Travis County Commissioners Court
Friday, September 23, 2011 (Agenda)
Public Hearing: FY 2012 Tax Rate
Good morning.
let's call to order this public hearing.
conduct a public hearing to receive comment regarding the Travis County tax rate for the fiscal year 2012 county budget.
and I move that the public hearing be open.
>> second.
>> all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote with Commissioner Eckhardt temporarily absent.
we do expect her to join us momentarily.
mr. Nellis.
>> leroy nellis, planning and budget with jessica rio.
we have a proposed a f.y.
12 budget that is structurally sound, that matches ongoing revenue against ongoing expenses and one-time revenue against one-time expenses.
the budget is proposed at a tax rate of 48.55 and that represents a 2.99% increase above the effective tax rate as provided within the guidelines the court approved on February 22nd of this year.
that tax rate will increase property taxes by $33.28 per year on the average taxable homestead in Travis County of 215,829.
now, within I think it's -- it's well to mention within that tax rate, the Commissioners court was able to fund an additional 28 sheriff law enforcement officers and 38 additional corrections officers to provide an additional relief factor.
you were able to pick up substantial social service expenditures that due to the cuts from the federal and the state government.
I think that with the increase of 33.28 or $2.77 a month you have been able to address the potential recession by building and maintaining your reserves strong for anything that might happen through the f.y.
12 and f.y.
13 budget.
and we'll be glad to answer any questions.
>> any questions of mr. Nellis or comments?
and this is a public hearing.
we have one resident who has signed in to speak and mr. John bryant, if you would come forward and have a seat.
and give us your name, we would be happy to get your comments, mr. Bryant.
>> right here, sir.
right here with the microphone.
>> well, they say a good speech is liken to a lady's skirt, has to be long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest.
and since I'm the only one here today I guess I have some questions about the budget.
and I've handed out some data that's for a 10-year period the county has spent and just in residential property alone we have spent over -- well, anywhere from 139 million to what is it, 271 million a year.
and I'd like to know what the cities within the Travis County receives from that kind of money.
the city has its own police force and covers about 80% of the population of this county and I don't understand why you need some more police officers for the county.
and I've got a chart here that shows the population data for several years.
and the city of Austin makes up roughly 80% of the population of this county.
and I'd like to know what the county furnishes the city other than the tax assessor-collector and the county clerk, what do they furnish to the cities?
>> well, mr. Bryant, the two biggest ones would be corrections and the law enforcement is outside the city in the unincorporated areas.
>> right.
>> which is county by law is required to secure.
we also provide -- pardon me -- the entire court system above the municipal court.
so the justice of the peace, the whole county court system, those cases, the whole district court system, civil and criminal cases, juvenile justice, we pick up for the whole county including all of the cities.
and those items really cost a lot of money.
those are the budget drivers.
corrections, law enforcement, the court system.
the state pays the district judges but all the county judges are paid by us and staff covered by Travis County as well as buildings.
>> if it's helpful to you, there's -- on the website there's an executive summary of our budgets and there's a pie chart and I'm trying to pull it up.
>> page 38.
>> that shows -- thank you, leroy.
that shows you percentage-wise what we spend tax dollars on.
and I believe -- I'm looking for the chart so I'm not talking out my hat, but far and away most of it goes to -- well, here we go, where does the money go.
for all funds -- would you like to know about all funds or for general fund, which is property tax?
>> well, the data that I have is only property taxes.
>> okay.
>> and you also have a sales tax revenue, don't you?
>> we don't.
we have no sales tax.
ours is entirely -- well, not entirely, but almost entirely property tax.
we have some fines and fees off of the court system, but it really is -- and off of vehicle registration, but it's almost entirely property tax.
>> and sir, and let me say this because this is something that Travis County does that no other taxing jurisdiction do as far as assessing taxes against property, and that is Travis County gives you a 20% exemption on your homestead right off the top before a tax is levied against that property.
it also provides persons that are over 65 $55,000 also is subtracted from that property -- assessed property value.
and those particular residents within Travis County that are disabled, we also allow $65,000 deducted from that assessed property value before it is taxed.
so Travis County and the mirror of that, the hospital district, our hospital district, do the same thing.
so when you get your hospital district bill you'll see that they -- it mirrors the same thing as what we're doing.
so we -- the way we are operating, we are really encouraging some type of also tax relief and also provide all those services that the judge mentioned, all the particular breakdown of what Commissioner Eckhardt just laid out.
so we try to get the most bang for the buck.
and, of course, source of revenue is fines and fees and, of course, in property taxes.
those are the things that need to be highlighted and laid out and so folks will kind of understand.
county government is a little different than any other form of government.
it's more like the english type stuff over in england, but it's a little different.
>> we can print out the chart for you and provide you the executive summary.
but if you exclude out our reserves and our -- and our transfers, because we basically collect money for the state and then transfer some of it back to the state.
but if you take that out, about three-quarters of the tax dollars go to the court, the jail and to public safety.
>> but your question goes to whether or not we duplicate what the city does.
>> yeah.
>> and we don't in the area of corrections, juvenile justice, civil court system, criminal court system, d.a., county attorney and some of the other programs we provide -- we really provide for the whole county, but they are part of the county parks system.
like parks, the city has parks inside the city.
our parks are located in unincorporated areas, so outside of cities.
>> what I'm saying is that city of Austin takes up over probably 80% of all the property in this county.
>> there's certainly 80% of the population.
it's certainly 80% of the population but not 80% of the territory.
I think the city of Austin, the incorporated city limits of Austin is less than half of the actual square miles in Travis County.
but your point is well taken.
I'm gathering your asking what do city residents having to pay county taxes get, and pretty much what they get from the county tax is the jails, the court system and the county park system of which they utilize as well.
have you ever been to any of the -- the Lake Travis parks?
they are either lcra parks or Travis County parks and even if they are lcra, we probably manage them.
city resident children play at our ballfields that are in the unincorporated area, and as far as the other services that we provide outside the county like health and human services, the city does an amazing job inside the city limits, but there's a real need outside the city limits as well for county residents.
>> deed records.
but you are right, city of Austin residents pay city taxes and county taxes.
and that's probably true in every county in Texas.
>> and we pay $1.5 billion in a 10-year period to the city and $2 billion to the county during that period.
and what did we get for it?
>> mostly the courts and the jail and the juvenile justice system.
>> well, I'm getting off the subject, but it seems that most of our jail people are drug users or criminal driving users, and we've got a drug war that's costing the counties or states and the federal government billions of dollars a year when for three words they could get rid of the drug war and that is make them legal.
and it's one of our representatives from over on close to houston, Ron paul, has a bill in that makes only marijuana legal and so does the representative from new york, I can't think of his name.
they both have put in a bill to legalize marijuana.
and it just -- it's just stupidity to -- of what we're doing that's costing us so much money and so many lives being killed just because somebody wants to make it illegal.
and there wouldn't be any more addicts today if it was legal as it is illegal and it's just -- I don't know, I can't believe that somebody isn't stumping to get rid of that thing.
we don't learn from history.
we had a bill back in the 1930s to outlaw intoxicating liquors, liquids, and it lasted about 10 years because it got to where we were -- everybody was making it illegally anyway and causing a lot of problems and same thing is happening today and I don't understand why we can't have somebody speak out against this stupid war.
I also wanted to ask you something else about the county.
several state -- counties in this state have gotten rid of the constable positions.
if you look at the Texas constitution, the constables were originally only to provide the j.p.s with warrants or serve warrants and other kind of data on horse back, okay?
they weren't police officers.
and today they've made themselves police officers so they can get a bigger salaries and we don't need that kind of stuff.
we've got already -- how many new police officers?
28?
>> 28.
>> god.
it's just -- it just boggles my mind of what we think about.
I left -- I live out in southeast Austin.
by 35.
I left this morning a little after 8:00 because I wanted to be sure to get downtown before 9:00.
well, I got out to my -- I live in a kay bee homes subdivision and it's five years old and everything is sold out in that subdivision.
well, the main road into the subdivision takes us into nuckols crossing, and nuckols crossing comes into st.
elmo.
well, I got to the nuckols crossing exit so I could get on the nuckols crossing and somebody from the city or I guess it was of put a barrier across the road, nuckols crossing.
so people were coming up nuckols crossing from the south and get to that barrier and have to turn around and go back and they had traffic backed up for I don't know how many people centering wait to get on to nuckols crossing and there wasn't a policeman there at all.
nobody was directing traffic or stopping people from coming up to the crossing and have to turn around and go back.
I don't know.
it just drives me buggy, I guess, about the kind of things that we pay for that we don't get.
and I think we should get rid of the office of constables.
they cost us a lot of money and don't do anything.
I don't know how many -- I lived in hays county for a while and in fact I ran for county judge out there in 2002 and I got 42% of the vote.
but anyway --
>> that's a respectable percentage.
>> huh?
>> that's a very respectable percentage.
>> well, it used to be a republican county, but now it's -- like I call it republican in name only, rino.
but anyway, one of my platforms was to get rid of the constable positions because they -- 10 years ago they were drawing about $5,000 a year and all they did was deliver these warrants or whatever it was, which doesn't amount to much.
now they all have offices, they all have computers and assistants and it's just crazy what we do.
so I think you ought to look into that here in this county.
we don't need constables.
we've got plenty of other police officers and they are not police officers unless the county pays to put them through the police schools or something like that.
anyway, I'm pretty dissatisfied with the whole government anyway.
I was a 20-year-old bomber pilot back in 1943 and flew 35 bombing missions over europe.
got wounded twice and I don't know what's going to happen to this country for my grandchildren and great grandchildren which I have 14 great grandchildren.
anyway, I thank you for your attention and letting me blow off some steam.
>> thank you.
>> absolutely.
absolutely.
it's good for us to hear it.
would you like to have a copy of the executive summary?
>> yes, I would.
>> we can make sure to get you one.
>> make sure you get a copy to him so he can see exactly how --
>> this data came from the tax assessor-collector office.
>> yes, it's very good data.
>> and I don't know whether you looked at the graph or not, but it was pretty --
>> we did.
>> -- bad when you look at how much things have gone up.
and what are we getting for it.
>> if you can hold on a second, we can probably get a copy run down.
>> thank you, mr. Bryant.
this is a public hearing.
any other takers?
would anyone else like to give comments during the public hearing?
move the public hearing be closed.
>> second.
>> all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
