Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, May 31, 2011 (Agenda)
Item 5
Number 5 is to 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 of congressional and legislative districts and implications for Travis County.
d, resolutions expressing the court's appreciation for the work of legislative associates during the session.
and e, amendments to the priorities, policy positions and the positions on other proposals sections of the Travis County legislative agenda.
just for the record, let me indicate my intention to call up the next three items in this order: and this is consistent with promises that I have made.
we'll call up 18 next then we will call up 10.
and after that 17.
mr. Eckstein.
>> judge Biscoe, members of the court, it is a pleasure to be here this morning.
I want to give you a brief update.
as everybody knows, the legislature was -- the regular session of the 82nd Texas legislature adjourned sign any die yesterday afternoon -- sine die yesterday afternoon.
however it did not complete all its business and so governor perry has called the legislature back in session for this morning.
they have a small call right now.
they are intended to address senate bill 1811, the fiscal matters bill that did not get passed due to a fillibuster on Sunday night.
and secondly, to address senate bill 23, which is a medicate health care reform -- medicaid health care reform bill to create more efficient seize in the medicare system in the state.
governor perry has indicated he may open the call to other topics if the legislature looks like it's making progress on those.
and so among those other topics may be congressional redistricting, may be the reform of the Texas windstorm association, which did not pass during the regular session.
and his sanctuary cities bill, which was one of his emergency priorities for the session, but did not pass.
so we are looking at a special session that we think could go as long as 30 days.
I think everybody believes it will last much less than that and that will remain to be seen.
for now, though, we can give a preliminary legislative report to the court and in the handout we just gave you and that we e-mailed you earlier there is a summary of the 12 legislative priorities that the Commissioners' court adopted during the session.
and basically a status report on what happened with all those priorities.
and we give those this morning to the court in case there are any questions this morning, but we're certainly happy to visit with the court individually or in voting session, just to update you on those areas.
what in general I would say is that we did okay this session.
there were a number of large initiatives that the county had that were not successful.
partly because of the climate of the legislature.
but a lot of the small bills that we cared about did pass.
I note, for instance, that just a few minutes ago herschel lee was here and judge, you mentioned having to keep the burn ban on the agenda every week during its pendency so that the court could take action to lift the burn ban if necessary.
under one of the bills, Travis County bills that passed this session, and it is on the governor's desk, it would not be necessary for the court to have that on its agenda.
they could simply delegate either to you, jij Biscoe or to herschel lee the ability to lift the burn ban on your own initiative.
so a lot of those things.
I consider this a session where we hit a lot of singles and doubles, a couple of trip else, but no big homeruns.
I will acknowledge the fact that on the budget thing I think that Travis County will take a five or six-million-dollar direct hit in funding that the state was providing.
it could be more, could be less.
and there are indirect hits, for instance, when we cut funding for mental health services in the community and the spillover of that ends up being handled by Travis County.
so we still don't know how to quantify all that, but we will be working with planning and budget over the course of the summer to try to get a more clear picture to members of the court.
with respect to the state budget generally, though, they did adopt the budget for 2012, thoirn.
it is a 172 billion-dollar budget that is is $15 billion less the current biennial two year state budget.
what we've seen is a big cut in services.
of that $15 billion, $11 million of those cuts are in health and human services.
so we're seeing dramatic cuts in how the state funds those kind of programs. And nothing in the budget assumes any of the population growth that's occurred in the last two years.
caseload growth or inflation which would occur.
so we're really contacting as if the population of the state of Texas and the cost of doing business is the same as it was on September 1st of 2010 and trying to budget for 2012 and 2013 using those assumptions.
so there will be some challenges ahead in the budget for the whole state as we move forward.
let me just briefly comment on the redistricting issue.
the court has asked igr to keep you post odd redistricting.
-- posted on redistricting.
the biggest piece of information this morning is that the senator sugaler and representative burt solomon, who are the chairs of the respective redistricting committees of the two chambers of the legislature have released a redistricting map, a proposed redistricting map for congressional redistricting.
as mentioned earlier, governor perry has not opened the call to congressional redistricting yet, but has indicated that may be one of the things they decide to address.
as you can see from the map in the upper left-hand corner, Travis County has been divided into five congressional districts.
and I have not yet had a chance to run the numbers on those five districts, but my first glance would be that in none of those five districts would Travis County voters have the decisive opportunity to elect their congress person.
so this is from a Travis County representation perspective, probably not an ideal map for us and I'm sure you will be getting a briefing about it from the county attorney and from others.
so that's where we stand as of now with respect to --
>> certainly not one that we want to hold up as an example for us.
>> it would not be an example for us, no.
I would not think so, Commissioner.
as you know, the state senate map divided Travis County into four different congressional districts -- four different senatorial districts.
the current map divides Travis County into three congressional districts, so it seems like there's an effort to divide what is called cracking in redistricting law to take a population base that's relatively homogenous that votes similarly, that finds communities of interest within it, and to crack those into several different districts.
>> I think we could probably -- I think we should probably start calling it fraking because it seems that we're going below the surface to crack the districts.
>> cracking and fraking.
>> is there any indication here that suggests that Travis County is not a stand alone county as far as being divided into five congressional districts?
of all the counties in the state of Texas we've got, 254 of them, and is there any other county that is being subdivided -- that's being divided into --
>> I was looking quickly at the map.
I don't have the full analysis yet.
it was just released this morning.
but I will note that if you look at the big urban counties and the big population centers of the state, and those small maps that are on the sides of the redistricting map you're looking at, you will note that Travis County is the only county that does not have a congressional district entirely within the county.
>> okay.
>> the population of a congressional district I think is about 700,000, maybe a little bit higher than that.
so Travis County could have easily accommodated a congressional district within the county given that our population is slightly over a million.
>> well, you answered it another way.
I see what you're saying.
but I just didn't see here that -- anyway --
>> so tarrant county has a congressional district entirely within it.
dallas county has a congressional district.
and of course those are larger counties and have to accommodate more congressional districts.
but even with those larger counties, the map makers were able to place entire congressional districts within the boundaries of a single county.
>> but that's not to say that these districts, particularly in tarrant county when you see one arm reaching down into tarrant from denton, obviously to cut off a population and make that -- take out that voting block and basically make them neutral.
>> and if you look at the -- for instance, with tarrant county if you look at the southeastern corner of tarrant county, it is divided into three different congressional districts.
so again, we don't have the analysis.
I'm sure there will be much more -- these maps were just released this morning.
so we have not had a chance to do analysis, nor have media.
so we will be back with more reports to the court on that matter and I assume that at some point the county attorney's office will also want to brief the court about that.
so that's really my update in terms of information of what's going on.
we will continue to report to the court during the special session.
at this time I would ask the court to recognize the interns that worked for us during this session.
we were blessed to have three interns and I want to briefly mention them.
then I was going to ask judge Biscoe if you would read the body of one of the resolutions which is shared among all three.
we have kyle green, who was a student at st.
edward's university in international studies.
he is already doing an internship with the peace corps this summer.
he's in washington, which is why he's not here today.
we had haley armstrong, which is a government major at the university of Texas at Austin.
and haley also worked with us during the session.
kyle and haley each did about 15 to 20 hours a week during the session, including one or two late nights and one or two early mornings attending all the various meetings that we have to attend and did a fabulous job for us.
and fill leap is a student from brazil.
we were lucky to have as an intern, a full-time intern and he was able to work full time for the county and was a godsend to us.
we have proclamations for all three of them.
and judge I'm happy to do it if you -- but it's always better coming from the judge.
but I think at about the third bullet point if you will on each of the proclamations is some of the general information that applies to all three of them.
>> in full?
>> okay.
let's read kyle green since he's not here.
whereas kyle l.
green is a native of new orleans, louisiana, whereas upon completing high school in houston, Texas he moved to Austin to attend st.
edwards university.
kyle is a senior and is pursuing a degree in international affairs.
whereas kyle served as a legislative associate to the international relations department of Travis County during the regular session of the 82nd Texas legislature.
whereas -- that's the international?
intergovernmental.
>> intergovernmental.
>> I didn't want to promote you there, deece.
>> he's going to be our ambassador.
>> whereas the work of the legislative associate is vital to a successful session for Travis County.
whereas kyle served so abely during this session by assisting with the legislative research correspondents and Travis County witness affirmations.
now therefore be it resolved that the Travis County Commissioners' court does here by recognize the important contribution of mr. Kyle l.
green during his time as a legislative associate.
and be it further resolved that the Travis County Commissioners' court expresses its gratitude for his service to Travis County.
and -- ms. Armstrong, haley armstrong, serves as so nobodily in this session by assisting with the legislative research and specifically by focusing on appraisal and revenue cap legislation and its potential affect upon Travis County.
and felipe maintained the Travis County legislative tracking database.
that's three?
>> that's three.
>> they all worked so well.
>> we would not have had near as successful a session, just in terms of keeping track of everything that was going on over there without the service of these people.
>> thank you very much.
>> I would ask the court to weigh the fact that they treat us to dinner in view of the big checks that you receive from the county have probably been spent anyway.
>> [ laughter ]
>> any words from you?
we don't hear you talk much.
we see you moving around on the fifth floor and working hard.
>> good morning, judge, Commissioners' court.
my name is felipe.
I talked last court, I appreciate all your help, everybody was very patient while I was still learning about county government.
and I'm very, very grateful.
thank you very much.
thank you for taking your time to explain to me about how stuff works.
I learned a lot.
I was able to instruct one of the interns that is now beginning.
and I hope he's going to do good.
I instructed him well, I think, as far as I have learned.
and thank you very much.
>> thank you.
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>> and state government, and, yes, I look forward to spending more time over here, my free time and just seeing everyone around.
thanks a lot.
>> and condolences, felipe.
>> thank you.
>> we appreciate the great work for us.
to be honest I worked at state legislature doing three sessions when I was very young, a lot more patient.
probably not as wise.
any time we have an intern eager to do so is, I think we should give them the opportunity.
>> yes.
>> all those in favor?
this passes by unanimous vote.
as I mentioned earlier we were not able to give you the rolex watches you deserve.
these paper certificates are the best we can do.
mr. Ekstein has a way of surprising the Commissioner's court and others, a suitable frame can probably be located nearby.
>> I think we will make a run to the target this afternoon, judge.
>> [laughter]
>> and we have gavels for -- yes, we do.
I also -- and fillet pee and max put an extraordinary number of hours during this and I want to presentation each of them with a government as my token of appreciation for them, so the gavel --
>> so they can stab you with them.
>> they can take out the frustrations on them.
it says Travis County enter governmental relations, 82nd Texas legislature, 2001.
>> beautiful.
>> 2011.
excuse me.
>> [applause].
>> is that it.
>> that it is.
>> ms. Armstrong, your beautiful proclamation.
I submit them.
congratulations to you.
thank you.
you will look one day, I will knock on your door.
you will be the most surprised person in the world, won't you?
>> [laughter]
>> judge, we have no changes to recommend to the county legislative agenda at this point in time.
so we are done, thank you very much.
>> thank you very much.
thanks, again, interns.
>> 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.
