Travis County Commissioners Court

July 3, 2012 - Item 23
Agenda

Next, 23, consider and take appropriate action on request from the Austin Towing Association to increase fees related to Chapter 78 of the Travis County Code, Travis County Sheriff's Office Nonconsent Towing Policy.
And is there a representative from the sheriff's office also?
Okay.
Thanks for believing me when I told you we would reach this item around 11:00, by the way.
Good morning.

>> Good morning.

>> Good morning.

>> May well understand the request first.
And the reasons for it.
And before you speak, if you would give us your full name, we would be happy.

>> Zoe davenport, treasurer of Austin towing association.
If you all will be -- if -- we aren't accustomed to coming and speaking to you all, so you all be patient with us.
The groups that have come prior to us seem like they did it on a regular basis and was a little bit more calm than we are going to be.
We are -- we are going to pass you out our recommendations.
We have been operating with Travis County law enforcement under the same contract since 2001.

>> Do you have another copy?
With the same pay grade since 2005.
We come here this morning as a -- let's see, a necessity to try to keep the towing business in Travis County on a financially stable basis.
The tows we give is for an accident when the person doesn't have a towing company that they want or people that the sheriffs and constable take away from their cars.
They are either going to jail or something.
That's the type of tows that we do.
The insurance pays for most of them or the people going to jail have to pay their own cars out.
We appreciate you all taking time.
Mr. Jones, it's-if you all have any questions over what, you know, we gave you all, we have -- we have information to back up our request.
How the prices, as you all know, you all -- you know, fund the county.
You all know how prices have gone up in the last seven to eight years.
Ambulances cost about the same as a class b or class c tow truck.
You all know the increase in prices there.
All of our prices have gone up.
Mainly due to most of our trucks are -- are diesel powered and the government's mandate on, you know, change the exhaust and stuff has added 12, sometimes added $15,000 to the price of the very same truck that we purchased when this contract was drawn up.
We have asked Travis County to go over what we are asking for.
We didn't actually agree on everything, but I believe we came to a point where we could both -- you know, live with our rate and --

>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]

>> That vehicle used to be 60, 70,000.
Now it's 115,000 to purchase that particular vehicle and you can understand how the cost goes up on the class b's, which is a weight difference and the class c's.
Pretty much like the city of Austin the rates can sit there for quite awhile.

>> Was there $130 approved by the Commissioners' court?

>> Yes, sir.
In 2005, yes.

>> Yes.

>> Because the documents we found indicate that the court approved $95.

>> I believe, judge, that was in 2001 when this contract was originally entered into.
And it was amended in 2005.

>> Okay.
So we acted on it 2001 and again in 2005.

>> Yes.

>> Okay.
What's the sheriff's office recommendation if any.

>> Major claire, Travis County sheriff's office, law enforcement bureau.
I have brought with me the experts in the towing field for my agency.
Rick pitino have been dealing with the vehicle impound for a number of years with us.
I believe there is enough to review the contract and we have done some looks to see what the prices are in other areas.
I would like for rick to speak to that.

>> Morning, sir.

>> Morning.

>> Yes.
We definitely need to look at the pricing.
When you look at the contract, modify, adjust.
Other law enforcement agencies have modified the pricing in their cities and counties where an adjustment needs to be made.

>> Have we taken a look and surveyed and taken an average in the other metropolitan areas?

>> At this time we're looking at that to ascertain the best recommendation we can give you.

>> How long will it take to do a survey of the major metros?

>> At least a couple of weeks, ma'am.

>> Commissioner Huber?

>> I think I would like to see a comparison of what those others -- these are non-consent tows.
The discretion I put out there is what is the cost of the consent tows in a comparable sized vehicle these days?

>> Most of us charge a pickup price.
My company starts at $95, and three dollars per, you know, loaded mile.
Now, we don't do that if we have to get up at 2:00 in the morning.
We don't drop what we are doing to rush to the scene to get the traffic opened and moved like we do on a law enforcement call.
We have time constraints that we have to show up, in a half hour, we can't take two hours to get there.
Equipment used at accident scenes are usually more complex than what we would go use to pick up our mother's car.
All of that has to go into the pricing.

>> Okay.
So on the non-consent, we just have one flat price.

>> Yes.

>> Or do we factor in loaded mile plus equipment use?

>> No.
There is one flat price now.

>> Okay.
Well, my recommendation would be that not only do we do our survey, but do yours, and if y'all can meet again and resolve it, fine.
If noe, come back and we'll listen to the facts and decide ourselves.

>> One of the items that we're asking for is as of now Travis County just has a class a and a class b towing rate.
Class a is for cars.
10,000-pounds, gvw and smaller.
And then over that 10,001-pounds and over.
We're asking to create a, you know, third in between those, so the medium size box trucks and flatbed trucks and lumber trucks and stuff, there's a pricing difference there because they can be towed with a smaller, cheaper unit than the big tractor-trailer trucks that roll over.
Most of the law enforcement people around the state have the three different sizes.

>> Can we also look into that with regard to the survey, the price structure?
Because if that is the industry standard, there's probably a reason for it.

>> And we'll do that.
We certainly want to meet with them and hear what their ideas are where we should move forward and restructure not just the contract, but just how we do business and make it consistent so that when people encounter a towing situation, say, in the city, it's not that much different from what they encounter in the county.

>> Now, on these non-consent tows, if it's an accident I'm assuming insurance will cover it, but if it is not an accident I'm guessing insurance doesn't cover it.
If it's in a wreck.

>> That is right.
The person has to pay themselves.
So it could be used as part of the fine, maybe to keep them from driving under the influence a second time.
Maybe.

>> So is there a statewide association?

>> There are two.

>> Have they done surveys?

>> Yes, sir.
In 2009 the tdlr did a -- hired a firm called morningstar to give them a cost of what it cost in the state of Texas to tow a car.
It was done to help them put a cap on private property towing, non-consent private property towing.
They came up with a cap of 225 bucks.
They actually said that it cost almost $200 in the state of Texas to tow and store a car.

>> So how did you arrive at the amount that you're recommending today?

>> We came up with the costs that we've actually incurred buying equipment.
Our monthly expenditures for maintenance, our labor cost, added in insurance and a 12 to 15% profit on top of that.
We apologized for waiting seven years to come here.
We should have came three years ago, but due to the leadership and stuff that the local towers had, it's hard enough for us to come here.
The rest of 'em, they -- find someone, not that y'all are a scary bunch --

>> [laughter]

>> I was about to say watch where you're going with that.

>> [laughter]

>> There you go.

>> And is the city of Austin's arrangement similar with a pool and a flat rate?

>> Yes.
They're being approached now.
We started to go to them a year ago, and they asked us to the way.
They're probably going to change some things.
Their rates will probably match -- what we're asking them about probably match what we're asking y'all.

>> Are they at 130 today?

>> 150.
And has been since 2006.

>> Okay.
Well, I think any idea you want us to hear you may as well share with the sheriff's office, try to reach agreement on them first.
If you can, bring us the agreement.
If you can't reach agreement, then bring us the points of disagreement and we'll try to listen to the facts and make a decision.
And don't be afraid of us next time.

>> [laughter]

>> Is there any efficiency in looking at the city of Austin contract and perhaps having one contract?
In one pool?
I imagine a majority of the towing occurs inside the city limits.
No?

>> Well, maybe the majority, but the dynamics that are out in the county present very different problems.

>> I see.

>> Just as their travel, the amount of time we expect a wrecker to show up on scene, those kinds of things.
But we do need to get our contract over to the attorney and have a look-see.
These contracts should be looked at more frequently.
And there's been some changes by the state in some definitions that probably need to be changed as well.
So it's a good time to get all of that taken care of.

>> Thank you so much for working on this.

>> Are we looking at two to three weeks or closer to four or five?

>> I put down two to three weeks to get our little investigations done into what we think other like places are doing.
And for them to do the same thing and then come together and see where we agree and disagree and try to hash that out and come back before you together with a plan.

>> Okay.

>> Four weeks.

>> That will work for us.

>> Thank you very much.

The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.

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