1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
KERR COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT
Budget Workshop
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
1:30 p.m.
Commissioners' Courtroom
Kerr County Courthouse
Kerrville, Texas
PRESENT: PAT TINLEY, Kerr County Judge
H A."BUSTER" BALDWIN, Commissioner Pct. 1
WILLIAM "BILL" WILLIAMS, Commissioner Pct. 2
JONATHAN LETZ, Commissioner Pct. 3
DAVE NICHOLSON, Commissioner Pct. 4
~9
~O
-~..
2
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
I N D E X
July 18, 2006
PAGE
* Review and discuss various matters with respect
to FY 2006-07 budget and matters having budgetary
impact, including, but not limited to the following
matters and/or the consideration of budgets for
the following departments:
Employee Health Benefits 3
City/County Joint Operations 32
Human Resources/Reorganization Issues 68
Adjourned 84
3
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
the Commissioners' Courtroom, Kerr County Courthouse,
Kerrville, Texas, and the following proceedings were had in
open court:
P R O C E E D I N G S
JUDGE TINLEY: Let me -- let me call to order this
workshop of the Kerr County Commissioners Court scheduled for
today, Tuesday, July 18, 2006, at 1:30 p.m. It's a bit past
that time now. The items that we have that are specifically
described were -- it's a pretty wide-open agenda item; review
and discuss various matters with respect to FY '06-'07 budget
and matters having budgetary impact, including, but not
limited to, the following matters and/or consideration of
budgets for the following departments: City/County joint
operations, employee health benefits, reorganization issues,
and human resources. Mr. Gary Looney, our insurance
consultant, is here with us from San Antonio, and so I'd like
to discuss that portion first, if we could, if no one has any
serious objection to it. I gave Mr. Looney the -- the numbers
that we've got plugged in for -- for our preliminary budget
for this year, which basically we're working off last year's
numbers, and what he has to say may determine what we do
henceforth.
25 ~ MR. LOONEY: Judge, thank you very much. I
7-18-06 bwk
4
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
appreciate being here. I apologize for my casual dress today.
I normally don't want to be in front of such a fine,
outstanding group of gentlemen without wearing my tie, but I
got up this morning and saw what the temperature was going to
be, and since it's a workshop, I said okay, I'm at a workshop;
I'm going to take my coat off.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Take your coat off.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: But stop there.
MR. LOONEY: You have a blue folder in front of you,
and we're going to start on the left-hand side of this. This
is a summary and a consolidation of a lot of information. So,
there's some -- I'm just going to hit the highlights and then
kind of go over where we are currently, what our projections
are, and then what our estimations are for the following year.
One of the -- the items that's first on the list is we have,
as you know, an insurance product that protects us for any one
individual that has a very large loss, and it's called a
specific deductible. And on our specific deductible so far
this year, we have one of your County employees that has a
total medical loss of $190,000. Of that $190,000, our
obligation for that as far as funding is concerned is a
maximum of $50,000. So, as of this date, we've only had one
claimant in excess of that 50, but that is through six months
of this year, and then we have one that's close, in the 40 --
$43,000 range. The individual with the high losses, the
7-18-06 bwk
5
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
190,000, was -- we really feel like we've expended most of the
expense in that area. We may have some follow-up expenses,
but most of the care and treatment's been completed on that
particular patient. So --
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Is that normal, or are we
running -- normal or abnormal amount?
MR. LOONEY: One person in excess of claims of -- of
the stop loss is very good. That's a good ratio. It was a
little bit higher expense than I thought it would be from the
diagnosis and from the actual care and treatment, but it was
all under managed -- discounted type processes through the
P.P.O. network. So, we did -- the actual charges in that
particular case were over $400,000, but net payments, after
all the discounts are taken and everything else, are less than
200 at this point. So, two things happened. One is, our
network is functioning properly, and the other piece of it is'
that our insurance -- underlying insurance, that specific
coverage, is functioning properly. I wanted you to see that,
first of all, because that is a payment that was made to one
specific individual within the county.
The next one, if you'll look, it says Medical
Disposition of Total Charges. This is kind of a snapshot of
the programs from January this year through the end of June.
What this shows is that during this period of time, this total
period of time, we've had total charges submitted to be paid
7-18-06 bwk
6
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
of $1,039,000 on the medical plan itself. Of that, when we gq
back and we apply the plan design issues and when we apply the
employee contributions, when we apply the discounts that we
receive through the P.P.O. network, our actual net payments
after all of that is done is $560,794.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: What's that number again?
MR. LOONEY: It's down on the bottom right-hand
corner, just above the 712, which says 560,794.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay.
MR. LOONEY: That is the medical net plan expenses
that we've paid during that first six-month period to the end
I of June.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: First six months?
MR. LOONEY: First six months of this year. Now,
this is -- again, you can see where there have been reductions
made to the contract based on deductibles being paid by the
employee, copayments and coinsurance. Copayments are those
payments that individual pays when they go to the doctor, take
the standard copayment. Coinsurance is that 80/20 or 70/30
relationship on the claimant side. As you can also see, we've
got -- of the total claims submitted and total plan benefits
paid, only $25,000 total of the $500,000 was out of network,
out of our discount base, so we've got a very, very high
percentage of participation within the network, which has two
meanings. One is we have a very comprehensive network that's
7-18-06 bwk
7
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
available to all that need the services, and the other fact is
that people recognize that, or are utilizing it, so we're
getting full discount base on the dollars that we've put into
the system at this time. So, that's a very good ratio.
That's a very high ratio. We normally see ratios as high as
90, 92, 95 percent, but you're well above -- in the good zone,
in the very preferred zone as far as that's concerned.
The last piece of this page -- the last part of it
has to do with prescription drug program and the expenses that
', were incurred as a result of the prescription drug plan. And
those expenses to-date are $151,000. And I'll show you a
little bit more about the distribution of those expenses, but
our total paid claims through the end of this six-month time
frame is $712,000 total. Yes, sir?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: All of these numbers, do they
include -- in particular, the prescription drug plan, does
that include the retirees?
MR. LOONEY: Yes.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Everybody?
MR. LOONEY: This -- this is a summary report of
everyone that's insured under the County. I've got it broken
out into the other categories, but I didn't bring that -- I
didn't want to go into that much depth today.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's fine.
25 ~ MR. LOONEY: But rather to give you the summary. As
7-18-06 bwk
8
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
you can see, down at the bottom it says Page 4 of 4. The
other three pages prior to that are the breakout in the
different departments, the different plan design issues and
the retirees. On the next page, you see the prescription drug
summary. This is how we arrived at the total payments that
were made on the -- on the prescription drugs. We have
mail-order formulary, mail-order non-formulary, and this does
break it down into the -- well, no, this one doesn't. There
-- yeah, it does break it into two different categories.
There's four different -- brand mail-order, brand retail,
generic mail-order, and generic retail, and it has -- it's
based on the three plans, so all of that combined.
The formulary means that the prescription drug
program that's in place, that the medications that the
individuals are taking have been approved of and designated
within that list of medications, and they -- and they meet the
discount base for copayments. The non-formulary medications
are those outside of that list, which we still make a benefit
payment on, but at a reduced benefit rate. So, taking into
consideration the dispensing fees, what we pay to the
pharmacist, the amounts that are disallowed are those expenses
on a negotiated contract basis with the prescription drug
companies in some cases, and also amounts that are disallowed
based on copayments that are made. Based -- copayments, I'm
sorry, second category. But the disallowed amounts are those
7-18-06 bwk
9
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
much was actually billed to the insurance company. Copayments
are applied, what we paid, and that amounts to the $151,000
that coordinates with your other number.
JUDGE TINLEY: Before you get off the prescription
drug summary, Mr. Looney, the percentage on formulary and
generic utilization rates, how do those compare with average
i
to good utilization rates?
MR. LOONEY: The -- the on-formulary is a little bit
lower than we expect to see normally. We've got some --
obviously, we've got some prescription medications that are
outside of what the normal realm of approval has been
concerned. It may very well be, though, with a case your
size, it may be that that number is skewed by one or two
prescriptions that are off the formulary, because it's based
on percentage utilization of total dollars, and typically when
they're not on-formulary, they're more expensive medications.
So, the numbers may be skewed a little bit based on size of
your population of utilization. But the generic utilization
rate of 46 percent, that is fairly common. We would like to
have it higher, but anything that's within 2 or 3 points of
50 percent is considered an average that we see in the
industry. We'd like to have it reversed; we'd like to have it
up in the 55 to 60 percent range.
7-18-06 bwk
10
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Generic medications are -- are not the same types of
medications that were considered generics eight, ten years
ago. These generic medications now have to be approved by
~, Medicare to meet the equivalency of the standard drugs that
are being issued. In the past, they didn't have that
requirement; you could have two or three different categories
of generics. Now the generic medications have to meet the
same qualifications that the drug that they're replacing or
substituting for have to meet. But there are still -- and you
know, there are medications -- generic medications that are
more expensive than the name-brand medications, because some
of those name-brand medications now are available over the
counter, but the generics are still being prescribed at a
higher rate. So -- you know, I mean, so we are -- we're
getting in that catch-22 range there. But from that
standpoint, you know, we're in -- the numbers are close.
They're not outlandish in either direction, so there's not any
flags at this point that I think we need to throw up as far as
plan changes or situations such as that.
The next page is based on the diagnostic categories.
This is where the -- the medical expenses are going in
relationship to the diagnoses for your employees. The blood
and blood-forming organs has to do with the bone marrow and
the bone marrow transplants and things like that that we get
involved with in some cases. Circulatory, digestive. As you
7-18-06 bwk
11
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
there's some huge number that pops up here where we can really
consider that we've got a major problem that we need to get
back in. And you're pretty well spread amongst all of the
j expenses as far as -- so we've got contributory items that are
going back to all of this -- all of these other areas.
One of the things that we're working with right now
with self-funded plans such as yours, one of the things that
we're concerned about is the concept of wellness, and it's to-
-- what we can do to help better manage the wellness function.
One of our biggest contributing factors to health care costs
in these days is obesity. Obesity is a contributing factor
to, in some way, almost all of the major claims that we see,
which is -- and it's not here just in Kerrville, not just in
Texas, even though San Antonio has been voted the fattest city
in the United States. The -- the problem of obesity is
significant. To accomplish -- you know, trying to treat that
factor, you know, I have a hard time walking up to one of your
obese employees, saying, "Hey, fatso, you need to go do
so-and-so." The Sheriff would be coming after me pretty
quick, I'm sure. But, you know, it's really hard to create a
program that is voluntary that then the employees are able to
use that really accomplishes a great deal on reducing the cost
25 ~ of the plan.
7-18-06 bwk
12
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
So, you may have read, you may have seen that some
companies are requiring employees to go through a wellness
screening process as part of their employment. When we had
the original discriminatory rules and regulations that were
established back under ERISA, it said that you could not
discriminate against an employee based on race, sex, and
actual physical condition. You couldn't do a rating structure
for an employee that was overweight versus a rating structure
for a person that was -- met the standard requirements under
the medical plan. When HIPAA came out four or five years ago,
those rulings started to change, and what has happened now is
that we have guidance. It says that an employer can
discriminate amongst employees for medical circumstances.
The -- the caveat is that if you discriminate, then you have
to provide a resource to resolve the problem.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: In other words, a membership
to the health club type thing?
MR. LOONEY: Not necessarily. That's too -- that's
too easy. Membership to a health club would be too easy. I'm
afraid that you have to go deeper than that, where you have an
expense involved from your side of it to help resolve the
problem. So, what it amounts to is providing -- providing a
screening, for instance. You provide a screening. Now, we've
got a number of companies that we've been dealing with, and
one of the things that we're going to do during this next bid
7-18-06 bwk
13
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
process is to have these wellness companies bid on providing a
wellness program for the employees. And what the screening
process is is an initial blood test, initial physical
examination; height, weight, just a summary physical. Now,
that information is accumulated in relationship with a
questionnaire that the individual presents, and they're given
a score -- a scorecard, "Here's where you are, here's where
you need to be, and, you know, here's the things that we're
going to do to help you get there."
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Like counseling on eating
I habits.
MR. LOONEY: Counseling on eating habits, dietary,
physical exercise routines, nonsmoking clinics, a wide variety
of mechanisms to help them get to a better score. As long as
they participate in the program and are attempting to continue
to increase their -- their health, then there's no
differential in their either benefit plan or price. You --
you just leave it there as long as they participate. If they
wish not to participate, and they don't meet the grading
qualifications, then you have the ability to either increase
their cost under the benefit plan from the premium standpoint,
or to put them into a different benefit plan that has higher
deductibles and higher coinsurances.
In Houston, one of the major oil field distributing
companies with about 800 employees required their employees to
7-18-06 bwk
14
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
in court, and it survived the court session and was approved
with, again, those caveats. You can test, you can change the
plan, but you have to provide a mechanism for the individual
to resolve the problem. And as long as you do that, then
those kinds of changes can be made. You -- the obesity
problem is -- is in a national crisis type circumstance right
now. We take a look and go to the national meetings for
insurance companies; we hear constantly about the challenges
of trying to create the wellness program. We will be bidding
on a wellness program for y'all for next year. We will get
numbers to find out what that expense might be and what those
programs might be.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I don't know how the City
does it, but I see their -- I see their fire department
working out almost every day. They take a uniform in there '
and change clothes. They look like a bunch of triathletes. I
mean, they're in extremely good health.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: You were using the -- were
you using obesity as an example? Or is that the exclusive --
MR. LOONEY: No, that's just an example.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Tobacco users can also
23 I be --
24
25
MR. LOONEY: Very much so. There's -- when the
grading scale is done, it's graded on a large variety of --
7-18-06 bwk
15
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
it's lifestyle as well as the results of the tests that are
actually performed on the individual. The individual is asked
to complete a lifestyle questionnaire. They combine those and
give a score, and then say, okay, this is -- this is -- these
are things you need to work on going forward, and we're seeing
a lot of these types and styles of programs now being
initiated. The -- one of the larger organizations in South
Africa, and under a gentleman -- I can't remember his name,
but he owns Virgin Airways and things of that sort. His -- he
actually has a company in South Africa that handles all of the
governmental employees in South African programs very similar
to this, and they have an IBM testing unit that they will put
in your facility, and you can come in and put your arm in the
cuff and plug in your code number, and it weighs you, it takes
your blood pressure, and then you enter information and you
keep a constant record of what's going on. So, some really
interesting innovations.
But, again, we will be bidding that wellness program
to determine whether or not we can fit it into the -- into the
budget. It's not in this presentation as far as costs are
concerned at this point.
MR. BENHAM: That's the Virgin Airways man.
MR. LOONEY: Oh, thank you. I can't remember his
name. Last time I saw him, he was standing on the wing of an
airplane; I thought he was going to fall off. But it's --
7-18-06 bwk
16
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
they've	created a trial -	- trial program.	One is in	Tampa,
Florida,	and another one	is in San Antonio,	actually.	The
last two pages here, which you need a magnifying glass to
read, it's a report on the telephone calls that Mutual of
Omaha gets, and -- and the subject matter that -- that people
are calling in about. Take a look at this to -- to see if
maybe there's a communication link that we need to shore up,
or if there's something extraordinary, unusual going on. And
when we have claims about -- when people are calling about a
claim, we expect that, so that's not an inordinate number of
claims. Calling in for -- for benefit information, that is a
little bit higher than we expect, so we may want to start a
little better communication process with employees to discuss.
what their actual benefits are so that they've got a better
feel for what their benefit package is. The rest of them are.
fairly common and don't -- again, don't raise any flags. But,
from the standpoint of -- of communications of the benefit
package, we're a little bit high in that area, so that's why I
brought that and presented it to you.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Seems like they increased
instead of lessening as the year went on.
MR. LOONEY: They have increased.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Looks like sometime in
September, we made a change of some sort. Those numbers went
sky-high.
7-18-06 bwk
17
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
MR. LOONEY: There is -- there is one piece of
information that I do not have for you today, but I was hoping
to have by this time, but I do not have it. There has been an
administrative change in the H.R.A. administrator with Mutual
of Omaha. We are in the two- to three-week conversion period
right now. I don't have the report of the conversion yet. I
was hoping to have it by the time we got here, but conversion
in the administration has -- has essentially occurred. We've
had a number of meetings and telephone conversations on
changing that administrator. The administrator that was '
previously being used by Mutual of Omaha was overwhelmed by
the volume of business that they received, so it was necessary
to move to a larger organization, and so that change has taken
place. Yes, sir?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: These are calls that went to
the agent? Or to Mutual of Omaha?
MR. LOONEY: These calls went to Mutual of Omaha
directly, through their answering system.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: The change you're referring
to now, is that -- is that a good thing for you?
MR. LOONEY: Yes, it is. It's a much better
reporting function.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Therefore, it's a good thing
for us.
25 ~ MR. LOONEY: It's a good thing, because now I have
7-18-06 bwk
18
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
online access to reports, whereas in the past, we had to
request reports and -- and receive them when we got them. We
will have the ability to access reports and get that
information. There's been no cost change in the expenses that
we were incurring for that administration piece, so I'm
looking forward to that first report right now. On the
right-hand side, we'll talk about -- Mr. Letz has already been
reviewing the numbers, I can tell. Okay. On the -- at the
top left-hand corner, it says -- on the first little sheet
with all the colored boxes behind it, it says Plan Year
January 1, 2006. Plan year -- this is where we are,
essentially, today. The numbers outlined in yellow are
supposed to be the numbers that are being deducted from
payroll deductions for the employees at this time. It shows a
contribution level of the $560.55, and I believe you all
rounded that up to $561 at that time.
So, premium rate projection and everything, and that
was all based on the renewal information with all the little
colored boxes that are behind that. This is the kind of
information that I get from the insurance company when they're
in the renewal process, and this is not for 2007; this was
what we received for 2006. So, that's got all of the
administrative costs and all of the projections and all the
rates that are currently in force for all of the various
insurance products that we have, plus the administrative
7-18-06 bwk
19
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
costs. So, that, tied with the presentation sheet on rates,
gave us the projected rating structure for this year.
I Now, behind that is the estimated medical plan costs
for the coming year. What we do when we -- one of the first
times that we made a presentation in July after the first six
months of -- of the plan year, I told you that we have
difficulty in projecting rates because of what we call the
credibility factor, "credibility" meaning the length of time
that you had been insured under a certain plan design to be
able to give us enough information to start working off of a
predicted model. We're getting closer now to being able to
work off of the credibility factor. We're now starting
into -- well, January will be the third year. We're a full 18
months into the -- into the plan at this time, so we've got
more predictability than we had when we just had six months.
The number that you see, per-employee, per-month
medical loss, is a number that's generated based on taking the
population that's insured, and then we offset that population
by a three-month period of time based on the fact that it
takes about three months for claims to fully flush through the
system. We apply that back against the claims incurred over
the future period of time, and what that all means is we come
up with a factor that we think is predictive based on the
medical plan costs per-employee, per-month. And then we track
that on a monthly basis, which we're -- we're doing currently.
7-18-06 bwk
20
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
So, this number is a predictive number through the first six
months of this year, but using the previous 14 months of
information. Then we project that to the full plan year.
We take the same projection for prescription drug
plan. We subtract from that a reimbursement that we have for
large claims, and we only took a portion of the reimbursement
for budget purposes. We only took a portion of that
reimbursement. We then add back in a trim factor, and we
flush all this through the system and come up with what our
projected annual cost is for 2007, apply that number to the
distribution of premium as far as the participation is
concerned, and after all that is said and done, come up with a
factor next year that we expect the County to fund toward the
plan, and that number is $568. So, we're at $561 now. We
expect the increase in the premium for the County's
contribution to be only $7 increase per employee, per month
for the next year.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Very good.
MR. LOONEY: Yes, it's very good. If we take that
at this current point in time and -- and project that into the
total rate structure for employees, we have a marginal rate
change for employees. Very low rate change for employees. A
dollar here, 30 cents there, 50 cents there, and we can go
back and adjust those numbers so that if you did not want an
employee rate increase, we could hold that. You would have
7-18-06 bwk
21
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
very little impact on the $561. I do not -- and you gentlemen
are going to have to explain something to me, because I'm not
totally sure I understand in the budget function how any
credit might be carried forward from one budget year to
another budget year, or if there is any credit carried
forward.
JUDGE TINLEY: There's not. We zero out at the end
of the year and start over.
MR. LOONEY: Okay. And it's been that way ever
since that I can remember. So, we have -- we should have --
JUDGE TINLEY: I'm looking to the Auditor for
verification, yeah.
MR. LOONEY: I thought he was sneaking up behind me
14 here.
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
JUDGE TINLEY: No.
MR. LOONEY: We zero every year?
MR. TOMLINSON: I was talking to -- I didn't hear
the question.
(Discussion off the record.)
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Sure we do.
MR. LOONEY: But by doing that, then we refund and
redo that asset accumulation budget each year so that any
credit's carried forward from -- or any credit that would
generate in the budget, I assume, then goes back into the
general fund accounting? So, when we project this particular
7-18-06 bwk
22
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
there should be hopefully some credit balance moving forward
from this year till next year.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Gary, what did you say the
employee increase is going to be?
MR. LOONEY: At this point, it's 3 percent or less.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Looks like it's a dollar and
change, right?
MR. LOONEY: Just very minimal. There's a
distribution of the two there.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Will -- this wellness program
that you're talking about, will that affect that number in any
~ way?
MR. LOONEY: It could. But, you know, the hope --
and the end result is that, because you're self-insured, that
you have two costs involved. One is the fixed-dollar cost of
putting the wellness program into place, and two is the claims
savings dollars that you generate in a very short time frame
to reduce that overall net cost by the savings that you have
in your medical claims. We recently did a program at a school
district that had -- actually, they had about 3,000 employees.
And when we did that, we actually had four people that went
through the testing that were immediately rendered into health
care, one of which was diagnosed with an early stage of cancer
7-18-06 bwk
23
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
injury or back pain for some time, thought that they had it
cured, went through extreme testing for an MRI, and found out
that there was something other than -- another growth that
was -- that was resolved. Four out of the 2,000, but we felt
like that that more than offset the total cost of that plan.
We're seeing pricing rates --
JUDGE TINLEY: For 3,000?
MR. LOONEY: For 3,000 employees. We're seeing
things range from $90 per employee to institute the plan for a
full year, to about $110, $115. And that includes the
complete testing, complete wellness exam, the grading and
continuing education throughout the plan year, and that's paid
as a claim, and so it's not as an additional expense. It's
incurred as an actual medical expense, because it is a medical
examination, it is characterized.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: If I read this correctly,
the cost to the retiree is stable for the next year.
MR. LOONEY: Just -- I left it exactly the same. We
haven't changed it in the past, so I left it the same. Again,
this is -- this is the first draft, so we've got -- we've got
time to make changes, if you want to make changes as we're
going through the bid process. And, so, we'll -- we're
getting better at our predictive model, you know, 'cause we've
25 ~ got more experience to do it with.
7-18-06 bwk
24
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well, you said it's first draft,
but based on the -- the three individuals that have the
relatively high claims, you're pretty confident -- I mean,
'cause two of those -- one's over 50,000; one's real close to
it, and the other one's pretty close, too. So, I mean, it's
not going to be --
MR. LOONEY: No, the one that's closer to 50 is
still ongoing, still has treatments, but we only have $8,000
more of an obligation for that.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah.
MR. LOONEY: We may very well be offset by the
reimbursement that we receive on that individual that's well
in excess of that 50,000.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Mr. Looney, some 70 percent
of those enrolled are enrolled for employee-only insurance.
MR. LOONEY: Correct.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Do I understand we have an
administrative procedure that says you must enroll for health
insurance? You can't opt not to be enrolled?
MR. LOONEY: I believe so. I believe there is a --
an employee -- that when you're contributing 100 percent of
the employee's -- employee cost of the plan, then normally you
do not allow waivers out of that plan.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: See, of that 70 percent,
which is some 190 or so covered people, some large number --
7-18-06 bwk
25
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
some large percentage of those have other insurance; their
spouse has insurance or they have insurance from some other
source. But because we don't charge and because we force them
into our plan, we become the primary carrier. When I have a
claim, even though I've got three different coverages, two of~
them besides Kerr County, you wind up paying for it -- Kerr
County winds up paying for it. And if you were to charge me
and hold some number of others -- I don't know if it's a lot
or a few, but I'd opt out, and you'd save a lot of money.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's just part of the
animal of being self-insured, I guess, huh?
MR. LOONEY: Well, it's -- if you allow -- if an
individual is opting out, they may or may not be opting out
because they have coverage elsewhere. So, the coverage is
provided for them as an employee, and as that, they become a
primary, as you say, in that circumstance, because they are
the primary employee. But opting out -- also, when you opt
out of the numbers of people, we still have to go back in and
factor what the cost per-employee is, and those people opting
out not necessarily are the ones that require the care and
treatment. Subsequently, we end up with a higher rate for a
fewer number of people, even though our total contributions
may be somewhat reduced.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: I'll make the question real
simple so we can move on. Strictly from the standpoint of
7-18-06 bwk
26
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
cost containment, would you recommend that we implement a
S50-per-month fee for employee only?
MR. LOONEY: For employee only? First thing I'd
like to do is compare what other similar entities are doing
for charging to employees in the community. If the City is
charging, if the school district is charging, if the police
department is -- whatever those other entities are, because
that is where you are in competition for employees, so you
look at that first. And then if, in fact, you were consistent
with the rest of those entities, then raising the -- making
the contribution for employees would be okay.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: I don't want to expend a
whole lot of energy and effort pursuing it, but I think it
deserves some more consideration. If I knew that it was going
to save the County a lot of money, I'd say we've got to think
real seriously about it. Okay.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Last -- earlier this year or
last year, we talked about pooling or joining with the City of
Kerrville, primarily, but possibly some other entities. Have
you had any communication with their --
MR. LOONEY: I've had communication with -- I '
believe they use someone out of Dallas. And I've had other
conversations about what they're doing and how they've gone
about it, and I'm not sure that a partnership relationship
', would be very good. A management relationship with them might
7-18-06 bwk
27
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
- --
be better. I -- I don't like what they're doing.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: They're right behind you.
MR. LOONEY: Okay, whoever it is. You know, I'd
prefer -- I'd prefer having more control over it from that
standpoint, because I've seen some of the results of -- and
I'm not sure that we would have recommended them to take the
track that they've done.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I don't want to get you in hot
water. They'd probably be interested in hearing what you have
to say, anyway. What's the difference in the plan, basically,
MR. LOONEY: The method in which it was funded and
the calculations on funding requirements and -- and -- and the
!, estimation of the funding.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: The $50 you're talking about
equates to about $160,000 per annum, based on the employee
group in this summary.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: If that drove me out, I
didn't pay that $50, then you'd be saving more than the $50
I'm not paying.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think what he's saying,
though, is that we can't -- we're going to drive out -- you
may be a plus, but if we start letting people opt out, our
price is going to go up and we're probably not going to save
much money.
7-18-06 bwk
28
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
MR. LOONEY: Well, the problem is, you -- you
redistribute the total cost to much fewer people.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Yeah.
MR. LOONEY: And then the individual costs
accelerate. And in the insurance business, we call it the
death spiral. And, unfortunately, small contributions allow
an employee to either participate or not participate in the
plan. If you wanted to consider possibly taking a
contribution from the employee side of it and reducing costs
for the dependent side of it, then we'd just have to wait and
see who enrolled and who didn't enroll to see what the net
effect on the plan is. Consistency of budgeting. Y'all have
a consistent employment group, very consistent number of
employees, and so projections and funding become more
consistent because of your consistency in your employment.
When we have to predict and adjust in accordance with what we
expect to occur as far as enrollment is concerned, then our
predictive modeling is -- is tainted, because we really don't
know where it's going to go at that point.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think, going back to the City
of Kerrville issue, it's my understanding -- what do you mean
by "funding mechanism" is the difference -- the big
difference?
MR. LOONEY: Just the way that the total funding
concept was created under the basis for the -- for budgeting
7-18-06 bwk
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
29
for them, how they actually funded it and prices that were
charged and things of that sort. Plan design.
I'm still not sure I understand.
I just think it -- intuitively, it would make sense. If you
basically doubled the pool with the same type employees as
that, you're spreading the risk a little bit over a little bit
bigger area, and it should be a benefit to both entities.
MR. LOONEY: Like I said, I'm not opposed to it. I
just think I'd prefer it from a management standpoint, as
opposed to being -- you know, I would like to maintain control
of -- of the process.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: When you say from a management
standpoint, what do you mean by that?
MR. LOONEY: As far as plan design is concerned, as
far as the funding issues, as far as --
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I mean, but from a management --
you said you wouldn't mind it from a management standpoint.
From a plan design standpoint, but -- is that what you're
saying?
MR. LOONEY: Well, I would prefer to maintain the --
the integrity of the way that our plan works and our funding
works, rather than tainting it.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: But, administratively, you would
possibly -- there may be some benefits in combining --
MR. LOONEY: We could possibly share administrative
7-18-06 bwk
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
30
costs. We could share P.P.O. networks. We could also do it
', -- we could combine them into an interlocal purchasing
agreement. You can create that circumstance.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: It's just something I'm still
interested in pursuing if -- if there's a benefit to be had.
MR. LOONEY: If you will identify the parties that I
am to communicate with, I'll be glad to do so.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Mr. Paul Hofmann. He's right
behind you, Mr. Paul Hofmann. I guess that's where you'd
start, anyway. Okay. All right, thank you.
MR. LOONEY: So, that's pretty much where we are at
this point. I'm waiting, again, on the report from the H.R.A.
company, and I expect another -- I don't know what your normal
budget time frame is to adopt the budget in. August?
JUDGE TINLEY: September, I suspect, before we fully
and finally adopt it.
MR. LOONEY: I expect to be in front of another
workshop sometime in August, so we can make sure that we're --
that we're -- our predictive modeling is working properly, and
then bring back to you that information. And if Mr. Hofmann
and I are able to meet prior to that, then I'll -- then I'll
report back to you on that also.
MR. LOONEY: Okay.
JUDGE TINLEY: Mr. Looney, for -- for budgetary
planning purposes, at least at this juncture, and if I'm
7-18-06 bwk
31
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
hearing you correctly, we need to be looking at budgeting
cost-wise about $568, $570 per month per employee?
MR. LOONEY: $570 would be -- $568 is actually the
number that I generated.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Good news.
MR. LOONEY: It is good.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Thanks for your help.
MR. LOONEY: Thank you, sir.
JUDGE TINLEY: It's actually better news than what I
thought we were going to receive.
MR. LOONEY: Well, for now. But, still, we're --
you know, we're six months from anniversary date, so that's
why I want to be in front of you again. So --
JUDGE TINLEY: Part of that, of course, is the stop
loss premium cost that, based upon the few number of high
claims that we've got, that looks like that's going to hold or
maybe get a little bit better.
MR. LOONEY: I've increased -- I've actually
increased part of the fixed costs as a result of an
expectation of some increase in that area. If we don't get
the increase, then our budget number will look a lot better.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Any more questions for
~ Mr. Looney?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Good start.
7-18-06 bwk
32
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you, sir.
MR. LOONEY: Thank you.
JUDGE TINLEY: We appreciate your being with us and
MR. LOONEY: I appreciate your confidence in me.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Do we have anything more to
discuss on the employee health benefits side of the issue?
Okay, I guess that's going to bring us to City/County joint
operations. I received a communication from Mr. Paul Hofmann,,
the City Manager, last Friday, and I provided a copy of that
communication to each of you. I've now looked up and
discovered I don't have mine; I failed to bring it in here,
but I'll go get it shortly. Dealing with some of the
informational aspects of -- of the joint operations, at least
from their standpoint. And what's the Court's pleasure on
where we start there?
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: We got at least a couple of
people here that are interested in the library. We might
start with that, so they can --
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay, go ahead.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: -- get freed up.
JUDGE TINLEY: I'm sure I've got it handy.
(Judge Tinley left the courtroom.)
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Library is the first one on
this document.
7-18-06 bwk
33
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Must be something important.
Zeke's here.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I know Mr. Benham has a -- this
is what you want to talk about?
MR. BENHAM: Sure. I'm sorry, I didn't realize that
you weren't going to wait for the Judge.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: We don't need him.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We're trying to get something
MR. BENHAM: For the record, Joseph Benham, 522
Rolling Green.
(Judge Tinley returned to the courtroom.)
MR. BENHAM: Kerr County taxpayer, and very proud
resident of this county for going on 10 years. I'm also
immediate past president of the Friends of the Library, and
I'm their designated representative before government bodies,
Chamber of Commerce and so forth. With your kind permission,
I'd like to preface what I have to say about the library with
-- with an observation. The gentleman who was just up here
who was talking about how easy fitness centers are hasn't had
five operations and spent two years in rehab and fitness
centers that I have, or I don't think he'd say that. And I
sincerely hope he doesn't ever have that experience, but it
7-18-06 bwk
34
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
isn't easy, I can assure you. And other people are a lot
worse off than I am, and I appreciate that.
As for the library, I know you have a huge job ahead
of you. I have served on -- I've never served on a county
commission, but I've served on a school board, public utility
district, boards of a lot of private organizations, including
two that I'm president of at the moment here in this county.
At the same time, I have to urge you, and in all sincerity, to
avoid the temptation to fund the library -- I'm not going to
'~ use the word "cut." I don't want to be -- I don't want to be
polemic. I don't want to be inflammatory, but to avoid what
may be the temptation to fund the library at a level which
would put its services out of reach of a lot of good people.
Our organization has over 600 paying -- dues-paying members,
and since many of those good folks have family memberships, we
can say very confidently that we represent well over 1,000
people in this county who have memberships in the Friends of
the Library. And there are an untold number -- and I'll touch
on that in a moment, if you'll allow me. There's an untold
number of people who come in and use the library, but don't
bother to join our organization.
I'd like to say one more thing about it. We don't
just come in here with our hand out. We come in here with a
record of contributing to the library. I feel safe in saying
there's some good folks over in the library right now getting
7-18-06 bwk
35
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
ready for our August book sale, cleaning silverfish and mouse
droppings and some other stuff off the boxes of books that are
donated to us. They work the year round and they spend many,.
I many, many thousands of hours and get absolutely no pay for
it. Secondly, we do raise money, which is -- every penny of
which is donated to the library. We raised $360,000 to buy
I~ the building next to the library, where the restaurant and the
travel agency used to be, and I think the lawyer is still
there. In fact, he's the lone holdout. We donate at least
$20,000 a year to the library. Obviously, that's a small
percentage of what it costs to run it, but it does, I believe,
bear out my contention that we don't simply show up here with
our hand out and say, "Give us some money," when we don't do
anything ourselves to help fund it. I wish we raised enough
money that we could do a lot more, but we're -- we're just
about maxed out on what we can contribute. $20,000 is, I
think, a pretty respectable amount. When I shared that
information at the City Council a while back, the Chief of
Police came in right after I did and he said, "Boy, I wish we.
had a Friends of the Police Department organization in this
town." So, we took that as a compliment.
I'd like to say that I don't think there's anything
to be gained by our -- as has been suggested to me, and I'm
opposed, I don't think there's a thing in the world to be
gained by trying to turn out hundreds, if not thousands, of
7-18-06 bwk
36
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
people in some sort of rally to impress you folks on what kind
of support the library has and how important it is to people.
The fact that there are only five of you behind that bench
doesn't mean there are only five people in this county who
care about county government, obviously. And the fact that
there are typically only four or five of us representing our
membership here doesn't mean that nobody else cares about it.
A lot of people care about it very, very strongly. I will
repeat what I've said, and I'm grateful for your patience each
time I show up here. This is one of the most important
services in this county. We have more people using this
library per year than live in Kerr County. We don't have an
exact number, because a lot of people come in; they go to the
reference section, they go through whatever it is they want to
look at. Sometimes they make notes, sometimes they photocopy
it and they leave. There's no record of those folks, but I'm
over there about four afternoons a week, gentlemen, and I
assure you that they're there. I'm one of them. But I can
II assure you, there are a lot of others who come in and use that
library. It is a vital service.
One other thing I would like to point out -- I feel
justified in pointing out, and I'm grateful for your time on
this. We are already in an unenviable position with our
library. When our Library Director goes to the State Library'
Association each year and sets up his table with information
7-18-06 bwk
37
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
about working for this library, what he's authorized to pay is
so much lower than most libraries -- other libraries in the
state, certainly other libraries of our size, that people
glance at the salary schedule and throw them back on the table
and go on. We are -- we have a wonderfully dedicated staff of
employed people in our library. We have a wonderful -- any of
you can be proud of your constituents who volunteer to work
over there. The fact is, we are not spending a lot of money
needlessly, and we have to plead with you to don't -- not to
make it any worse than it already is. Now, you've been very
patient with me, and I'm very grateful for that. As I said,
I've served on a lot of boards and committees and whatever
over the years, and I know that there's always a lot -- lot
more month at the end of the money. But I will once again
urge you, please do everything you can to provide this vital
service.
I don't say that it's in a class with fire and
police; that would be to insult your intelligence, but it is a
vital service in this county for a great many people, and I
just urge you to keep that in mind during your deliberations.
And I do appreciate very much -- because I know a little bit
about how hard you gentlemen work, I do appreciate the
dedication you have to providing the best government, the best
services possible in this county. I've said, probably in your
presence, there's a lot more grief than gratitude in public
7-18-06 bwk
38
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
service. I know that from personal experience as well as
observation. But I do urge you to please do everything you
can for us; stretch the money to every extent that you can,
and keep what we -- what really is a wonderful library, keep
it up and running, and running fully. I'm grateful for your
time. If I can try to answer any questions, I will be honored
to -- to do my best to do that.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'll make just a comment. And,
certainly, I will consider the library as with everything
else, but by just doing some quick calculations, the funding
request for joint City/County operations all included exceeds,
by itself, the increase in revenue we're receiving this year.
MR. BENHAM: Mm-hmm.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'm committed to giving the
employees of Kerr County a cost-of-living adjustment at a
minimum, so we are walking into this out of balance already,
without doing a tax increase. And I don't see that coming,
considering that the public is already demanding the City of
Kerrville do a tax freeze, as they -- as we did. So, I think
that it's going to be a tough year, and I -- you know, I'm not
saying there is or isn't going to be any cuts in library
funding or any other funding, but I hope that the Friends of
the Library understand that when we have discussions, we have.
to look at a lot of other services as well.
25 ~ MR. BENHAM: Sure, I understand that. If I could
7-18-06 bwk
39
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
would be a terrible mistake, and it would represent a -- it
would bring about a reduction in services, so I'm not on that
-- I'm not in that camp, believe me.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: You're over 65?
MR. BENHAM: I can almost remember when I was still
65, Commissioner. Thanks for the compliment. Anybody else?
Thank you again, gentlemen.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thank you, Joe.
MR. BENHAM: I appreciate your time.
JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you, Mr. Benham. Any other
discussion or comments about the library?
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I guess I have a general comment
about the City/County -- and I appreciate Mr. Hofmann's
summary sheet. You know, we do have a -- the reason that I --
I think I was probably the one that really requested that this
get on the agenda early on, because these are some really big'
numbers, and we really can't afford to wait until our joint
meeting. I'm not real sure the best way to respond. I think
we do need to have a dialogue with City Council on some of
', these. My main idea -- what I really wanted was to get a
number we could build into our budget a little bit and look at
it. I don't know that it's -- my preference, really, is to
get into a detailed discussion more with City Council, but I
7-18-06 bwk
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
40
budget, 'cause these numbers are pretty significant. You
know, I just don't know what -- I don't know how you get into
it. I mean, I don't want to get us into a situation where we
were last year, that we're throwing volleys up and down Main
Street on budgetary issues. But, at the same time, we do need
to look at some of these, and they are a big increase.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You can start by cranking in
$1,045,000 for three joint services.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well, I don't know how we do
that, but --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Gives you a starting point.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: On the library, I'll --
I'll speak to it just as a County representative on the
Library Board. The Library Board, headed by Mr. Lipscomb
there, is functioning as designed. It's working well. This
time last year, you recall, we were unable to get library
budget information or have a conversation about it. This
year, myself and the other appointees from the County -- two
others -- were able to participate fully in the budget
process, and -- and the committee went over the budget line by
line, item by item, and I can say that it is a large number,
very expensive, but I -- we didn't find, and I don't see any
fluff in the budget. Really, the only issue is whether to
continue to provide the same level of service as you have in
7-18-06 bwk
41
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
the past. And I think if we make -- make that decision, yes,
you're going to provide the same level of service, then I
can't recommend any way to do it at a lower cost. I don't --
didn't do a salary survey, but I'll -- I'll take Mr. Benham's
word for it that we're not overpaying. As to whether or not
we're overstaffing, I can't say; I don't have that experience.
But it appears that it takes that number of people to maintain
~~~ the schedule and services that we have.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: So, what you're saying -- I
mean, if I can make sure I understand it, the only way to cut
the library budget from an operational standpoint is to reduce
~I service, which is reduce hours. I mean, that's how it
equates, to me.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: I apologize if I'm being
redundant. It would be good if the library could stand alone
as a -- as a budget item. It's a reality that it's part of
larger costs. And I don't know what -- what the airport's
costing us yet. I can't discern that from this document. But
I can tell that the City's proposing that in three areas --
library, fire, and EMS -- that we increase our contribution by
60 percent.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Let me make sure I understand
the numbers here in the library request. They requested in
'06, $416,000, and we contributed $355,000. And this year,
they're asking for $443,000. Am I reading that correctly?
7-18-06 bwk
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
42
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Yes.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: And 443 being 50 percent of the
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Correct.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well, since airport's next on
the list --
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Well, let me make a couple
more comments for your benefit on that. It says in there that
the base budget does not include insurance costs. That's
wrong; it does. They're a large part. Employee health
insurance is a large part of the budget. And then, in the
next paragraph, it says the -- the Commissioners Court voted
to terminate the library agreement for the current fiscal
year. That's wrong; we still have an interlocal agreement in
place. We, in fact, voted to renegotiate it for the next
fiscal year.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I've got another option to
this thing -- and you have to promise not to laugh, 'cause I
get my feelings hurt pretty easily. We could take the
Juvenile Detention Facility and turn it into a library -- a
county library, hire whatever librarians it takes to run a
very small library, put three or four computers in there, and
turn it into a county library. Be very small in the
beginning, and those folks that -- the things that we have or
~, do not have to meet the public's needs, they simply go to
7-18-06 bwk
1
2
3
4
5
43
Schreiner University and get whatever materials they need
there. And through the years, we could build the thing up
into a very nice county library. And what's wrong with that?
6 work.
7
8
9 thouc
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
JUDGE TINLEY: I didn't hear him promise.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I could tell by the eyes,
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well, I think -- I mean, I think
it solves a short-term budget issue, but it doesn't -- it
probably creates a bigger long-term issue. And I guess one of
the problems that I see with the library budget and the
services that are offered is we -- you know, I don't have a
real problem with cutting it, is that there are other
libraries that serve the county, such as Comfort provides a
purely volunteer library. And it's certainly nowhere near the
scale of Kerrville library, but residents of east Kerr County
use that library extensively and contribute to it
substantially, and I'm not sure if Kendall County supports
that library or not. I presume they probably do. So, I think
-- I mean, there are other options and libraries in the
county, so I think it's the -- the eastern residents -- I
mean, the reality is, the Butt-Holdsworth Library serves
7-18-06 bwk
44
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
predominantly City of Kerrville residents. Those are also
county residents.
You know, I would really -- you know, and every time
this comes up, just from a library standpoint, I would really
like to see, you know, why it's such a horrible idea to cut
services back 10 percent. I mean, I say services; cut back
hours, and to see what that translates to from a budget
standpoint. Maybe 20 percent. I mean, I -- clearly, I think
we need to have a library. I think it makes the most sense to
me to continue using the Butt-Holdsworth Library rather than
start another library, but I also think that we're in a time
when dollars are very, very difficult to come by for funding
things of this nature, and if the -- the public should be able
to adjust their schedules -- their time schedules 10 to
20 percent to accommodate a lot of other needs in the county.
Another option which I brought up once before is
looking at some sort of interlocal agreement with Schreiner
University. That is a preferable option to opening up a new
library. I brought that up a while back as a way to have a
cost savings at Butt-Holdsworth from an administration
standpoints and others, and people at Schreiner didn't like
the idea; neither did the people at Butt-Holdsworth, so I
guess it wasn't a very good idea. But it seems to me -- I
don't -- the slight reduction in hours of operation, to me, is
the -- makes the most sense to -- at least to look at, and
7-18-06 bwk
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
45
what that does to their budget.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: A couple comments -- I'm not
going to laugh.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I promise not to laugh.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay, thank you.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: It would seem to me that if
we were to consider that, we would be duplicating services. I
would think that we would be -- if we think we were getting
heat for having this discussion as we're having it today, I
would think that the heat would mount exponentially if we were
to consider duplicating services, as opposed to providing
dollars to fund existing services. That said, the last time
we asked a rhetorical question with respect to reduction of
services, I was dismayed by the response we got from those who
are directly involved in the management of the library,
present company excluded. It is as though we are presenting a
scenario in which the sky is falling. I don't perceive it
that way. I perceive it as a legitimate question. If certain
hours were reduced, what would the -- what would the product
then be in terms of reduced dollar costs of operations? So, I
don't know how we get to the point you're talking about,
Commissioner, in terms of determining whether any of that's
possible or not, because I don't know if you remember, but I
remember the last time we raised the question, and the answer
7-18-06 bwk
46
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
came back in the negative.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I mean, I think you're right,
but I think the -- I think it needs to be made clear to the
public what their options are. If we have -- if we're not
going to raise taxes, fire isn't going to get funded, EMS
isn't going to get funded, or library isn't going to get
funded 100 percent of the thing, and maybe all three aren't
going to get 100 percent. Those are the three big-ticket
items. Airport's in there a little bit more, but that
increase is not as large. And airport may be one as well to
look at. I think the -- the public needs to maybe be reminded
that at this time last year, the County basically did layoffs
at this time to make -- to balance our budget. I don't think
it was "basically"; we did do layoffs. And, you know, I don't
think there's a whole lot of fat in our -- in our employee
work force to do that again. Mr. Nicholson may disagree a
little bit, but I think that the -- I mean, you know, I think
everything needs to be looked at. And I think reducing some
of the services may be something else that just needs to be
kept on the table as something we need to look at. And I'd
like to discuss it with City Council at our joint meeting a
little bit, review it. And, so --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: There's a present realtime
analogy to what you just said, in that everybody in this room
heard Mr. Looney's presentation with respect to health care
7-18-06 bwk
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
47
costs for this employee group. We made some very wrenching
decisions in terms of health care a year or two ago, and the
program -- the plan was restyled. It was restyled for one
very basic reason, and that was to keep a lid on the costs. I
think the results of Mr. Looney's -- I mean, the results were
plain in Mr. Looney's comments today. We've managed to do
that. And in doing so, we have funded a very, very good
health benefit plan for the employee group for Kerr County.
If you can hold it down to $8 per person, per month in today's
expanding medical world, you've done a great deal -- you have
done a magnificent job.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's true.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So, I think that's a
realtime analogy, and I'm curious as to why it can't transcend
into other fields. When we talk about --
JUDGE TINLEY: Commissioner, you mentioned the
question of seeing what a reduction in services would do to,
for example, the library budget. As I recall, in some of the
inquiries that Commissioner Nicholson drafted to the Library
Director, we asked for a funding level based upon the minimum
per capita contribution of approximately $620,000, and he came
back with a model for that. That would require some reduction
in staff and reduction in hours. As I recall, the total hours
was 56, and that got reduced to -- do you recall what it was,
25 I Commissioner?
7-18-06 bwk
48
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: 43, 44, something like
JUDGE TINLEY: But I think the bottom line is,
what's the public willing to pay for? We've got to establish
priorities. And if -- if they want a Cadillac and all of
these services, and understand it comes with increased taxes
to fund them, so be it. But I think, from a prioritization
standpoint, we've first got to look at emergency services.
And I don't think there's any question but what our citizens
first need emergency services. When we get outside of those
kinds of issues, it's more discretionary. And assuming we've
even got the money to pay for emergency services, and judging
-- judging from some of these numbers, I'm not sure that's
even in there. But if the citizens want more over and above
that, we need to know that. At this point, I haven't heard
citizens clamoring for doing whatever's necessary to their
taxes to do whatever increased level of services are desired.
We've got an additional factor there, as now we've got the
over 65 and disabled tax freeze, and we got a smaller group to
pay for it, and so it -- it's a double cost for those in the
middle segment of our demographics. We -- we just may not be
able to get there without raising taxes.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Commissioner Baldwin, we
may have to do something pretty radical to deal with these --
these large increases in costs. I don't have the answer to
7-18-06 bwk
49
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
it. Strategically, I think that's the wrong direction.
Ideally, I think the right direction is finding more synergy
between local government groups. As you know, I think we
could do a better job of law enforcement and at a lower cost
by having a metro instead of two departments. Certainly, we
shouldn't have two dispatch units, even if we don't have a
metro. There -- there are other ways, I believe, that we can
be better stewards of the taxpayers' dollars by -- by joint
efforts and cooperation, but it takes -- it takes joint
efforts and cooperation to do that.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Mm-hmm.
JUDGE TINLEY: On the fire issue, I -- I had some
outstanding questions after reading the information which we
received from Mr. Hofmann, and -- excuse me -- I wrote an
inquiry to Mr. Hofmann, just delivered it to him earlier
today, and sent you gentlemen a copy of it. And I don't think
I'm going to be in a position to discuss in any detail the
fire issue until I have the information which I have asked
for.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I don't -- I guess my only
question -- and I don't want to get into it again. I think
this really needs to be discussed with Council to a large
degree, but there -- is there a change in philosophy on what
the City is asking the County to fund? I mean, it seems
different. I've never seen it really presented this way. And
7-18-06 bwk
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
50
the reason is, it basically is -- as I read it, it's kind of
broken down into a per capita and a one-third of the cost of
-- of the department is being asked to be borne by the County,
which is different than it was -- at least as I recall it
being calculated previously. Is that correct, that there is
a -- I guess, a change, I mean, in how the City is looking at.
requesting reimbursement for fire? Or -- please.
MR. HOFMANN: Yes, sir. I think we are, in fact,
suggesting a change in philosophy in how to recommend we
allocate those costs. And, in part, that philosophy is based
upon the work of the ad hoc EMS committee that you gentlemen
appointed, I guess, around a year ago. And I know that
committee specifically looked at EMS, but we are taking the
same sort of logic approach to those public safety functions
that we provide outside of the city limits and into the
county. And, in short, it is based on the premise -- and we
tried to explain this in the letter that we gave to the County
Judge on Friday. It's based upon the premise that a fair and
logical way to allocate those costs is based upon the City of
Kerrville's costs in having the capacity necessary to provide
those services outside the city and into the county.
Judge Tinley referred to the questions that he
submitted to us earlier today, and to the extent you're
interested, we can't answer all those questions today;
hopefully, we'll have some answers -- some detailed answers to
7-18-06 bwk
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
51
you by -- by tomorrow morning, but we can address some of
those questions today.
JUDGE TINLEY: That would be fabulous. I certainly
wasn't expecting anything that quick, but I appreciate your
prompt consideration.
MR. HOFMANN: Some of the questions are actually
pretty easy, about the extent to which we have interlocal
agreements with other entities. But, to me, and -- and I have
some experience with dealing with this in places I've worked
with before, and I've negotiated these kinds of arrangements
with other entities before. It's not so much about the number
of runs or response times. It's about system capacity. We
need to be able. to provide fire or EMS services out into the
county to every county resident, whether we anticipate that
county resident calling for that service or not. And that
system -- that capacity is larger than it would have been if
our service area is only the city limits. And, to me, it only
makes sense to allocate the costs based upon that kind of
logic, and that's what we attempted to do in -- in this first
cut at -- at allocating those costs. Our intent is to take
the dialogue -- and I heard Mr. Letz refer to the August 9th
meeting with the City Council. I had a short conversation
with Mr. Baldwin about this a couple of weeks ago, and as I
indicated to him, we're not setting this in stone. And this
wasn't even a number, until last Friday, that I shared with
7-18-06 bwk
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
52
the City Council, because I'm still working on my budget
recommendation to the City Council, but I do think it's a
logical way to approach it. And I think it is a lesser cost
than it would be for the County to replicate those services
without the City providing them.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I guess my -- and I'm not -- I
don't -- not trying to get into a dialogue, necessarily. I'm
just tossing out ideas. To me, the EMS and the fire issues
are separate. And where you -- it seems that you're -- you're
trying to combine them more, and they're separate to me,
~ because there are volunteer fire departments out in the county
that we fund another 100-some thousand to, that provide, you
know, that service, and I don't know if they ever work in the
city limits or not. I suspect they probably would in an
emergency situation, and have. And Saddlewood's in the city
limits, I believe. So, I mean, they kind of -- there's -- you
know, and there's not a charge. I mean, in part of your big
picture capacity, you also, I think, would look at all these
volunteer fire departments. Certainly, Comfort has enough
fire trucks; they could certainly be a help to anybody, it
21 seems.
22
23
24
25
MR. HOFMANN: I think we've addressed that,
actually. I think that we take that into account, and we do
make a distinction in how we allocate the costs between EMS
and -- and fire. On the fire side, we -- this is kind of an
7-18-06 bwk
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
53
oversimplification, but we are looking at one-third of the
capacity. We are looking at allocating the cost of one truck
and one -- one crew, and I think that's in part because we
recognize the existence of volunteer agencies. Now, as I say
~, that, I need also to also point this out; that we are the
first responder to Kerrville South, which is a significant
response area for us, geographically speaking. But on EMS, we
are the primary responder. We did deduct for those system
revenues, and tried to allocate it that way, again, consistent
with what that ad hoc committee did.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: On fire, I -- I don't know.
departments in the western half of the county need or want
assistance from Kerrville. I certainly think that one-third
of their capacity doesn't need to be on standby to assist
those -- those four volunteer fire departments. I can't
recall having seen a City of Kerrville unit out in the western
part of the county. I do know that most -- most of our needs
have to do with brush -- fighting brush fires rather than
structure fires, and the City of Kerrville is not equipped to
fight brush fires. So, it's a -- I think that's the first
hurdle you have to cross. Is there a genuine need to have the
City of Kerrville Fire Department back up the volunteer fire
departments? Certainly, if we have a -- a disastrous fire in
west Texas and the panhandle, we'll probably have to be
7-18-06 bwk
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
54
getting help from Oklahoma and Louisiana, and they probably
won't be billing us for it, but I don't know that.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And in the last couple of
years in the fire contract, we've been paying 125,000 a year,
and I understand the request this year is 369,000 and some
pocket change. Is that -- am I seeing that correctly? We're
dealing with the same numbers here?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Mm-hmm, that's what you're
seeing.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Judge, going back to what
Commissioner Nicholson said, I mean, I tend to agree with him.
I mean, I don't -- I think there is certainly a -- a backup --
a backup with the City of Kerrville going out into the county,
but I think -- I'm not going to say I've never seen the city
fire trucks out in the eastern part of the county; I'm sure I
have at some point, but it's rare, because Center Point and
Elm Pass back up Comfort and vice-versa in those areas. Now,
there is a -- a hole in the middle of the county around
Kerrville South and/or north of town too, where -- and that is
the area that I really look at as the contract covering area.
The far east and the far west really doesn't seem to have a
great need for the fire side, unless there's a disaster
situation, but just really -- is that how y'all looked at it?
Or did you look at it more as backing up county-wide?
MR. HOFMANN: Well, again -- yeah, I understand that
7-18-06 bwk
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
55
there's a distinction between Kerrville South and the rest of
the county, and we are the primary responder to Kerrville
South, and not necessarily to the rest of the county. In the
rest of the county -- and Raymond and Mark, correct me if I'm
wrong, but what we do is we respond when requested, or if we
hear a call out and there's no response within four minutes,
then we respond. And this is what we're putting on the table
for this kind of discussion and this kind of reaction from you
guys on. But, to me, we have to be ready to respond, and I
think -- and you can argue with the details. The logic is, we
have to be ready to respond, whether we're the primary
responder or not. And that's -- and we have a different kind
of relationship with the County -- Kerr County than we do with
surrounding counties. And back to Judge Tinley's, I'm sorry,
question that he asked about mutual aid agreements, we don't
have a mutual aid agreement with the volunteer fire department
organizations within Kerr County. We have an agreement with
the County. We do have mutual aid agreements with the
surrounding -- we have, what, one mutual aid agreement with
the counties that border us. And, so, in other words, we
don't see them as our response area, and I think this is kind
of key to my point. We see Kerr County as our response area,
and that's the way we are organized. That's the way we built
the system, and that's the way we're staffed.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Question. I have a
7-18-06 bwk
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
56
question. Mr. Hofmann, would it be fair to assume that if the
City were not responding to fire calls outside the city
limits, that the city could operate its fire department with
one fewer station?
MR. HOFMANN: I don't think it is fair to assume one
way or the other on that. Do I see a mutual benefit from the.
way we approach this? Absolutely. Do I think it would be a
good idea to reduce the level of service we're providing to
city customers -- to city residents right now? Eliminate a
fire station, eliminate a crew? Clearly not. I'm not at all
suggesting that's a good idea. Now --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Neither am I, for that
I matter.
MR. HOFMANN: Now, when I look at -- when I look at
city grows, when we consider where those fire stations --
where those fire stations go and when do we need to build
them, the fact that we provide service to the county
absolutely has a big part of that decision making.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I've got one more comment.
Paul, you have to understand that we're kind of old country
boys here, and we still think in terms of paying for what we
receive. And in our minds, if a fire truck rolls outside the
city limits or an ambulance rolls outside the city limits, we
7-18-06 bwk
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
57
pay for that, because that's what we use -- our citizens use.
I have a hard time understanding paying for all that other
stuff. And I kind of -- but maybe as we go along, we'll kind
of move over to your way of thinking. I have doubts about
that, but --
MR. HOFMANN: Well, and I --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- let's try.
MR. HOFMANN: -- I respect what you just said, but
we don't bill for fire service. We don't bill people when we
come out to their house to deal with the structure fire or
when we --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I understand.
MR. HOFMANN: -- respond to an accident. We don't
-- that's not the way we approach it. We -- it's a service we
provide that the general government pays for, and we have a
system that is set up to provide -- to be ready to provide to
anyone. That's the way that works.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you.
JUDGE TINLEY: Why don't we take about a 15-minute
recess, and --
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Good idea.
JUDGE TINLEY: No objection to that?
(Recess taken from 3:01 p.m. to 3:25 p.m.)
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay, let's come back to order, if we
7-18-06 bwk
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
58
might. We were in recess. Do we have any final comments with
regard to the City/County joint operations?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah, I do, Judge. I -- I
went noodling an idea in my head after I saw this letter, and
with -- with the particular emphasis on the -- on the fire
service increased cost. And so I'm going to wonder out loud
with the Court here for just a second, just to see whether or
not the idea resonates or whether we shake our heads and the
thought goes away. But the thought occurred to me that there
is an opportunity for the County to provide fire service, if
we choose to do so, and we could do it, for example, by
arranging with the Ingram Fire Department and the Center Point
Fire Department --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Excuse me just a minute. Did
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yes, fire. I'll get to the
other piece, too.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: All right.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah. But we'll start with
the fire premise, and see if this could lead us into the whole
nine yards. Arrange with the two fire departments to lease
their premises and staff them accordingly, and we could also
staff them with individuals who are cross-trained to do both
fire and EMS, acquire the equipment on long-term leases that
are necessary to bolster those two fire departments, and those
7-18-06 bwk
59
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
two fire departments would also operate with their own
volunteers to support the two or three people that we got to
staff them with, and the County could provide the fire
services east and west and central, if necessary, from those
two -- from those two locations. I want to throw it out. You
know, sometimes we think we're locked in and we don't have
options. I think if you think outside the box sometimes,
maybe you can find some options. I just lay that out for the
Court for whatever it's worth.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think it would be very
interesting to have -- to get the feedback from Ingram Fire
Department and the Center Point Fire Department, which would
be the two most major impacts in the Kerrville South issue. I
think probably talk with the Comfort Fire Department as well,
because part of that Kerrville South contract area is also
north of Kerrville, as I recall. It's that -- it goes all the
way up to the county line, and the logical person -- or group
to work in that area is really the Comfort Fire Department,
because they handle that whole Cypress Creek area. So, you
know, there may be a way to have a -- to, you know, put those
together, add some staff, and do something along that line,
because I think it's -- it's getting to the point,
dollar-wise, that -- I mean, I have to look at options.
I mean, I think another thing -- and I notice
Councilman Bock is still back there -- that I think it's a
7-18-06 bwk
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
60
real -- I mean, I appreciate the City Manager's view about
they have to staff up to provide backup to the County, but the
departments in the county, they also back up the City of
Kerrville, and have. If you look at the Sheppard Rees fire,
three-quarters of the firefighters probably at that fire --
I'm just guessing -- were volunteer firemen. So, I think it's
a two-way street. We're funding well over, you know, $150,000
to the volunteer fire departments, not to mention what our
constituents are giving to them in donations, so there's a
huge -- I mean, it's a -- you know, if you want to look at the
total cost of fire protection county-wide and divide that up
per capita, that may make sense, but you have to include the
total cost of all the volunteer fire departments in that
formula, because it -- and I think it's a philosophically. If
the City wants to look at it in that light, you know, it's an
interesting way to look at it, but it's not the way it's been
done in the past. And I think that you can't look at it as a
one-way street. You also have to look at it, because the --
whether there's an actual mutual aid agreement between the
volunteer fire departments and the City of Kerrville, history
shows us they respond when asked, and I think that that needs
to be taken into account.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: One of the pieces of
7-18-06 bwk
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
61
what the response time is from Ingram and Center Point to
Nimitz Elementary over in Kerrville South. I just think that
that is -- to me, is one of the most important issues of -- of
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Mm-hmm, sure.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Doesn't matter who lives
where or what, the per capita or anything else. The response
time to -- I'm talking structure fire, too. You know, not
talking about a grass fire with a brush truck type sitting
there.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No, talking about a
structure fire.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: A pumper truck. I am in
talks right now, as a matter of fact, with Turtle Creek to get
them to come into Kerrville South to test all those hydrants
and see what -- I think that would be step one, is to see what
is there for them. There's a lot of areas over there where
there's just, like, a two and a half inch plastic line lying
under the -- under the ground, and if they pull up there with
one of those big pumper trucks and hook up, they're going to
jerk the -- the hydrant right out of the ground. But I'd be
happy to follow through with that, and let's get that kind of
information, kind of move toward that. I think that's a
7-18-06 bwk
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
62
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: I talked to my volunteer
fire departments about it before, and I want to talk to them
again and make sure that I didn't misunderstand, but I think
what I recollect from that is that they don't need -- need or
want any help from Kerrville. In most of the western part of
the county, the structure fires, Kerrville would not get there
in time to be of any use. And if it's a grass fire, they
don't have equipment to fight grass fires; they can't leave
the pavement. So, we're -- we're pretty well equipped out
there. I've got -- I can walk to three fire trucks, and I
I live in a very remote area. We've got -- Hunt's got three
', trucks stationed across 1340 from my -- from my house.
i
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Just one other thought along
that line, one other caveat. In terms of the two services,
we're being asked for 600,000-plus. $600,000. A lot can be
done with that. And if equipment needs to be purchased, it
could be purchased either through bonded indebtedness or
long-term leases, and -- and that just gets added into the
application. But you can do a lot for $600,000.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Most -- I mean, a lot of fire
equipment gets funded in various types of grants, anyway.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: A lot of it is. You're
7-18-06 bwk
63
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
COMMISSIONER LETZ: It doesn't come out of anyone's,
you know, volunteer fire department standpoint.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Forest Service provides a
whole lot of it.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: But the idea has merit; we
COMMISSIONER LETZ: And the other thing I wanted to
bring up, I mean, EMS is -- to me, is not way out of line from
where it was last year. I haven't got the details of it, but,
I mean, it's a $30,000 increase, which isn't insignificant,
but it's within the realm of at least where we were last year,
whereas fire is not. And just for the rest of the Court's
benefit, the reason the airport is -- is lacking in the
documents right here is because the Airport Board, after our
meeting last week, directed the City Manager, as contracted,
to go back to the drawing board and come up with a new budget
that will remove many of the items from the contract and put
them all out to bid for services to be bid either by the City
or by the County or by the private sector. So, the amount I
anticipate is going to probably show a -- dollars going in,
I'm guessing about a $60,000 increase, maybe not that much.
I'm not -- over where we funded it this year. However, I
think there's a -- hopefully, a likelihood that the County
25 ~ will win some of the award on some of the contracted work, and
7-18-06 bwk
64
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
while we'll be spending money out, the Airport Board will be
paying the County for some of those services. And what we're
looking at specifically -- we're hoping, anyway; I haven't
seen the newest documents -- are legal, and some of the
services through Road and Bridge Department.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Another element of that,
Commissioner, which is still an unknown, and I think you and I
both made known our pleasure at the way they approached it,
was the match grants for capital improvements. And the
i
approach was good, was solid, and I commended the City Manager
for that approach, and that approach was to take it to E.I.C..
for funding, 'cause essentially it's economic development.
That issue came before E.I.C. yesterday, but my understanding.
is that the E.I.C. did not act on it. Now, the money is
available, but they had some -- there was some hitch in the --
in the manner in which it was applied for, whether it was one
project, two projects, three projects, how much in each and so
forth, and apparently some of the details were missing, and it
was not -- it was not approved yesterday. So, Mr. Hofmann
undoubtedly will tell us his take on that when we meet
tomorrow afternoon.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: I want to talk about EMS a
little bit. Last year, we began trying to talk about a
user-pay concept for EMS, and we -- oh, we didn't have much of
~ a -- we had a one-sided discussion. Earlier this year, we
7-18-06 bwk
65
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
looked at some of the criteria for what sort of services are
eligible for a user-pay concept, including things that you
can -- it's not a service provided broadly to everybody; you
can identify the user. You know what your costs are. Billing
is feasible. I recall there were a couple other things there.
And ambulance service is a perfect example of -- of a
government service that can be user-pay. And I note in some
of the backup material that the City Manager provided us with
a document called Guidelines for Service Contracts with Kerr
County, and Item Number 1 says each contract or service should
be administered in as much of a, quote, efficient business
model as possible. I think I know what that means. It may
', have some specific meaning that I'm not aware of, but if it's
an efficient business model, it would certainly be one where
revenues meet or exceed costs. So, we have an opportunity
here for the people who use emergency services and their
insurance companies to pay for this service instead of Kerr
County taxpayers paying for it.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think --
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: The City -- just one more
thing. I have not heard why the City doesn't have a -- an
interest in that. If they don't, we can have a two-tier
pricing system, one tier for the county and another tier for
the -- for the -- for the city, and we would charge a price
that would eliminate our need to subsidize that service.
7-18-06 bwk
66
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: One other quick note -- Jon,
just a minute.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Sure.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: One follow-up on his -- I
found Number 2 interesting as well. The cost for the service
should not exceed the fair market value, FMV, in the free --
free enterprise market. Now, unless I missed something in
Economics 101, free enterprise market, fair market value
usually contains a profit margin, an acceptable profit margin.
That's all I'm going to say.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'd like to explore further what
you were saying on the user-pay side on EMS. I think we got
disjointed with the City last year on this topic, because they
didn't want -- they just didn't want to bill it. And I think
the way to possibly do it -- handle it this year is just,
whenever they run into the county, they tell us they run into
the county, give us that sheet, and we can decide to bill it
or not and leave the City out of that loop totally.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: That's not --
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I mean, I don't -- as an
example, I know they don't collect money on dry runs, whatever
they call them. They have a little different term, but
basically run out there and they refuse transport. And the --
there's one run that Chief Holloway and I were talking about
7-18-06 bwk
67
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
over in Falling Water. I think 30 minutes for the ambulance
to get there, which I think is a pretty good response time,
but then when they got up there, the patient refused to
transport, so they came back empty. So, no one paid for that
except all the taxpayers of the city. My view is that
individual or household should be sent a bill. If the City
chooses not to do that, doesn't -- last year they didn't want
~~ to discuss doing it, but I really don't know why we can't send
an invoice of our own for that.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: We can. I hadn't thought
probably some other things, so it's not a foreign concept.
It's a concept of, if you tap into the sewer, you're going to
pay something every month.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: And I don't think you're going
to --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You pay for what you use.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I don't think you're going to
end up with receiving enough revenue to pay for the EMS costs,
but we might be able to reduce it 20 percent, which is a
sizable amount of money. That's almost $50,000.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: So, Mr. Bock, we are
interested in talking about user-pay for the EMS. Did you
hear that?
7-18-06 bwk
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
68
MR. BOCK: Yes, I did. May I make a comment on --
j on the comments made, they were from Councilman Coleman. On
the -- in reference to the --
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: It's thought-provoking.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: All right.
JUDGE TINLEY: Anything else on City/County
operations?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Glad we got all that
settled.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. I think the other two
remaining issues are probably, for discussion purposes,
VIII probably lumped together, are they not?
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yes.
JUDGE TINLEY: So, let's talk about human resources
~ and intertwined with reorganization issues.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Mr. Williams, will you talk
about what we learned yesterday?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, let me get started
here. What we learned yesterday -- what did we learn
yesterday? We had a very interesting meeting with a
representative from Texas Association of Counties. Her name
is Diana Cecil. She came down to visit us, and she provided
us with a whole lot of basic information, which I want to --
we want to share with the members of the Court.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: She's a human resource
7-18-06 bwk
69
1 mangy
2 and
3 her.
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: She started out in
Williamson County and worked her way all the way up to the top
of that, and went to private enterprise and did her stint in
private enterprise, and with an employee group of -- what did
she say, about 1,000, something like that? And so the lady
knows what she's talking about. What we have -- what we have
given you is just an overview of benefits, size of the
department -- which I think we can ignore that, because that's
-- that's number two; that's somewhat of an inflated formula
for determining the size of the department. Functions of a
modern H.R. department. It talks about all the various things
that an H.R. department has to deal with in today's world, and
qualifications of an H.R. manager. Some of the other
documents that we provided you have to do -- have to do with
what should be in the personnel files, and how to get that and
do all that, and the maintenance of those files, recordkeeping
in general. And then the last sheet is taken from the Comal
County's H.R. department, which details the responsibilities
of the Human Resource Director for Comal County. Dave and I,
in listening to her talk about the -- some objectives, we made
some notes about things that she talked to us about, and did
some follow-up. I've got some follow-up stuff, and Dave, the
7-18-06 bwk
70
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
same thing. Might be interesting to note that Kendall County,
our neighbor to the east, is going through the same exercise
we're going through right now in terms of establishing an H.R.
department with about the same number of employees, probably,
that we have. So, it's not a foreign concept, and more and
more counties are doing it all the time.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Their population's half.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Why don't you pick it up,
Dave? I'll come back to what the Comal County --
JUDGE TINLEY: Before we get off that, you mentioned
that Kendall County had about the same number of employees? .
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, that's what she told
us. She thought that their employee group was just about the
size of ours.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: It's about half the
population -- about half the size.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, then we're really
oversized, aren't we, then?
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: I won't talk to them.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That was what she said.
Don't know if that's true or not, but it doesn't make any
difference.
MS. UECKER: It's not true.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: They're not that big.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Well, I think where
7-18-06 bwk
71
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
Commissioner Williams and I are is that we should go ahead and
establish an H.R. function and have it headed by an H.R.
director with a minimum of five years experience in the field.
There should be a generalist function -- that's a word used in
the trade; it means do everything that's associated with
personnel management, including payroll -- and that you would
need a -- the job would need a clerk for backup, and for -- to
handle the workload, and that clerk could probably serve to
also relieve the Commissioners Court Coordinator of some of
the -- some of the workload there. We need to move quickly to
do this by the end of September, first of October. And the
next -- the next step -- next two steps are to decide on
the -- well, the first step is to agree that we're going to do
I this, and then establish a -- a salary that we're willing to
offer and authorize an advertising campaign to find candidates
for the -- for the job. It does occur to me and Mr. Williams
that there may be some local candidates that are qualified.
Several organizations in Kerr County have personnel managers,
have personnel departments, and it could be that we would find
someone locally. So, we're going to suggest that we advertise
in the local newspaper, and that we advertise in the San
Antonio newspaper. We believe that there's a -- there's
someone out there who's got all the qualifications and would
like to live in the beautiful Texas hill country, and we
25 ~ can -- we can locate and recruit a very attractive candidate.
7-18-06 bwk
72
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Have you thought about the
Houston and Dallas papers?	
	COMMISSIONER	NICHOLSON:	I have -- and let me follow
up on	that. I went to	the library	this morning at 3 a.m. --
	COMMISSIONER	BALDWIN: W	hat library?
	COMMISSIONER	NICHOLSON:	The one there --
	COMMISSIONER	LETZ: The	one in your office?
	COMMISSIONER	NICHOLSON:	The one at my office.
	COMMISSIONER	WILLIAMS:	On his Dell computer.
	COMMISSIONER	NICHOLSON:	And I did two things. I
did some business research, and I	also researched a scientific
', topic,	eugenics and Social Darwini	sm. And I didn't have to
drive	30 miles and loo	k for a park	ing place or wait till
9 a.m.	So, anyhow...	(Laughter.)	
	COMMISSIONER	WILLIAMS:	Here's what you found out.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Yeah. What I found out --
and our help from the Association of Counties helped us out
with this, too. In a few minutes, I found six web sites that-
are directed at H.R. professionals, and each one of them has
-- five of the six has a recruiting function on it where
people can post their resume or prospectus. Employers can
~' post a job. One of them that has got a lot of interest to it,
I think, is the Texas Municipal League. That's -- yeah, Bill
found something on them. We can place an online ad there for
$50. And I didn't -- even though I've only been retired for
7-18-06 bwk
73
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
10 years, we didn't have this when I worked. So, H.R.
professionals can, you know, enter that computer every day if
', they've got some kind of specific job they're looking for;
they can find a lot of information. The other ones are Austin
H.R. Management Association. That one's the only free one. .
We can post on there. The Houston H.R. organization. The
Dallas Association for Human Resource Management; that's
nationwide and international. And the National H.R.
Association. The free one is Austin. The others run from $50
to $150. I don't think we -- we would use all of them. I
think we'd use the free one for sure, which, in fact, sort of
sounds like the best one to me, and see if we can develop some
candidates in a relatively short period of time.
JUDGE TINLEY: Texas Association of Counties does
I not --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: They don't do it. They
don't do it; the T.M.L. does it. I'm not not sure why they
have not provided a similar service. Of course, I don't know
if T.M.L. has H.R. reps on the road as TAC does, but TAC does
have H.R reps on the road. On the T.M.L. web site, there are
right now three or four positions being advertised. Some of
what we found out has to do a little bit about, you know, what
are we going to pay for this person or persons? And we really
think that the department, to be properly structured, needs to
be an H.R. director and a number-two person who would be
7-18-06 bwk
74
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
~nvolved in payroll and backing up the H.R. and handling all
~ the various things on this -- on this full-page list of duties
and responsibilities. I think it's our belief that we're not
going to find that individual -- number-one individual for
probably less than $45,000. The range is going to take us up
from 45 to 55. We think that's -- we could also consider that
there are some of them who are -- who are paying as much as,
the top range, $96,000 to $106,000. They are county
governments doing that, but they're large county governments.
So, I think we -- I think we fall into the 45-55
category for the number-one person. Number-two person,
depending on how the job is structured, could -- can fall very
easily into our -- into our current grid. We can find an
adequate position for that job, which would essentially get us
started with the payroll function. And listening to all the
things that need to be done, it -- it appears to us that we
need to probably get the payroll function underway right away,
as quickly as possible, get that person going so that person
can be working with department heads/elected officials to get
the payroll functioning the way we ultimately want it to
function, with Mr. Trolinger's assistance. And then we can
take a little bit more time, perhaps, in sorting out
applicants and where we get them for the H.R. director spot.
One of the things that I found kind of interesting,
in talking to the Human Resource Director at Comal County,
7-18-06 bwk
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
75
number of federal and state laws that are in play -- that come
into play every day in the life of a county government or a
private enterprise employer, that have to be dealt with
through the Human Resources Department. There are something
like 28 to 30 federal and state laws that come into play every
single day in everything you do, so you really need somebody
who devotes that kind of time. We already know the
complexities of our health insurance program. We know those
complexities. Some of these federal and state laws, if
they're not done properly, like the HIPAA laws, carry criminal
~', penalties with them for violation of federal statutes. So, it
I' behooves us to make certain that we're going to do it and do
it right, and make certain that we take care of whatever
exposure -- try to limit our exposure in this regard. So,
that said, I think where we are is, we want to -- with your
concurrence, we want to start the process to find the two
~ people.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Question.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yes, sir?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You gave us a number for the
number-one person, 45,000 to 55,000. The number-two person,
are you -- are you going to pull a number out of the air, or
', take a recommendation from TAC, or are we going to try to fit
25 ~ that person in our -- in our system as a -- whatever?
7-18-06 bwk
76
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We may already have that
person in our system. We may already -- we may already have a
person in our system who can handle the second spot and jump
in and do the payroll and get it moving quickly.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Pay scale and -- and grade
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: I think it will be
classified in our system. I think it's a nonexempt job, and
we will assign one of our salary grades to it. And we'd have
to make sure there's internal equity, that we're not paying
less or more compared to other jobs that require similar
know-how and accountability. Don't know what that is.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'd like to give you that
level, but I don't have it at the top of my head, but I think
it's -- it's in the upper ranges of our --
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: I gave you some more data
on the -- the H.R. director job. One of y'all checked with
the City and found out they were paying their director
$67, 000?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Mm-hmm.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: I checked with a source in
7-18-06 bwk
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
77
lot. They're paying their recruits out of college $60,000
starting salary, and five to seven years would be $70,000 to
$80,000. That's not an H.R. manager. That's --
COMMISSIONER LETZ: H.R. employee.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Our helper from TAC
recommended $50,000 to $60,000 would be competitive with other
small counties. I -- I started out looking at -- well, I did
-- tried to do some internal equity comparisons, and I finally
concluded there isn't any such thing as internal equity.
We're all over the board on salaries. I started out thinking
the lower end of that -- that range, but ultimately I decided
that we could get a very highly qualified person. There are
some -- a properly functioning H.R. department will save us
some money in a number of areas, and to do that, I think we
need to pay more like the $55,000 range. And I'm recommending
something that -- divided by 12, it's $55,200. We would not
pay relocation. There wouldn't be any up-front expenses.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: The second position can
either be a human resources clerk, as is the title and job
description in Ector County, or it could be a human resources
generalist, as is one of the titles in the department in Comal
County. But the bottom line is, that person does -- works
under the direction of the human resources, does risk
management, works on payroll, assistant H.R., assistant for
', claims supervision, workmen's comp, safety program, health,
7-18-06 bwk
78
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
dental, life insurance, accident reporting, employment
providers, policy compliance, on and on and on and on. We
think we can do it with two people.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Y'all have looked at it a lot
more than I have, but you're a little bit richer than I was
thinking. And not as much on the -- I would -- I think
$50,000 for the manager, in that area, and I look at -- I
really look at the second spot as really more of a clerk type.
I mean, I'm not sure what you were looking at in the, you
know, step and grades, but I was thinking of, you know,
probably a 14 or a 15 type. I've got a feeling y'all were
thinking higher than that.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: I didn't do a real careful
', analysis of our current structure, but I came up with 17. I
', might be a little on the high side.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I think that's probably
where it is, 16, 17.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Depends a lot on what --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: It depends on how you
structure the job.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think you're -- you've got to
be prepared for when the person -- the lead person gets sick,
that the job the function keeps going, or on vacation or
something. But, at the same time, I don't think there's
25 ~ enough workload for most of the function to require two people
7-18-06 bwk
79
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
all the time. I mean, I don't think they're equal levels.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Not equal levels.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Nowhere near.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Anyway, but I think that the --
I mean, hopefully, one of y'all put this on our agenda for
Monday?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: It's on our agenda now.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well, we can't make a decision
now; we're in a workshop.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I know, except we need a
little guidance in terms of advertising. So, I guess we can
put it on the agenda for Monday.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: If it's on Monday's agenda, then
we can authorize --
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Yeah, you can think about
I
~ it a little bit. That -- that salary creeps up on you a
little bit. So, we're going to ask you to authorize the two
positions, the salary, and advertising budget of around $500.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay.
i COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Say that last part again?
I'm sorry.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Advertising budget of
around $500.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Just to see if we can find
7-18-06 bwk
80
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
who we're looking for.
MR. TROLINGER: Also, on the County web site, I set
up an employment page, so I can post that. If y'all have --
have the print material, I'll just paste it on there.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: We'll have it for you
Monday afternoon.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'd really be interested in
knowing how many hits we gets on that.
MR. TROLINGER: We've had eight so far since it was
put on; I just looked at it this morning.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Oh, on that --
MR. TROLINGER: The employment page.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That was quick.
MR. TROLINGER: And the page is blank, so --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Wow.
MR. TROLINGER: -- eight people have looked for
employment so far on the county web site.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: I was one of them.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You were one of them?
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: I'm going to be unemployed
come January 1. (Laughter.) They got a long list over there
at Walmart for that greeter job; I don't have a chance.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, I know.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Also, when we get to
Mr. Trolinger's budget, if we -- if the Court authorizes us to
7-18-06 bwk
81
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
proceed this way, we'll need to crank in some equipment in his
budget, a couple workstations. Or we can take Buster's
computer and --
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Take mine.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Take Jon's.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: You can have that antique
I've got.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I think that's what we've
got for you today.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Other than --
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Just on the other -- the
reorganization issues, which is somewhat related to this --
somewhat, but not -- I'm -- I'm still wrestling with what the
right organization is for Maintenance, possibly Animal
Control, possibly Environmental Health, possibly Floodplain.
I know it's at Road and Bridge now, but I'm still not sure
that's the right fit there. You know, I don't know that we
can do anything. We may have to do -- some of that is going
to have to be addressed this year, I think, but I can't come
up with any structure that I like particularly.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: I'm still giving it more
thought, and I'm where you are. If you ask me for a
recommendation right now, I don't have one. I know -- I've
got a couple of parameters, limiters. I think we should not
7-18-06 bwk
82
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
add a level of supervision. There shouldn't be another level
in the county government, and that we should look at combining
functions to eliminate the number of supervisors that we
currently have. .That's all.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay, I would agree. And we
have too many department -- and I use the term very loosely --
department heads. I think if you -- but how you reorganize
', that -- I think this is probably a good year to do it, just
because of some other situations that we're faced with. It's
a good time to do it; I'm just not sure the right way to do
that.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: We've got -- got an opening
to talk about that again tomorrow if we wanted to, that
organization development.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: And just -- what a lot of
counties do is they kind of call it a code compliance type
function.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Which is a --
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Those things fit together.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Kind of fits. And Maintenance
doesn't fit in that group, but the other ones kind of do.
But, anyway, I'm still not sure how the best way to fit that
in.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: One of the things we did not
7-18-06 bwk
83
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
restructuring of the administrative assistant of the Court.
We have not tackled that one yet.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: That depends a lot -- it's also
related to this clerk function and what -- how much work that
clerk function gets, and then it also gets into whether
there's a receptionist function or not. It seems to me that
we're going away from a receptionist, even though I think it
would help most of the departments a lot. I would want to get
-- I think if there are going to be two people in the H.R.
department, I'd want to wait a year to make sure we needed
another person somewhere before we hired another person,
anyway.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: I agree.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I think that's prudent.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: I think if we had --
there's two new jobs in place, that we would say to the H.R.
Director and the Commissioners Court Coordinator, "Y'all sit
down and figure out how you can" --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Exactly.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: -- "can find some synergy
and work on stuff together."
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think at that point, also,
you'd get through a lot of the -- the timekeeping, payroll --
not the payroll function, but keeping records of employees'
7-18-06 bwk
84
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
time. All that should be working, and then I think the other
elected officials could have maybe more meaningful input as to
whether their workload should go down when that whole system
gets up and running under the new Odyssey system.
(Discussion off the record.)
COMMISSIONER LETZ: All we have to do now is figure
out where the money's coming from
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: That's all.
JUDGE TINLEY: I'm waiting for somebody to tell me
that as we sit here. You got anything else you'd like to
offer today under the agenda that we have posted today?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Oh, under this agenda? No.
I was just going to recommend that we leave.
JUDGE TINLEY: That's when we're through with the
items under the agenda.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Adjourn. Adjournment.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think he's ready.
JUDGE TINLEY: Commissioner Williams?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No, sir.
JUDGE TINLEY: Is that it, gentlemen? Looks like
we're at the end of today's agenda. We'll stand adjourned.
~ Thank you.
(Budget workshop adjourned at 4:05 p.m.)
7-18-06 bwk
85
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
STATE OF TEXAS
COUNTY OF KERR
The above and foregoing is a true and complete
transcription of my stenotype notes taken in my
capacity as County Clerk of the Commissioners Court
of Kerr County, Texas, at the time and place
heretofore set forth.
DATED at Kerrville, Texas, this 24th day of
July, 2006.
JANNETT PIEPER, Kerr County Clerk
BY: __ ~ G_____ ______ _____ _
Kathy anik, Deputy County Clerk
Certified Shorthand Reporter
7-18-06 bwk