Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, September 20, 2011 (Agenda)
Item 25
Item number 25, consider and take appropriate action on fiscal year 2012 budget issues including a, market salary survey results conducted by hrmd during fiscal year 2011, b, just of the peace precinct one follow up, and c, request for salary increase for certain employees from the american federation of state, county and municipal employees.
give us some context, mr. Nellis.
>> the court authorized the human resources department to conduct a market salary survey.
they have completed that survey and it was rodney and my recommendation to the director of hrmd to hold off on giving the presentation of the market salary survey until the compensation committee had been able to present to the court and for the court to deliberate on those recommendations in the compensation committee.
however, it is our understanding that there be recommendations made today in regard to the market salary survey by someone and that it's appropriate for at least hrmd to give a very high level summary of the results of the market salary survey.
so that's what we're -- we're recommending that we present to you today.
and since the county executives and the other appointed and elected officials have not seen the specific results of this market salary survey, then we're recommending that the court direct diane to share those specific results and get feedback from those department heads and members of the Commissioners court prior to taking any action on the market salary survey.
and then in subsequent Commissioners court, we would recommend that the court revisit the recommendations of the compensation committee because the funding, the projected cost, is based upon some of the recommendations in the comment study.
so we want to make sure you understand those provisions in conviction with the projected cost of this study.
so what we would recommend that we report to you today is a summary level of that market salary increase and then allow hrmd to distribute those specific results to management and get the feedback and then come of come back to court.
diane.
>> I'm going to turn this over to todd.
>> todd osborne, compensation mechanicaller, hrmd.
kind of a refresher course of what's included in job analysis project is for those positions on the classified pay scale we do a classification review.
basically that is a review of the functions that each of the employees take and whether or not that's consistent with the job description.
so basically it is a review of some -- I guess about 3800 slots to make sure people are properly classified at the individual level.
another thing that we do is we take a snapshot of the marketplace for each one of our job classifications and we compare what Travis County is paying at the mid point to what our market peers are paying at the mid point.
after we've done those things, we make a recommendation for pay grade and classification for each position, and then we cost out what it would take to implement the results.
and in this particular case it was costed out under the recommendation of the compensation committee parameters, and I'll talk about those in a minute.
I think it's also important to realize that there are some things that are not included in this type of study and we did not include tso and nontso pops positions, and it's not because we haven't done market analysis on them because we have, we wanted to confine this study to the classified pay scale.
we don't do the elected and appointed officials.
we're not doing temporary positions.
and we're also not doing those classifications and those employees who are outside of our classification system by choice of the elected or appointed official which in Travis County is the auditor's office and the purchasing department.
so that leaves us with about 20 job families included in the study.
and they are shown on this slide.
hopefully none of these are new.
overview of what the market looked like, the most pronounced movement took place in general maintenance and skilled trades.
those are basically road maintenance positions and positions such as painters and carpenters and the like.
they've moved one to two pay grades and that accounts for about 438 slots.
the medical job family moved on average about one pay grade.
admin support one and finance one.
I should say when I'm talking about average movement I mean exactly that.
we have some jobs that moved one pay grade, some that moved two and some maybe two or maybe in some cases moved backward if the market justified it.
basically these first two, general road maintenance and skilled trades, were the employee groups that we saw the most pronounced movement in the market.
and I think a big reason is most of the jobs included in this family on the first page we have not reviewed and had an implementation of these jobs since f.y.
06.
so it's been about five years so there's definitely been movement in that time.
most of which was most pronounced between '06 and '08.
attorneys were movement of about one pay grade.
county executives one to two.
planning positions are up about a pay grade.
engineering and support about one, and purchasing one pay grade.
and I should point out when I say purchasing, I'm not you canning about those jobs that are in the purchasing office, I'm talking about a handful of positions scattered across the county that engage in purchasing activities for their department.
here you can see the results for social services, public safety and the courts, all averaging about a pay grade increase.
then we start getting into some of the jobs that were reviewed most recently and those include senior management and management support which on average did not move.
the same could be said for our job family, human resources.
training and education, reproduction, public information and i.t.s.
I should point out, again, that just because the average movement was zero, it did not mean there weren't some jobs within each one of these job families that didn't go up or down a little bit.
the next slide shows by pay grades moved how many positions and how many jobs.
we only had one job that would have gone backwards against the market by two pay grades and about 14 that went backwards by one pay grade.
as you can see, there's a very large chunk of jobs, 191 that account for about 949 slots where there was no movement whatsoever and therefore no adjustment necessary.
we had about 200 jobs accounting for about 1900 positions that on average would have gone up about one pay grade.
approximately 51 jobs that would have gone up two, and we had only two jobs that would have jumped three pay grades based upon our market data.
>> I'm not sure I understand how we -- so on the minus two and minus one, how does that happen?
>> they are above market.
>> essentially that's correct.
the market essentially went backwards for a handful of jobs.
people don't make quite as much in those fields as they used to.
and there are a couple of jobs, for example, in human resources, where this took place, and what happens is when you have a large pool of unemployed people, there is less pressure on wages.
in fact, sometimes when you have a surplus of people going over jobs people can pay less to employ these people and consequently the market goes backwards.
sometimes it goes backwards after a spike takes place within a given job sector.
for example, it's very difficult to hire i.t.
employees around the year 2000 and you had to pay a premium to get them.
but two or three years later, you didn't need to necessarily pay those premiums. The market had fallen back for those positions.
>> okay.
thanks.
we'll get right to meat of it.
the implementation costs, to fully implement this would cost about $5.3 million on the general fund.
in other funds it's about $1.6 million for a total of $6,981,077.
total positions analyzed 3,584 and the affected positions, in other words, those that would move one way another, 2,111.
>> and I think it's good just to mention at this time that the compensation committee, the policy recommendations that we're talking about here is from one pay grade movement, it would be a 5% increase to the individual who is in that position provided that with a maximum level is the new mid point of the new grade.
so let's say they were not at the mid point of the old grade, they went up a grade, it would be 5%.
suppose they were well in and well past the mid point of the old grade and maybe they still were past the mid point of the new grade, they would not get an increase with that because they are already considered being paid at market which is the mid point of the new grade.
>> that doesn't mean the manager over that person couldn't decide to ajust their salary commensurate with their budget.
it's just for the purposes of fixing the compensation structure we would only move them that far.
>> correct.
when we're talking about what the costs are.
I just want to be clear what we're talking about when we saying we're funding at 5% per grade.
it could be 5% per grade or less depending where that individual is once we look at the new grade.
>> since you brought it up, diane, the next slide shows what those costing parameters are.
jobs that go up as a result of the market study, increase of 5% per grade.
they do not go up, which means they stay the same or go backwards, there's no increase, and increases were capped at the mid point of the proposed pay grade.
>> dan would like me to mention there are no decreases in someone goes backwards as a result of the market study.
essentially they are going to stay the same.
>> would it essentially, though, establish a new beginning recruiting rate?
>> yes, the grade -- again, the minimum would go down because the grade went down, correct.
but it wouldn't affect the person in that position.
>> right.
>> something to consider here is that jobs that are not yet costed because they are not included in this analysis, you have all of our pops positions, you have roughly 110 positions combined between the auditor and the purchasing.
there's about 52 temp seasonal slots that are fixed rate salary type of individuals.
obviously yourselves and the other elected and appointed officials aren't included in this total.
and we have about 369er to positions not counting the election temps.
a large number of these employees are at the minimum of their pay grade and consequently if they were -- if that job were to go up a pay grade, let's say, these people would be green circled unless they got an increase.
and in the past it's -- it seems like it's been kind of 50/50 whether or not that type of increase got funded by the court or whether the departments themselves were expected to tuned those types of increases typically by cutting back on the number of temp hours.
my overall assessment is that in the current economic conditions I do not believe that Travis County at this point in time is in imminent danger of being unable to recruit or retain employees.
we have a high level of unemployment, we have a large labor pool looking for work.
our retention figures are showing that typically we're averaging about 275 vacancies in any given week and that number has remained status for the last two years.
our turnover rate is historically low.
it's hovering around 5 or 6%.
people are tending to stay.
but I do want to point something out, that basically what this high level analysis is showing is that we are just marginally behind the market for a number of jobs.
and if we get to a point where wage pressure starts to build as the economy improves, and the fact that we have a fairly high number of employees who are getting near retirement age, the situation about being able to recruit and retain could shift quickly and we could find ourselves in a situation where we could have an exodus of employees and have a difficult time recruiting their replacements.
we're not at that point yet, don't know how soon we're going to get there, but I just wanted to point that out.
>> when did we last do the-a cola and when did we last fund a market salary survey?
>> well, we did a 2.5% across the board this year.
2.5% across the board this year in conjunction with moving our pay scales.
and the last market study --
>> this year is 2011.
>> 2011.
and it may have helped where we saw not as much movement because we did move the scales.
that could have been one of the reasons we didn't see quite as much movement as in years past.
>> okay.
>> and as for the last market study implementation, the last strategic planning cycle, basically this type of analysis was chopped up into three parts and done over three years.
and those were done in 2006, 2007, 2008, implemented the following years.
we began in f.y.
9 doing a study, the court recommended not to receive it, instructed not to do any analysis last year because of the budget situation and then authorized this as a way to catch up on all three of the years we were going to include the last time.
so we basically covered all the jobs in one year instead of breaking them up in three.
>> if your position was surveyed in '06, we would have funded that in '07?
>> correct.
>> but that would have been your last increase except for the 2.5% cola?
>> or any other colas issued by the court between 2007 and today, or perhaps you may have gotten a promotion or a salary adjustment there are other avenues to get a raise.
>> sure.
okay.
>> judge?
>> yes.
>> with regard to the market movement overview, it appears that there's about 603 actual positions that are two or more pay grades behind the market.
>> approximate, yes.
>> that's about 17% of the workforce that are two or more pay grades behind.
have we run an estimate of what it would cost to move those folks up to one pay grade behind the market so at least we don't have anybody more than one pay grade behind the market before 2013?
>> yes, we have.
the overall cost --
>> basically what I'm going at is if we can buy down the cost to fix our compensation structure.
>> yes, and anticipation that question, the cost to the general fund is about $1.444 million or almost a million and a half.
other fund is about $627,000 for total cost of about $2 million.
is what it would cost.
>> salary plus benefits.
>> yes, including benefits.
>> but what positions would that pick up?
>> mostly road and -- well, it looks like road and bridge, skilled --
>> and it will be some of them, it won't be all of them.
again, this is a average.
we have not spoken with management.
we do have some that went backwards and I'm sure the management would like to weigh in on that.
so -- but we have not kind of verified that.
and they tend to like to weigh in, is my understanding.
>> am I able to look at one of these pages and answer that question?
>> I'm sorry, sir?
>> am I able to look at the backup and answer that question?
>> you can see where they generally are, which is, know --
>> you can see it at the job level, not the classification level.
if you would like the classification level, we can get it for you.
>> what page comes closest in.
>> the market movement overview.
the two biggies are the general road and maintenance and skilled trades.
would be the largest numbers.
>> you can see general road maintenance, skilled trades and then seems like -- and the executives.
we had a couple of county executives that moved two grades.
we have three that only moved one grade.
>> correct.
and basically that is correct.
general road maintenance and skilled trade is the biggest concentration that moved two pay grades or more.
there were also a number of in evansport.
there were some scattered management positions across the different job families and there were several in i.t.s.
as well.
even though the average was zero, we had a couple that actually did go up more than one.
>> I guess what I'm struggling with is right at the beginning of this particular presentation I know the benefits committee has come before us before and there were a whole lot of -- an array of things they discussed when they came before the court.
and I guess my concern is that I really want to hear the full -- the full impact and effect on these particular jobs.
and I know there are specifics that still need to be looked at.
I don't know exactly what that's going to entail.
I don't.
not today I don't.
so I'm still eager to hear what the benefits -- what the compensation committee, rather, is going to come back with.
I guess my question, though, is this.
when do we expect to hear more about those specifics as you sift through these findings and it comes to the Commissioners court for us to look at the overall?
that's what I'm trying to determine, how long will it take for us to go through this based on what we are hearing here today and make a determination?
I would like you to address all of it, not segments and pieces of it.
I'm not about that.
but there is a lot of need, but, of course, the most need is to have a job, in my opinion.
and a lot of folks, thank goodness we didn't have a rift and a lot of employees said the heck with it, we're just going to cut some employees out of here and that's what they did.
tank goodness Travis County didn't do that.
and, of course, folks have jobs.
but I'm eager to here how long it's going to take for to us get back and have some type of report to come back to this Commissioners court so we can look at the specifics of all these job families.
we've got a lot of job families we need to look at.
it's not just one or two, it's the whole nine yards.
so my question is how long, when you'll be able to bring this to the court.
>> and I'll start by answering we have the market data right now down to the jobs, the specific jobs.
the step that's missing that I think is important to Travis County is to meet with the management and get their input on it.
we did get their input initially when we did the position analysis questionnaire, but we have the market data down to the job right now.
>> okay.
I guess the question is, as I stated, how long?
when do you think -- because I heard leroy bring it up right off the top and I'm kind of concerned about that, him bringing it off the top and you filtering those things through the level of management that need to hear what you are talking about.
and, of course, so that is a process that's been started.
my concern is when it will be exhausted to the point where everyone is on the same page and we know what we're doing here.
>> and I think that's really a very good question, and let me start out by saying that when the market study was begun, it was done with the intention that there would basically be a progression of events.
and prior to the introduction of the market study results to the Commissioners court, the intention was that the work of the compensation committee would be vetted by the court and the court would make a decision on whether or not to adopt or not adopt the recommendations of the compensation committee.
and where this runs over into the market study is that as we said, we costed this with a particular parameter in mind, which was the recommendation of that committee, which is 5% increase per grade moved with a cap at mid point.
we don't have to implement a market study that way, but that is the recommendation of the compensation committee.
the problem with trying to bring the results forward before that particular question is resolved is that when we go back out to our departments and say, okay, here's the results of the study, you know, give us your input, while they are interested in knowing what placement of these jobs are going to look like, really at the bottom they are most concerned with knowing what kind of pay increases are associated with those moves and they want to know what the costing is.
>> would it help any to assume that this court, in an outstanding show of efficiency, lands on the recommendations of the compensation committee and say let's say one month, let's say in one month the court has either approved all of the recommendations or approved some and rejected others.
so what's the answer to Commissioner Davis' question if we do our due diligence in one month?
>> if you have this finished within one month -- honestly it will take us about two, maybe three weeks to communicate with all the departments, get their feedback, make any adjustments we need to make and recost it.
>> by January 1.
>> absolutely.
>> that gives you an additional month to play with, right?
now, let's assume that we approve all of the recommendations of the compensation committee.
will the figures that you show and the -- on the implementation costs sheet be accurate?
>> they will vary some because it's always a snapshot in time.
>> will they go down?
>> conceivably.
>> a very good estimate.
>> I would build a 5% range around the numbers that are given because at any given time we have people added to payroll and subtracted and payroll actions.
>> and the number of positions, it's not reflective of the number of employees which changes on a daily basis so that would affect our overall number, correct?
>> yes.
it is constantly changing and we can certainly give it, when we give the final costs, we will give you the best implementation that we can give you starting January 1st.
>> and the other caveat is that the road and bridge fund ongoing money -- there's not any ongoing money available in the road and bridge.
so if you implement it, the general fund will need to pick up the ongoing cost for the road and bridge fund and the courthouse security.
and I would assume that that $1.6 million of other funds probably the majority could be road and bridge.
>> it's probably the biggest of the other funds, but it's certainly not the majority of it.
>> the amount that you have here really excludes pops.
>> right.
>> and that's -- what's that 1200 employees?
>> roughly.
>> but do we anticipate that pops will have -- will be out of market on the positive?
I mean do we suspect they will have moved two pay grades beyond what their current pay is?
>> on pops?
>> yes.
>> we have already looked at the market data for pops.
we knew this was coming.
a lot depends on how this court decides to define the market.
and I hate to say that because I know it's been a recurring issue with this court and law enforcement.
based on the way we interpret the market to be for law enforcement, we don't think that the county is really out of the market at all.
the law enforcement associations have a slightly different interpretation of how to define a market which has a very harm you're large emphasis on the city of Austin and as I'm sure at love members of the court know the city of Austin is the highest paid law enforcement organization in the state of Texas by quite a bit.
and consequently if we're comparing ourselves primarily to them, I think we're going to be behind the market some, but I don't think it's going to be -- it would surprise me if it was more than 3 or 4%.
>> but the point is that we have to appreciate that pops employees are not included in this figure.
>> that is correct.
it's about a third of our workforce not included.
>> and if we did run cost projections, we were county at one time to run a 2% across the board and a 3% across the board.
just to give you an idea, 5% increase on pops alone is $4.3 million, which would be kind of one pay step.
if it was out of whack.
so that gives you a perspective on what one 5% would be.
3% is 2.6.
>> this does not include pops but does it include the nonprops in the sheriff's office?
>> sure.
>> why don't we get the
>> [indiscernible] a c and make sure we understand their request.
crest is request for a salary increase for a certain employees from the american federation of state, county and municipal employees.
>> before you launch in, I have to pick up my children from school so it's no reflection, but I look forward to working with you.
>> she told me --
>> I'll be right back.
>> she says I'm going to get out of here.
>> judge Biscoe and Commissioners, greg powell with the american federation of state, county municipal and employees and I'm sorry that we and you are put in the position of these 11th hour deliberations.
one of the things we are trying to accomplish in the recommendations so we wouldn't find ourself and put knew the position of having to take up these matters at the tail end of our budget consideration.
that said, had events transpired like we had expected, we started the compensation committee recommendations to you in July, I believe, it was the first presentation.
we had hoped to wrap those up in a matter of a couple of weeks for your consideration and hopeful adoption of those committee recommendations.
obviously that hasn't played out for a number of reasons.
relevant to our forthcoming proposal to you is a -- the recommendation from the comp committee that you heard that a market salary adjustment of one pay grade would be equivalent to a 5% pay increase for those employees affected by the market study up to the mid point of that position.
and our costing that's associated with this is predicated on that supposition that you would adopt that particular recommendation.
it's according to my understanding, and mr. Nellis is here to correct me if I am wrong, there may well be sufficient funding available in the allocated reserves that we may be able to implement the recently completed market salary surveys in its entirety effective January 1 of 2012.
and that would certainly be our recommendation contingent upon those funds being available.
however, in the event funding would not be available for full implementation of this market study we need an alternative funding arrangement in place and that is the ensues of our next recommendation would be if there's not sufficient funds for full implementation of the market study, then our recommendation is we take all employees that are two or more pay grades away from what their -- what the market study says they should be being paid and we move all those employees within one pay grade.
it's the -- kind of the scenario the recommendation that you heard from mr. Osborne.
that would take a big bite out of the market study funding apple this year and certainly leave us with a much lighter load to bear upon the finalizing the implementation that market study next year.
you heard the numbers associated with that.
I don't have to reiterate them for you, but again what I've heard is there will certainly be funds available for the funding and implementation of this market study, partial market study available January 1st of 2012.
and that was our recommendation.
the proposal, a proposal that was floated around certainly among our executive board members and we floated it to members of the Commissioners court anticipating what we were hearing coming into this -- these budget sessions that there was going to be no funding available for any compensation items or very little funding, certainly not enough to make any kind of dent in this market.
>> you may have heard that from me because I think -- well, maybe not from me per se, but when we first started --
>> yes, sir.
>> -- looking at this budget situation, I remember stating very, very clearly that if anybody in any department head bring a list of persons that you are going to terminate or r.i.f., I'm not going to support it.
>> appreciate it.
>> and I'm still standing by that.
not knowing what the situation economically going to be is one thing I did say is I want to make sure that every Travis County employee retained a job, which was in my opinion very, very, very necessary.
I think you can't compete if you don't have a job.
that's your life line to families.
when we saw emergence what was happening --
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>> but so-- so -- sufficient -- or insufficient funds been available to -- to implement any part of the market study, what you heard was the third proposal that focused on those employees that were being paid less than the county average wage, which was -- which was deemed at $30,000, and we had -- we had property -- a recommendation that those employees would receive a one thousand dollars pay increase to their base, that was strictly a stopgap measure.
it was not obviously where we wanted to be.
our focus has been to untackle the market study and implementation funding problem.
probably most efficiently and economically, if we do that in the very near future, we can have the issue behind us.
we did do a market funding implementation in 20 -- 2007.
we wented to remind you that implementation only amounted to employees who moved up one pay grade, not receiving the 7% that the Travis County pay structure could have -- would have dictated, rather we received a one percent increase.
so even though there was a market adjustment done, it was -- it was -- woefully insufficient to bring these employees up to what the market said their pay should be.
that's what we've been chasing these last several years, our recommendations are in compliance with the recommendations of the compensation committee and what we heard from the Commissioners court to tackle this market study and funding implementation of -- of issue and bring forward a recommendation.
too to address that, that's what we're doing here today.
>> when would it be promote for p.b.o.
to give you an update on the overall status of the fy 2012 budget?
is number 25 broad enough.
normally when we post the language in 25, for this time, we bring you any additional corrections.
and then give you a briefing.
when you ended last Tuesday, you may recall that you were like $181,000 deficit based upon the transactions that you had approved for expenditure and based upon some -- some items of refuse few that were projected to be included in the fifth revenue estimate.
and I came today to prepare to bring you up to date through -- through in conjunction with the auditor through the fifth revenue estimate, so that you -- so what you -- so that you know essentially where you are standing financially.
I guess that would be a county attorney question under this -- under this 25 wording, would that -- would that be -- would I be able to abbreviate court on that and -- brief the court on that and bring forward some small corrections.
>> right, this language is what you have been pretty well carrying the last couple of weeks, except the abc added with the wording in front of it.
yes.
go ahead and present that.
>> at some point, it may be appropriate to do it now, to go ahead and -- and brief you on where we are, and in conjunction with the -- with the auditor that produced -- produced late yesterday afternoon the fifth revenue estimate and we could bring that information, put some context on the market salary survey and on -- on the union's request and also some small corrections.
>> let's do it today at 2:34.
>> we will be glad to do it immediately.
okay.
>> [one moment please for change in captioners] or 2:35.
let me start while he's -- okay.
jeremy the one that we blame when we run short of money?
>> jeremy is -- is key enough that the computer screens, jessica will distribute to you some -- some corrections that we've noted including balances to the fifth revenue estimate.
allocated reserves in the revenue funds, you can see the other funds out on the side that essentially what the court actually gave us direction to do was to balance against the fifth revenue estimate against the allocated reserves, either taking them down or putting them up.
so all of those entries on the right-hand side are balancing to that fifth revenue estimate.
if you look down about 3/4ths of the way down, you have an entry in the general fund for 7,590.
essentially what that is a test -- is that we had presented to the court some automobiles -- automobile purchases out of a capital account and essentially now with the -- with the more restrictive requirements on what we can buy with capital funds like tinting of windshields and things have to be out of operating accounts, so that 7590 had to come against car, where we didn't have that restriction.
additional funding on the e.m.s.
ground interlocal.
we were waiting for that to be approved, we do have the final numbers, we did have it as earmarked.
actually the earmark going into today was 63,363 and the actual amount, it turned out to be 43,563.
so we made that entry.
there was one other we took down the air support services by 900.
the bottom line on these changes is that it's an additional $49,959 today of ongoing 442663 and one time of 7,296.
if you turn the next page, these are just cost neutral changes.
and that first one, essentially adds three slots and deanna ramirez's memo is attached there.
explaining it.
it's in hhs and essentially what this does is allows hhs to utilize general fund employees and any number of employees and then reclassify those expenditures against the grant funds.
and that's the reason they need the slots in the general fund, but they don't need the funds.
so it allows them to be much more efficient in the -- in performing the duties of the grant funds and not just saying this one individual has to do it and has to do it 100% of the time.
what they do is spread that out among any number of employees that the total of their contribution to the grants, which is documented on their time sheets.
so that's what that is.
there was a little change in an account number and fund 501 and we changed that.
there's no -- there's no financial impact.
so I would ask the court to approve these corrections.
>> so move.
>> second.
>> discussion on the motion?
so the bottom line of all of this is that we have an additional 49,959.
>> -- 959 of expenditures in the general fund.
>> expenditures or revenue?
>> these are expenditures, we're getting ready to go to revenue.
>> okay.
all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
Commissioner Eckhardt temporarily off the dais.
>> okay.
let me show you on the screen that we have -- no.
the -- show that.
if you look -- this is where we sended at the end of the last session last Tuesday.
we had 181,790 deficit, and we had 136,671 of ongoing.
and a deficit of 318,461, of one-time funds.
now, that was based upon -- go to the revenue.
that was based upon some assumptions you see here about what would be included in the fifth revenue estimate because we did not have it at that time.
as you can see, the -- the 350,000 additional tcso savings, seton hospital payment, we were anticipating 640,000 in the fifth, downtown da interlocal.
criminal courts, central booking interlocal, 590,000, around then da forfeited property and capso addition.
so you can see that we had already anticipated probably about $2 million of increase in the fifth revenue estimate.
now, there are a number of things that have happened since the fourth revenue estimate and I'll ask susan and her staff to come up for the specifics.
you will recall that after we got the certified role and after we had filed the preliminary budget, that our new construction number for Travis County went up over a billion dollars.
and at that point, rodney and I did have a meeting with the auditor and her staff and we asked her until the -- until the events underlying that billion of new construction were clear, that we asked her to reserve that money.
now, and she did.
and she reserved it in the fourth revenue estimate until we got clear understanding on the circumstances of that billion of new construction.
other things have happened.
between the fourth revenue estimate and the fifth.
on the expenditure side, we had $650,000 worth of expenditures reserved for -- for permission to continue of grants.
in other words, what happens there is that we spend general fund dollars and then -- and then we reclassify it against the grant once we get it.
well, there were $650,000 worth of funds we reserved in the fourth revenue estimate, that actually the grants come in last week.
you all approved them.
so for the fifth refuse new reve estimate, we did not have to reserve that 650,000.
the other thing, as you recall, the court approved the rebudgetting of $776,000 worth of car.
to be rebudgeted in fy 2012.
now, when jessica ran those expenditures, there was actually a million dollars that was left or around a million and we had to rebudget the 776,000.
so the expenditures went down another million dollars.
there were several other -- we've just gone over these two million, so I've kind of accounted for 4 million or so, plus the reservation that the auditor, we asked her to reserve for us, in the fourth, and it's essentially come forward that we don't have to reserve those funds.
so kind of with that overall direction, I turn it over to susan to -- to say about the fifth.
>> I really hadn't talked much this year about the revenue estimate or the condition of the county or budgeting and probably it is for people watching a good time to do that.
it's a tricky time for a business or a government to figure out what they are doing in this economic time.
it's almost like every week or two the situation changes.
one of the things that is critical for county government is that we are primarily dependent on the property taxes.
so we need to be very careful in terms of estimating what we're going to get in.
because if we do not get it in, we are in a position of we don't have any way to recoup that in other kinds of revenue.
and so the position that we would be in is the position none of us want to be in, that is a dramatic reduction in services through layoffs.
so it's been very tricky looking at what is out there.
what's of value of the property -- what the values of the properties are, which ones we think are going to protest, which ones we think we are hold and which ones we sue and which ones will win.
it's really a complex estimating process.
as most of you know for the past three years, I've been real nervous with it and we've taken a very conservative view because we didn't want you to be in a position because of mid year, we've run out of money or had a significant drop.
so we've done that.
what leroy was talking about is -- is we had a contingent liability sitting out there of $2.2 million with a very large taxpayer based on some -- some potential protests and litigation with the tax district.
and so at this point, based on our conversation with planning and budget and with the central appraisal district, I'm willing to drop that 2.2 million back into the revenue.
in other words, what we did is we thought it was going to come in and we put what we would call a counter account against it to hold it.
so on it just neutralized it out.
I have taken it out, releases $2.2 million of revenue into the general fund for you to spend.
leroy is right.
more has happened this year in the last probably month and a half than any time that I have ever seen before.
some of those things are good things.
one of it is, kudos to danny hobby and his group and to y'all, because we went into a new agreement in the collection of e.m.s.
both ground and star flight.
and what we did is at the last minute, meaning the last month and a half, we've got some significant back collections in that we did not contemplate.
emergency services, going into the helicopter, some of these have expenditures against them, but I just want you to understand where the money is coming from.
was for star flight, and we probably have about a million dropping into the fund balance in this last estimate from emergency services collections that we did not think that we would get two months ago.
that's good news.
a lot of it is not going to be ongoing because it's sitting out there and collected it.
on the other hand based on those collections we need to look forward in a much more positive way because we are collecting them, getting right on them, the sooner you collect, the larger your collection rate.
so we are able to increase for fy '12 roughly $700,000 more that we think we'll be collecting for those services that we are fairly comfortable with giving you right now.
that's good news.
it's good news based on activity by county offices.
central booking and workers' comp together that increases about a million, but there's a million dollars expenditures attached to that and that was in the -- in the budgeting that you looked at.
so I wouldn't call that new money.
I mean, it's new money, but there's new expenditures on top of it.
pool cash investments.
for those of you who go to the bond rating trips, you know that gasb 31 requires us to calculate the net change in fair value of our investments.
so what we really in plain english what we have to do is we have to look at our investments and bring them down to the current interest rates.
so if in fact we have investments for instance that we've had for a while, 8% let's say, we found right now we are really only getting two percent, we have to drop that evaluation down on our budget, on our financial report, you know, it's a concept that -- that one more concept that I don't agree with the county profession, but it is the rule, we have to do that.
what we have done is because of time, many of those high interest rate investments have been -- have expired.
we have more low interest ones and so we're not having to make -- we could adjust that investment.
it's a real adjustment in terms of the financial statement and the fund balance, but it's not in terms of real money in 20 years Travis County has probably cashed in two investments early.
we just don't do that, it's not a choice that we have.
that was not one of them.
we got a payment of the mixed beverage tax in for $230,000 or we got a payment in this year.
based on that payment, we think mixed beverage will go up another $230,000 next year.
what we are looking at today, leroy is right, pushed some into the budget decisions that you made, but in the ending fund balance, I'm just going to break this down for you, in the ending fund balance the estimate that p.b.o.
is making on expenditures based on many of those things that leroy said, would -- they are estimating that we will spend 2.7 less than we thought a month and a half ago.
what that means is -- that the ending fund balance can come up $2.7 million.
so -- so that is an estimate that always goes on right to the end of the year.
we are forecasting additional revenues of 2.6 million, that also will result in an increase in the ending fund balance of 2.6 million.
again, those are -- those emergency services, things that we found, pooled cash, we got an increase in park entrance fees came in.
and there was a state grant in there, plus -- plus some central booking money and a reclass of some fines and then other small stuff.
that's revenues that are 411 that will dump into ending fund balance that we didn't think would.
that's good news.
then the question is what do we have moving forward, what's the new revenue.
that new revenue again a good bit of that is eaten up, about 4.5 million.
2.2 is the contingent liability drop in the taxes, that's the big piece of news.
central booking, emergency services, workers' comp, pool cash, mixed beverage tax, those we think are going to go forward.
this is the most change that I've seen at the midnight hour, but this is a year that I have never seen before either.
there's a lot of uncertainty out there.
both the budget office and our office our office trying to put our very best bead on these things, spend there are expenditures, you know, when I sit here and listen to compensation, which is certainly important and I know that you've heard it before, but because of the economy and the swing of investments, we have had to make a significant investment in our pensions to keep them on board.
leroy, does anyone remember that off the top of their head.
was it 1.2.
>> 1.3.
it's easy to forget that.
but in order to keep the pension where it needs to be, in this budget, we had to kick in $1.3 million for employees in order to -- you all did agree to do that.
the other thing is in the benefits section, you know, we were able to hold the line for employees.
so I think that in a year takes been difficult, I have to say I commend the Commissioners court for the management of what we've done, how you've been able to hold on to the workforce, maintain services, I have to tell you that it's next on a miracle that we're only going up 2.99%.
there ain't a government in this area that's been holding the line like this one.
I think that you need to be proud of yourself.
we've done a really good job with what we have to work with, we're sitting in the same economy -- voices]
>> I think that you should take a bow.
you ought to take a bow
>> [multiple voices]
>> I think that does need to be said.
and you are giving a maximum homestead exemption and for people over 65.
it's important.
but anyway this is good news.
it's not all free money.
it's our best estimate at this point in time.
I'm always nervous to bring in extra money, maybe we've made a mistake.
we don't think that we have.
it's good news, we have a little more cushion.
the other thing with county government, which I think is important to understand, the wildfires were certainly one of those, that is that a government like ours really needs to have a capacity to respond.
when things go wrong, the public even those that think government shouldn't spend money really expects the government to step up to the plate.
when these things happen you all have done a really good job of reserving so you can step to the plate to render services, the demand we have little control over.
I think that's an important trigger.
as I said I haven't really said much this year.
I thinkathathathath are 3,716,735.
what our model here does is automatically takes out the 11% unallocated and so what you have after that posting -- is -- is that you have a total ongoing of 4,077,976 and one-time of 1,881,098.
and so that -- that's essentially the -- the -- the status as of the posting of the fifth revenue estimate.
and p.b.o.'s recommendation in light of the fact that the court has not heard and decided on the compensation study is that whatever the court we like to set aside for compensation to address the market salary or anything else, that you reserve it in your proposed budget as a compensation reserve and that during the fall that you proceed to vet the recommendations and then come upon a finalized recommendation on compensation by January 1.
>> when I added up all of those new amounts, I came up with 2.7, 2.6, would total 5.1.
>> that's correct.
>> 4.5, which would bring the total to 9.8.
>> that's correct.
>> so I guess when I hear your numbers, what happened to my 9.8 million?
>> okay.
if you take the 7.7 million, and you add all of those individual amounts, up through the 350,000,.
>> okay.
>> those amounts, amount to 2,184,772.
and when you add that 2.1 million, to the 7.7, you came out with the 9.8, which is the total increase in funds.
>> in other words, we had already assumed the revenue.
>> [multiple voices]
>> some of those when they brought the budget to you judge, during markup, for instance with central booking, we were going to get -- we sought 640,000 more money, which is in the fifth revenue.
but third thought that there in the -- and attached expenditures to it.
what's happening is on the official fifth revenue estimate, I'm saying central booking is in there, but you've already really dealt with that additional revenue as well as the expenditures attached to it.
that's what's kind of confusing.
>> so the real net of ongoing and one-time is the 5.9 figure and that is after taking out 11% for unallocated reserve.
>> that would be correct.
>> judge?
I mentioned earlier, you know, I didn't know how long it would probably take hrmd to get with the department heads and of course listen to the recommendations that came from p.b.o.
to look at how long it probably would take for them to come back to the court and of course they said they would take a few weeks I guess.
but then I understand that we may have to look at setting aside another reserve, which county has done real good at it for setting up reserves, I mean that's really been a life line.
is the reserve that we have set up.
but saying all of that, there's a lot of specifics, I think, coming from the compensation committee that -- that -- that have not been exposed with the different departments that still may have some input into this thing.
one of the suggestions I think in the earlier discussion was made that probably by January, so we still looking at some of the same similar situations as far as the process is concerned?
this is -- the process, the way we go through this, what did you have in mind?
>> well, I know we are looking at $5.9 million one thing.
all of a sudden I'm a rich county judge.
>> [laughter]
>> look how happy he looks.
but the recommendation is a compensation earmark against allocated reserve, I would put it that way, until we get the rest of the questions answered, it makes sense to me.
>> yeah.
>> okay.
the other thing, one question would be basically what would be the total of the -- of the many compensation requests and whatever I guess we need to look at the recommendations for the compensation committee that long list of recommendations that you got before.
>> yeah.
>> and plan to -- to act on it the first of the year or the -- or the late part of this year, with implementation in January that way the funds will be there.
for us to do quite a bit of what we seem to be thinking about.
and if the funds are there, and we plan -- we think that it's right to do it to take the actions anyway, you know, maybe the sooner the better.
>> judge, if that's a motion, I'll second it.
>> judge, we'll have closed the books by then, too much we are estimating numbers, but you will know the real numbers by then.
>> I didn't have in minds a motion, I didn't really have in -- set aside this in account reserve against the allocated reserve, pending our I guess receipt of further information to become fully informed and then take specific actions and the funding will be set aside to do it.
>> okay.
>> Commissioner Huber?
>> what about carrying forward for the 2013 budget?
because I remain concerned about that budget year.
>> what was that Commissioner?
>> looking forward beyond the 2012 budget and carrying reserves for forward not going ahead and allocating those for the 2012 budget because I continue to hear concerns about that budget year as well.
where are we in consideration for that?
>> that's correct.
what we have for fy 2012 is the same level of allocated reserve excluding these additional funds of 8.9 million.
and we would hold that in -- and hope that we didn't spend any more than what we did this year out of allocated reserve, and that we would in fact have five million of reserve left at the end of fy 2012 to help address any potential down fall, you know, weakening of the real estate market specifically in '13.
the other reserve that we have maintained in '12 is the $4.95 million emergency reserve that we have not hit this year and we have it rebudgeted in fy '12 for the potential of carrying it forward into '13.
so we -- we do have, we are --
>> 9 million plus.
>> reserved.
that was our recommendation to you in the preliminary budget and it has been during this entire cycle.
we just, you know, had some good news on the
>> [indiscernible] that allowed us to free up some money.
>> > you raise a really good point.
I should have mentioned and I didn't.
one of the things that we did differently this year, usually in that last month we don't look at every single account.
we did this time.
we brought in probably a million, david?
this, that and the other, from little pieces all over.
now I'm so glad that you mentioned that because I just completely forgot.
but what would happen normally, if we didn't put that in the revenue estimate, still -- drops into the ending fund balance next year.
when I say we're going to estimate it, then it's out there and if you spend it, it will still come in but it won't drop into the ending fund balance.
that will take the pressure, we -- those are the things that make our fund balance come up over '11, thing like that.
the other thing is that as you have held the line, we always assume departments have not spend out.
as things get tighter, you haven't gotten increases in budget that becomes less likely.
if you get things into, you know, like gasoline has bothered us in the past or utilities, things like that, or other things that come up, during the year, then they do tend to -- to spend out.
if we have salary savings because we've got vacancies, that goes into ending fund balance to the extent that we're completely full up.
and we don't have many vacancies, we don't have that.
you are exactly right.
a person has to keep that in mind.
we have kind of just assumed we're always going to have more than the 11 and we have for a number of years, but we are kind of chewing away at the kind of things that would drop into that.
would you agree with that, leroy?
>> absolutely.
>> my assumption is that we would try to do something in the compensation area during the fy '13 budget anyway.
if we address those issues before then, we don't turn around and address the same issues --
>> was our recommendation before the availability of funds was to make -- was to make the compensation ie the funding of the market salary survey a priority item from the very beginning in the fy '13 budget process.
with the additional funds, we will -- it looks like we may very well be able to fund that in -- in fy 2012 or some time during fy '12 if not all of it, a portion of it, which would mitigate the total amount that -- that would be needed in '13.
so that's -- that's the idea.
just means we provide the relief sooner because of the availability of funds.
>> one more question if you are going -- if we're going to be looking over some of this potential salary adjustments, it was mentioned earlier that on the pops that the compensation comparables that were looked at were maybe within four to five percent low but then there was an adjustment about what the comparables were.
I think that it's important, given the current aspect that's being looked at, that we go back and double check on the pops.
on the corrections.
entry level.
because one of the concerns that I have that I have heard but haven't had the data on, is that -- that our entry level in corrections is lower than market in our area and that we continue to -- to -- to fund those positions, train them and lose them and since we just increased our -- our proposed increase our corrections, people, over there, in numbers, fte's, we don't want to be losing what we just funded.
so I think that it would be prudent during this process to take a look at that as well.
it may not -- may not prove out but I think that we should if we're going to look at those lower level pay positions.
>> I agree.
is that something that the court wants to vote on --
>> I think we ought to bring that back.
>> okay.
>> like next week.
I don't know if we should take forever.
the other thing that we may as well bring back what it is that we want done, even for a here.
during the next three or four weeks.
>> okay.
sharing the information with the department heads, there is sharing the information with department heads.
I think we ought to be together on exactly what we're looking for.
>> perhaps we can -- we can discuss that with p.b.o.
subcommittee and then share it with the other members of the court.
>> sharing with the court.
>> then sharing with the court.
I had in mind kind of a meeting here where we all kind of -- let's -- let's get it back on the court.
if not, we will be adopting next Tuesday, the entire budgets.
it may be more appropriate the following Tuesday unless you just want to do it next Tuesday.
>> okay.
justice of the peace, precinct 1 follow-up.
>> did we vote on that, judge.
there was a motion made.
did you want to vote on that.
>> I don't think we did, did we.
>> no we didn't.
>> fall in favor?
earmark.
show Commissioners Gomez, Davis, yours truly voting in favor.
Commissioner Huber abstaining, Commissioner Eckhardt temporarily off the dais.
>> okay.
>> thank you all.
>> thank you.
>> thank you all.
you didn't want more than one anyway, did you ms. Clerk?
>> [multiple voices] see what Commissioner Eckhardt has here?
well, that's one for the clerk.
the color.
okay.
Commissioner Eckhardt only has one of each.
we just won't let her know, how's that?
>> [laughter]
>> let me go over what's requested.
the requested from judge william for continuing her two special project temps, pay grade 13, each slot would cost $44,774 for a total of $89,548 and that's been updated to include all of the updated benefits that have already been approved.
so it's 895478 is the request.
89,548.
>> so our question was whether we could connect additional revenue to these positions.
>> yes, sir, david youngerman with the auditor's office.
we took a look this week at the possible revenue effects of -- of the loss of those two positions.
and -- and after trying to look at it from a number of different angles, we determined that it was pretty difficult to really determine the revenue effect of losing these two positions.
for a number of reasons.
first, j.p.
revenues across the board have fallen over the last few years.
some of that is due to d.p.s.
restructuring their -- their priorities I guess and issuing less tickets.
another is that the two positions in question have only been filled for -- for five and seven months, which really kind of limits the amount of data that we can look at, historically, to see what the revenue effect is.
and another part of that is that -- that collections on criminal cases often tend to lag into even another fiscal year, so -- so any benefits to those new positions of -- of being able to work more cases, the actual collections, will occur down the road.
another issue is that -- is that this office is trying to work more truancy cases, but they are working right now with the precinct schools, evaluating their case filing processes, which I think is kind of affecting how many of these cases come in.
so that's also affecting the revenues.
so I guess the long and short of it is, we couldn't see in the numbers a -- a conclusive increase or decrease to refuse few for these two positions.
at this time.
>> how long do they normally take to -- to run an evaluation, I guess, to determine if something is performing to where it generate the revenue as -- you say this has just been five to seven months per se.
but -- but even in the five to seven month period sometimes I don't know if you have enough data to collect.
on certain revenue stream.
what would be the norm of that as far as -- as far as normally a year and I know that -- that judge williams came in, you know, kind of -- kind of took over.
a little bit.
and -- and judge scott, richard scott so.
>> [one moment please for change in captioners]
>> ...
that you would need to really look at the refuse new --
>> that would take 12 to 18 months is probably --
>> all right.
I think it would be fair to the judge but essentially you took office in January, judge, and your previous judge and previous positions open during the last part of his tenure.
and as such he gave more flexibility to judge williams, however, it did affect the revenue.
so you do see, I think, a reduction in revenue and then the new judge williams had some time to decide how she was going to hire those people and get them on board and get them trained for those vacant positions.
so it is a rather unique situation where you have a change of elected official.
>> if I might, what I passed out to all Commissioners, the first two pages it will say j.p.
target budget revenue versus expense analysis, and then the third page, which is by itself, is highlighted in yellow.
and all I want to say in terms of this is in light of the projections, first thing I did when I went on board in January was I decided just all by myself that there would no longer be any multiple warrants served on single stops.
and it affected our revenue tremendously.
for instance, the average stop, traffic stop will probably generate at least two tickets.
not only were you speeding but you probably don't have good license and insurance has expired.
you might have as many as five tickets in one stop.
when all those became promises to appear once those people did not show up in court.
well, instead of issuing five warrants, I made a decision in January to issue only one warrant, and, of course, it just spiraled down in materials of revenue.
my staff talked me back into it at the end of the summer to change that.
so I want to let you know that is a -- that is a -- a -- reflected in the third sheet.
and you can see the arrest warrant numbers, and now we're back up and generating ourselves back up.
you see f.y.
09, 10 and 11, and if you look at what I've highlighted arrest warrants out as it goes across, you will see the numbers are coming back up.
we need those folks to work those numbers.
so that's one thing I wanted to bring to your attention in terms -- and I wanted to make sure you had that at your attention.
the projection is to save, I think, $89,000, and my point is it's going to cost us overall $200,000.
that's what the first two sheets basically point out.
so that -- and also toll roads.
I have been putting off as well as the other j.p.s, I don't know which have started, but I've been putting off doing the toll roads because I just don't have the staff to do that.
I understand when the toll cases come, in other words, they have already backlogged what they want to give us.
now, the projection is $500 per person once we start doing the toll cases.
but I haven't let a one of them in my courtroom because I just don't have the staff.
I know I don't have the staff.
so these two people, even if you just do it for one more year, these two people are going to be --
>> judge, I have no problem with what is being suggested here.
in fact, I'm going to make a motion that we support the two temps for the amount of -- what is it $89,548 I think for the total for both of them.
so I'm going to make a motion to that effect, and you haven't had a long track record, but I think there is a process and according to
>> [indiscernible] it takes time to get the assessment.
so I would like to go ahead and put that in form of a motion.
>> will you be able to do the toll cases with these two people?
>> yes, well, I certainly won't be able to do it without them, I can tell you that.
I feel better taking them on.
>> I would just add this, then, that txdot visited with me more than a month ago.
I told them I would put it on the agenda.
other counties are doing this, we are not.
it would impact precinct 2, precinct 1 and part of precinct 4.
I guess no toll in precinct 3 yet.
so -- but I did tell them -- what they told me was we would get to keep the costs.
now, part of that money goes to the state, but I think whatever costs are associated with the processing of the case the county keeps.
and they swear up and down that Williamson county generates a fairly substantial surplus.
now, I haven't called them and confirmed that, I had planned to.
but it may make sense to put this on hold and bring it next week.
I really hate nobody is processing these cases.
I think the law says the counties should, but no money was given to us to do it.
>> that's why we've been reluctant.
>> they expect us to keep -- to generate revenue and keep the court costs and in their view they can't understand, and this is txdot because they are convinced that what we collect and can keep will be many times what it costs us.
>> Williamson county keeping at this time?
>> they gave me a thanksgiving and I wanted to call Williamson county and confirm that.
I really have not.
I haven't had a chance to.
>> and harris county has another model where we have a special toll road court that does nothing but toll roads so that it doesn't detract from the activity of the other j.p.s which I understand is a model worth looking at as well.
>> there is also precinct 2 j.p.
has started a pilot project taking a very small limited number of toll cases.
and I think they signed an interlocal agreement with txdot to be able to do it on a pilot basis.
and basically what txdot was is sent them the cases for the most egregious offenders, the ones that keep going through the tolls without a tag, that's thousands of dollars, to try to start setting the example for those folks.
and I think that started sometime midyear this year and they've had a few cases.
>> are these civil or criminal cases?
>> I thought they were chrysler but I'm not sure.
>> do you know how much they are retaining from those cases?
>> no, sir, I just know they were getting ready to get started sometime this summer so it's brand new, but they did start working with txdot and they have started taking a few very limited, maybe ten cases a month over the last several things.
>> but they have several thousand they've been --
>> I'll withdraw my motion, judge and we'll look next week --
>> I think we ought to do due diligence and bring it back.
sorry to keep you.
>> you don't mind that, do you, judge?
>> I do not mind at all.
>> what I will do is try to get somebody in writing from the j.p.
in Williamson county and I forget the gentleman from txdot who visited with me, but he came by with carlos lopez from campos from the district office.
>> we should also look into the legal posture of these cases.
I believe they are not straight-up traffic cases.
I believe there's a specific statute that deals with them, they are kind of quasi simple and we are essentially a bill collector for the tolling agency.
>> that the bottom line, we are bill collectors.
>> but the cases go to the central -- to their private collector first, to a third-party collector first.
then if they don't hear there, then they bring in -- they want to come to j.p.
so they do do some collections on their own first.
>> there was a specific statute for that and I'll have to go back and refresh my memory, but it bears look into the best way we can address it because as you say, judge, it sets us in a position j.p.s will be collectors for txdot.
>> I forgot that but you reminded me when you mentioned those cases.
now, are we bill collectors or regulators?
regulators I can stand.
>> well, to be very honest with you in our conversation with the other judges, it seems like we were coming off as bill collectors.
but there is the law and we have to get ready to do it and we dot not feel prepared.
>> but your regulator hat on next week.
>> one thing to keep in mind besides looking at the revenue piece, you probably want to involve your i.t.s.
department because if you do this on a large scale as opposed to a pilot where you can keep track of some of this on a spread she'd, you are talking about probably pretty significant changes to your fact system as far as being able to captures those fines and fees as well as the collections piece of it, and the state doesn't pay for that.
you are going to have to make that adjustment up front and hope to get, you know, a significant amount of revenue back.
>> let's take two weeks.
these two people --
>> you probably want to bring i.t.s.
into that.
>> these two people are still employed.
>> oh, yes.
>> but are they funded through this fiscal year?
>> just through September 30th.
>> this fiscal year.
>> uh-huh.
>> and they are in the i.t.s.
budget currently.
>> no, ma'am, they are in -- they are in the regular general fund budget for judge williams' office.
it's two court clerks.
two special project court clerks.
>> I think our position they are funded through two weeks until this matter is brought back to us and we'll decide it that day.
we do that basically by authorizing that it be taken from whatever line item in the budget -- all the line items will be forwarded this time of year, right?
it will take two weeks for us really to do the fact finding necessary to make an informed decision.
>> it may take -- it may be better to go ahead and fund them through the end of October.
that will give you time if there are questions when you come back.
that's what I would suggest is an extension through October 31st.
and in that time you will have the time to address it.
just so the j.p.
-- the judge has the money, one month's worth of money in the budget.
to extend them through October 31st.
>> that's my motion.
is there a second?
>> second.
>> seconded by Commissioner Gomez.
discussion?
all in favor?
show Commissioners --
>> I'm sorry, motion --
>> motion to fund these two positions through the end of October, 31st.
October 31st.
>> uh-huh.
>> hopefully we'll bring this matter back in to to three weeks and finally resolve it.
hands again, please.
I didn't see those.
that passes by unanimous vote.
thank you very much.
thank you for your patience.
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