they pretty much run out of vehicles, judge.
there are no other bills out there that -- that would be germane to add this.
I probably shouldn't say that at a categorical statement because I'll be surprised and embarrassed, but at this point we feel pretty good about things.
I'm sorry.
>> could -- could -- were there particular members of the Travis County delegation, brave souls who assisted in getting those -- these are politically problematic bills, you can really get saddled with -- if you oppose these kinds of bills it's a brave thing to do.
and perhaps any of our delegation deserves --
>> I do want to mention on senate bill 1771, which there was a very serious effort to try to get it to the floor of the senate for several days last week.
senator watson was among the leaders of the group of senators who said no to it.
as senator watson and several other local government -- several members of the senate with experience in local government like senator
>> [indiscernible] who is a former mayor of tyler, you know, these are people both democrats and republicans who understand the implications of these kinds of bills for local governments.
and we are very pleased watson stepped to the plate on senate bill 1771.
>> nice shout out across the aisle to --
>> and to all of the others.
>> the other bill that I just wanted to mention briefly to the court, senate bill 878 which was the bill that would have removed the judge's discretion in setting personal bonds with cash deposits.
as a way of managing their caseload in their courts as a way of managing jail population and it's a way of holding down our indigent defense costs.
we were very worried that bill was going to get to the floor.
it did not make it by Saturday which was the deadline for reporting bills out of committee so...
that bill is dead.
so we have a couple of victories in terms of killing bills that would be problematic for Travis County.
there are still a few bills out there pending that will matter to Travis County.
if they pass.
today by the way is the last day on which a senate bill or a senate joint resolution can pass out of the house on second reading.
so if a bill has -- if a senate bill has not made it over from the senate to the house through committee on to the calendar and out of the house by midnight tonight, then that's -- then that bill becomes dead under the house's rules.
1048 is a bill regarding public/private partnerships.
we gave the court a briefing about that bill several weeks ago.
that bill was on thecal car for today, on the calendar for yesterday, but it was not reached.
it is again on the calendar for today.
don't know whether or not they will get to it.
today is the last day that can be heard.
also senate bill 100, which is the legislation to implement the move back, the military and overseas voter empowerment act, a federal act that requires state and local government to set up their elections in such a way as to more fully encourage the participation of overseas voters, it requires very complicated changes to the time tables for elections and schedules for elections.
our county clerk in her capacity as elections administrator has been following that bill very carefully.
senate bill 100 is again scheduled for floor debate in the house today.
that bill has the provision in it that would move the elections back to April, move primary elections back to April and leave the filing deadline on January 2nd or early January of the year.
there is a competing proposal out there to leave the primary election in March, move the filing deadline back into December, there will probably be a floor debate over which of those proposals will go and it will be interesting to see what happens with that today.
for that reason, senate joint resolution 37, which is also on the calendar today, is the resolution that will extend the number of days in the constitutional what we call redesign to run provision.
this provision affects all of the members of the court as well as other Travis County elected officials and said that you would have to resign your office if you have announced your candidacy for another office within a year of the end of your term.
because they are talking now about moving the filing deadlines back into December, anybody who wanted to run for another office would automatically trigger that unless you amend the constitutional provision which they are proposing to do so that it says instead of a year, it says 13 months.
that gets us back to December 1st without triggering resign to run.
speaking of elections, the court asked for a briefing a while ago about the county-wide voting centers.
as you know, dana debeauvoir came to the court to talk about that a little bit.
moving forward with that as contingent on passage of legislation.
there are two bills, one of which would remove the pilot which would allow counties that were doing the pilot projects.
right now only five counties doing it.
if those counties successfully done their pilots and want to continue doing their pilots, they would in essence graduate from the pilot project and move into doing that program and other counties could replace them.
there's also a provision in senate bill 2133 by royce west, excuse me 1233 by royce west that would expand the number of pilot projects from five to ten.
either of those would provide an opening for Travis County.
and at some point I'm sure that the elections administrator would come back to the court, ask for permission to apply for us to do this, to participate in this pilot project.
>> we think one of those will be voted out?
>> I think both of them are in pretty good shape right now, although you can -- although you can never say never about a bill being dead, you can never say never about a bill being passed until it's on the governor's desk.
I think there's a chance to talk about county-wide voting centers sometime this summer.
final bill, house bill 3254, which is the economic incentives for green energy development in the Pflugerville area, the bill is sponsored by representative mark strama, that bill unfortunately has not made it through the process and is dead as of now.
so the final thing that I wanted to mention to the court is redistricting.
as you know the court has been following the redistricting drama over at the legislature.
last Saturday the house and senate passed each other's redistricting maps, which means that -- that the legislature has fulfilled its duty to draw its own maps unless the governor vetoes those maps, then -- those will be the maps that stand subject to any court challenges that occur on those maps and -- and you know I think there's a likelihood there will be at least some court challenges to that.
with respect to congressional maps, as you know the court asked us to keep you posted on what's going on with congressional redistricting.
it looks now like the legislature will not be able to get a congressional redistricting map out.
as of sine die, the legislature loses it's destruct dix unless they are called back into -- unless they are called back into special session.
there's no indication that the governor is inclined to do that.
we will have to wait and see.
as the county attorney briefed you all, once sine die arrived, the courts take jurisdiction over the drawing of the congressional maps, we will have to wait and see what happens with that.
it looks unlikely that the legislature will draw congressional maps.
>> deece, I want to go back to the bill prior to the redistricting.
that you discussed.
h.b.
3254.
>> Pflugerville bill, yes, sir.
>> yeah, the Pflugerville bill.
I want to make sure because I have gotten some inquiries about that, talked with one of the economic activists in the area of manor, who is also concerned about this bill to see if they could maybe embrace it, as far as economic development in the area.
what I'm saying is to say this, since this bill died, I don't want anything to think that we still can't pursue the economic development, green industry setting that we still have available in our discretion.
I'm saying the Commissioners court discretion.
so I just want folks that heard this today don't give up because I know I'm going to continue to support any green industry initiative that we can deal with here within Travis County and also create some jobs that can promote the use of residents of Travis County that are unemployed, low income and underemployed.
we have to manufacturer here in Travis County, I'm still going to pursue that, so I don't want anyone to give up hope because they heard what you just said today about that bill being dead.
>> and as a matter of fact you're right.
that bill would have -- would have specifically recognized that -- that Travis County has other tools at its disposal, that bill didn't intend to remove those.
unfortunately just ran out of time during the legislative session.
>> I want the citizens to understand just what I stated.
>> yes, sir.
>> thank you.
>> that's all that I have, judge --
>> [multiple voices]
>> what happened to the homestead preservation amendment?
>> the homestead preservation bill is in the senate.
made it over to the senate and it is on the senate local and consent calendar for this morning.
I have not checked to see whether or not it has passed.
>> if it passes at the senate --
>> [multiple voices]
>> go to the governor.
>> okay.
that's my report.
I do want to mention felipe who has quietly worked in the background, this is his pentultimate appearance before the Commissioners court.
his internship ends next Tuesday, so I said to him, come on, sit up here, in case there's any questions that you are uniquely qualified to answer.
he has done a fabulous job of keeping track of bills, of organizing the legislative working group meeting that's we hold every Friday and has been a big part of our team and we're very grateful for his work as well as that of the other interns and of course max jones my assistant.
>> it's been a pleasure working with you.
>> thank you.
>> [indiscernible] for the record, thank you, thank you for the opportunity to -- one of my last, it's been a pleasure, it's given me a lot of opportunities.
it has been a great reception.
I'm still learning in the beginning of the process.
now I can say that I know a lot about county government, even though I don't have county government in brazil.
but it's been great.
thank you very much.
>> thank you.
>> most of the interns by the Commissioners court -- most of the interns of the Commissioners court buy us a big dinner felipe.
don't bring bra that tradition
>> [laughter] don't break that tradition.
>> [laughter] any question for either of them?
>> no.
>> thank you very much, appreciate your help.
>> where will you be going now, felipe?
>> traveling a little better.
a road trip to west Texas through the big bend and mcdonald observatory.
so it's going to be good.
I'm expecting it --
>> I'm assuming there's a standing invitation to come stay with us in brazil.
>> of course, please.
>> [laughter] it would be a pleasure to have you all.
we can make arrangements.
it's -- it's a beautiful country and you -- I am sure that you would love it.
of course there's also the dinner for the judge if we go down there.
>> [laughter]
>> that's all that I have on this item, judge.
>> is there any opposition to that -- the bill that's on the calendar regarding public/private partnerships?
>> I think the -- the biggest dilemma moving through the process is that it's complicated and people don't quite understand all of the nuances of it.
there have not been many amendments put on to it.
there was an amendment put on by the urban counties to clarify that it was optional for counties to participate in the program.
so counties could -- could, you know, still use all of the tools they already have for -- for these kind of projects, construction projects.
but it could simply create a new process if the county elected to go through that process that involves some transparency and some -- and a -- multiple steps.
there does not seem to be any organized opposition to it, but it has had trouble moving through the process.
>> what about the commission?
the state commission that would be in place?
is that still in there?
>> yes, the advisory commission is still part of the legislation.
there have been some efforts to take it so that the commission would still do its advisory work on state projects, but not on local government projects.
but I don't think that provision has been removed, Commissioner.
>> okay.
>> okay.
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