Travis County Commissioners Court

July 24, 2012 - Item 17
Agenda

17 it s to receive and take appropriate action on third revenue estimate for the Fiscal Year 2013 budget process.

>> Morning, my name is david young with the Travis County auditor's office.
Before we start I would like to introduce the gentleman to my left, dan wilson, who will be handling the revenue estimate process starting next year.
Dan is a cpa with 17 years of budgeting experience.
He comes to us from harland clarke in san antonio where he was the assistant controller responsible for both financial and operational accounting.
In regards to third revenue estimate, it includes all the major funds that we look at and includes a vast majority of the revenue line items for next year.
There are a few individual line items that are not included, mostly because contracts have not been finalized, but we feel this estimate will give you good numbers for the preliminary budget process.
Also we have had an amendment to this third revenue estimate that you have.
We did that on Friday the 20th.
We dropped off copies of it to your offices, but we have extra copies if you all need them.
And I guess from there I would like to turn it over to leroy.

>> Yes.
Traditionally the planning and budget office has supplied the information on the rebate agreements that we have, namely the samsung and domain.
We have been using partial values for the second and third revenue estimate that we believe were the latest.
The auditor's office actually found out Friday afternoon that there was an update that we had not caught and so they immediately, we calculated the effect of that and they issued a revised and amended third revenue estimate which we immediately integrated into the preliminary budget that was filed with the county clerk, the county judge and the county auditor's office yesterday.
So we were fortunate that the auditor's office caught that error and we were able to correct it and move forward with the preliminary budget from the third revenue estimate as amended.

>> Okay.
I'm looking at a document here dated July 24th.
The information I got from you yesterday should be substituted for backup that was provided, I guess, a few days ago?
Okay.
Thanks.
This is what you gave me yesterday, right?

>> That's correct.

>> Okay.

>> Thanks.
Okay.

>> The good news is that we did -- the auditor's office did catch it before and in enough time, barely in enough time, that we were able to integrate it so that we were able to file it in the preliminary budget.

>> So we're going to have less -- a little less revenue than we generally thought?

>> That's correct.
Essentially the samsung rebate increased, and we were able to accommodate that increase by obviously when you have a reduction in revenue you have a reduction in the unallocated reserve, and also we reduced the car funded capital expenditures and a little bit on the allocated reserves.
We did have adequate reserves and we did reduce car expenditures and that will increase the co by that amount.

>> Thank goodness for checks and balances, huh?

>> [laughter].

>> We have put in a procedure that this will not occur in the future.
And we will be checking monthly in the future on tcad valuations on those parcels.

>> This is the third revenue estimate and we typically get five.

>> Yes, sir.

>> So we've got the fourth and fifth coming.
And we typically get those before we adopt the budget, right?

>> That's correct.
And the fourth we should have the fourth prior to markup, the last week in August.
And that's where the court will make the decisions.
And then typically what happens is the fifth comes in around mid September and then we file the proposed budget based on the fifth revenue estimate.

>> Court members, questions?

>> I have a little bit more discussion.

>> Sure.

>> This is a summary of the general fund for this amended estimate we precinct beginning general fund balance for fy 13 of 107.5 million.
At this time we estimate general fund revenues for fy 13 will total just under 467 million, giving us just over 574 million in resources available for fy 13.
In terms of the road and bridge fund, we estimate total resources to be around 18.5 million for use in fy 13, which is pretty much flat from last year.
Overall we believe that this amended estimate gives you a good framework for going forward in the budget process.
In closing I would just like to thank the folks at pbo for all their efforts throughout the budget process.
I think we work very well with them and I think it's -- we have a great relationship with them.
It's beneficial to the county.
And I'd especially like to thank leroy for all the help that he's been to me as I've learned the process over the last couple of years.

>> So what collection rate are we working?

>> 97.5 currently.

>> 97?

>> 97.5, yes.

>> Okay.

>> That's an increase from last year from 96%.
We feel that the 97.5 is still conservative, but the changes in the economy that could come down the road, we don't think will affect our ability to collect on fy 13 revenues at that rate.
So we think it's still conservative, but more in line with what we expect.

>> Okay.

>> Now, this 574 million, is this before we give the 20% homestead exemption to homeowners?

>> That's after.

>> This is after.

>> Those are based upon the net taxable value estimates prior to the certified roll that you're aware that we received after we had finalized the numbers in the preliminary budget.
So we will have what appears at initial first glance some additional revenue based upon the certified tax roll which will be incorporated into the fourth revenue estimate.

>> Okay.
I just kind of wanted -- I had always asked that we -- somewhere in our budget summary that we have the total amount of revenue that we have available, but also show that what the 20% exemption equals to so folks will know when they see it that yes, we budgeted all of this number s however, that was after we gave the 20% exemption.
And then the other, the 65 and over and the disability.
And now the veterans.
So that they will see the total revenue that comes in and then what we have as tax relief is the way I look at it.
And then it will show what we have to budget for the rest of the budget -- for the rest of the needs of the county.
And I still think that with the confusion that people have when they see their tax bill, we save money by consolidating all of the -- the entity's tax bills and not having each entity have their own tax collection staff.
We thought we were doing a great thing, but -- and we are, but it confuses people.
They look at the bottom line and they think that the county is charging all of that.
And so I think we need to make this a lot clearer and I'd like to ask for that again.
Let's make it real, real clear to the public which entity is charging what and what entity gave tax relief right off the top.
It's just important in clearing this up to people.
When they get their tax bill.

>> We'll work on that.

>> Thanks.

>> Okay?
Mr. Wilson, any comments today?

>> No, sir.
Thank you very much.

>> Welcome aboard.
Looking forward to working with you.

>> Thank you.

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

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