Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, August 23, 2011 (Agenda)
Item 40
Number 40.
>> consider and take appropriate action regarding the replacement of chapter 11 related to the parking and other issues.
>> good afternoon, judge and Commissioners.
vicky cosby and debbie bradford from the parking committee.
I want to make sure we address one of the most frequent questions been the last two weeks because there was questions as to way the policy the way we allocate parking.
I wanted to make sure people understood the policy we are bringing before you as revision to chapter 11 does account for whether -- either case, whether we use assigned parking or zoned parking, and the economy was careful to make sure the policy allows for both.
that's why we were moving to zone parking or change between assigned and zoned parking.
what we are bringing before you today gives you a scenario that could be applied broadly to, a situation we have in the granger garage which is still assigned or the 700 lavaca garage which is currently zoned until October.
and we will certainly be coming back to the court to discuss fully zoned parking in October.
just to go over the points of the policy, we're operating under an outdated policy which is causing a number of issues for the parking committee and the parking administrator as well as the employees.
this policy that we have now was last adopted in 1989.
as I mentioned a couple weeks ago, what we have right now are situations where there are no clear guidelines for exceptions such as medical when employees ask the parking administrator to assign them parking outside of the wait list order or how it's described in the policy.
we have issues with old language, old practices.
the current policy talks about giving tokens for capital metro, obviously that's not longer available to employees.
and it also doesn't provide a level of accountability for reserved spaces because as I mentioned previously we started with almost 200 spaces specified in the policy for specific positions and that has ballooned to over 400 spaces.
so obviously the policy hasn't been adhered to as the organizations grew and so we wanted to make sure to clean up that language.
so basically what we're doing today is asking the court to consider revising the policy.
we have reorganized it for easier reference for the employees.
we've added definitions for example to make it clearer.
we've updated the department names and titles to make sure they are current with the way the county is organized now.
we've updated the processes for assignment and administration such as posting the wait list on the internet and seeking court approval for additional reserved spaces, as well as deciding all spaces in a consistent manner.
and the two biggest issues that we are anticipating the court having comments on as well as employees are defining a permanent parking committee because the current policy does not do that, as well as streamlining the best positions and reserved spaces.
that by far is going to be the biggest issue.
just briefly, to assist the parking administrator to do an annual audit of the wait list and assignment list.
researching alternative transportation modes, recommending modification to the policies as business practices changes and assessing performance of the parking administrator as prescribed in the policy purely as an informational step for the county executive responsible for employee parking.
so the big issue which I assume that we'll continue to talk to employees in the court about is that of reserve spaces.
just to be clear the policy has two sections where we talk about assignment of spaces.
one of those deals with nonreserve which are employees on the wait list, and that is section 11-008 in our revised policy.
but then there's also a section that talks about specified positions and those would be reserve spaces based on position.
as we mentioned last time, that would be the Commissioners, elected, appointed officials.
that would be courts and so those specific positions as defined this the policy would be granted a parking space sole on the position.
and that's what the reserve spaces are addressing.
I'll let daniel talk a little more about the reserve spaces.
>> we've been spending a lot of time talking about the reserve spaces and the survey results from last year show that employees ranked employee parking as the least fair way to assign parking.
and so they would prefer to have everything based on seniority or where you fall on the wait list.
they also -- reserve parking has ballooned from -- this is what sydney said, from 148 spaces to 288 today and there is no consistent application in how those are distributed.
so we've been using the organizational chart as the most fair way of assessing what would be a specified position that would not -- so we could kind of have both things.
so we could do the way that the employees want where they want it based on seniority, but also maintain the practical aspect there are certain specified positions that need to be at -- have a guaranteed parking space at any particular time so they can address the court or carry out their functions.
>> you said 140 to 288.
sydney has said 200 to 400.
>> because that includes county vehicles in that broader number.
>> that includes what now?
>> county vehicles.
the policy we left -- it's always been that county vehicles are county assets so they should be protected and not parked on the street, for example, vandalism after hours.
in the current policy we left it the same that the vehicles would be protected.
obviously the county fleet has increased so that number is embedded in that.
>> where do they park now?
>> various places.
some in the granger --
>> on the street?
>> during the day they park in county spaces.
>> but not on the street.
>> no, I would guess you would see them parked on the street as they are in transition, but they actually have assigned spaces.
>> so under your policy revisions, we would end up with how many assigned spaces?
>> that's not addressed in the policy because the policy is -- doesn't assign the spaces.
the policy just says that the county will either use the reserve system or a zone system or a hybrid of the two.
and then depending on whether you want to specified positions today, then there would be specific positions that would be identified that would receive a guaranteed parking space independent of their tenure here.
>> whether it was a specified position zone or --
>> reserved parking, exactly.
>> they are two separate issues.
>> right.
all we're asking today is adopt a general policy that incorporates the entire parking that can exist and whether we adopt a particular policy we would assign that -- that -- those spaces.
>> what's before us today is just with regard to marrying our written policies to our organizational chart.
>> well --
>> with regard to specified positions irrespective of whether they are in specified position zone or specified position reserve space.
>> there's two things, yes, you can do that today, or we could separate that out if you do not want to address specified positions today, we could just adopt the generic policy of here's how we govern reserve parking, here's how we govern assigned parking, here's how we govern zoned parking, and it is not making a determination on what system you are going to use in any particular garage.
>> I would suggest for today we take the smallest possible nibble on the elephant.
what would you suggest it be?
>> I would suggest in the court is ready to approve the policy and where we differ would be the last exhibit which is 11.013 which defines the specified positions many and I would say maintain the one that's currently in the policy.
get more feedback for those specified positions that would be impacted by us moving to the one that we proposed because the committee looked at balancing the number of specified positions against the need for more employee parking.
and obviously the more positions you put in that special category and give them a space, the less spaces there are available for the general population of employees.
>> just to clarify semanticly, the more specified positions you give an assigned space to.
>> right.
>> I want to make that distinction between giving an assigned space which will reduce your overall caps to it provide parking versus giving them a specified position zone.
because I think -- I think that if we are honest with ourselves, specified positions by and large, not every one of them, but generally speaking come and go a lot, which increases the probability of being able to share -- share capacity.
a lot of our -- a lot of our positions must be here at 7:00 a.m.
and work until 4:00 or be here at 8:00 a.m.
and stay until 5:00 and do not leave for lunch.
but many position increase the ability to share capacity.
>> let me ask you this question.
what model -- well, who are you -- I think it wasn't a good example of moved over there.
have you had enough input in the example, are those other folks that are moving, purchasing moving over there, several people moving over there, what are we hearing from them as far as their situation dealing with 700 lavaca parking?
are we going to wait to hear what we need to hear from them.
I understand there is some complaints and concerns about the situation, of course, what we're dealing with today are maybe just some policy initiatives as far as kind of cleaning up an old policy that probably needed to be cleaned up.
but as far as getting to specific down to the nitty-gritty of all of this, it appears that the jury is still out.
and, of course, y'all know what my position is on a lot of this stuff.
I want to make sure that some of these people that have assigned parking will be able to retain assigned parking.
and, of course, the reserve situation is something a little different.
but at the end of the day we have persons that are moving over there constantly and, of course, I think one of the ladies was in purchasing, also the auditor's office, and I'm just wondering what are you hearing from those and whatever you are hearing are you throwing that into the mix of things when we get ready to really look down at the big, big portion of this particular policy.
>> we have been looking at that.
as you said, Commissioner, the jury is still out and that's intentional.
we are coming back in the fall -- in October to give the final report on our -- on our test period here.
>> and that would definitely include employee survey.
we always make sure to bring back direct feedback from the employee in regards to the zone parking or current assigned system.
and so realizing that the auditor just moved to 12th, we want to give them time to get used to the garage and give us their full opinion at having some experience there rather than gut reaction having moved from assigned to that garage.
>> how long do you think it will probably take to get that experience feedback?
>> our plan was to give them at least a month to month and a half to do the survey and come back to the court.
but again, that issue is a zoned parking versus assigned parking, which is different from this conversation of how do we --
>> I understand.
but it's still out there.
>> yes.
>> I hear what you are saying, but the conversation is about something else.
I hear what you are saying.
>> yes, yes.
>> the conversation is --
>> when you -- all the county employees we have heard what you said a lot.
>> in other words, as I stated earlier, the jury is still out.
>> we have heard from both sides.
obviously you have heard a lot from the people who are complaining about not having assigned parking and we've heard from others including county executives who said it hasn't been issue.
we have heard from both sides.
>> one fellow employee said according to the parking committee Travis County currently has enough spaces to assign all employees in the downtown campus a parking spot.
that's not true, is it?
>> no.
what the consultant said was that if we went to a zoned system with our entire capacity for parking, then we would have enough and we have not gone to that system.
we're still testing 700 lavaca, obviously san antonio, granger, all our other facilities are assigned.
>> so under our current system we have capacity to provide reserve spots to what percentage of our downtown workers?
>> percentage.
>> yeah, I don't know the personal.
we can give you a raw increase.
>> what's our waiting list?
>> around six years, and there's still at least 400 people on the wait list.
>> I just want to make sure that that is clarified.
if we did, which I don't believe there is political will to do it, but if we did go to a fully zoned system, we would have enough capacity for all downtown employees to have a parking spot albeit not a reserved one.
>> correct.
according the our consultant.
>> under our current system which is all reserved, there are -- there's a six-year waiting list and a significant number of people on it.
>> uh-huh, yes.
>> so when you say our consultant, who do you have in mind?
>> that was the broaddus consultant.
>> okay.
>> do we have any numbers on a blended system?
in other words, you are talking about reserve for elected officials and then perhaps zoned for the rest.
>> I guess we could go -- well, do you have --
>> I was going to say what we were going to do is when -- when it transition over to 700 lavaca and creating scenarios that would forecast that, that is something we were going to bring back to court.
as mentioned the last time we were here, I don't know what the auditor's numbers are currently, but we did have 200 employees that were from the wait list parking over there in addition to the employees that were officing over there and the oversell percentage was roughly around 120%.
which means there were 20% more people assigned in those given parking spaces and there's still, I just looked at numbers before I came over, still over 100 empty spaces in that garage.
>> what's the earliest or the latest person on the wait list that's been given temporary spot over there?
because I know I was like less than -- about four years.
>> it's hard to say because we had to
>> [inaudible] bus obviously we about move people off the wait list.
>> we whittled down.
>> for every assign pace we are reducing our caps to it provide spaces to our central business district employees.
correct?
>> yeah, because under a zoned system a space can count for 1.2 spaces.
and so versus when you do a reserve.
>> and it really counts like .8.
>> .7.
>> because there's 30% wasteage.
>> in the proposed policy, you reduce the number of positions that assigned spaces are --
>> are given to independent of tenure, right.
>> so have we notified those people that they may object the list to lose?
>> they all know.
there is not a single person -- I'm telling you, if you ever want to get something done or rally the troops, put parking policy next to it and you will get everybody in the county paying attention.
>> [laughter]
>> I would also say that the proposal is to grandfather those who are currently in those spaces and unless people change positions, then you would make the switchover to the new policy.
>> I want on clarify I've had feedback from colleagues and other individuals that they were worried that that wasn't clear and I would suggest that one of the changes we could make to the policy itself is to add a description in there or a sentence that says those who have an asign space will be grandfathered so it's part of the official policy and not just something the court has adopted.
>> so they would be -- so just to complete that thought that the employees are clear, if you are in that position you would not be impacted.
>> I'm looking at 13 pages of proposed policy.
so your recommendation is that we adopt all of these 13 or part of it?
>> it depends on your will.
>> our recommendation, yes, it does depend on your will.
we would be satisfied given the amount of work put into this, our minimum ask --
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>> that is -- if you want to put a mascot on a face on this, let's put roger's face on there.
>> and roger has been doing a wonderful job.
it's really light years what what it was.
so just to give him some piece of mind and something to hang his hat on, would you entertain such a motion?
>> I'm defer to a majority of the court.
I can tell you I'm not fully prepared to act on it.
I can also tell you that too many employees do not understand it.
it would seem to me that a one pager or a two pager emphasizing highlights would be real beneficial.
>> okay.
>> clearly there are some positions with assigned parking today and those -- that assigned parking will be lost when that position -- when the person occupying that position today moves on.
appeared I don't know that people understand that.
if you're like me and have employees with a whole lot of seniority, they won't be directly impacted, but they're the ones who get the phone calls when I'm not in the office and I can tell you that there's a level of concern by rank and file employees.
what I was about to suggest a moment ago is that the Commissioners' court have some sort of public hearing before adopting the policy.
I was also about to say let's wait and get the report from the zone parking, but if we need to move on this in a week or so, I'll forego that, but I don't know that I can for go me acting on this before understanding it more.
each time we discuss it I do learn a little bit more about it, and it's fairly complicated, but it's been -- current system has been in place more than 20 years.
one more week won't hurt.
it probably won't help, except it will help me understand.
>> [ laughter ]
>> I'm hearing the interpretation on this grandfathering in situation --
>> on some of this we may need to clarify for the court.
>> it's not as straightforward as it appears.
>> [overlapping speakers]
>> I really do believe that the employees of this county ought to have a say in what the heck we're doing here.
I mean, it's like portable.
you earn something, you ought to get to keep it.
>> I would like to say a couple of things f we need to take another week, whatever, 20 years plus a week is not that big a deal.
but we do not -- we do not recommend a public hearing on the policy because will the pollen compasses everything.
I think it would be a very good idea to have a public hearing on the implementation -- what your elections will be under the policy.
but this is just merely establishing the parameters of what will be a future public hearing.
if you adopt the policy today you are adopting the parameters for how we will conduct the public hearing in the future.
otherwise we're going to get a mass of confusion.
and on the confusion note, I just want to say a lot of people are being willfully I ignorant on this matter because they are looking down the pipeline and they are seeing their little princess parking spot potentially going away.
and you know, I just want to say that, like, willful ignorance is not -- is not going to be a barrier in us moving forward.
>> well, I think it really boils down to what the court says, though.
in other words, whatever the court determines or is discussed on this dais is the will of the court.
three votes.
>> yes, sir.
>> so that's what I'm saying.
>> but right now what we're doing is the will of the court is being borne out by lessergys.
we're setting policy by not setting policy.
and the policy being set by not setting policy is a very poor one.
>> the judge said he needed a week and we normally honor that.
>> I hear you.
>> we normally honor people when they request something, we normally honor it.
>> and the policy parameters that have been before us three times now?
with the exception of the specified position portion, are really rather non-controversial.
so I would just ask the members of the court to read the actual policy and if you lay aside all of the lighting hair on fire emails that we're getting and actually just read it, I think you will find that the policy parameters that are being put forth with the exception of the specified position portion, are pretty non-controversial.
and really are --
>> I guarantee you there are other exceptions, and it is not as simple as you say.
if so we would have acted two weeks ago.
not next week.
and my moving next week will be fast.
and it also will be without what I consider to be a full understanding of employees who will be impacted.
the county judge is protect understand here, right?
>> [ laughter ] so I'm doing my part to protect me and my pred sayser, but there are other employees in the county that I think we need to treat fairly and make sure they understand what fair treatment is also.
my thing about us having plenty of parking was if we didn't have lessees at 700 lavaca, we would have access to a whole lot more parking spaces, but we're legally bound to honor those commitments.
so although we own them, we can't access them today.
point may come in the distant future where we have those and in my view we ought to think about that right now.
and because, one, is that we're not supposed to give new leases to people, but if you have a right of renewal then we have to honor that.
but over time we will access more parking spaces d we address that here?
>> the policy allows for that, yes.
>> how long would it take to do a pager, one and a half pager, that summarizes meaningful changes?
>> I think we have it.
>> we could do that by tomorrow.
you're wanting a week.
so realizing the deadline is usually today and tomorrow.
>> hi one, but I would like for y'all to prepare it, because the person that prepared it for me is probably kind of like me.
but that would help me immensely.
>> certainly.
>> and the other thing is for those who contacted my office and said we haven't heard about this, we know nothing about it, I at least can send that to them and say this is from the parking committee.
now, the parking committee has two people from each department or one?
>> we did list the parking committee members.
>> that's why I asked the question.
>> it is listed in the backup.
and there's one person from most departments.
>> all right.
what's the standard?
what's the target?
is it one per department?
>> the original way that the committee was composed was not relating to departments, it was relating to method of transporting to work.
so that wasn't one of the criteria for being on the parking committee.
but I would say that most departments are represented by the committee because there are 13 members on that committee.
>> yes.
the departments were two representatives that -- you're saying it was the method of transportation to the county that the got them on there.
>> whether it was the wait list or those --
>> it 10-year person or a biker.
>> it was to ensure that all interests were represented, not necessarily all departments.
>>
>> [overlapping speakers].
>> you've done a great job.
>> it's only been four years.
>> right.
we have a 20-year-old policy that has not been followed in probably 19 of those years, and we spent four years trying to amend it.
but sure, we can --
>> okay.
so judges, so I am here on language for next week's agenda item, are we doing the public hearing?
how do you want to -- direction, please?
>> I would put the policy down.
we adopt the policy.
I don't know that anybody should take an affirmative vote to mean prominently guarantee -- can you see what I'm saying?
>> yes.
>> but it would be a step in the right direction.
and if we were to vote to change it four or five, six weeks down the road, I wouldn't be offended.
I would be pleased thinking that the court at last has become fully informed and taken what it considers to be the right action.
so like Commissioner Eckhardt I'm a little frustrated and I want to us move fast.
that one or one and a half pager will help me a whole lot between now and, say, Friday.
>> certainly.
>> are we together on that?
>> I continue to be frustrated because basically we are keeping the status quo for refusing to implement the policy.
those with parking spaces are holding the policy hostage by preventing to not understand what is being put out to them over and over and over again.
that th is a stalling tactic by those who have assigned spaces and don't want to give them up.
>>
>> good job.
>> thank you.
>> the broaddus item is what number and then we go to the compensation?
>> I beg your pardon.
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