Travis County Commissioners Court

July 10, 2012 - Items 11 and 29
Agenda

11. Consider and take appropriate action on the updated fiscal year 2013 budget calendar and schedule, including dates for budget hearings and mark up. It will help make sure that everyone is here.
So with that, I am going to turn it over to jessica, and she's going to kind of walk you through the key base on the calendar.

>> I am with budget.
We are -- we took into consideration some comments that were made last week and we have an updated calendar you have seen today.
I did want to mention I did go over this calendar yesterday with the county attorney's office, or at least with barbara and there may be some further discussion, I am foot sure, later today in executive session, about some outstanding issues.
However, I wanted to go over the dates that were updated.
This revised calendar, if you look at the month of August, there is two things that I have added.
I have left the budget sharing for the eighth through the 13th, and I have drafted an email that we will planning to send to the department this is week prior to 13th of July to communicate to offices and departments that if they would like to schedule a budget hearing, what they need to do to do that and that we are only scheduling a limited number of those for highly critical budget items and that programmatic updates should be scheduled during work sessions after October 1st, which is what we heard the Commissioner's court say last week.
Updated calendar, the budget hearings are on here and they are to occur 314 west 11th street because I don't believe the Commissioners court are moving until the week after.
Two things we did update here on the 14 and 21st, we wanted to make sure on the 14th we plan to distribute the revised budget agenda worksheet to the Commissioners court and we would like to have that back by the 21st.
The reason that is important is that because of the change that was requested last week to hold those public hearings on the 11th and the 14th instead of the 18th and 21st of September, we will be proposing that budget mark-up occur one week earlier than it normally has traditionally happened in the last few years, so this revised calendar shows you proposed form budget mark up to occur 29, 30, and 31 of August and the reason that is important is on the 30 we will be requesting that the court vote to propose a change in the tax rate by noon so that we can meet our requirements for advertising for those public hearings that are now proposed to occur on September 11 and on September 14.
Everything else is pretty much the same.
The only revision that is were also made on here is just where we, as of yesterday, thought in consultation with county attorney's office, these hearings could occur so I will leave it with that, if you have any questions, I am happy to answer them and that's all we wanted to update you on.

>> Were we advised by the lavaca that the media will be moving on the 11th and 12 and that requested that we not have budget hearings on the 13th?

>> Judge --

>> Do I have my dates off.

>> Burns, and it is true that we are scheduled to move on the eighth, and it is also true that it will be all hands on deck.
We will not have any staff to spare for whatever hearings that will have to take place in this building.
It doesn't mean it can't be done.
We have explored some other options, and I have given you -- I sent y'all an email regarding those options and I think it's -- judge, I think it's set for another agenda item, is it not?
Do you want to discuss it now, the options?

>> Well, why don't I call the other item up, okay.
And I think we can think clearly enough that there are motions on -- separate motions on them and we can make sure we separate them.
Twenty-nine was to receive legal briefing and take appropriate action regarding steps necessary to conduct Commissioners court meetings at 700 lavaca and there is an open court part of this where it indicates it may be taken under executive session with consultation with attorney if necessary and appropriate but for the open court part, this would be your department.

>> Yes, sir.

>> Okay.

>> We identified four potential options in order to take care of all of the meetings that will have to be held her but it is really predicate on the number of meetings and I am not sure it has been settled, but for purposes of this discussion, everyone should know that it is possible that we can do a one-camera shoot in this building after we move or even while we are moving if we contract out for those services.
The costs will be about $400 per day, which is pretty reasonable.
It won't be pretty, but for the most part --

>> It won't be pretty --

>> [laughter]

>> Petition is pretty enough for you to concentrate 100% of moving on the 8, 9, 10, and if necessary, the 13th.

>> That's right, judge, and we suspect it will take all of those days.

>> Okay.
So if we leave these here, we just need to remember that it will be -- if there is a live broadcast, it will just be one camera and not a contractor?

>> Yes.
This does not include live broadcast, but we do believe we have found a way to live web stream, so there is that possibility.
But we will not be able to broadcast on again starting on the eighth, we are moving components out of the control room that are essential to broadcasting from 700 lavaca.

>> And just to let you know, from pbo's perspective and you may differ but from our perspective, we would like recordings of those.
We are not opposed to it being live broadcast.
If we can get an internet stream, that will be ideal as well.

>> It seems to me if we do that, I mean, I would greatly discourage hearings, and I would just eliminate those programmatic presentations we have gotten historically because departments want to bring us up to date and on what they have been doing, because we can easily schedule those presentations in October.
Typically we are receiving information and asking questions and finding out about programs and services that are important, but they are really not budget issues, so if we focus on just the budget issues, and I recommend we do so, then I am suggesting that we really otght to maybe concentrate on not going to that Monday but trying to get it done, if not Wednesday and Thursday, then at most, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
Why don't we shoot for that?

>> I do have a question.
Would you like to -- right now we have approximately 12 hours scheduled -- well, preliminarily discussion on budget issues which includes external requests, for example, scheduled, right now we have it from 1:30 to 4:00 30 on Wednesday and Thursday and 9:00 to 12 on Friday.
Would you be opposed to having afternoon session on Friday to complete budget hearings, if necessary, Friday afternoon and not going into the following Monday?
Now, there might have been -- no, I don't think --

>> Friday, I would just say starting at 9:00 a.m.
Leave it at that.

>> I am afraid if I say 9 to 5, folks will come by and take advantage of that opportunity.

>> Sure.

>> And I think -- when we receive -- before we receive the preliminary budget, it may help us to get a briefing from departments that asked for a budget hearing and the reasons why.
And if we start those hearings with a list of questions, they will go a whole lot faster than if they are pretty open ended as they have been historically.

>> And we will be requesting the departments provide our requests by July 20 so we should have the itemized requests they want to discuss with you by the 20th and then ten days ahead of the budget hearing, they will need to give us a complete backup so our goal is provide that information to you a week ahead of time so you have it available to review it and have questions ready.

>> That's what I say.
It is sort of unusual year for us, in that we are trying to sort of operate out of two locations.
But it's necessary to comply with the law as far as we know.

>> I think it sounds like a good plan.

>> In that case, with those changes, I move we approve the schedule.

>> Second.

>> As provided in number 11.
Second by Commissioner Gomez.
Discussion.

>> Just for clarity purposes, we are taking the tenth and keeping that open all day nor hearings and taking hearings off on the 13th?

>> Right.
The other -- yeah.
On the tenth, we just put 9 down, to start at 9:00.

>> We put those changes and.

>> On 29, is there a legal briefing that we need to get?

>>

>> [indiscernible]

>> Are you sure?

>> So is this schedule consistent with what we heard last week on leg?

>> The location is the only thing I wanted to make sure -- my understanding from barbara is the calendar I included today with the markups being at 700 lavaca is within the legal parameters so I think all we would be holding at granger, after the move would be the tax rate and the public hearing on the proposed budget and then 2 hearing -- first hearing in January to set the regular location and I read under elected officials if there is a grievance it said something about a regular meeting and there might be all of these that pop up.

>> Would you repeat that, please?

>> The grievance schedule, when it was discussed earlier and I am not sure I can talk about it under this item, but it said that if there is a grievance committee that Commissioners court considers committee's decision at a regular meeting.

>> Okay.
Okay.

>> Okay.
We have approved the schedule, right, and that included what we just covered, so it included all we need to cover under the item that we posted, number 29, possibility of executive session, we don't need that, right?

>> That's correct.

>> Okay.
On the schedule that we need to call is that we have kind of limited video.

>> Yes, judge.

>> On those three days?

>> Yes, in fact, it is also important to note that powerpoint prescription -- powerpoint presentations will not be viewable from this.
It is a one camera.
You will be able to see them in the courtroom, the recorded version and the live stream version will have limited audio-visual capabilities for anyone else to see, so, again --

>> We should encourage people to send power points as part of the backup, so if they want to look at the powerpoints simultaneous with the webcast, they need to have two tabs open?

>> Yes.

>> And we will include that in the information that we send out to the departments who may want to come speak to the Commissioners court.

>> Judge, I also need to note that we -- that media services doesn't currently have the funding for $400 per day for what looks like now four sessions this fiscal year, so we will be requesting some relief in some manner of speaking.
There may also be some socialtive costs we haven't yet nailed down because we are going to have to be able to live stream from two locations from this building for those four meetings and 700 lavaca.
It shouldn't be $400 a day for streaming.
That should be a little cheaper.

>> I know your budget -- we already talked to you about that.

>> Yes, you have.

>> Thanks for finding a cheap alternative.

>> Pleasure.

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July 3, 2012: Travis County Launches New Video Playback System

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