Travis County Commissioners Court

August 7, 2012 - Item 6
Agenda

Since we are on a budget role, number 6 is to receive a presentation of fiscal year 2013 preliminary budget.
This would be the Travis County budget.

>> We are cueing up the slides here for the -- for the -- for the channel 17.
But -- but we have provided a hard copy for you and wanted to -- wanted to quickly walk through those.
And -- and then if you have any questions or need any additional information between now and the time we actually adopt, we'll be happy to get that for you.
Looking at slide number 2, if you have those in front of you, I'm not sure if they're on the screen yet, the 2013 preliminary budget highlights, the budget that we presented to you was a sound and balanced financial plan, we did file that with the county clerk on July the 23rd in accordance with all of the statutory requirements.
And it is based on the policy direction for the 2013 budget development that was approved by the Commissioners court in February of 2012.
It does maintain healthy reserve levels to address any unforeseen requirements that we might see coming into the upcoming budget year.
It does include some new funding that we will cover the highlights of to respond to the service needs of our Travis County residents.
And finally at the end of the presentation, we will cover some of the information about our property tax base and the estimated tax rate that was used to prepare this budget.
It does reflect modest growth in that tax rate, about a 1.45 cents increase.
The current rate is 48.55 cents per $100 of taxable value.
The rate that we estimated in the budget is 49.79 cents and that will actually be updated.
We actually didn't have the certified tax roll information at the time we went to print.
So as we usually do, we will be working with the tax assessor's office to recalculate what that rate will actually be.
And then working with the county auditor's office and they will reflect that information in their fourth revenue estimate.

>> Could you --

>> [multiple voices]

>> When that due?

>> Typically before markup.

>> The 17th I believe it will be available and posted.

>> The 17th.

>> The 17th?

>> The fourth revenue estimate will be coming forth.

>> I believe preliminary estimates available on the 17th, we will definitely have it before markup, which is scheduled right now for the 29th, 30th and 31st of August.

>> Thank you.

>> Could you all tell us, this is the difference between the effective tax rate at .4855 and the proposed tax rate at .4979 and the dollar figure that that represents?

>> This is actually the difference between the current tax rate and 2012, the 48.55, we have some of the property tax information kind of towards the end of the slide, we will hit all of those, then kind of give you a feel for where we think we're going to end up after we looked a the certified roll.

>> Thank you.

>> Today's presentation, what we're going to try to cover between now and lunch time is this is on slide number 3.
We're going to hit the high points of the all-county fund summary.
Just give you a flavor there for the dollars.
Drill down a little bit into what we're proposing for the general fund.
111 looking at a summary and highlights, major funding priorities, investments in the workforce, there we're talking about compensation and benefits, the status of our reserves currently and what we have planned for 2013.
Jessica is going to run through some of the highlights of the capital recommendations.
We'll close up with a little bit of property tax information and then we'll cover the budget calendar and next steps.
So moving on to the summary of all county funds, the budget for 2013, the preliminary budget, totals $296.6 million, we've got a pie chart here for you.
You can look at a number of major functions, of course the justice system is -- is in there as a fairly large piece of the pie, at 16%, corrections and rehabilitation at 16%, looking over on the -- 13%.
Looking over on the left side of the chart, allocated and unallocated reserves in total, that is really one of the primary reasons that Travis County is able to -- was able to achieve subsequently to maintain our aaa credit rating.
We are very healthily reserved.
The next slide is a table format.
The general fund is where most of our services are budgeted in the county.
And the preliminary budget reflects a total dollar amount of about 574 million.
Followed by on slide number 6 that same pie chart that -- that just reflects the general fund.
Moving on to the next slide, we wanted to just kind of give you the highlights of what's in the preliminary general fund budget.
It is based on the county auditor's third revenue estimate.
David youngerman and dan wilson shared that information with you last week at the Commissioners court level.
Or excuse me at the meeting.
The property tax revenue included in the budget is about $400 million, 399.8 million to be a little more precise.
It does reflect the collection rate of 97.5%, which we agree with the auditor is a very reasonable approach.
And it is net of estimated economic incentive rebates.
As I mentioned previously, I think, the -- the focus on maintaining -- well, the focus in the 2013 budget is really on maintaining our current county service levels while trying to respond to -- to our growing demand and workload as best we can.
And we've also provided some funding for employee compensation and benefits in the 2013 budget.
There is four-year funding for the market salary adjustments that were approved by Commissioners court.
In April of 2012 for the classified employees.
And we have set aside in a compensation reserve funding for those employee groups that were not covered by that market salary survey.
And the largest of those are the employees on the peace officer's pay scale.
So we've included a reserve in the 2013 budget for them.
The budget does reflect insurance rates and plan design changes that were approved by the Commissioners court in June.
As well as funding for pension programs maintained at the current benefit levels.
We have not included funding for a cola, but we have included retiree health care contributions.
And we have not included funding for any kind of across of board or pay for performance increases for employees.
But again for the classifieds we did include full-year funding for that market salary survey adjustment.
Next slide is just again a tabular form with all of the numbers laid out for the general fund summary of the -- of the -- lays out the basic primary functions that are budgeted within the general fund, which is really the bulk of the county services.
The next two slides I'm not going to cover in great depth.
But just wanted to pick out a few of the highlights.
These are what we consider to be our major funding priorities this year.
And wanted to cover some of the larger ones.
In the budget document, we've actually tried to lay out what that compelling reason is that is behind the inclusion of the additional funding for these major priorities and tried to include performance measures, just really a lot more information than we are able to boil down in terms of a slide presentation and we've -- we would be more than happy to -- to answer any questions or do any additional research as you work through those.
I wanted to cover a couple of the items, though, maintenance of current effort, this is basically what we -- what we refer to here in the county as -- as -- basically supports us being able to continue effectively executing our current programs. So, for example, in that $4.5 million there, we have included $1 million for funding in the sheriff's office, they continue to expense a lot of growing demand for their services, they are trying to manage their increasing workload.
So we have included funding for staffing for them in areas like central warrants, the records management function, communications and in their training function as well, so that's just an example of what's in maintenance of current effort.
There is some funding in there as well for information technology services.
For example, the hardware and software maintenance and licensing agreements that go into supporting all of those systems that -- that keep our county systems running.
There's some funding for facilities maintenance, and e.m.s., aircraft maintenance, it's just that kind of general -- those kind of general items that are included in maintenance of current effort.
The road and bridge shortfall there, this is just the general fund piece that we transfer to the road and bridge fund so that enables us to keep our roads in good repair and it is -- it is basically additional funding that's required to the extent that the revenue in the road and bridge fund is not sufficient to cover that.
And then the last item I want to cover on this page is pilot programs and social services.
The bulk of that item is really related to social services.
It includes about $700,000 for external social services agencies and these are agencies that we started giving funding to, for example, either last year or two years ago, it's been very, very recent and we're trying to give them another go round to make sure that they have the time to establish a successful track record.
So that is major funding priorities for you.
Moving on to the slide, just wanted to touch on the budget next year that we're proposing.
Total general fund net full-time equivalent position changes is approximately 79 new positions.
And -- and you can see that most of those are proposed to be new, about 61 of those positions are proposed next year that -- that -- that will be needed.
And just a little bit of explanation here on the bottom of the slide.
Travis County has experienced several lean years recently when the local economy was really slowing and so a lot of the requests for these positions are associated with kind of the built-up need that occurs over time when you your funding is constrained for a period of years and really the great majority of these positions are intended to be ...

>> [one moment please for change in captioners] I just tried to pick out some of the larger changes to support the tech share.
I think most of those are business analysts who will be working in the departments involved in that project.
And then I think there were about 12 that were kind of overall related to more of the support services functions.
We can get you that information in a little more detail.

>> How many new ones are recommended for our planning and budget office?

>> I don't think we have any.
Zones.
Any.

>> But we're still roughly four employees per thousand Travis County residents which is where we've been for more than a decade.

>> We have about 4500 employees in Travis County, about a million people, I believe, so about a 4.5 ratio.

>> And I'm going to turn it over to jessica.
She's going to talk a little about the workforce budget and then move into the capital items and the reserve.

>> I think the next two slides have already been highlighted, but I will just say again that we have included in the preliminary budget the annualization of the market salary survey adjustments that were effective 4-1-2012.
This was approximately 3.5% of the salary base.
We also have included in the preliminary budget the similar amounts for the auditor's office and the purchasing office so that that funding is there for when they move forward and talk to court about their plans.
There's also --

>> Those offices have a market salary survey do they?

>> I'm sorry?

>> Neither of those offices have a market salary survey?

>> Not by h.r.
I believe the purchasing office request included a market salary survey that they did.

>> Thank you for reminding of that.
Purchasing did request it.
Right.

>> Would it do great harm for the presentation if we recessed for lunch and took this up this afternoon?
It looks like there's a few more minutes, rather than rush through it, I would rather just do that rather than rush through it.
I think we would be a lot more attentive on a full stomach.

>> Move we recess until 1:30.
That passes by unanimous vote.
 

Prior to the recess for lunch, we were going through the preliminary budget with our planning and budget office.
Our very shy planning and budget office.
And they are -- they are slowly coming forward.
We were on page 12, we were going through each and every detail and a little bird told me over lunch that all of them may not be that important, but some of them are.

>> We are very detail oriented people.

>> [laughter] all three of us are accountants here.
I think we had actually left off when we were talking about the compensation and benefits for the employees that were included in the 2013 budget and I believe jessica was starting to walk you through that.

>> That's correct.
We were on slide 12.
And we had just talked about the 3.5% allocation for the auditor's office and purchasing and we do have a reserve also in the preliminary budget for the elected officials salaries that action was taken on today.
Also there is a reserve for the peace officer pay scale, that item has not yet come to court for action.
The final amount and the implementation date is to be determined at this time.

>>

>> [indiscernible] cover the costs of bringing the

>> [indiscernible] employees --

>> [indiscernible] appropriate steps because we have suppressed movement of the steps.
So I was wondering if that amount cores that -- that cost.

>> Sure.
Travis County planning and budget office.
I think the quick answer is I don't know.
The 3.5 was based strictly on if we increased all of tco, non-tcso pops, there was funding in place, I believe hr is working on costing that.
Typically one step is about 2%, that's very rough number.
So depending on those people that would be eligible for those steps, it would be fairly close to two steps, but I would hate to guarantee that until we get all of the numbers.
So -- so until hr does the cost and we verify it, I can't say with certainty if it would be sufficient to cover all of the steps that weren't funded in those previous years.

>> Just so folks know, the pops pay scale is based on a step and grade so that people would move through their steps annually and we have not moved them through their steps annually in a couple of years.

>> Correct.
I believe the last year was -- I don't have my history, but I think it was probably 2010 or 2009, there wasn't a step wes in 2010 or '11, '11, there was a 2.5 increase just across the board that wasn't a step increase and so far there hasn't been any increases in '12 for people on pops.

>> For the record that 3.5% was in this year's budget.

>> Right.

>> There was a compensation reserve in this year's budget that was about 5.9 million.
That didn't quite cover all of the compensation on an ongoing basis, but there was funding set aside for compensation.

>> More than $3 million.

>> Yes, correct.

>> So we're really rolling that forward into next year?

>> Correct.

>> There's a little difference there, not really knew money, but all of -- new money, but we will have to supplement the amount --

>> You look at all of the various compensation actions that the court has either taken or will take at some point in time this year for fy '13, the amount above in the compensation reserve is about $3 million total, annualized for the mss increases, officials salaries, associate judges, purchasing, auditor's office and for pops.

>> Okay.

>> There's actually a table coming up that details all of that information.
As far as other items related, it is preliminary budget includes $14.3 million in additional funding for the county's workforce, 9.5 included for compensation, which is what travis was just indicating and 4.8 million to maintain health and retirement benefits at the current levels.
I believe that breaks down to about $1.5 million for additional retirement to maintain the current level and 3.4 million in health insurance premium increases.
The next slide then gives you a more detailed representation of the information we were just discussing.
With the mss being at 5.6 million, p.b.o.
Recommended overtime, ten prairie and reclassifications, the reclassifications let me just note that many departments internally funded those, some had extremely large where they partially internally funded.
So p.b.o.
Recommended completing that or giving a little bit of additional funding to ensure that 100% of their related reclasses per court action were funded.
The auditor's office, the purchasing office amounts and then elected officials, associate judges and then the peace officer pay scale.
A little bit more on the benefits.
That 4.8 million, employee and retire ye health care, 3.6 million estimated increase in county costs.
This is only the second increase in the last six years and the recommendations that I believe you considered in June include minor plan design changes to limit the cost increases to the county, employees and retirees.
There is also an additional 1.5 million needed to maintain required funding.
We should note, I think it was noted earlier, there is no the a cola for retirees.

>> Do we give retirees the 2% this fiscal year?

>> Was it this fiscal year?
Travis?
Or last?

>> Not this year -- I'm sorry.
I believe last time the cola increase was in fy '11 when the court gave a 2.5% across the board for all employees and a 2% for retiree -- a cole for retirees, colas for retirees can only be given in one percent increments so it's not possible for a half percent.
I believe last time was in 2011.

>> So we skipped one year.

>> That's correct.

>> Nothing in this year and right now nothing in for next year.

>> Can I ask on the employee retiree health care, it is a $3.6 million estimated increase in county costs.
What was the estimated aggregate increase in costs to employees?
Because the employees also are -- are shouldering an increased cost.
And that was part of our change in plan.

>> It was approximately 5% for employees, but I can get you an estimate of what that number is.

>> That would be great.
I just wanted to note for the record that this isn't -- the taxpayer isn't picking up the whole additional cost of -- of health care.
The employees also are picking up an additional cost.

>> One thing that I would add to that, as the plan design changes, it saves the county a little over 9 hub thousand dollars and also save employees.
Employees premium would have been more without this, but we can get you those numbers this afternoon.

>> We are beating the actuarial odds, too.
We are not going up as high as predicted.

>> We've done more than most.
Pretty amazing.

>> Managed health care.

>> As far as the general fund, we do have a number of reserves out there, the unallocated reserve is recommended to be maintained at the traditional 11% we've had for many, many years, the allocated reserve recommended at this time of 6.7 million, emergency reserve at the same level at fy 12 and I believe '11 and perhaps '10 of 4.95, the capital acquisition resources reserve is 2.9 million that includes earmarks of approximately 1.7 million.
I had -- a couple of large projects that we funded.
Right here.
I'll go back to it.
As far as other special reserves, we had the civil family courthouse planning reserve at 5.5 million.
This is rolling forward or maintaining a recommendation of 3.496 million.
We have also included an additional 2 million within the preliminary budget of ongoing resources for the court to consider.
For that project.
Interlocal agreements are included in the reserve that will be allocated out once the city of Austin I believe has some final action in August or September and we would bring forward the changes to preliminary budget that these be allocated out to hhs, e.m.s.
And the radio.
Ijs replacement of 2.2 million.
The sheriff's office pay cycle of 1.5 million that overtime reserve that was established by the Commissioners court this year.
Star flight maintenance reserve of 1,035,000.
As you will recall, that's a contribution that we receive of 640,000.
There has been this year approximately 245,000 transferred out to the department and so the calculation here is just basically last year's amount that goes into next year, plus next year's contribution.
There was some discussion recently about that 1115 waiver participation and so the preliminary budget actually includes a one million reserve for that for the court's consideration.
Fuel and utilities at a million dollars maintained from the same level as this year.
There was a security reserve, a transition reserve at the same level and a future grants requirement at the same level as this year minus I believe there was one transfer that came out of it this year.
Other special purpose reserves, there's potential state cuts reserve which is that 5 hub thousand.
This year we had -- 500,000, this year specifically for 300,000 for a particular project, we know that the legislature is coming back, they have requested that their agency look at 10% reduction.
So there's not really a magical formula behind that number.
We just wanted to have that out there for your consideration to remind us that the legislature will be back and that there may be potential impact there.
There's a salary savings reserve there, 500,000, that is related to temporary salary savings.
This year I believe it was at 330,000.
And we rounded that up to 500,000 because we annually do internally in p.b.o.
And analysis of what the salary vacancy rates are.
Because of the downturn in the economy, which is a good thing as far as keeping our employees here, that salary savings a lot of the departments are having a little bit of trouble meeting the budgeted salary savings.
This amount that's in here is to address that concern next year.
We're going to look at it very detailed in the fy '14 budget and actually adjust the departmental budgeted salary savings rates.
The smart building maintenance and then annualization reserve of 65,000, which is really in relation to park employees coming on mid year, fy '13.
As far as capital recommendations, the long-term bonds that were authorized recently in 2011, that cash flow of 41.9 million is the published cash flow that went out to the voters.
My understanding from t.n.r.
Is that there might be a request from them to -- to increase the cash flow for fy '13.
However the preliminary budget includes the accident that the Commissioners court has -- account that the Commissioners court actually seen and made public.
It's $31 million this year, that's the greater amount than you have seen in the past.
There's a number of high dollar or high amount of projects that are in that number and I can go over those in a minute when we talk about car.
Short-term certificates of obligation of 20.97 million and then other funds minimal amount of 291,000.
As far as the capital acquisition reserve, there are some it projects in there, as well as centrally budgeted computers.
The transportation and natural resources project include 4.3 million in year related to kellam road and then the centrally budgeted vehicles.
We actually had centrally budgeted vehicles a little bit of a larger amount that was being funded this next year.
As you will recall there was a lot of sheriff deputies included in this year's budget and some of those vehicles were delayed for one year.
Part of that is accounting for that increase.
Facilities maintenance projects, 1.9 million.
I believe that includes the granger building.
Renovation as we move out and move into 700 lavaca as the court does, they are going to come forward and remodel granger fourth, fifth, first floor including the reallocation of the third floor cafeteria.
Sheriff's office projects of 2.7 and then some other departments as well.

>> Did that court approve the reallocation of the third floor cafeteria.

>> I'm not sure whether that's come forward or not.

>> That's to move from the third floor down to the first floor.

>> I misspoke, that was under certificates of obligation.

>> That's part of their budget proposal.
But it would have to come to court before they could actually start the project.
For you all to approve the proposed move.

>> That's

>> [indiscernible]

>> Yes, sir, we will tell mr. Roger el khoury.

>> Under certificates of obligation, those granger projects that were just discussed that's that 4.5 million.
Also 4.2 recommended by planning and budget for the executive office building, a million dollars for 700 lavaca, hot mix overlay done on an annual basis.
Portion of vehicles and co's, car funded are generally life and safety vehicles, patrol vehicles, we know you would prefer that be cash funded so there's not a reimbursement resolution, my understanding is that the co funded vehicles will not require reimbursement resolution, we will identify that before the adoption of the budget.
Sheriff's office project about 2.8 million.
I should note that is mainly a project that was delayed this year, it was approved by Commissioners court as part of the tcj, delayed this year because of the department worked with p.b.o.
And decided that they would probably need some more preliminary design work and then fund it mainly in fy '13.
It projects, then an estimated issuance cost of 100,000.
Voter approved bonds, I think that I have already noted that, prop 1, prop 2, parks, total being 41.9 million.
It's back to me.
We wanted to kind of close out the conversation -- the presentation with a little bit of information about the property tax base, the rates and the process from here.
And then talk about the budget calendar and the time line up until scheduled budget adoption.
I think that I mentioned before that in terms of the -- of the property tax base information, that we typically develop our preliminary budget based on estimates from t cad and then go back and rework those when we get the final numbers from them.
So the original estimates that we were working with was a -- was an overall tax base value of about $100.6 billion, that was an increase of 3.7% compared to last year's certified roll and that included about 3.6 billion in new value.
Again, the proposed or the estimated tax rate that we were using to develop the budget with is 49.9 cents, that's compared to our current rate of 48.55 cents and that is assessed on each $100 of taxable value.
In terms of the certified tax roll, the update it, as we saw a little bit more growth than tcad had actually estimated, it was certified at 101.3 billion.
That's a slight -- that gives you a slight increase in the percentage growth compared to last year, 4.4%.
And then as you can see, the new value is -- is very, very close, 3.56 versus 3.54 billion that actually came in.
Now, we're working with the tax assessor's office to recalculate tax rates and then to go through the process of -- of, you know, placing the ads, having the Commissioners court vote on the tax rate that you will actually ultimately want to include in the budgets, and I'll go through that time line here in just a minute.
If you look at slide number 24, the next slide, this just kind of gives you a history of the property tax base and we've laid out here on the -- on the shaded lines, the orange and the blue, what the preliminary budget was based on initially.
And then what we'll ultimately refine our revenue estimates and -- and calculate our actual tax rates for -- based on the certify role information.
And again moving on to the next slide, this is -- this is information that we've -- that we've covered before.
But -- but just is laid out here in -- in tabular form for you.
It's an increase of about 1.45 cents per $100 of taxable value, so you can see the -- the maintenance and operations rate, which goes primary or which goes into the general fund is -- is about -- about 41.89 cents, debt service is very close to 8 cents, 7.9 and you land on that total estimated tax rate of 49.79 cents.
This then the next slide shows the estimated average tax bill in 2013.
These are preliminary as well.
We'll be working through the actual numbers with the tax office and report back to you as soon as we get those and that will occur prior to -- prior to budget markup.
But really in general, what we're looking at when you consider the average Travis County homestead, so that does reflect that 20% exemption, that based on the rate that the budget has been developed on, based on the estimated changes in the average will -- in the average taxable values, that -- that we probably see somewhere in the neighborhood of a $20 increase in the -- in the average annual tax bill.
So -- so chances are with the higher values that we're seeing throughout the going from the estimated to the certified, that might go up a little bit.
But it will still probably be in the range, say, of 20, $24, basically $2 a month.
So -- so we'll get that information to you as soon as we've worked through that with the tax office.
One of the things on this slide kind of down at the bottom in the bullet points is Commissioner Gomez you had asked us to look into what the value is essentially in terms of revenue.
Basically forgone revenue in the general fund.
In the event or had we not offered that 20% homestead.
And we've -- we've worked with the tax service to do that estimate, it's significant, it's about $57 million.
So it's -- so it's -- so it would result in -- it does result in a -- in quite a bit of forgone tax revenue.
But it's a good benefit for the taxpayers in Travis County.

>> That's the tax relief that we give right off the top.

>> Yes.

>> We give that to homeowners, right?

>> Good point.

>> Right.

>> Encourage the city of Austin to

>> [indiscernible]

>> Being a former city of Austin employee, yes.

>> The taxpayers of Travis County

>> [indiscernible] follow Travis County's lead as far as tax relief.

>> How does this proposed tax rate relate as far as overall percentage of burden of tax on the taxpayer -- from the taxpayer standpoint?

>> You know, we'll have to get that information for you.

>> Historically, are we going to be staying in the same --

>> I think we kind of are.

>> Has it been about 17%, 18%.

>> I want to say that's pretty close.

>> Average, increase on the average homestead.

>>

>> [multiple voices]

>> Tax burden.

>> Throughout the community.

>> Allowing with other entities.

>> Yeah.
We'll need to get that.

>> Okay.
But I think that number sounds pretty accurate.

>> It's been pretty constant.
I just wanted to know if it was a change.

>> The adopted budget includes a little house that we like to have as a visual representation.

>> I like that little house.

>> I love that house, too.

>> At that time, Travis County represented 17.5%, so we haven't -- we were wanting to do this house representation for this presentation, however, it's hard to get the information from all of the other taxing entities to make sure that we have correct information, especially since we did the presentation based on the preliminary budget and we already know that the certified valleys are a little bit different.
So as we move forward, we will have that.

>> And so that covers it for -- for property taxes and what I would like to do next is just cover the -- the schedules and basically the calendar and time line and next steps.

>> Can I ask you for one more number, though, the total dollar figure in revenue between effective tax rate and proposed tax rate.

>> That was 14.2.

>> Point 5.

>> Point 5, sorry, you've got me confused here.

>> Thanks.

>> 14.5.

>> So in terms of public hearings and input, we will cover the tax rate related items first.
There is a statutory requirement to hold two public hearings on the proposed tax rate.
And that is required.
If the proposed tax rate is above the effective tax rate, which we are proposing one of approximately 3% above.
On the first hearing would be on Tuesday, September the 11th.
At 9:00 a.m.
The second hearing would be Friday, September the 14th.
Then on Tuesday, September the 25th.
There would be a public hearing just on the proposed 2013 budget.
Then we just wanted to say here today for anyone who is in the viewing public that Travis County residents are invited to provide input on the proposed budget each Tuesday during citizens communication.
So that can occur on any Tuesday.

>> If I could just add that this schedule is a revised schedule based on information and input that we received from the Commissioners court.
As you recall we came forward with the calendar, so this schedule holds to that calendar and so the budget markup is also going to -- we'll discuss the budget markup has also changed.

>> Then on the next slide, really the main point on this slide is that we have provided all of the analysis back to the departments on items that they requested that we recommended in the preliminary budget versus for example items that they may have requested that we did not recommend and the Commissioners court will be hearing from those departments and offices moving to the next slide on this week starting tomorrow on August the 8th, the 9th and the 10th.
So you will be hearing from all of those departments and offices that are scheduled and jessica has provided a detailed calendar of who will be talking to you and approximately when.
The Commissioners court will receive the revised budget agenda worksheet on Tuesday, August the 14th.
I think you may have mentioned that already.
And we are hoping that you would complete that agenda worksheet by the following Tuesday on August the 21st.
Markup, again, it's scheduled for Wednesday, August the 29th.
The 30th and the 31st.
The tax rate does need to be set by noon on August the 30th, that's a legal requirement, I believe.
And then finally, to conclude this presentation, the Commissioners court is scheduled to adopt the budget on Tuesday, September the 25th.
And we would be happy to answer any more questions.

>> Tomorrow morning we start at --

>> Tomorrow afternoon.

>> Tomorrow afternoon.

>> 1:30, we begin Thursday at 1:30 and Friday morning we begin at 9:00.

>> Okay.
And I would like to just take a moment.
This has been obviously my first budget year having started who here on March the 1st.
It's been a very educational and enjoyable process.
I want to thank all of the staff and the planning and budget office.
It's been a whole lot of work.
I have gotten a whole lot of education from the various departments, I want to thank them, they've been very gracious, anyway, thanks.

>> Great.

>> Thank you all very much.
We look forward to further -- further discussions.

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.

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

Our new streaming video system uses a single video clip for each session and items are linked to specific locations on that clip. Some browsers and mobile devices do not recognize the location information and display the entire clip. If this happens the "start time" will help you find your item's video within the larger clip.

If you encounter playback issues check out our video playback help page. If you still encounter problems let us know.

On July 3rd, 2012, Travis County began leveraging free resources by posting Commissioners Court meetings on Youtube. Previously every video clip was edited separately and hosted on the county's video server. The old system also required RealPlayer to view the video clips.

The new systems save time and resources -- and that saves taxpayer dollars!