Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, August 16, 2011 (Agenda)
Item 19
Let's call back to order the voting session of the Travis County Commissioners' court.
and shortly before noon we were about to call up item number 19.
and 19 is consider and take appropriate action on proposed organizational changes for transportation and natural resources and facilities management department.
>> good afternoon, judge and Commissioners.
dan any hobby and carol -- danny hobby and carol joseph.
you probably know that your county executives meet often to talk about solutions to issues, problems, whatever, that do cross our department boundaries.
and one item that kept coming up again go ahead and was mr. Hobby's assignment, temporary assignment, of the admin ops program or department.
and after talking through it with all the different county executives, we thought it might be helpful to you if we were to offer an option that you could consider amongst the other options that you're considering.
and that option would involve shifting the facilities management department over to tnr under me.
and it kind of made sense because we both provide planning, engineering, architecture, right-of-way, land acquisition, construction services, and operation and maintenance services, only the customers may differ.
and since we had all agreed to go that route and prepare an option for your consideration, myself and carol have kind of taken a look at what the organization might look like, a very cursory look.
and I think that we can successfully pull into tnr facilities management.
so for your consideration is a proposal to do just that.
and I've listed in your backup some issues or some approaches that I would take if you decided to go this route.
and that includes freezing positions, management positions, anyhow, until we got through an analysis.
freezing the moves that we're planning on making into 700 lavaca.
and I've talked with roger and that may not be entirely possible, but we want to at least take a look at what the implications of a freeze might do and maybe allow certain things to happen.
and the list goes on.
but bottom line is, I'm prepared to take on that department if you desire for me to do that.
and I would turn it to danny if he wants to add any comments to that.
>> steve and I have visited about the transition and how it might work, and of course you also see in the backup that steve did not mention, and that is I think it would be appropriate for him not only to transition to the department, but also do an assessment, and do an internal assessment first, which he mentions, and then see if he needs to pull in outside resources.
steve came in with two good suggestions as far as how that might be done.
I think in fairness to all the parties, I think it would be good to have the transition occur as is, do the internal assessment and then come back to you with the recommendations as to what the next steps would need to be.
and it's a rather large department and it's full of a lot of opportunities, good opportunities.
they're involved in very big projects right now as you know.
but with the expo center and some potentials there, there's just a lot going on.
so I think it does need to have appropriate management, and my time has just been very limited, so I don't feel like I've done the job that I need to be doing in fairness to them, but also I'm here to also continue to assist steve and if you desire to go this direction I'm also here to continue to assist roger el khoury and the court.
>> I would just add too that the notion of making this option available to you was developed prior to rodney expressing that he would be stepping down.
there's a planning element in the planning and budget office that has been working with facilities management on the downtown master plan, and in particular the civil family courthouse, that if it were to come -- if facilities management were to come to tnr, I think it would be -- behoove us to bring that planning person from pbo over as well so that they are in the same group and continue the momentum that's building on that project.
I don't want to do anything that will cause a hiccup in that process and that would be just one other sidebar note.
for your organization.
-- for our consideration.
>> danny, let me ask a question to you.
is there going to be a division within the fmd department, is it going to be fragmented or is it going -- are you going to take the whole department in its entirety?
in other words, all the employees of facilities management will come up under tnr?
or will it be a situation where you will take part of and then split the department?
>> the proposal would be to take the entire facilities management department and put it under with tnr.
>> so no fragmented situation at all exist where some employees will be left behind?
>> right.
>> because I want to make sure that that is the case.
>> that's the intent, Commissioner.
>> okay.
>> I think that as to the -- ms. Powell who is in pbo, I would like to see that issue addressed as part of the assessment.
>> okay.
>> my thinking was that the entire department would be transferred to tnr, and basically you would conduct over time the appropriate assessment.
and if you need outside help to get that done, you would let us know.
now, this is against the background of our getting danny to commit to serve as the head of this department.
we add this had one to all his other duties and responsibilities and we said we would try to keep it until roughly three months.
and this is 10 months later?
nine or 10 months later.
>> I quit counting.
I think it's nine or 10 months.
>> much, much longer than we thought.
so in a way it's really you're substituting for danny except we're moving facilities under tnr.
>> and it would be, I would hop, a permanent move rather than temporary like you did with danny.
>> that would be our goal as long as it works out.
but you would help us determine whether or not it's working out.
I mean, so our goal would be a permanent transfer that would benefit all involved, but we would have to deal with the facts as they surface.
>> yes.
>> and part of which would be you're determining whether you need some outside help to help do you it because in addition to doing the assessment there are other duties and responsibilities in tnr that you've got to accomplish as well as picking up this new stuff.
at some point I think I have felt that we need another director of the expo center because that's a major responsibility.
we seem to be kind of torn between getting somebody to do maintenance of the facility and more facilities type than marketing, it's apparently pretty difficult to get the combination because we've not been able to get that just right.
but that's one of the decisions that we need to make.
so I don't know that -- we don't necessarily have to have a decision today, but you would like to get whatever input we can give.
and if we need to put this back on the agenda next week or the week after, I have the advantage in that I've chatted with roger and steven and danny several times about this.
so I'm kind of familiar with it.
>> I'd be glad to meet with any of the Commissioners and provide more information about what we're thinking here.
to do that over the next couple of weeks as well.
>> my concern basically is what I stated earlier, was splitting the department up and fragmenting -- of course, what I'm hearing is there won't be fragmenting.
>> it will come intact.
what I am thinking -- you can do this two ways that I can think of.
either bring it over as its own department and just have me overseeing two independent departments or bring it over and merge it with tnr.
and I think we may be able to achieve some savings there.
and that's one of the things that I wanted to look at very closely.
>> well, I think the judge made an astute observation.
>> thank you, Commissioner.
>> [ laughter ]
>> and I believe that if -- we always are interested in savings, of course.
and if you need -- I think need more time to let us see what the cost savings would be, but again still keeping things intact, you know, you're at the top of the pyramid on this, and of course all your other shops, parks and all these other things, road and bridge and everything else up under you, tnr, fmd could be one of those things.
but I want to make sure that whatever you envision, I think it has jessetated -- I would like to see what those other alternatives are as far as what you said just then.
as far as your operation.
>> I would like to see that too especially if there are savings.
and still provide a good service to the organization.
>> right.
>> okay.
>> roger, any comments?
>> good afternoon, roger el khoury.
>> good afternoon.
>> I think it would be a line on the right department and I think if we stay as a whole under tnr under the guidance of steven right there as the county executive, but facilities still as a whole body right there, that everything -- the services, everything we've been doing it for the last 12 years, I think that is a great move.
we're on board.
>> and we do need an assessment over time and try to improve things basically.
some of the decisions may be kind of major.
did we fund the director of the -- I guess we still have funding for the director of expo, but y'all have just been picking that up and doing it, right?
>> correct.
>> but I'm assuming must not is in the preliminary budget for next year.
that could become a big headache for us if we're not careful.
and I know it did significantly add to the duties and responsibilities of whoever was doing it.
I think you had two or three people trying to cover it.
>> right.
>> yeah.
so do we want to take another week to mull over just in case, and if there are questions bring them back?
let's plan on doing it next week, okay?
and roger, if you would leave danny on your christmas card list one more week.
>> [ laughter ] and if we approve this next week you may strike him off.
>> [ laughter ] anything else on this item today?
>> no.
>> then we'll bring it back.
and just in case there are additional comments or questions for us next week.
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.
