Travis County Commissioners Court

June 12, 2012 - Item 8
Agenda

View captioned video.

>> Number 8 is to consider and take appropriate action on a draft economic development policy for Travis County and set a public hearing on June 26, 2012 to receive comments.

>> Thank you.

>> So we thought what we would do to kick this off is just to kind of give a brief recap on what we've done so far and then how we see this process going forward.
We've got a few powerpoint slides that we handed out to you today and I'll go through those pretty quickly so that we can get to the discussion.
Just as a little bit of background, we did have some extensive discussion related to a draft economic development incentive policy at the court's work session on may the 17th.
What we did then, after hearing that discussion, is we went back.
We incorporated some changes in the draft agreement.
It's in your -- or that draft policy, it's in your agenda materials, and then after getting further feedback and direction from you today we would plan to hold a public hearing to get the public feedback on June the 26th.
If you could go to slide 2, this is just a recap of what's actually in the draft policy, the basic requirements for an incentive to be -- to be granted.
The applicant must be an authorized facility and this basically describes the types of industries that the county would hope to attract in any incentive agreement.
There's a requirement that the incentive or the project does not simply transfer employment from one part of the county to the other, a requirement that it must increase employment by a minimum of 50 employees, be competitively cited, have a human resources benefits policy, that the firm would hold, and that that would apply to same sex and domestic partners.
50% of the new positions should be filled with Travis County residents.
This is just a base requirement.
It is not part of an add-on contemplated currently, and that any employer that would be an approved applicant would also have to provide an equal opportunity employment policy.
The components of the incentives are on slide 3.
Of course the amount of the investment, the number of jobs that are created, whether or not the project is leed certified, the location of the project, that would be in either a major activity center or, for example, the desired development zone, or other key desirable area where -- where a new project would best be located.
There is a focus in the draft policy on the hiring and training of the economically disadvantaged in our community, and then just in terms of the total policy itself related to a potential tax rebate, it would not exceed 80% of taxes on the eligible property value.
Then these last two slides are just some of the areas that we took notes on at the may work session that we need further direction from the court as to whether or not to incorporate these in a draft policy that then, of course, would be subject to the public hearing on June the 26th.
First of all is whether to require a super-majority of the Commissioners of the court to approve any waiver in the policy, and that would include whether or not to allow an incentive agreement to proceed on a firm that had leased facilities.
Right now I am not aware that we require a super-majority to adopt the policy or, for example, to adopt the tax rate, but that was something that was discussed at the work session, is setting a high bar.
Whether to require a $1,000 applicant fee for each -- application fee for each new request for incentives, that was another lengthy discussion area, whether to require an applicant to achieve leed certification on new construction as part of the base incentive versus the draft policy currently reads that that would just be an add-on incentive valued at an additional 5%, so we had a lot of lively discussion there.
Going on to slide 5, these were the last really three areas that received a lot of discussion, and we left one at the very end as to whether or not to include other items that the court might discuss today, but at the top of the list is whether to require a company to fill at least 50% of its new jobs with Travis County residents, whether to require a company to pay their employees, including their contract employees, a living wage.
That is currently $11 per hour at Travis County, and whether to require a company to contribute to health care coverage or subsidize health care coverage on behalf of its employees or simply whether to make such coverage available to their workforce.
We've been doing some research.
I think most of the county policies make the requirement to have coverage accessible.
We haven't really found anywhere the counties actually require firms to contribute, but definitely accessible is important.
So those were the major areas that we noted for further discussion, and with that we'll turn it back over to you all.

>> Just one -- one small revision.
On the authorized facility, the draft that you currently have says that it is not a requirement but preference will be given for an authorized facility.

>> Also, there does seem to be a substantive revision that was not discussed with regard to the super-majority to amend the policy.
I don't believe that that was in the prior draft, nor was it discussed.

>> We may have missed that one.

>> That probably should be discussed here today.
I believe the intent, at least my understanding was the intent was to contemplate a super-majority to waive provisions of the policy, but I don't believe we ever discussed a super-majority to amend the policy, and I frankly believe that would be unwise.

>> I need to check.
It may be

>> [inaudible] that you have to.
But I can check that in 12 and see.
And I think that may be why we caught that, is to amend the policy required that.
But I will check.

>> Yeah.
You think that the law may require a super-majority?

>> To amend your policy under tax abatement.

>> This is -- this is on page 6.
It's d -- let's see, what provision is it?
Just so you all -- I just hadn't seen it before, and I was wondering what -- what its intent was.
It's 28.002 d, as in dog, subpart -- actually it's e as in edward, subpart 1.
Policy changes during the two-year period that this policy is in effect.
This policy may only be amended by a super-majority vote of the Commissioners court, and I'm concerned since it doesn't say specifically "abatement" it seems to apply globally, the way it's written.
But if you want to give direction that, you know, if the statute requires it we'll split it, but since your policy is kind of a mixed abatement rebate, or I can --

>> That's probably required on that a little bit, and from -- legal.
And so my understanding is the only -- when it mentions majority of the court, they would actually be on tax levy, and if you're going to levy that a quorum has to be present, but that's basically on tax levy situations and I don't think it's applicable anywhere else.
In other words it would be a policy thing --

>> My question was whether it was in 312 to tax abatement policies and again, that's a long-ago recollection.
I can check that and let you know.

>> Let me know because the one -- the only where you have to have a majority of membership on this governing body is that it's restricted, only require that four members of the court have to be present on tax levy-type decisions, and that was the only -- because that was the only, I guess, reference as far as -- that I can -- as far as what I was informed on by legal.
So I don't know, but we can check into it but that's --

>> I don't know who you talked to but I could talk to them --

>> Do you want me to tell you?

>> [laughter]

>> Sure.
We talk to each other up there.

>> [laughter]

>> I spoke to john hilly.

>> Yeah.

>> And he laid it out to me yesterday, and I think I could hear barbara wilson in the background of the phone, because I was kind of concerned about that as far as the majority, body that must be present in the given situation.
And the situation was just as I stated, only on tax levy-type situations.

>> So you're looking at -- fine, let's just take a look and see what the actual statute with regard to abatement requires.
And if not we can certainly --

>> Yeah, may not --

>> -- adjust it.

>> I'd like to state my opposition to a super-majority requirement, unless required by law.

>> I agree.

>> Have we charged a fee in the past?

>> No, we have not.

>> And what's the rationale behind charging a fee?

>> I think we looked at a few other counties and I believe that in place -- a couple counties we surveyed, I believe the rationale has been occurring at the staff level and I believe this actually got discussed quite a bit at the January work session that you all head, was just the sheer cost of analyzing and working through these agreements.
They're very time consuming.
The other factor that was considered was you would get more serious applicants by charging a fee.
One of the things that the chamber mentioned to us is that the state actually does charge a fee for various -- to kind of embark on the analysis related to incentive agreements, but over time staff has got a lot of experience and they can kind of tell when they get an application whether or not it's going to be -- it's going to be able to kind of viably go through the process.
And so what they do as a courtesy, is if it looks like it's something at first glance not going to meet the various requirements of their incentive programs, they let the applicant know so that they don't just pay a fee and they get turned down.

>> Also, if we go ahead with capcog in the web

>> [inaudible] program, capcog told us they would charge us $1,000 per applicant to analyze those, so this -- this fee would cover that expense.

>> So is our discussion to use capcog in the future?

>> We've looked at either using capcog or using the city of Austin.
Now, it is a joint incentive agreement where the city is likely to participate, as well as the county.
The city has indicated that they could work with us on doing that analysis, and I believe it would be free of charge.

>> But the city has no incentive to enrich their web loci database with county-wide statistics for the assessed -- of intra-county migrations.

>> There would be significant legwork to make that work properly.

>> Although I would say that they have indicated the willingness to work with us, if we want to work with them.
So -- but capcog is an option as well.

>> I again stress our need to have an independent source of not only analysis of prospective applications but also an independent source of analysis for how our past proposals ended up working out in reality.
Not to blame anyone, but to see if there were -- if the expected consequences occurred or if unexpected consequences occurred for us to reevaluate and tweak our economic development policy.
We haven't -- neither the county nor the city nor the chamber has done much analysis, if any, on whether the projections that underlie these agreements actually came to pass or, and in addition, whether there were some unintended consequences.
We have for a number of --

>> Well, I just wanted to comment.
We do compliance evaluations annually in the city of Austin.
I think where we may be a little lax is in the publication of those compliance audits.

>> But as you know, we -- those are measurements of output, not measurements of outcome.

>> Right.
That's correct.

>> Our measurements of outcome is not pretty, which is a 16 to 19% poverty rate.

>> Right.
No, I understand that they're really outputs.
I just didn't want anybody thinking that there wasn't a compliance process that was in place.

>> I didn't mean to imply that.
We do rigorously check the performance under contract.

>> Right.

>> But we have not -- and it's because we have a small staff and could not charge the staff with this -- with this mission of -- he don't have an economic development department.

>> Right.

>> Well, we -- that's one way to look at it, or we have a one-person economic development department.
But we have evaluated the two things that we contract for, capital investment and --

>> Employees.

>> And jobs, yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> We have always attempted to quantify that, and if you didn't meet those two requirements we called to your attention.

>> That's right.

>> -- we wanted you to address the issue.
I'm happy to say, though, that in most cases the firms with the agreement have met those two requirements.

>> That's correct.

>> The question is whether we want to put additional requirements in the policy.
Now, speaking of the policy, our challenge today is to come up with a draft document that we can distribute to the public in preparation for the June 26 public hearing.
Our goal is to receive comments there and then take one, two, three weeks, whatever time is required, and come up with a final policy.

>> That's correct.

>> Several individuals have given us comments and are here today to provide additional comments, I believe.
Did I see ms. Most of -- I see ms. Moffet?
The judge --

>>

>> [inaudible].

>> He did submit comments in writing which we have and we have people here from the Austin greater chamber of commerce.
Do we have questions for staff?

>> I have one.

>> Okay.
And if we could get you to squeeze three chairs together to free up three chairs and we get comments from the public after we finish here.

>> I just wanted to make sthur that -- sure that staff, under whatever category we make and bring to the bundle, it mentions -- it mentions several times about the poft guideline -- poverty guideline family income.
Of course Travis County used the several poverty guidelines.
Of course that particular chart has been updated on different occasions.
In fact, we had to try to retrieve the latest one before Travis County used the particular poverty guidelines to determine eligibility of the things that we're dealing with.
And my suggestion is that somewhere along within this process, if there can be a referral within the document -- economic development document itself of that poverty guideline criteria, and of course a family, a single person, family, whatever, and the earmarks on that.
So the persons that are dealing with the criterion as far as eligibility dealing with those particular persons that meet several poverty guidelines have a document present with them as we go through the process.
Otherwise you may have to use guesswork a little bit.
And so I would encourage that, if that's at all possible, later on within this project, because it does mention that within the particular document as far as what Travis County used to determine eligibility.
Thank you.

>> Anything else, court members?

>> I had -- I think there was one technical issue that I had a question.

>> Okay.

>> Oh, with regard to the changed language or the suggested change with regard to access to health care, we did spend a year discussing that decision.
With the healthcare district and the chamber of commerce, and came to some agreed language.
If we go with a different -- different language with regard to accessible to all employees, we do need a definition of what access means, and that was what the year-long conversation was about.
So I would not be at all in favor of replacing the year-long negotiated wording with a statement about making health coverage, quote, accessible to all employees, unquote.
That is not defined and could mean almost anything.
And I would therefore think that that would be some sloppy drafting in terms of enforceability.

>> Is that it?

>> Now, ms. Moffet, would you like to be the first citizen to give comments?

>> Yes.
Mr. Porter, would you like to be the sec?

>> Good morning, I'm susan moffet.

>> Morning.

>> And I wanted to thank you for taking the time and for county staff to thought fully review your current economic incentive policy.
But as a prelude I think it's important to step back and for the discussion, take a look at some very fundamental questions, and I would suggest that if once you answer them, you may actually want to include them as a preamble in your newly adopted policy so that the public and any future Commissioners courts will be clear on what we're trying to achieve with these incentives.
And the basic questions, to my mind, are what are the specific problems or conditions that we are trying to solve with the incentives?
How will we identify these problems?
How will we monitor our public investments to know that they are, in fact, working to solve these problems?
And finally, the really big philosophical one, whether and why public dollars should ever be used to tip the scales in favor of a very few private for-profit corporations over all the other business interests in our local market.
Now, every year hundreds of companies open, relocate or expand in Travis County, creating thousands of jobs without benefits of public tax dollars.
According to the recent statesman article, quote, Austin rank no.
1 among the 50 largest metro areas in 100 years.
It's 4,200 jobs represented 21.3 increase from the start of 2004.
For 2011 alone Austin was no.
2 in the nation in job growth, unquote.
Austin also recently won first place in small business vitality for the third straight year from the national business journals, adding 170 small businesses in a year's time and upping the city's total tally to more than 39,000 small businesses.
None of these local job creators received public benefits.
Austin also ranks second in the nation for population growth with over 18% in five years and our current jobless rate is now 5.5%, significantly below the national average.
Further, mr. Porter and opportunity Austin recently acknowledged in the states man that relocating companies only account for about a quarter of the area's total job growth and fully three-quarters of our jobs are created by companies already here.
The same piece quoted ucla economist jerry nickelberg saying grik up job growth provides more stimulating and longer lasting growth than those by transplanted companies.
He also noted that of the 220 companies he's tracked that have relocated to Austin since 2004, only 13 received incentives from the city of Austin, and I believe that number from the county would be even smaller.
So given all this, how do we justify using public tax dollars as a thumb on the scales in favor of this very small number of private for-profit corporations over all our other businesses and all our other transplants that are doing just as much for job creation and, in fact, effectively far more without a public handout.
And I'm going to be blunt with you.
From the outside looking in a lot of people think the main difference is what people have to snap in the resources, to hire high-priced, to go to bat for them with local governments.
Clearly Austin is one of the country's most appealing, fastest growing cities that is attractive to thousands of individuals and businesses on its own merits.
In fact, we are struggling now to keep up with our growth even as we face limits to vital resources such as water and of course the transportation problems that you just spent quite a while discussing.
I mean, really, honestly at this point maybe we should be paying people not to move here so we can figure this out a little better.
But for all of these reasons I believe it is imperative to ensure as much as possible that any future growth pays for itself and that public economic incentives should only be used in an extremely limited, highly strategic way to address clearly identified problems. In discussing the widening income inequality, thomas see agree of the university of pennsylvania said a sensible rule of thumb for public policy is to ask what it does for the bottom 50% of our population, and in my mind, and I hope in your mind, this will be the unemployment and underemployed residents of our county.
To that end I would suggest that the county conduct market analysis of unemployed and underemployed residents to be updated on a regular basis so we know who needs employment, what kind of work would fill these gaps, what training, if any, is needed to make sure that our neediest residents can be matched with these job openings and that any jobs that are incentivized with public dollars pay a living wage and provide decent health care because otherwise we're just picking up the tab twice.
I also think it's very important to examine the increasing role that local incentives are playing in triggering state give-aways at a time when state leaders are shamefully underfunding our basic services.
If the state continues to flash health care for county residents is it ultimately wise for us to provide the trigger to the key to the state's treasury for even larger give-aways of our public money.
Finally, I really think all of you need to ask yourself the hard question as elected officials, is there any situation in which you would not give tax incentives when an applicant comes well represented with the blessing of a major, very well respected local business organization?
Is the political pressure to appear pro-growth such that you would not feel comfortable saying no, even when you have a sneaking suspicion that maybe you should?
Realistically, we cannot know the details of any company's finance or how real any potential deals with other rival localities are, but we can calculate the benefit to the community if every company pays its fair share.
So another question needs to be, what could the county do with this foregone tax revenue that might help our residents more directly, such as job training?
I'll be speaking to you again on the 26th about more nuts and bolts for the provision but I really think this is the time to take a breath, step back, and try to answer these very basic questions, how will we identify the specific problems we're trying to solve, how will we monitor our investments to know that we've achieved these goals, how will we get our money back if we haven't, could the same money be used to benefit our residents more directly?
And whether and why should public dollars be used to favor a very few private enterprises over all the other businesses in our county?
And again, I thank you very much for taking the time to consider these important questions.
Thank you.

>> Thank you.

>> Thank you.
Any questions for her?

>> Have you seen the workforce solution's 2012 workforce analysis?

>> I have not had time to delve into it.

>> It just came out.
It's on their web site.
It's an excellent analysis of who most needs jobs and what kind of training would most probably improve their odds for achieving full-time and satisfying employment.

>> I will get right on that.
Thank you.

>> But I agree with you that it's not just about measuring the outputs of these deals.
We also need -- as mr. Porter reported to the community action network, the chamber relies on what they call spin-off effect of the luring of primary employers.
Am I using correct language there?
But we have not studies, no one has studied, where the spin-off effect actually goes with regard to what type of spin-off jobs, is it dry cleaners and waiters?
And if so, where?
And are those livable jobs?
That's the kind of economic development analysis we should be collectively doing rather than relying on the assertion that spin-off has occurred and that it has been good.

>> I couldn't agree more.
Thank you.

>> Thank you, ms. Moffett.

>> Since 2010 we forwent $4.2 million in tax revenue at the time we had a 19.2 individual poverty rate.

>> Mr. Porter?

>> Thank you, judge.
Commissioners.
Thank you for the opportunity to talk to you once again.
I appreciate the dedication that you have to establishing an incentive policy which I think will go a long way in helping us land even better paying jobs for the citizens in Travis County.
Many of the accolades just mentioned, I think, we're very fortunate to be in a position to have those accumulates.
I think part of the reason we have one of the best job performance -- performances in the country is that we have a good market, a good labor force, and we use the incentives, very limited and strategically to land those types of projects that create the most wealth for the community.
A couple key points about the current incentive policy.
We're close.
We -- I think we're extremely close, but two things I want to keep continuing to discuss with you ar harp on with you -- and harp on with you and hopefully -- and the first one is the 25% requirement -- or 50% requirement as a base for Travis County residents.
We had an opportunity to discuss -- and I've mentioned this to you before, that many of the large employers that would qualify for this potential new incentive, should they expand, are located near the border of other counties.
We talked to a major employer last week who indicated should they expand, that the 50% requirement is a challenge for them.
A few years ago we did survey five existing companies, but over -- three years ago existing companies.
The dynamics of our workforce, the growth that's happened in our region is so diverse and different now that we do have a lot of citizens living in Williamson county or hays county that drive in to Travis County to work.
So the dynamics have changed since we did those initial interviews three years ago when we initially had this discussion.
We would rather see you start at 25% and then add a benefit for each increase for the percentage of Travis County residents that are hired.
That's consistent with other counties, other major cities in Texas where they start at 25 -- the counties start at 25% and then they add a bonus for those companies that employ more of the county residents.

>> Mr. Porter, why not start with the actual statistics on how many employees are Travis County residents for our five largest employers?
Or why not start with the statistics with regard to the commuting patterns of Travis County residents?
In both instances that's well above 50%.
Why would we go to half of what the current statistics reflect?

>> I have not seen those statistics.

>> I would.point you to the state of the workforce that I was just suggesting ms. Moffett look at, page 18, Travis County work locations for employed residents by county, 2010, Travis County, 69.1%.
Also, you yourself indicated to us, I believe it was two years ago, that the top five private employers in Travis County reported that well above 50% of their employees were Travis County residents.

>> Right.

>> And then additionally I've done a little research since then and found out that of Travis County employees, we also far exceed the 50% mark.

>> We feel like it's going to put us at a competitive disadvantage to start at the 50%, from what we've -- again, we talked to one employer, major employer, last week.
Under these new guidelines starting 50%, should they have a major expansion, would probably prohibit them from considering an incentive from Travis County.

>> But again, my question, though, is why would you not start with the statistics for the average employer here rather than start with the desires of a -- of a seeker of rebate or abatement?
Shouldn't we set the bar higher if an applicant is seeking preferential tax treatment than what the standard is?
Why would we not start with the current standard?

>> We're trying to land a project, and again, the local employer telling us that their current workforce is not 50% within Travis County.
It used to be, but it's not today.

>> But again, you're citing to me specific -- some nebulous specific employer.
I'm citing to you the actual statistics, some of which you provided to me.

>> I'm just telling you --

>> So why would you not use the statistics rather than the anecdotal from one of your employers?

>> One member of the Commissioners court is interested in hearing mr. Porter's comments.

>> I'm interested in hearing his response.

>> [laughter]

>> You're getting argumentive with him and I want mr. Porter to go ahead and finish your comments and then we'll have questions.
I don't know that arguing with mr. Porter makes a whole lot of sense.
I've seen the report there too.
I don't know how authentic it is.
It is good reading, and I assume that it's factual, but today we're giving residents an opportunity to have whatever say they want and we'll take the comments and do what we want with them individually and collectively at some point.
Mr. Porter, it's your call.

>> Yeah, and one other key point, and it gets back to the least versus -- leased versus owned facilities.
As I mentioned to you last meeting -- last year, we had 52 industrial leads, 92% looking for existing space.
Many of those companies invest heavily in equipment.
It's easier to move a facility elsewhere.
I know some of the concern is long-term commitment, but once these companies make capital investment in equipment, they put it in, it's very difficult to move.
So there is a long-term commitment when they lease facilities and put in equipment for manufacturing.
I think the lease versus the own would hinder us in our efforts.
Many of the office users in our market are leased office space.
They make tenant improvements and they employ thousands of people, but again, we've only used the incentive process 13 times with the city of Austin.
Of those, maybe 11 are leased spaces, two owned.
So yeah, I think it's something we need to -- we would ask that you take serious consideration in that allow for leased space real estate.
Those are the two primary concerns that we have.

>> Okay.
Questions?

>> Let me ask staff, do we have any -- any rebates or tax rebate agreement with a company here within Travis County that we have fallen upon under a lease-type scenario for a facility that's owned outright?
Do we --

>> I believe -- I can't remember which agreement it is.
But one agreement is on leased city of Austin owned land.

>> The city of Austin?
That's the only situation that we --

>> Yes, and our agreement is only on the business personal property of that.

>> Bar v solar.

>> Yes.
So I want to just make a comment on that particular point of lease versus a new facility that would probably be more operable under the lease scenario, especially if we're trying to make sure that we have green buildings, and I don't think mr. Porter disagrees with green buildings, and I don't think he's here to say that.
I can't speak for him, but I don't believe that.
But -- and I am concerned about the leed aspects of things as far as having green, or going green as much as possible.
It's a big deal, and of course if we're going to toot our horn about Travis County be taking initiatives as far as leed and things of concern and taking a jump forward in that, I just think maybe we should also give strong consideration as far as that particular aspect is concerned as far as leed.
Green buildings -- green is a big deal.
So I'm just laying it out, and I know this is just for comment period at this point, but just something I just think that everyone should be aware of is that we take strong consideration on green building, especially if they're in a new phase anyway.
All right.
Thank you.

>> Any other questions or comments from the court?
Thank you, mr. Porter.

>> Thank you.

>> Anybody else?

>> Thank you, mr. Porter.

>> Anybody else to give comments?
Mariannea.

>> Yes.

>> So this note refers to tax code 312.

>> Yes, and says that -- they don't address how you adopt your policy or how you amend your policy.
So we go back --

>> That provision can be struck.

>> Yes, and just make it apply to waivers.

>> The rebate, there's no statutory direction at all, so we don't have to worry about that one.

>> Okay.

>> Move that we schedule a public hearing on June 26, 2012 as previously committed.

>> Second.

>> Discussion?

>> Judge, would you take it as a friendly that we strike that provision for the --

>> Not at this time.
Not at this time I wouldn't.
A motion and second, set for the hearing on June the 26th, 2012.
After we vote on this we have further discussion.
All in favor?
That passes by unanimous vote.
I think we ought to take all the comments that we have heard today, what we got during the work session, the draft before us, give that to the public, listen to those who come on the 26th of June, and then we spend one to three weeks deciding what final document, if any, we approve.
I can tell you that I've got fundamental issues with some of the things that are in our policy, just based on conversations that I've had with other people, including conversations we had last Friday down at the community action network when we talked about jobs and poverty and economically disadvantaged persons.
At the same time, though, I don't know where the court is and we have not discussed that, but I think after the public hearing, then we ought to just go ahead and have as comprehensive a discussion as we need to and then take votes that hopefully will lead us to a final policy or no policy at all if that's how the vote goes.
At the same time, my caution would be that if we want people to come down and give us comments, then we ought to treat them respectfully, and I don't know that as presiding officer I appreciate arguing with people who disagree with me.
And ms. Moffett's position is contrary to mine in a whole lot of regards.
At the same time, though, when I invite her down to make comments I don't expect her to say what I would say.
I expect her to say what she thinks she should say.
So I think we all should be mindful of that and at the public hearing I would enforce that, as I understand the law gives me the authority to do.
And the county attorney, if I misstep, or overstep my authority, will let me know.
With that, Commissioner Eckhardt, you had a question.

>> My question was whether -- actually was the suggestion for a moment to strike the provision with regard to a super-majority to amend the policy, since I think it's a red herring that we just don't need to.

>> It won't bother me to drop it.

>>

>> [inaudible] public hearing.
It was not in the April version that was our previous.

>> Any objection to taking it off?

>> No, not at all.

>> We don't have any.

>> How is that?

>> Like it.
Put Commissioner Eckhardt's initials out there to the right.
Anything else today?

>> Could I ask for -- I know that I didn't distribute to you the summary of the economic development agreements out of harris, travis and bexar county until after 5:00 yesterday because that's when I received the last report.
Would it be helpful for us to attach those reports that you all received yesterday evening to what we send out to wherever we distribute?
It does show that -- it does answer the question that members of this court asked me to investigate, was, i.e., what effect -- how many small abatement and rebate agreements in investment amount, and I think you can see from harris county that they're substantial, below $25 million, which is in your policy.
Bexar county called me late last night and said, be advised that the statistics I gave you, we consolidated the toyota abatement amounts for all of the auxiliary abatements that we gave into the toyota number, so it's in the large number.
So it's not truly representative.
And I think that tarrant county had indicated to me a very good summary showing that they have significant agreements that are less than 25 million.
So if -- with your permission, we would, you know, attach this as some kind of perspective on the policy we're looking at as a draft.

>> I think that would be good to do, especially since it addresses the question that we have, an ongoing question, of folks who are economically disadvantaged, and I think the smaller the -- the smaller companies come closer to addressing that issue than the larger companies, because they -- you know, from what we've heard.
And not only the full-time jobs, but I think that for some kids in school and retirees who are limited by what they can earn, but they still get a little extra money, I don't know why part-time job, we would snub our nose at part-time jobs, or temporary jobs.
I've talked to many adults since the last time we had a discussion, and a lot of very successful adults today told me that they started out with a part-time job, a temporary job, and the whole idea was to get money in your pocket to take care of whatever you needed to do so that you could keep on going.
And so I don't think that we ought to eliminate those small companies or, you know, those part-time jobs so that folks can still have some money in their pocket.

>> One thing I did pick up from one of these conversations with one of these economic development individuals in reference to Commissioner Eckhardt's question about the 50% versus the 25%, and I believe it was tarrant county, I'd have to go back and check my notes, but they said that in some cases, that where they're attempting to place industry in a distressed area, it gets geographically very close to other county borders, and that's the reason that they go with the lower percentage than 50, and I think your points were well-taken, that the statistics show we're well above 50, but if, in fact, we were looking at some of the distressed areas next to the bastrop border or hays, the southeastern corner of the county, that there could be something.
I don't know about specific industries trying to come in there, but we would obviously like it.
So that's at least a partial answer to what another county it indicated.

>> And that -- that county, that particular policy is instructive.
It has a very interesting provision with regard to increased incentives for locating in distressed areas, and I agree with you, that when locating in an economically distressed area, it often takes you close to the border, which would thereby justify a reduction in what is our standard.
But to provide a reduced standard overall for anyone is simply to reduce your standards.

>> Sure.
No, I just thought -- you know, I wanted to make that comment based on my conversation with that county.
That's at least their explanation.

>> Bexar county and -- bexar county also has the provision with regard to locating in economically distressed areas, that also take the -- the actual map that's included in the policy takes you very close to the county line.

>> With that analysis that you looked at with other counties, it also indicated the number of jobs that were created with that type of investment, especially with the small investment, I think which is kind of -- very important because I think if you look at the big picture, it's going to take all of us to help alleviate and bring job opportunities to this community, whether a big company or a small company.
I think we need to look at both, and if those figures are as you say they are, and I know it did come in late yesterday.
In fact, I just got a chance to start looking at this this morning, it just means to me that there are other opportunities that I think we need to -- we need to uncover all rocks as much as possible to make sure that we put a big dent in this unemployment situation for folks who need jobs.

>> And I think the conclusion from these little short surveys that I got back is that there's not a direct correlation between number of employees and capital investment.
And so if, in fact, the priority of the policy is to address the workforce development and the hiring of the disadvantaged, then it may be more directed toward the number of employees that they hire in those categories rather than the 25 million of investment.
That's, you know, kind of --

>> Well, thank you.

>> Well, we always argue to taxpayers that even after giving a sphngs incentive, the remaining revenue for the county -- financial incentive, the remaining revenue for the county is significant.
The revenue we get from that particular piece of property before the company locates on it and thin we look at -- then we look at revenue for to the county even after giving a financial incentive and typically there's a great deal of refuse revenue tht still comes to us.
And I think it resonates with taxpayers.
And the second component, equally important, would be the number of jobs.

>> Yeah.

>> Okay.
The research that you did, did we ask about job training programs?

>> This was really what I called and asked about was specifically about the minimum investment, and they shared the total number of jobs and the total minimum investment.

>> Why don't we ask the -- those counties, hopefully one brief phone call, what kind of job training programs they fund from the new revenue, if any.

>> Okay.

>> And what success those programs have had.
Because when we talk, what we learn is a whole lot of people go through training and, you know, unfortunately the state has cut, I guess, fairly severely job training funding, and part of our taking care of economically disadvantaged people here in Travis County I think would be us trying to beef up that effort.
The other thing is that it's one thing for these jobs to be available, even if they're low-paying.
It's another thing to have qualified workers out there filing applications for them.
And my thing was that, one, that I'd create all kinds of jobs possible.
The ones that pay $100,000 as well as the ones that pay a livable wage plus benefits.
Those two together are significant, and the example I used is the custodian of Travis County, we pay 11 bucks plus you got health care and other benefits, but I don't know that I'd think you would hold that job forever.
In fact, you ought to be getting yourself some training, some tuition reimbursement, you ought to be looking around at Travis County for better opportunities, and part of the training, I think, would be to motivate employees to do just that.
And so I mean, I guess I have given up on knocking jobs -- the service-level jobs.
My caveat, though, is don't plan to hold that job forever.
You get in where you can and you move up as fast as you can, and a lot of that is based on education, job training that you get as well as on-the-job training.
You know, when you think about it we could do a better job of educating our workforce here and providing opportunities for upward mobility.
Saying that is one thing and it sounds real good, but actually getting out there and doing it requires a bit more effort than we give it, we meaning all of us, in supervisory capacity.
I like how that sounded.

>> [laughter]

>> I would survey.
Thank you.

>> Anything else on this item?
We can hardly wait for the public hearing and our discussions after that.
Thank you all very much.

>> Thank you.

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