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KERR COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT
Budget Workshop
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
2:00 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
BRUCE OEHLER, Commissioner Pct. 4
CS"
C~
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I N D E X
August 18, 2009
PAGE
Review and discuss FY 2009-10 Budgets and fiscal,
capital expenditure and personnel matters related
thereto for various County Departments, including,
but not limited to the following departments:
Report from Financial Adviser ....................... 3
Sheriff's Office/Jail/Courthouse Security .......... 11
Crime Victims ...................................... 41
Indigent Health Care ............................... 43
DPS ................................................ 49
Road & Bridge ...................................... 54
County Clerk ....................................... 65
Juvenile Probation Department ...................... 71
Environmental Health ............................... 74
Information Technology ............................. 79
Extension Service .................................. 91
County Sponsored ................................... 95
Collections ........................................ 98
City/County Joint Operations ...................... 101
Adjourned 138
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On Tuesday, August 18, 2009, at 2:00 p.m., a budget
workshop meeting of the Kerr County Commissioners Court was
held in 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: Okay. Why don't we come to order
for the Commissioners Court workshop scheduled for this date
and time, Tuesday, August 18th, 2009, at 2 p.m. It is that
time now. So, the agenda for today is to review and discuss
Fiscal Year 2009-10 budgets and fiscal capital expenditure
and personnel matters related thereto for various county
departments, including, but not limited to, a number of
different departments that we will take up one by one. But
first, we have with us today Mr. Bob Henderson from RBC
Capital, who is our financial adviser, having been so for, I
guess, 20-plus now? Twenty-plus years?
MR. HENDERSON: Since about '84.
JUDGE TINLEY: Well, that's going on 25, seems to
me like. We're glad to have you here, Bob, and I know you've
been dealing with Ms. Hargis, and I've had some limited
discussions with you relative to possible debt issue for
capital items, and so I'm going to turn it over to you at
this time.
MR. HENDERSON: Thank you, Judge and members of the
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Court. It's a pleasure to be here with you, as always. I
know you've got a long agenda, so I'm going to try to hit
this pretty quickly. But as always, I can get long-winded,
so feel free to interrupt me at any time with any questions
that you might have. I've handed out a package that has got
a preliminary budget in it. It's identified as the sources
and uses. Ms. Hargis was showing me the current rendition of
that budget. We know that we're continuing to get estimates
here and there, so that number is changing. But, basically,
assuming that the building the Court has been discussing
comes in around $850,000, and that the airport improvements
that has been, I think, discussed jointly with the City is
handled by other mechanisms, you'd be looking at around
$2,975,000 in tax notes. We are talking about tax notes,
which is the same thing the Commissioners Court did last
year. By definition, under the Constitution, the tax note
cannot have a maturity of greater than seven years, so you're
talking about borrowing money and paying it back very, very
quickly. Which, of course, keeps you on the -- the low end
of the yield curve, which is a fancy 5 o'clock news way of
saying pretty cheap interest rates, because you're borrowing
for such a short period of time.
The second page in this handout is what we call
a -- a tax rate impact analysis, and this is just on the
interest and sinking fund tax, that portion of your tax rate
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that's dedicated to repaying debt. And if I could walk you
through this spreadsheet very quickly, I think you'll --
you'll understand better where we're -- where were at and
where we're going. Column B is taxable assessed valuation.
The certified rolls that have been delivered to the County
', indicate an adjusted-for-freeze value of $2,850,000,000. We
have lowered the growth rate assumptions from what had been
used last year, because of the global economic crisis and of
course, the continuing impact of -- of the population getting
older, and us losing progressively more value every year to
the over-65 freeze. Columns C, F, G, and H all represent
currently outstanding debt obligations of the county, dating
back to 1994; the G.O. bonds, and then certificate of
obligation in '05, the capital lease in '06, and the series
'08 tax notes.
What you'll notice is that in each of the next
three, four years in a row, you are paying off old debt. And
in 2010, this current fiscal year, your series '05
certificates of obligation pay off. The following year, the
series '06 capital lease pays off. The year after that, 1994
bonds pay off, and then finally, in 2013, the series '08 tax
notes pay off. So, the County not only has a very modest
amount of debt outstanding, which, of course, is reflected in
your very good bond ratings, but what bonds that you have
outstanding pays off very quickly. That gives you a great
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deal of latitude with respect to meeting your future capital
improvement needs. Column K is an estimate of the '09 tax
I~~
notes. This, again, is based on the $2,975,000 that's under
~I
the previous page in terms of sources and uses. Again, a
final maturity of only seven years, because that's the
maximum that the Constitution allows you to do with tax
I notes.
And you can see that if you go over to Column P,
your tax rate, which is currently scheduled to be 4.96 cents
on your I.N.S. tax rate, and that's based on existing debt;
doesn't take into consideration any new debt at all. That
tax rate would basically stay the same, even after the
'~ issuance of the tax notes, at right at 4.95, 4.98 cents.
And, again, at the risk of being purely redundant, the reason
that is the case is because you do have debt that's paying
off in each of the next several years, so we're able to layer
this debt in and accomplish it without raising the I.N.S. tax
rate. The other thing that we've done in this -- in this
analysis is the Column M -- "M" as in Mary -- which has a
very hypothetical debt issuance out in 2013 in the amount of
$8 million. I know that this is very premature to be
discussing it at the commissioners court level, but part of
my job as financial adviser is to look long-term at what your
other needs are going to be, and we know that at some point
in time in the future, you're going to need to have another
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jail. Probably not going to happen in the next three, five
years. Ms. Hargis had indicated -- and the Sheriff's
standing right here and can speak for himself, but I
understood Ms. Hargis to say that it may be, according to the
Sheriff, five to seven years before you need another jail.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: With the way things are
currently going, I think that's a very real possibility.
Could be longer than that.
MR. HENDERSON: But the reason this jail figure is
included is just simply to see and to confirm that what you
do with respect to tax notes in 2009 will not interfere with
the latitude of the Commissioners Court to meet its future
needs. And that's the only reason it's here, is to
demonstrate that even with the possibility of a jail issue
several years down the road, we would still anticipate your
I.N.S. tax rate to either remain the same, or very likely
fall.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Could be the jail or
anything else that's capital.
MR. HENDERSON: Any other -- anything else that's
paid for out of ad valorem property taxes, yes, sir. The
subsequent pages are really just supporting documents. I
know how Commissioner Williams is in particular with respect
to understanding what the costs are up front, so -- he and I
have worked together a long time. So, the next page is an
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the Commissioners Court were to move forward, and the page
after that is a breakdown of the series '09 issue between
principal and estimated interest. We're showing 5 percent
now. In the interest of conservatism, we would anticipate
interest rates, if you were to sell the bonds by -- the tax
notes in the next handful of weeks, would be substantially
less than 5 percent, but we calculated to 5 percent just,
again, for planning purposes. And then the last page is the
$8 million for the jail out in 2013, with the first payment
in 2014. That is also run at 5 percent. Obviously, as
you've heard me say many times before, if I could predict
with accuracy what the interest rates would be, we'd be
discussing things from my satellite phone off my yacht in the
Caribbean somewhere.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Oh.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Or just talking to each
i
other while we're on your boat.
MR. HENDERSON: Yeah. But that could get us all in
trouble.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah.
MR. HENDERSON: But, anyway, I know I went through
that very quickly. I think the short analysis is, you have a
variety of needs, and you can certainly meet those needs with
the same type of short-term funding mechanism the County has
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utilized in the past, and do so without a tax rate increase
this year, nor the anticipation of a tax rate increase in the
future. The Judge did ask me, because we know that this
Sources and Uses statement is very preliminary, you know, if
we need more money because of the airport project, because of
this building, how much more money can we get without having
to worry about pressure on the tax rate? And -- and a quick
and easy answer is $250,000, $300,000 additional money. If
we need more than that, I can play with the numbers a little
bit. If we stretch the -- the jail financing out just one
year, from '013 to '014, that would give you the capacity to
issue $800,000 or $900,000 more money without having a tax
rate increase. So, I congratulate the Commissioners Court;
you know, the strategy that we've employed for the last
several years continues to give you a great deal of
flexibility to finance your needs without tax rate increases.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We've done that alongside
you, and appreciate it.
JUDGE TINLEY: Any questions for Mr. Henderson?
Bob, we thank you for all that you've done, and as
Commissioner Baldwin said, that a lot of the successes that
we've been able to have have been with your guidance and with
your assistance, and we appreciate that. You've always been
one to not play us a nice tune just 'cause you think that's
what we'd like to hear, but have played us the tune that we
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needed to hear for the true reality of our finances. And as
a consequence, as you say, we -- we've got a balance sheet
that's really enviable to a lot of counties and a lot of
local governments by virtue of the very, very low percentage
of debt that we're carrying, and -- and we appreciate your
efforts in helping us get there.
MR. HENDERSON: I appreciate it. I told the
Commissioners Court 25 years ago I was going to shoot
straight, 'cause I wanted to hang around, and here we've been
here 25 years.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We appreciate you very
much. What's the time frame, Bob, between time the Court
approves going forward and funding, roughly?
MR. HENDERSON: Roughly, six weeks.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay.
MR. HENDERSON: And that's -- we could sell it in
less than that, but in terms of money in the bank, six weeks.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Bond market holding up
pretty good out there?
MR. HENDERSON: It is. The -- the global financial
crisis continues to -- to remain volatile. In a conversation
with the County Auditor and County Judge just this morning,
we were talking about how things were looking very rosy in
the economy just ten days ago, but we saw some economic news
last week with inflation numbers, with housing starts, with
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consumer spending, that things may not pick back up as
quickly as we thought they would. You know, again, I say
"we." The -- the consensus thought was --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Conventional wisdom.
MR. HENDERSON: Conventional wisdom, 10 weeks -- 10
days, two weeks ago. But, ironically, for debt issuers such
as the County, that could actually be good news. We saw the
interest rates for several weeks trending up in anticipation
of a recovering economy, possibly in anticipation of
inflation induced by some of the federal government spending.
Some of the news in the last week has actually turned
interest rates back down a little bit. And a slow economy is
not good for a lot of reasons, but one positive aspect is, it
generally means low interest rates, and it generally means
favorable construction contracts.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Thank you.
JUDGE TINLEY: Anything else?
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: No.
I
JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you, Bob. We appreciate it,
and I'm sure we'll be in touch as things progress.
MR. HENDERSON: Okey-dokey.
JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you for making the trip up
here, and your work. Thank you very much. Okay.
Ms. Hargis -- Sheriff, where are we on your budgets? I know
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that you have been working closely with Ms. Hargis on all of
yours, and I think most of the kinks and nuances have been
pretty well worked out.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I think we had. One big
thing, if we take out what Ms. Hargis had taken out and put
it in the capital line item, my budget from last year to this
year drops 150,000. I think that's very key in there. One
thing I did misspeak about last week when we were in here, I
told you we had the grant for the five cars from AACOG. We
do not have that grant yet. We won't know until the end of
September, first part of October, is what they're saying now.
Clay and them had to even go back in and get back with the
Governor's office and do some things. We got a favorable
review from AACOG, but that doesn't mean that we're going to
get them.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Money's not in the bank
yet.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Money's not in the bank.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: What's the time frame working
on the Homeland Security grant? Two weeks? Three weeks?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Oh, no. The one with the
radios and everything in it?
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yes.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That one, we may not hear for
six to eight months.
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MR. BARYON: We don't present that until
September 23rd, and they'll make a determination several
months probably after that, be able to make a determination;
then it will go back to the Governor's office.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: So, what I'm recommending in
that is that we put that money in the -- in the capital
expenditure, but with the different departments that it
involves, especially with radios, being Animal Control, the
constables, and my office, is that they just have a caveat on
there, they can't spend it until we hear from that grant.
'Cause I think, you know, we stand a favorable chance of
getting that grant, 'cause it's the second half of one we got
last year.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Talking about vehicles? Or
talking about radios?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Radios.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What about vehicles?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: The vehicles, I won't know --
on the type that we put in for a grant, I won't know until
the end of September, first part of October.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: But are we going to -- are
you asking us to function, then, the same way? To put the
money in there, and you can't touch it unless --
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: No, because what I'm asking on
that -- I know it's mentioned, but if this capital
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expenditure is going to go out for two years, all right? I
currently have 26 vehicles with over 100,000 miles, several
of them with up to 198,000, 200,000. Twenty-six vehicles,
and not replacing any other ones for the two years after
this, I really think we need to take a -- a serious look at
our vehicle situation and get it back in line, which I would
like to -- to hopefully get the grant for five, and then put
10 in this capital expenditure, so that we would be replacing
a total of 15 vehicles.
JUDGE TINLEY: That's over a two-year period, the
10 you're talking about?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That's right.
JUDGE TINLEY: So, effectively, five each year.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That's right. So that we
wouldn't have to put any in next year either, because of the
capital expenditures.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I sure wouldn't put -- count
on putting any in next year.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: No, I wouldn't.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Somehow, next year, I
believe, is going to be a -- a lot worse year than the one
we're about to go into.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And that's exactly why
Ms. Hargis and I looked at it that way, and I think that
would be the best way that we can look at doing it.
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COMMISSIONER LETZ: Rusty, what if the -- I guess
how imminent -- how quickly do you need those radios
replaced?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Well, I'll put it this way;
I've got half the department that can't talk to Kerrville
JUDGE TINLEY: But your supervisors on each shift
can?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yes. My investigators cannot.
My warrants cannot. The -- most of the patrol can at this
point, okay? Narcotics, yeah, we had some in there. Mainly,
it's the investigators and the warrants and civil, and then
the constables and Animal Control. And I think it is -- but
to me, it is a bad situation, because I have even some times
they get on another channel that's got their deal scrambled,
and I can be right next to them and not hear them, and I
think that's dangerous on their part. Wish it could have
been a little bit better organized before they went digital.
And then on the 50,000 that's in there, that's to narrow-band
us, which we are on a time frame limit from the F.C.C. on
that.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: You're talking about Crown
Vics for the cars, not -- not Yukons?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I'm talking about Crown Vics,
although we have had some interest in somebody that may want
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to privately fund the upgrade, to upgrade some of those Crown
Vics to -- to the Yukons.
AUDIENCE: Tahoes.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Tahoes.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: To Yukons?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Like we have now. And I think
if they want to do that, that would be a big blessing,
because the resale price is a lot better.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: How about the -- the cameras
for the rape prevention law? This is --
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That can come out if you need
to take it out. What that is, is the federal government did
enact that several years ago. It's a Prison Rape Prevention
Act that says that anywhere an inmate could be sexually
assaulted, assaulted, anything else, you have to be able to
monitor that area. Our jail was built with no cameras inside
the cells, okay? So, that is a -- you know, that's
enacted -- they've got to come out by the end of this year,
first part of -- or January, federal government does, for the
plan to implement it. Now, when it first got enacted, they
sent several million dollars down to the states. I called
the Governor's office and said, "Okay, how do we apply for
this money?" And they said, "You do not. It's going to the
state prison system, not the county jails." So, that's where
we're at with it. It is going to hit us. We are going to
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have to do it. Whether it's going to be one year, you know,
two years, I don't know. But I thought it may be
advantageous for us to start looking at it. But that 150
could actually come out. That's just trying to look forward
and what could happen with the federal government.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Ms. Hargis?
MS. HARGIS: Yes, sir?
COMMISSIONER LETZ: With these numbers, there's
several items in here that maybe come from the grant or that
we could opt out of a little bit. How do we -- what do you
recommend is the way that we narrow the list down? I mean, I
don't see a whole lot on here that I totally disagree with,
or disagree with the need for them, but I may disagree with
the timing of them. So, you know, I don't want to
over-borrow.
MS. HARGIS: I understand.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: And I don't want to
under-borrow.
MS. HARGIS: Well, my -- my big apprehension here
is that we under-borrow. And we don't know about the 150,
but we do know that the building itself right now may or may
not -- I mean, the costs that I have on that is -- that Peter
Lewis gave me was $112 a foot for a 12,000 square foot
building, and then an additional $60,000 for the parking.
So, the -- I put the -- we can take the radios out, but if we
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don't get the grant, we do have a problem. But we can use
that money, then, to -- you know, if the airport goes over or
something, because this is a two-year look out. It's really
hard for me, even some of the departments, to know exactly
what they need to do. I think --
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: What I --
MS. HARGIS: -- you have eight air-conditioners
fixed on the top now. I believe it's eight. Tim just left.
I believe we have eight done. This probably will take care
of the rest of those.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: What I would recommend you
take out, if you want to take out something, is the --
MS. HARGIS: The rape --
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: -- 150,000 for those cameras
under the Rape Prevention Act, 'cause I just -- you know, we
haven't heard when they're going to force us to comply. And
we could work either small grants or different things to get
one or two cameras at a time, just to show that we are
working that way. I don't think we would have a problem.
And I'd just -- with our type of supervision we have in the
jail, I think we're doing good, anyhow.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Ms. Hargis? With respect
to the issue of the vehicles, --
MS. HARGIS: Yes?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: -- we're talking about --
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SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: There are three different line
MS. HARGIS: Mm-hmm.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: -- purchase of five
vehicles and equipment this current budget year, paying off
existing leases for the '08 leases of Tahoe and the Crown
', Vics, 88,000, and then an additional 190 for five cars in
2011. My question is, then there would be no lease payments
in the Sheriff's budget -- operating budget until when?
MS. HARGIS: 2012.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: 2012?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Right.
MS. HARGIS: Right.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay.
MS. HARGIS: And that also -- and we added one this
morning, actually, when the Judge and I were working with Bob
Henderson, and Roy Walston came by. We discussed whether or
not we should put -- and I added that line item to take the
van that we bought for him and pay it off as well. That way
we wouldn't have any lease payments for any vehicles for --
at least till 2012, which will -- those are our big-ticket
items, either leases or capital items. I also asked John,
and he just sent it to me, and I didn't add to it what he
thought, because the 307 for I.T. is strictly just for one
year. So, there are -- you know, the way the computers are
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kind of scheduled -- and, John, help me if I'm wrong, but
he's trying to change those out about every three to four
years so that our equipment stays fairly new. So, that --
that item -- but I believe by paying off all our vehicles in
this, that that is definitely going to free us up for two
years, and I think that's real important to do. And that's a
true capital expense.
The only -- I think, depending on -- I think you
want the video equipment, since we have the opportunity to
grab that grant. That's one-third, instead of paying 100
percent of that. There are some small items that we might be
able to, you know, put back in there, maintenance or
equipment. And I did put back the second vehicle for the
Maintenance Department. It was two -- it was two trucks, not
one. So, we have -- he says that he probably can do with two
small trucks instead of two big trucks, so that 30,000 will
probably be enough. Adult Probation has some extra money in
their equipment this year that they don't want to send back,
and so they have -- are looking into possibly buying those
Bobcat attachments for us. I just talked with him yesterday
about that, so we -- maybe we can remove that. The narrow
band, that 50,000, has to stay in.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: There's one other thing I told
the Judge that I'd get kind of an estimate on, and we did,
and that's putting in a fence for -- for our own impound yard
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on vehicles. That's what Kimble County did, and did real
well, and the rough estimate we got is 28,000.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Is it big enough for a
garden?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: No. But I don't know if y'all
MS. HARGIS: Some of the other things -- items at
the bottom, again, some of these smaller -- smaller items,
maybe we can incorporate back in. I mean, we're -- we're
basically balanced right now with $1,600 left; that's all
i I've got. So, there's not -- there's not much room for
putting much stuff back.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'm going to give you one,
since we branched off into an evaluation of this summary, and
that is the dredging of Flat Rock Lake, which we're
', anticipating will begin in October. I think we need to add
~~
50,000 in there for rental of capital equipment, most of
which we hope to recover, plus a bunch, but we have to fund
it up front.
MS. HARGIS: For a grant?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Pardon?
MS. HARGIS: For a grant on Flat Rock?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: For a what?
MS. HARGIS: For a grant.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: For equipment.
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COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah. Equipment, yes.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Leonard?
MR. ODOM: Sir?
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Can I ask a question of you,
sir? Under your -- this is various heavy equipment. In the
past, we have gone under a lot of leases, which are very
favorable, and then we paid off the lease and bought the
equipment at good rates afterwards. Is this outright
purchasing of equipment, or is it more kind of a
lease-purchase type?
i, MR. ODOM: I'm getting hard-of-hearing. What are
we talking about?
MS. HARGIS: On the equipment that you're buying
this year. Was that on leases, or did you just buy them
outright?
MR. ODOM: Buying outright.
MS. HARGIS: I think he has -- I think you paid off
your last lease this year.
MR. ODOM: I believe so.
MS. HARGIS: We don't have any more leases in his
department either.
MR. ODOM: I think when you look at my -- the
capital outlays, they went up, but I'm talking about leases;
it reduced down about 40-some-odd thousand off the top of
my --
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MS. HARGIS: Because of what we did with that 208
issue, we were able to buy him equipment even further than
two years. We looked out maybe five years on that.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I just want to make sure we
weren't getting any leases and all of a sudden be hit with a
buyout in three or four years.
MR. ODOM: Now's the time to buy, rather than
lease. We're not getting the leases that we used to get.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay.
JUDGE TINLEY: The old iron's pretty cheap now,
isn't it?
MR. ODOM: Well, they're stacking up -- that yellow
iron is beginning to stack up in some yards right now.
Particularly --
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I've heard that -- maybe you
told me, or maybe somebody else, that a lot of new E.P.A.
regulations are causing the price of heavy equipment to
really escalate.
MR. ODOM: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: We're trying to buy -- slip in
and buy some of this stuff before those new mandates come in
~ place?
MR. ODOM: Yes, sir, those Tier 1 through Tier 4
engines are going to -- they're running the cost up, and what
they're doing now is, we're starting to produce them and
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they're figuring it into a recovery. And those prices have
just -- some of them are really shocking.
'~i COMMISSIONER LETZ: That's what I heard. Really,
really jumped in prices.
MR. ODOM: Hasn't ended it yet. You just wait
until these EPA rules really start. Gasoline, everything's
really going to go out of sight.
MS. HARGIS: We were looking at the capital list.
i
We wanted to have a capital list that would take us for two
years and get us out of having things pop up again next year,
thinking that 2011 will be possibly -- and if you read the
paper, most everyone's saying it's going to be a worse year
than this year. So, trying to take the crystal ball and
decide, you know, we're buying things outright, getting rid
of leases, and incorporating it all in this one issue. And
the reason I left a little bit of play like I left the 150 in
there in case there is something, because once we go to the
market, we're done. We really can't go back. So, since it's
a two-year issue, there's a lot of variants out there. Keep
in mind, this is a -- a preliminary list. We don't have to
stick with this list. There's certain things, of course, we
will -- it's what we want. But there are other things that
are -- that are preliminary. But it at least gives you some
-- some leeway for the future. That's my only thing. And
the money is cheaper now than it will be in a year. And once
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MR. ODOM: And he -- probably the Sheriff needs to
buy the cars now, before things really -- I'm not -- I'm not
on his -- he didn't pay me. But I'm just -- I'm just telling
you that the vehicles are going to get out of sight.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. All right.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Maybe he can get some cash
for his clunkers.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yeah, I thought about that.
MS. HARGIS: We thought about that. We did.
JUDGE TINLEY: Not available to government, I
understand, though.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: No. One thing about it,
though, if we do take out the 150 for the Rape Prevention
Act, and then if we do get the grant for all the radios,
that's 300,000 coming out of that, but you'll have to borrow
the money first, you know. But it's 300,000 that we --
MS. HARGIS: But there could be something next year
that we don't -- can't anticipate.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Something may break.
MS. HARGIS: Yeah. I mean, we -- you know --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I've got a couple questions.
The building for the Adult Probation and Sheriff, --
MS. HARGIS: Yes, sir.
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COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- the 1.5, that's a little
higher than what we had talked about in the beginning. Is
that turnkey? Is that tables and chairs and curtains and --
MS. HARGIS: Peter Lewis tells me that he -- first
he called me and said 120.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Who told you?
MS. HARGIS: Peter Lewis, who temporarily has drawn
this. I worked with him on Friday, because the Judge was at
a seminar, and I was trying to work with the financial
adviser, and I needed as good a number as we could get. He
first started at 125, and I like to died, and so he called
some of the contractors, and they said a hundred -- 112 a
foot was a pretty strong number.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: This does not -- does not --
this is not a turnkey number?
MS. HARGIS: This does not have furniture in it.
It -- well, it has a little bit of extra. I mean, there's
about 75,000 extra in there.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you. You don't have
to go further. Now, the other question is, the one right
above that, the safety committee that kind of stumbled around
in here the other day, we've put 15,000 in there. Where did
that number come from?
MS. HARGIS: They originally asked for 25, and I
brought it down to 15. They're supposedly coming back to
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narrow that down and give us a list of the actual absolute
needed things that they have.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, that number could go up
or --
MS. HARGIS: Could go up, could go down.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. As long as we
understand that we're just pulling -- you know, as long as I
understand that we're just pulling numbers out of the air and
they can be adjusted later on, that's good.
MS. HARGIS: Remember, we're not -- that's the nice
thing about this issue, is that we're not tied down to
specific things. We're -- this is a kind of an estimate
based on different categories.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Do we have any idea what it
would -- I'm back on the building, Probation and Sheriff's
building -- what it would cost? Does anybody -- do y'all
have a clue about -- including furniture? I mean, are we
going to get the prison people to build furniture, or what --
what's the deal?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I would -- personally, I'd
recommend trying to look at T.D.C. on building furniture,
because that's normally a whole lot cheaper. It's not quite
as comfortable, but it sure holds up well.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Why aren't we addressing
turnkey now? I mean, I don't get it. Why --
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MS. HARGIS: Well, I would assume the Adult
Probation already has their -- their own desks and chairs and
stuff. Why would we want to --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Does this include doors? I
mean, I don't know what --
MS. HARGIS: No, it -- that's everything except
furniture, yes.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Is this it right here?
I Does --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: This number keeps going up;
it's about 50 percent higher than the last time I looked at
it.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah, it is.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: It doesn't include
furnishings?
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Doesn't include new
furnishings.
MS. HARGIS: Doesn't include new furniture. But
the Adult Probation, when I came here, just bought brand new
furniture for their offices, so I would assume that this
would be sufficient to carry over.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, they would be -- their
end would be turnkey.
MS. HARGIS: Right.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: We already have a lot of
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COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We don't have to furnish it
for Adult Probation; they have to take care of themselves.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: A lot of our furniture would
get moved over already anyhow. It's kind of the same as
Adult Probation; we're just moving it in.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, the answer to my
question about it being turnkey is, it --
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Be pretty close.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- it's ready to function,
move into and function with this. That's cool.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: How big's the building, 12,000?
MS. HARGIS: 12,000 square feet is what he told me.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: 12,000 square feet.
JUDGE TINLEY: That's the current number that we're
~, working on. And there's -- that plan is being reviewed and
refined, and could very well come out to be smaller than
that, too, with some efficiencies created by professional
help. Mr. Lewis is working on --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Is that throwing the Sheriff
out of it? Or --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Leaving him out.
JUDGE TINLEY: That's one possibility, always.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Make him stay away from the
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SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I haven't even touched that
drawing board, Commissioner. My chief -- I have my chief
touching that drawing board. I didn't touch it.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: He's been quiet.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: You're right.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Wonder how long that will
last.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Probably not long.
MS. HARGIS: The only -- the only thing that both
Bob and I agree on is that, because of the volatile market,
we don't -- we can't really wait too long, and we're
suggesting that we be ready to go to the market by -- you
know, get it ready to go by -- and sell by the lst of
October, close thereafter. Because the market is -- is
really strained, and we need to catch the good interest
rates. Some of these things, like if we're going to build
the building, we know it's going to take eight months. By
the time October gets around, we're down to six months. Even
if it's smaller, it's still going to take, as we all know, at
least six months to put it on the ground.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We're not under any time
constraints for use of the funds?
MS. HARGIS: No. We just --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Once -- once it's funded,
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MS. HARGIS: You have five years under the
arbitrage. We don't go under arbitrage here, because we're
not at five million, so -- five million is arbitrage. So, as
long as we spend it within five years, and we don't accrue
interest greater than what we get the note for, we'll be
fine.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And you can shift things
around as needed?
MS. HARGIS: Yes.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Depending on
circumstances -- current circumstances.
MS. HARGIS: As you may very well know, we still
have probably half of the money left from the first issue
that we did two years ago. We're still waiting on the
completion of that. But the arbitrage laws do come into
effect, and they do say -- they say three years, but if you
have a reason to go two more, so generally speaking, I.R.S.
will let you go five years. And -- and we'll have to do a
little letter showing I.R.S. we don't owe arbitrage, and
hopefully when they do the issue, they'll write a letter
saying that we don't owe it, but we have to be careful of
that. That's a real -- it's something that we didn't worry
about years ago, but it's -- it's looming out there. The
City has several issues that are arbitrage issues.
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32
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Would you repeat your
sentence about half the money that we did --
MS. HARGIS: We have about eight --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- year before last is still
I out there?
MS. HARGIS: We have about 800,000 remaining. Some
of those funds are earmarked; we just haven't gotten around
to it, that being -- the Ag Extension Services is almost
half.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And the windows, that's
~ part of that.
MS. HARGIS: And the windows, which are on their
way. So, a lot of the projects will be done. We also have
some more teleconferencing equipment that we're waiting on
right now. That's around 25,000. So, we have things out
there. We -- we're just waiting on them to get --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Where is the new phone
system in all of this mix?
MS. HARGIS: We hope it's in that 800 -- that
800,000.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: In the current -- in the
currently funded one?
MS. HARGIS: The currently funded one.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay.
MS. HARGIS: Because of the grounds coming in so
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much less than we anticipated, and the sprinkler system and
all of that, the windows are also coming in at less than we
budgeted, on the temporary bid that we've gotten from one
local phone company, we've got -- we have enough money to be
able to fund the phone system, and we definitely need that.
We are out of phone lines in this building. We are sharing
and giving away as we can. So, that's an option I'd really
like for us to look at in this next year, once we get the
windows in and we know that that's a firm cost. Even though
they bid them, you know, there's always change orders.
(Low-voice discussion off the record.)
MS. HARGIS: I actually have one that shows a
larger issue, and it goes up about -- but, again, we need to
push the jail bond issue out. It goes up about a half a
cent.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Our jail population, to be
straightforward, has been what it was 15 years ago. So, if
that stays, you know, and you can count on that, that would
be really nice. We could push that jail bond issue out a
long ways. And I ran some statistics the other day, wanting
to make sure it's because of the direct file and the fast
track issue. There have been 370-some-odd more arrests this
year than there was last year, and our population has dropped
by 63, so that tells me it is because of the fast-tracking.
JUDGE TINLEY: Number of indictments increasing
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SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I haven't looked at the
indictments. I looked at bookings into the jail. The number
of people actually coming in has increased over 370 people
this year alone, and that's one of the biggest increases
we've had in the last four years.
JUDGE TINLEY: Well, in looking at the fast-track
aspect of it, indictments may not be a true indicator,
because a lot of those cases are waiving indictments.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That's right.
JUDGE TINLEY: That's one of the advantages of
fast-track.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yeah. So, it has really been
-- you know, that's what I really wanted to make sure of, is
that we weren't also down in arrests that would account for
the -- for the down in inmate population, but we're way up in
I arrests.
JUDGE TINLEY: Do you currently have any Gillespie
County prisoners?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I have -- as of a little while
ago, when I ran the report, we have six right now.
JUDGE TINLEY: Six?
~~ SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: They are slowly bringing some
over. I don't think they want to -- to burn bridges with
25 ~ Comanche too quick. But at this point, just since we -- we
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have those, it's been right at $1,200 that Gillespie owes us
at this -- today, okay? So -- but that is a -- a --
JUDGE TINLEY: And they're handling all transport?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: They're handling everything.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Rusty, we had -- through the
years, we've had contracts with numerous counties.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I still do.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Are those still intact?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Technically, they are. Most
of those contracts were originally written right after the
jail opened, and then I rewrote them in 2000 after I took
office, and that's when we started housing most of them. But
there's been a lot of language, as we found out when we --
when we updated the one with Gillespie County, that needs to
be changed. But, yeah, there are still contracts with --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So --
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: -- Junction, Mason, Menard.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Uvalde.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Uvalde. I'd have to look and
see.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Whoever.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I would say yes, and they're
all under the $37 a day at this point. That's what they
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COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: But, you know, we had put
Fredericksburg at 30 inmates, is what we told them, so I hate
to -- to go with much more than that.
JUDGE TINLEY: On your other budgets, your jail and
courthouse security, --
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yeah.
JUDGE TINLEY: -- all those have been squeezed out
and thrashed out pretty much with the Auditor, --
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yes.
JUDGE TINLEY: -- from my understanding.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: The one thing that could
change, and it's just -- I hope to get that R.F.P. out next
week. I think the one place where we could save some money
also in that jail is going to be inmate meals. It may not
be, you know, $10,000 or $20,000, depending on that R.F.P.,
but that number could go down. Definitely wouldn't go up,
because we also, you know, get some of that back. But I
think that -- that that could help us. But other than that,
I think the budget really came in pretty slim, if you look at
it. I don't think we did anything. And the one thing I
would like to -- from what I understand, Judge -- you may
know more -- I know that the City did do a 2 percent COLA for
their employees. And if I cut -- moving that over to
capital, and that's 150,000 out, that's pretty close. And
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she said it was about 200? About 200, so if we came up with
another 50,000, that may be able to come up with a 2 percent
for the employees when y'all get to that point.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: How's your medical expense
with that contract? Is it holding about steady?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Oh, it's been -- we haven't
spent any of our revenues at -- you know, the extra we put in
for any of that. In fact, it's been way down. We -- a lot
of it is unforeseen savings in that, such as prescriptions.
Prescriptions, at one point, were running 6,000 a month,
okay? The first five months of this year, they ran 6,000.
That makes a major difference in employees being able to do
their job, and the nursing staff are passing out meds and all
that kind of stuff when you can cut that prescription bill
I down that much. Now --
COMMISSIONER LETZ: How is it cut -- I mean, how
was it cut back so much? 'Cause the --
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Because they have protocol,
and they get it in large quantities, and their doctor has to
follow their protocol. And they have a medical director,
just like Sid Peterson, and it's watched.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: So, they're not handing out as
~ many?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: They're not handing out near
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COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That's the point.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And it has been a blessing for
the whole jail. I mean, it --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: How will you handle medical
for prisoners you take in, for example, from Gillespie? Is
that charged back to them?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yes, all their medical will be
charged back to them. We're working with C.H.M. right now on
whether they want to keep it separate and bill Gillespie
themselves, which is in our housing contract that this could
be done, or whether we will keep it and send them a bill
along with the regular billing. We went to C.H.M., our
medical supplier, and I'm just waiting on an answer on how
they want to do that. But it is being kept separate, and
they will pay for medical, reimburse the county.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thank you, sir.
JUDGE TINLEY: Any other issues with any other
budgets?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: No. Only thing you'll see
that did go up is the overtime. I think if you look at that,
that's because of the holiday pay. We're trying to take care
of all that so we don't fight that, but that's --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I got a question on the
Sheriff's Department part of it.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Okay.
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COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Just tell me what -- the
bonds and insurance, I see, is zeroed out. Why is that?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Because bonds and insurance
are normally my bond at election time.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Only?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And you're the only person
that's bonded?
I' SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I think some of the other ones
may be over there, but it doesn't -- it comes out of a
different --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Not in this cycle? Comes --
comes out of a different deal or is a different cycle.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Probably on the cycle with the
I Sheriff.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: It probably is.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I thought you weren't going to
~ run again.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Sorry, you're not going to be
that lucky. I do plan on doing it at least once, maybe
twice. I heard some grumbling back there.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Is that a promise or a threat?
(Laughter.)
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Must have been my chief
~ grumbling.
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SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Do you want the -- in fact,
I'll give it to you. The 20,875 is just a rough estimate bid
~~~ on that impound yard, if you wanted to try and add that in.
ii JUDGE TINLEY: Does Ms. Hargis have a copy of that?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: No, she does not. This is the
only copy I have at this time. If you wanted to add that in.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think it's probably a pretty
good idea with the Sheriff, and I also -- is this an impound
yard, or is it fencing part of the back part of the property?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: No, it's an impound yard
around -- enlarging all that around the -- where that barn is
back there. It kind of goes straight back behind it to --
pretty close to the property line, and then straight up
I Schreiner College property line. It's as close as you can
get it, a little bit off the lines, 'cause that is that
ditch.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: What liability could we open
ourselves up to?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Well, Clay's researching that
at this time on what all it's going to take on the impound
yard part. Like --
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Hailstorms and things.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That's a good issue that we
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COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Needs to be looked at.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay.
MR. BARYON: The fence will not quite track the
property line because of the way the water drains through
that back area, so we have to kind of sit on it.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And this is actually just an
estimate. The fence design would be different once we get to
it.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 10-438.
MS. LAVENDER: Good afternoon.
JUDGE TINLEY: Crime Victims. How are you,
MS. LAVENDER: I'm good.
JUDGE TINLEY: Virtually -- virtually all of yours
is -- is paid for through a grant.
MS. LAVENDER: Correct.
JUDGE TINLEY: We do match somewhat through
insurance and some other minor issues, and then we pay a
5 percent as a supervisory --
MS. LAVENDER: Right. What we decided --
JUDGE TINLEY: -- or what?
MS. LAVENDER: Yeah. Ms. Hargis and I decided
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that -- you know, I spend quite a bit of time on the
community plan, and also on the newspaper writing that we've
I been doing as a contract labor thing. We reduced that amount
and rolled it over into this match. And so, actually, that
match will cover the newspaper, the time I spend on the
community plan, and indigent health care.
JUDGE TINLEY: But it will also qualify as a match?
MS. LAVENDER: It will also qualify as part of the
match, yes.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And that's the way it --
was it reviewed?
MS. LAVENDER: Well, I haven't talked to him about
that part of it, but I'm sure it'll be fine, yeah. And I
don't think we'll have a problem, because the insurance is
almost the match by itself, so it's just an additional thing.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay.
~I
', COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay.
~' JUDGE TINLEY: Do you have any issues with anything
else that's in there? I know we had to adjust one because --
MS. LAVENDER: Right.
JUDGE TINLEY: We were going to adjust that.
MS. LAVENDER: Now, if you get down to a
belt-tightening thing, this 438-426, local mileage, you can
probably have that back too. 'Cause, actually, I only make
like two trips to AACOG, and I can probably handle that. And
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that's --
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay.
MS. LAVENDER: You can have that.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay.
MS. LAVENDER: If you need it.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: We always need it.
MS. LAVENDER: Okay.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We'll take it.
MS. LAVENDER: Okay. You can have that 150 back.
It's not much, but --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Every little bit helps.
MS. LAVENDER: Every little bit helps.
JUDGE TINLEY: You got that? Okay. Anything else?
MS. LAVENDER: No.
JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you, ma'am. Let's go to
Indigent Health Care. Gosh, if there's a bright spot --
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Let's hope that's it.
JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. Yeah.
MS. LAVENDER: This is the bright spot.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What number is that?
MS. LAVENDER: It' 50 -- Fund 50. You need to
switch funds. 50.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: 50-641.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What?
COMMISSIONER LETZ: 50-641.
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JUDGE TINLEY: Fund 50.
MS. LAVENDER: As you can see, there's a
considerable reduction in this year's budget from -- or next
year's budget from this year. I just need to remind you that
state law requires that we pay up to 8 percent of our total
tax revenue, and this is considerably less than that
8 percent. In the budget, there's two areas that I'm a
little bit uneasy about, but I think as long as we all
understand that if we go over, nobody's going to be mad, and
everybody's going to say, "Oh, yeah, yeah," when we have to
add a little money to it. One is in the prescription drugs,
i
because you -- our projected year-end this year is 61,000,
and we've only put 36,000 in the budget. And I didn't do
this; the Judge did it, so I'm not real sure why we dropped
it that much. I'm a little concerned about that. Even
though our new prescription plan, I think, is saving us some
', money, I'm not sure we have enough data yet to drop it that
far. And the other one is the hospital outpatient, which is
the emergency room costs, and we've dropped it. The actual
projected year-to-date is 199, and we dropped it to 180. And
I'm -- I'm not -- not saying that we need to add to it. I
just need to be sure that you all are cognizant that if we go
over in either one of those, that we're going to have to come
back to you and ask you to put some more money over into
those two line items for next year. The rest of it is good.
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COMMISSIONER LETZ: I would --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Where do you see us
finishing the year this year?
MS. LAVENDER: Now, I haven't looked at the -- see,
our budget year actually ends September lst. I think we're
still going to be under -- or right at 600,000, which is less
than 50 percent of what we were last year.
JUDGE TINLEY: We're talking about all costs there,
administrative fees --
MS. LAVENDER: All costs, right.
JUDGE TINLEY: Everything.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Everything.
MS. LAVENDER: Yeah. And the Sheriff's discussion
about the jail costs have a pretty big impact on this budget
too, bringing some of those jail medical costs back in line
where they should be. I think he needs some credit for
having gone out and found that company to contract with,
'cause that's made a pretty big difference too this year.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Hate to do it too high. I
mean, I don't -- are you happy with it?
JUDGE TINLEY: I was obviously looking at some
historical data when I set the prescription drugs. I do know
that Dawn has -- she continues to try and eliminate people,
eligibility of folks, but she's giving them good
alternatives. A lot of those people she's rolling onto
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disability rolls of Social Security, in which case we're
getting some revenue items to offset that.
MS. LAVENDER: And we're getting a lot of money
back; we've gotten a lot of money back this year from people
JUDGE TINLEY: That's not reflected in what you're
seeing here. But it's not that she's had a good year, and
this is the end of it. She continues to --
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right.
JUDGE TINLEY: -- slowly chip away at this thing,
and -- and manages to be successful on a very frequent,
regular basis.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What contributes to --
Mr. Trolinger maybe can answer this. What contributes to the
cost of software maintenance for our Indigent Health Care?
MS. LAVENDER: It's our software program that we
have to log into in our computer. And it's a set program
that's -- we have to have it to be able to do the program.
It's a --
MR. TROLINGER: It's a hosted service, and it's an
annual cost. They host it. They provide all the
infrastructure, and we pay them for that annually.
MS. HARGIS: They keep all of the drug costs and
everything there and flag it, and when we put something in,
if it's wrong, it flags it. I mean, it tells us how much
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we're going to pay. It's -- I would refer to it as kind of
like doing Blue Cross/Blue Shield. You put in the number and
then we pay "X." So -- and they keep that updated with our
contract. We don't have to worry about that. And so it --
it's --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: It's a valuable tool.
MS. HARGIS: Essentially, I guess --
MS. LAVENDER: We couldn't do without it. It
I wouldn't be --
MS. HARGIS: And they provide training, as well,
two or three times a year to our people. So --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay, thank you.
MS. HARGIS: That's used by my office and her
I office.
JUDGE TINLEY: Ms. Lavender, the 36,000 on
prescription drugs, is that realistic, or do we need to make
some adjustments?
MS. LAVENDER: I'd like to see us adjust it up to
45, since we -- year-to-date right now, we've done 42,301. I
really think we need to at least get it close to where we
are, 40 to 45, somewhere along in there. I don't think
there's a problem with the hospital outpatient; I think, you
know, that one's close enough, but I'd really like to see us
add a little bit to the drug.
JUDGE TINLEY: And your year-to-date now is what?
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MS. LAVENDER: The year-to-date is 42,301. And
that was as of August 31st, so we haven't, you know, got this
II month yet. But we considerably reduced our drug prescription
I
costs with these $4 -- whatever they are, prescriptions,
and -- and having people go to one provider that's got the
I good drug plan.
JUDGE TINLEY: What portion of this past -- of your
past fiscal year was that --
adopted?
July.
MS. LAVENDER: In place?
JUDGE TINLEY: -- that plan in place that we
MS. LAVENDER: February 1st.
JUDGE TINLEY: So, there were --
MS. LAVENDER: February, March, April, May, June,
JUDGE TINLEY: Four, five.
MS. LAVENDER: Yeah, six months.
JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah.
MS. LAVENDER: August.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: So, we actually --
JUDGE TINLEY: Five -- you got five months, then,
that we were under the old plan.
MS. LAVENDER: Right.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: That might be enough savings
25 ~ built in right there.
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MS. LAVENDER: May be enough.
~ JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah.
MS. LAVENDER: Well, let's leave it like it is,
just with the understanding that if we get --
JUDGE TINLEY: I know if we add 9,000, Ms. Hargis
is going to go wringing her hands. She said she had, what,
6,000 to play with? Or --
MS. HARGIS: 1,600.
JUDGE TINLEY: 1,600.
MS. LAVENDER: Let's just leave it alone, then, and
hopefully we'll be fine.
JUDGE TINLEY: We're going to let you sleep
tonight, Ms. Hargis.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: She's got 1,750; Rosa gave back
I 150 .
JUDGE TINLEY: Oh, okay. You can sleep real good
~ tonight.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's just made the whole
thing work.
JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you.
MS. LAVENDER: Thank you.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay, D.P.S. Corporal Olive, how
are you this fine day?
CORPORAL OLIVE: I'm fine. How are you?
JUDGE TINLEY: I think okay.
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CORPORAL OLIVE: It's air-conditioned in here; it's
good.
JUDGE TINLEY: 10-580. I don't think we have many
issues there, do we, Ms. Hargis?
MS. HARGIS: No.
JUDGE TINLEY: We're going to let you get a new
flashlight next year.
CORPORAL OLIVE: Appreciate that.
JUDGE TINLEY: With batteries.
CORPORAL OLIVE: We actually -- on the 580-485,
we've got travel-conference, and we had $500 in there last
year. We'd like to just -- we want to give that back. We
don't -- don't anticipate needing it.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay, we'll take it.
CORPORAL OLIVE: If we could just kind of keep
status-quo, we're perfectly happy.
JUDGE TINLEY: You've come with the right attitude.
You're welcome back any time. (Laughter.) Anything else?
CORPORAL OLIVE: No, sir. What can we do for
y'all?
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: How can you tear the cable
down?
CORPORAL OLIVE: I've sent several cars out there,
and haven't -- every time we tear it down, they put it back
up. But --
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COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Why don't they leave it down?
CORPORAL OLIVE: Yeah. Well, I can tell you,
~~ they're fixing to start in Kimble County; it's going to be a
~I statewide deal.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: They're going to do Kimble
', County too?
CORPORAL OLIVE: All the interstates in the state.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: This is crazy.
CORPORAL OLIVE: Well, you know, there's some
places out there where you have these small medians, and they
are problems.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah.
CORPORAL OLIVE: The argument I had was that I'm --
~i
I'm now in my 15th year here in Kerr County, and we've yet to
have an incidental crossover resulting in a fatality. And
that's what they're trying to shut gown, because we got such
wide medians.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah.
CORPORAL OLIVE: Our crashes have increased,
because what before was not a crash, somebody slid to a stop,
now is a crash. Which all of our insurance rates are going
to go up, because they base that on number of crashes in the
county. It's -- you know, yeah, I agree, if it saves a life,
okay, but the problem was, we haven't had that problem.
Y'all don't have armed security in here all the time, and
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realistic.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I was -- on that note, I went
to Dallas this past weekend; they've got it along the road,
but part of that, it's right on the shoulder on one side. I
mean, to me, it's really dangerous. I mean, it's bad enough
having it down the middle, but this is -- it's right on the
shoulder.
CORPORAL OLIVE: That was one of the first ones
that they came up with, and they weren't thinking about it.
I mean, they did at least put some thought in ours; they
don't have them right there on the shoulder where they bounce
them back into the road. The mowing, the labor increased
greatly on -- on what they're having to now pay the
employees, because they're having to go along with -- you
know, some of them didn't have mow strips. If there's a mow
strip, they can do it with just a tractor. Some of them are
out there with a weedeater. It just shot it through the
roof. It wasn't a well-thought-out idea.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What's the turnaround
interval where you can turn around?
CORPORAL OLIVE: It depends. The longest one we've
got is two and a half miles.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: You said it was three.
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-_ _.
MS. HARGIS: Yeah, you said it was three.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Our resident speeder back there
said it was three. (Laughter.)
JUDGE TINLEY: She's got a timer on her -- on her
cruise control, and it automatically cuts off, you know,
every so often so that her speed drops. Incidentally, her
license number, if you'd like to have it...
CORPORAL OLIVE: Yes, sir, go ahead. (Laughter.)
We did get them to increase the width in between the bridges
where we can turn around. It wasn't so much for us, but just
emergency vehicles; try to get a fire truck through there so
we can get the jaws of life on each side, or an ambulance,
but it has created some big headaches. So, we deal with the
cards we're dealt.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: And our revenues are down
too.
CORPORAL OLIVE: No doubt.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: You're not able to give as
many tickets.
CORPORAL OLIVE: No doubt. Part -- part of that
for this year is, we've been -- we've been a man short,
because we've had one that's been displaced. We'll get him
back and that will help some, but a lot of it is that. I
mean, you know, I can see one and I -- I can tell you what
the driver looks like. I can almost read the license plate,
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CORPORAL OLIVE: Yeah
me.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Wave at you and speed up.
CORPORAL OLIVE: Yeah, and not use all their
fingers. (Laughter.) But we appreciate what y'all do for
us, and if there's anything we can do, just let us know.
JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you, corporal. We appreciate
it. Okay, Road and Bridge?
MR. ODOM: Yes, sir.
JUDGE TINLEY: We've hashed and thrashed yours
pretty good, too.
MR. ODOM: I'm ready. Any questions?
JUDGE TINLEY: You always are.
MR. ODOM: May I say -- interject something here?
I was looking at what y'all gave me, was a 125,000 increase,
and if you look at that, that's a 4 percent increase over
last year. However, 83,000 of that is insurance, and the
rest of it has to do with petroleum prices, auto, all
operating supplies, tires. All that is reflected, and that's
a 1 percent increase, is what I actually figured. The other
83,000 is group insurance and vehicle insurance, I have no
25 I control over.
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JUDGE TINLEY: Leonard, since the first year you
and I went over your budget very, very much in detail, I've
never had a problem with your budget. Now, exactly why your
numbers are what they are --
MR. ODOM: I know why they're there, and my capital
outlays are up this year over last year; however, I'm
trying -- I'm asking the Court to let me get it now. It's
pay now or we're going to pay later, and it's going to be a
whole lot more.
JUDGE TINLEY: What do you see fuel prices going
to?
MR. ODOM: Fuel prices within the -- well, they're
going up, and I'm going to guess that we're somewhere in the
neighborhood of 50 and 25 cents increase in the next year,
just in diesel. Right now, gasoline -- it flip-flopped, and
diesel's down below. And I see diesel going back up again,
and probably over the next three to five years, with this low
sulfur, I think fuel consumption's going to be worse, or
mileage is going to be worse, so it'll be up. And I think
they're going to reflect that in the price of petroleum
products. If they can't sell it or they cut back for clean
air, they're going to pass the cost on, and that's what
they're doing right now. They're starting this right now.
JUDGE TINLEY: Has this new lower sulfur diesel
created any maintenance problems with you because of the --
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MR. ODOM: I've had several.
JUDGE TINLEY: -- lower amount of lubricant?
MR. ODOM: We have the octane boosters that we're
JUDGE TINLEY: Seals?
MR. ODOM: Well, we don't know exactly what it is.
It's just losing compression and -- and power. I had two of
them. And -- and some of them are under warranty, and they
still can't figure out what the problem is. So, I -- I
don't -- I just see the older stuff is going to run, and we
just have to put the additive to it. We take that additive
and we put it in our tanks when we start to fill them up, so
it's automatically put into it as they dispense the fuel,
whether it's diesel or gasoline. Try to keep it up, the
octane, so we can get our -- our horsepower out of it.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Leonard?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Leonard --
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Go ahead.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Leonard, in your budget,
you show 308,700-some-odd for capital -- capital equipment,
and in the notes you list what that is. That is separate and
apart from what Ms. Hargis has prepared for capital projects
on the side? Or is there some duplication here?
MR. ODOM: Well, I'm not quite sure what Ms. Hargis
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had.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I just want to be sure
there's not duplication.
MR. ODOM: This is mine right here. That's my
capital outlays for 308,000.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. Well, in the
notes -- in your notes on 308, okay, you talk about a -- a
250-gallon oil tank, pneumatic post driver, maintainer --
MS. HOFFER: That's last year's.
MR. ODOM: That's last year's.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's last year's? Why
would it be in --
MR. ODOM: I'm sorry, I don't know.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. That takes care of
that question.
MR. ODOM: Everything that I have is $308,784.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, then -- then the
question is, then your capital outlay for the ensuing year is
going to be over a half million dollars; is that correct?
MR. ODOM: No, 308,000.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Then what have I got?
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: 227 in the capital outlay
program here.
MS. HARGIS: That, I think, needs to come out of
there.
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MS. HOFFER: 227,000 was last year's capital
MR. ODOM: Yeah, sounds like it.
MS. HOFFER: Our current budget year right now --
MR. ODOM: Yeah, that should be this year's.
MS. HOFFER: -- was 227.
COMMISSIONER	WILLIAMS:	That's	a major	swing.
COMMISSIONER	OEHLER:	That is a	major	swing.
MS. HARGIS: I'll fix that.
JUDGE TINLEY: Maybe you won't get any sleep
I tonight, Ms. Hargis.
MS. HARGIS: Well, that took it out of the big --
MR. ODOM: I'll be more than happy to substitute
those trucks, go back and get more trucks. But the only
thing that I have for capital outlay is -- on this budget is
$308,000 and some-odd cents -- 784. This 227, I don't see
that reflected.
'i COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Just various heavy equipment
for Road and Bridge.
MS. HARGIS: Yeah, that's the wrong number. That
is the wrong number.
MR. ODOM: Okay.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That comes out of the bond
issue?
MS. HARGIS: That -- that needs to go into -- I
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mean, the difference, it needs to go into the issue, and then
probably the difference between the 337, because the pole
barn is his as well. We just picked up the wrong number. I
can't --
JUDGE TINLEY: Need to add 80,000 there, don't we?
MS. HARGIS: No. That's just going to make his
budget better, 'cause he stands alone.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What I'm getting at is,
we're really over -- we're overcapitalizing here.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well, his budget --
MS. HARGIS: His budget will go down. His budget
will go down by 308. I thought we removed them all, but
apparently we missed one.
(Low-voice discussion off the record.)
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay, thank you.
JUDGE TINLEY: The option would be to let his
budget carry his own capital, since he's on a different tax
structure. Ms. Hargis?
MS. HARGIS: Yes, sir?
JUDGE TINLEY: The option would be to have Road and
Bridge capital --
MS. HARGIS: Stay in there?
JUDGE TINLEY: -- stay under Road and Bridge
budget, because that comes with a different tax structure.
That may be -- I'm not suggesting that that's absolutely what
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versatile position here.
MS. HARGIS: I need to look at his bottom line
MS. HARGIS: He's in a better position than we are
in the general fund, just because of the collections of
the -- the criminal fines are going towards him, because
that's the way that they're structured. The -- also, the --
there was more tax collected than I budgeted in his line
items, so he is -- his fund balance is stronger, and it will
be stronger than ours. But I just need to check it, 'cause
he needs a fund balance of around a half a million to
600,000. I want to maintain that. So, let me check that and
then I'll bring that back.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Leonard? Do you have the -- in
the contract services item, I guess, where you have it, the
right-of-way acquisition at Hermann Sons?
MR. ODOM: Well, that is one thing that I had in
mind. I wasn't quite sure what we had, but up front, that is
one thing I had thought we would --
COMMISSIONER LETZ: That's -- I mean, considering
that's a TexDOT project, that's pretty much a go, from what I
understand, with the kickoff sometime --
MR. ODOM: Sometime September or October, maybe.
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COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well, I think it will be a bit
I think
sure. Well --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: All the left turn lanes?
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Left turn lanes from Wilson
Creek to the county line. And also, the --
MR. ODOM: Clearing the right-of-way on Lane
Valley.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: -- Lane Valley issue is part of
I that -- some of that.
MR. ODOM: Part of that was in there, yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: The number looked like it could
be -- 45,000?
MR. ODOM: 45,000 to rent some equipment. We'd
probably do a lot of the work ourselves, maybe have a vendor
do it. Sort of depends how much we have to do. Some of
those hills, I may want somebody else to --
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay.
MR. ODOM: -- cut that hill.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. You think there's enough
I there?
MR. ODOM: I sort of think there's enough there.
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MR. ODOM: Now, the only other thing that I don't
have is the Schreiner Trust Fund, and the question to me
there was, what would I use? But -- and there was two
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Mm-hmm.
MR. ODOM: And that was 25,000, 15 and 10 for that.
But I'd like -- those are still -- they're not dirt, they're
gravel. I don't have any dirt roads any more; I have all
gravel, but I was thinking of trying to complete those with
Schreiner Trust Fund.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay.
MS. HARGIS: This is --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Refresh my memory. What is
the west-end project?
MR. ODOM: West-end project is Weatherby, Broken
Spur. I have been trying to complete Weatherby from Lower --
Lower Reservation to the county line, and that's been an
ongoing process out there. It's been a mile at a click for
each budget. I have the last part to do, is what I envision,
and then the last mile is in good shape right up to the
county line to Kimble County. So, that will be next budget
year that I should be able to complete that. Within three
budgets, this one and then two more, I envision all that area
to be complete, Weatherby all the way to I-10. And --
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COMMISSIONER OEHLER: You're just lacking, really,
1 mile in there?
MR. ODOM: One mile on Weatherby, and then that
last one past Sherrill's place right there is in good shape.
Pull that together next budget year, not this one we're
~ planning.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: It's still in good shape.
MR. ODOM: It's in good shape.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thank you.
MS. HARGIS: If you look at what she has up on the
screen right now, this is the actual items. He didn't use a
note this year. He used the -- the -- what they call the
detailed maintenance area. But this is the items, and if you
want to click on that yourselves, if you'll go to the capital
line item and go to the center column that has the grid and
click on that, you can see them.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You lost me.
MS. HARGIS: Okay.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I see it.
MS. HARGIS: If you click on that right there.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: This right here?
MS. HARGIS: Mm-hmm.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you.
MS. HARGIS: You can see the detail and you can
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actually scroll down with the bar there and see the --
everything he has.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Oh, okay. That's -- okay,
I 308 .
MS. HARGIS: A lot of the people used that this
year instead of the notes.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Got you.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: We're going to leave this in
his budget?
JUDGE TINLEY: Well, that's a possibility. He may
be -- he may be able to carry it in his budget because of the
structure of his tax allocation.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Probably can, because of
getting rid of all that other stuff.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: His leases go way down.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: So that could -- that could
take -- now, it's possible that the 227 could come out of
this. That's the number we were needing to make this work.
JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Pretty close, isn't it? Have
to remove the things that...
(Low-voice discussion off the record.)
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay, any other questions for
Leonard? Have you got any issues with us?
MR. ODOM: No, sir.
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JUDGE TINLEY: About what's in there now?
MR. ODOM: No, sir, none whatsoever.
JUDGE TINLEY: We thank you.
MR. ODOM: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Thank you.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. County Clerk.
MS. PIEPER: Mine's very simple, if you have any
questions.
JUDGE TINLEY: I think you also have -- you've got
with Ms. Hargis, and there's been quite a bit of back and
forth and resurrecting and so forth.
MS. HARGIS: Jannett was kind enough to reduce some
of her items for us when I requested that.
MS. PIEPER: On the deputy salary line items, even
though we are down because we've had a couple of the
higher-paid people either retire or resign or get terminated,
I do have yet a couple of A.O.P. certifications, increase for
certifications for the office. And then we have two that are
getting longevity for the year, but that's already figured
in.
JUDGE TINLEY: Did you say A.O.P.?
MS. PIEPER: Acknowledgment of Paternity. It's a
state law that anybody that deals with birth certificates and
stuff have to be certified by the state.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Because folks come in there
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in your office acknowledging paternity of children, and it
requires some special training and certification. Okay.
MS. PIEPER: That is correct. And right now, we
have three of them in the office that are certified, and
without that, then we can't speak to the person. We have to
send them --
JUDGE TINLEY: We got three of them, so there's no
lines, no waiting, huh?
MS. PIEPER: Right -- well, right.
JUDGE TINLEY: All those wanting to acknowledge
paternity, step right up, huh? (Laughter.) Do you ever have
any waiting in line?
MS. PIEPER: Not on that subject, we haven't, to my
knowledge.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay, thank you.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Probably not.
MS. PIEPER: But we do have them -- when they come
in, then one of the deputies will take them to a side room,
and it usually lasts for a little while, so it kind of puts
that deputy out of commission for a short while.
JUDGE TINLEY: There's some sort of admonitions
that are required to be given and so forth about the severity
of what's taking place and the legal effects and all that
other good stuff, huh?
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MS. PIEPER: Mm-hmm.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Any other issues?
I
MS. PIEPER: Not on that, but on budget -- well, I
take it back. The telephone I increased $50 a month because
of the way that the auditors are now calculating the bills,
the telephone bills. And because I have more phones in my
office than most, then my phone bill's a little bit higher
than most. So, that's the only increase.
JUDGE TINLEY: But that's something you worked out
with Ms. Hargis because of how you crunch that number? I
remember --
MS. PIEPER: I didn't work it out with her; I just
figured it out. That's basically what it is averaging to be,
is $50 more a month.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay.
MS. PIEPER: So, instead of other offices paying
it, it's now in my budget.
JUDGE TINLEY: What are you showing to be the
number? That is the number that's up there now, correct?
MS. PIEPER: Scroll up some. Yes, that is correct.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Anything else?
MS. PIEPER: No.
JUDGE TINLEY: Ms. Hargis, do you have any more
questions or concerns about her basic budget?
MS. HARGIS: No, the Clerk's budget looks good.
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JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. You've got two or three
others to look at here.
MS. PIEPER: Yes. The Records Management budget,
other than just the salaries and group insurance and
retirement -- I don't have any control over that --
everything is staying the same as far as the storage and
continuing education, and no capital outlay.
JUDGE TINLEY: Pretty much static, then, on that
one?
MS. PIEPER: Yes.
JUDGE TINLEY: Any questions?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: How's your revenue holding
up?
MS. PIEPER: My revenue's doing good. I -- Cheryl
and I crunched numbers last week, and I'm right on track.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Good.
JUDGE TINLEY: Looks like Cheryl may have got into
the way of the crunching.
MS. PIEPER: No, she crunched it before.
JUDGE TINLEY: Oh, okay.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That's what happens when you
go under the knife.
JUDGE TINLEY: I just thought it was one of those
crunche-s. Okay.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Collections.
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JUDGE TINLEY: Collections is over in Tax Assessor
now. You've got a couple other special funds.
MS. PIEPER: I have the 41, the records archival.
JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah.
MS. PIEPER: I'm -- I had sent an e-mail out
requesting feedback over possibly having eDoc come in and
scan more of my documents, and just pay them out over a
period of four or five years. And so I'm still actually
working on the actual numbers that I need, but for this
budget, I put in 80,000.
JUDGE TINLEY: And you've got adequate funds in
that particular dedicated account?
MS. PIEPER: Yes.
JUDGE TINLEY: Do you recall what the balance is?
MS. PIEPER: No. This -- this 80,000 -- I don't
know what the balance is, but this 80,000 is what I figure
it's going to be coming in for the budget year. I don't
think -- if I have -- if I have any left, it's not much.
MS. HARGIS: What fund are you talking about, 28?
MS. PIEPER: 41.
(Low-voice discussion off the record.)
JUDGE TINLEY: Any more questions on that one?
Okay. Then there's --
MS. HARGIS: There's 59,535 in there right now.
JUDGE TINLEY: Oh, okay. You got a pretty good
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requesting any money out of that one.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay, I'm glad. Ms. Uecker should
be happy to hear that.
MS. PIEPER: On this -- the 41 account, though, I
will have to do a public notice, so on our next agenda, I do
have an item to set the public hearing for the records
archival. I sent that to her already, so she's is aware of
it.
~' JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Okay. Anything else on her
budgets? Wonderful. Thank you, ma'am.
MS. HARGIS: Judge, if we can go back to Road and
~ Bridge?
JUDGE TINLEY: Uh-oh.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What?
JUDGE TINLEY: You waited till Leonard left; you're
going to ambush him now.
MS. HARGIS: No. I'm not real comfortable with
that. That leaves him with a fund balance of 378,000. 378,
and I'd prefer having closer to a half a million. So, even
if we don't fund all of it, I think we need to fund part of
it, maybe 150,000 of it.
JUDGE TINLEY: That's about half of it. Give us --
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well, it gives us some options to work with, is what's
important at this point.
MS. HARGIS: Yeah.
JUDGE TINLEY: And let's keep that one open for now
as we watch this capital number continue to evolve.
MS. HARGIS: Okay.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Juvenile Probation.
MR. DAVIS: Afternoon, Judge, Commissioners.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Hi, Jason.
JUDGE TINLEY: The -- that budget has taken a
dramatic increase, primarily because of two things. One is
that our alternative housing -- or call it detention costs,
if you prefer -- has really gone through the roof. And the
'', second is that some of those costs that were previously borne
by the State, they have now bailed out on us and have shifted
i over --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No.
JUDGE TINLEY: -- to the County. Yes.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I find that hard to believe.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That is really something.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. Can't believe it.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: If the State doesn't get you,
the feds will.
JUDGE TINLEY: That -- yeah.
MR. DAVIS: Well, it's a combination of both,
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JUDGE TINLEY: We pass them together.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Depends on which one of them
gets you the most.
MR. DAMS: Yes, sir. Only 2 and a half percent
from the -- from the State. They only cut us by about 2 and
a half percent. We have lost, at a minimum, $100,000
annually from the feds that we -- that we were previously
claiming. We hoped to recoup some of that, hopefully as much
as 20,000. They're saying 20 percent of what we had prior to
', the loss of the IV-E program, is we can hope for possibly
20 percent back, the loss of IV-E that the State cut. So,
obviously, the increase in the number of referrals being a
significant factor, the Sheriff had mentioned previously that
his jail had been a little bit busier. I can tell you that
our numbers of referrals, depending on the time frame that
I'm looking at, best case scenario is about a 24 percent
increase in numbers of referrals. Worst case scenario is
probably about a 43 percent increase. Most of this budget is
going to include about a 30 percent increase, 30 to
36 percent, but 30 really is kind of the number I was looking
at when we were projecting out costs for the upcoming fiscal
year.
JUDGE TINLEY: What percentage of the detention
costs -- placement costs, if you would -- are preadjudication
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MR. DAVIS: I can tell you that. Just to give you
an example, give you -- answer that two ways. Number one, in
my FY 2010 budget allocation sheets that I just sent off to
the state, to T.J.P.C., I allocated and attempted to spend
all Kerr County funds -- allocate those for Kerr County, and
some had not previously been done. And then all state funds
j that were received for placement, try to use those for actual
placement and not for preadjudication, as the Judge
indicated. Looking at current fiscal year, which ours begins
September 1, our costs for, let's see, residential placement
are going to be $333,810. This is going to be from
September 1 of '08 to July 31 of '09. During that same time
period, our postadjudication placements, meaning after a
finding of guilt and then the child is sent off somewhere,
that cost is going to be about $215,000.
JUDGE TINLEY: So, we're talking about 60 percent
or a little bit more of those funds go out here?
MR. DAVIS: Correct. And the way that I'm trying
to structure for 2010 is that the alternative housing costs
that is coming from this Court goes to that facility, not to
some other facility. It's been -- the idea in the past has
been -- at least my idea was, spend all of the state money
absolutely first before we touch any county money, and I'm
still going to try to do that. But what I don't want to do
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is get into a situation where we have -- you know, is where
the last two months of the fiscal year, we're having to pay
all of our costs -- not only having to cover costs for Kerr
County Juvenile Facility, but any other outstanding
placements we have right now, where we're having to come back
before the Court and say, "I've got to pay Hays County. I've
got to pay Rockdale. I've got to pay these other
out-of-county things with county dollars. I need more money
to pay these out-of-county placements."
JUDGE TINLEY: Ms. Hargis, you do you have any
questions for --
MS. HARGIS: No, we've been over this.
JUDGE TINLEY: -- Mr. Davis? Okay. Anybody on the
Court have any questions?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Am I seeing -- ad litem, am
I seeing 38 --
MR. DAVIS: No change from current year.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: There's no change there?
MR. DAVIS: Correct.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you.
MR. DAVIS: Yes, sir.
JUDGE TINLEY: Anything else? Thank you, sir.
MR. DAVIS: Thank you. Thank you, Commissioners.
JUDGE TINLEY: Let's go to Environmental Health.
25 I COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Which is it?
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JUDGE TINLEY: 10-640.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Ray, I haven't heard a
complaint about your office in a long time. What the hell
are y'all doing down there? (Laughter.)
MR. GARCIA: We've been staying steadfast, you
know, taking care of business. Keeping everybody in line,
basically.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: They're all scared.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: If they see that picture in
the paper, they're not going to mess with him.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: You know, one thing that's
happened down in that office is the fact that we don't get a
lot of phone calls -- I don't -- from constituents. Almost
none.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I've had zero.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I think the reason -- reason
for that is that every time they send out one of their
letters on an enforcement issue or a complaint that
somebody's filed, and they've done their homework on, they
send a carbon copy to each one of us, whichever one's
involved. In my case, I get them all. But, you know,
whenever those people get that letter and they see that it
didn't just come from that person -- it did, but it also
shows that the Commissioner got carbon-copied.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah.
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COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I think that has a lot to do
with that issue, why we don't get a lot of calls. Because
that takes away their ability to really fuss and argue about,
"Well, they're being unfair to me." You know, and they get
their findings, and they really do a good job of documenting
and checking everything, spend the time.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I just want -- maybe you know,
but I doubt the other three know. There's an experimental
system that's going in in a commercial setting in my
precinct, and I appreciate the way Ray's working. I don't
understand it. As long as it works, that's all I care about.
But to get T.C.E.Q. to buy off on something that's kind of an
experimental thing, and the way they're working with the
property owner -- I guess it's a cheaper system.
MR. GARCIA: It's supposed to be.
', COMMISSIONER LETZ: But, anyway, --
MR. GARCIA: Save money.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: -- it also shows, you know,
that, for one thing, they're knowledgeable. They know what
they're talking about, and they're willing to try new things
and work with T.C.E.Q. and, you know, new experimental
', techniques, which I think that word gets out, and that's
j
I good. Hopefully, it works.
MR. GARCIA: Hopefully that doesn't open Pandora's
I~ box in using all these new devices, either. But, you know,
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we're willing to try it out.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: With a lot of stipulations.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: The quality of the letters
', COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: -- is good. I read all
~, those -- all that correspondence that Tish sends out.
They're very thorough. Law citations. There really doesn't
leave much room for questions.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Hmm-mm, it doesn't. It's --
I think the office is doing better than it ever has since any
', time we've ever had it, or -- or when U.G.R.A. had it. It's
'~ much better.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I agree with that.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: It's more professional. And,
you know, Ray is -- and his staff is all being very uniformly
fair to everybody.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I just wish he'd find
something wrong in Precinct 1 and 3. They all seem to be in
2 and 4. (Laughter.)
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Well, it just happens that
~ way.
JUDGE TINLEY: You have a new charge, Ray. You
MR. GARCIA: He just had a fuel spill in his --
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COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Today.
MR. GARCIA: -- his precinct.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I just had a -- a backed up
sewer system, so -- you know.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: A backed up sewer system is
better than a fuel spill.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: But, you know, there's --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I have a backed up sewer
system, too, out there at Castlecomb. But, anyway, he's done
an outstanding job. We have given him the staff and the
tools, though, to make it happen, and --
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Very appreciative of what
they've done.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I appreciate their efforts.
JUDGE TINLEY: You got any questions about what we
got plugged in now, Ray?
MR. GARCIA: No, sir. Everything is --
JUDGE TINLEY: Think you can live with that?
MR. GARCIA: Yes, sir.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay.
MR. GARCIA: Looks good.
JUDGE TINLEY: Anybody on the Court have any
questions? Ms. Hargis, you're good with it?
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MS. HARGIS: No, he's got a good budget.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay, thank you. Appreciate it.
MR. GARCIA: Thank y'all. I will pass the kudos on
to the staff.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Please do.
JUDGE TINLEY: Absolutely. I.T., 408.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: 408.
JUDGE TINLEY: You got all the software
maintenance, with maybe a couple of exceptions, plugged into
your budget this year?
MR. TROLINGER: Yes. Exception --
JUDGE TINLEY: What are the exceptions?
MR. TROLINGER: Indigent Health Care.
JUDGE TINLEY: What about Collections? Is that --
MR. TROLINGER: Collections is included.
JUDGE TINLEY: That's over there?
MR. TROLINGER: Yes.
JUDGE TINLEY: Excuse me, Court Compliance.
MR. TROLINGER: Compliance. And there may be one
or two miscellaneous that I haven't picked up on that are in
varying budgets, but if it was a computer software line item,
it's been combined here.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay.
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departments?
MR. TROLINGER: Yes, on-site training by the
vendor. We need to get moving on that. We've been three
years since implementing the new software systems; Incode,
Odyssey, and a couple miscellaneous -- eDoc, and we need some
on-site training for the people that weren't here when those
systems were put in. The training kind of degenerates over
time. We need some on-site training. That's what the
majority of that's for.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I know that we're dealing
with the '10 budget -- '09-'10 budget, talking to the subject
of software maintenance. You got a consolidated number. Do
you see that number holding reasonably firm going forward, or
is going to be an incremental increase -- significant
incremental increase?
MR. TROLINGER: There will be a little bit of a
jump. 2011, we're going to have the expiration of our
five-year-long period with Tyler Technologies. And
there's -- I believe eDoc Technologies was locked in; I don't
remember the number. But Tyler Technologies will jump, and
I'm going to negotiate that change. We're not going to have
a sudden large increase in one year. There'll be a
single-digit percentage change.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thank you.
MR. TROLINGER: Judge, I have two things on the
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capital outlay, which is not shown here; it's shown in
another area.
JUDGE TINLEY: Capital, sure.
MR. TROLINGER: The telephone system was originally
in the I.T. capital outlay for $100,000. That, since it will
be paid from the previous capital outlay, can be removed.
JUDGE TINLEY: Are you saying that the 307 that is
on the current capital outlay budget for the coming year, or
that we're looking at the debt issue, we can reduce that by
100,000 down to 207?
MR. TROLINGER: Yes.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: But is your I.T. -- is that
purchase for a two-year period or a one-year period?
MR. TROLINGER: One.
MS. HARGIS: So, if we're going to put in there for
two, then we probably need to --
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay, John, let me ask you this
question. (Laughter.) You got -- you got 200. Are we
looking at a like amount for the following year?
MR. TROLINGER: Yes. Because that's a one-time
~ purchase.
JUDGE TINLEY: So we need to add 100 to this in
order to make it a two-year deal, right?
MR. TROLINGER: True.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: There went that smile.
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COMMISSIONER LETZ: I remember I heard that being
MR. TROLINGER: The phone system's a one-time
capital outlay. It won't carry over to the next year.
JUDGE TINLEY: I understand. But if your various
computer items, then, for a one-year period are a little over
200, the following year, if it's going to be pretty much the
same, you need another 200.
MR. TROLINGER: Correct, to some extent.
JUDGE TINLEY: So, we subtract 100 and then add
MR. TROLINGER: I have one more deduction, that the
Sheriff has acquired a -- or the potential of a grant to
install automation in the courtrooms. I had budgeted for
that at $5,200 per courtroom. Well, I had included four
courtrooms, total of about 20,800. We can reduce three --
take three of those courtrooms out of the capital -- I.T.
capital outlay as a result of the Sheriff obtaining that
funding.
MS. HARGIS: So, we only need to go up 80,000.
JUDGE TINLEY: Pardon?
MS. HARGIS: We only need to go up 80,000.
MR. TROLINGER: So, I believe the I.T. capital
outlay for the year can be reduced by 115,600 in total.
MS. HARGIS: No. The object here, John, is to go
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MR. TROLINGER: Now, the following year, it will
reduce somewhat more, because we have other capital projects
that are one-time that will not repeat next year. The Animal
Control software.
JUDGE TINLEY: You are going to reduce by 115 --
how much this year?
MR. TROLINGER: 115,600. And looking out two
years -- the Auditor asked me to look at that this morning,
and I did. And I anticipate that with the desktop
replacement program and the other capital items that will not
be in next year's budget, that we'll be about status-quo,
that I've just got the total amount.
JUDGE TINLEY: For the second year?
MR. TROLINGER: For the second year.
JUDGE TINLEY: What's that number?
MR. TROLINGER: And it's the overall -- and the
Auditor's run off something a little bit for me.
MS. HARGIS: Here's the list.
JUDGE TINLEY: That's the second-year list?
MS. HARGIS: It's the second-year list. He says he
needs 29,300 for desktop computers, 9,500 for miscellaneous
purchase. Maintenance, we don't want in there. His budget,
I don't need in there. Internet access, do we -- that is an
annual thing?
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MR. TROLINGER: Yes.
MS. HARGIS: Okay. What is this 251,000 for
Odyssey, Orion, and Incode?
MR. TROLINGER: That's my estimated on the capital
outlay for the five-year Bank of America note.
MS. HARGIS: The Bank of America note that we
I already have.
JUDGE TINLEY: Yes, it's already amortized.
MS. HARGIS: Okay. So, you're saying you don't
need 40,000 for next year?
MR. TROLINGER: Well, that's the desktops.
JUDGE TINLEY: What your total requirement for the
second year?
MR. TROLINGER: I'm estimating about $97,000.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay.
MS. HARGIS: So, if we just leave the hundred in,
we're fine.
JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: So, we're fine where we are
with the number we have.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That's right. That's almost
exactly --
JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah, just a little bit under that.
MR. TROLINGER: Close.
MS. HARGIS: Want it up to 300, guys? A little
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MR. TROLINGER: And then, under the telephone line
item, I'm asking for a slight increase of $216 over what
administration has recommended right now for one additional
cell phone. It's -- total on telephone will be 8,732. And
it sounds like a big telephone budget, because apparently it
is. The -- I assume it's the courthouse that's been added
into the telephone line item for I.T.?
MS. HARGIS: It's the -- in the minutes on y'all's
phones that they're charging us for.
MR. TROLINGER: The cell phone plan on that, that
includes the cell phone.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What did she just say?
MR. TROLINGER: It includes the county-wide cell
phone plan, the minutes. That's why there was such a large
jump in the I.T. telephone line item. It includes all county
cell phones.
MS. HARGIS: And it does include the courthouse --
the main courthouse phone.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, all telephones are now
in your budget?
MS. HARGIS: No.
MR. TROLINGER: Well, the -- the courthouse --
MS. HARGIS: Main number --
MR. TROLINGER: -- and the --
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MS. HARGIS: -- that you dial into that we pay for.
MR. TROLINGER: -- and all the cell phones, which
exclude the Sheriff's Office.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What courthouse numbers on
the phone system is not included in his budget, and why?
MS. HARGIS: We have a main number -- you know
what? I may be speaking out of school, so let me -- let me
research that before -- we have a main number, Buster, that
everybody calls in on.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Right.
MS. HARGIS: And then each office has so many
instruments, and each office is charged by the instrument,
j and long distance for each office.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay.
MS. HARGIS: But I have to look at this. I don't
-- to be honest with you, I don't know what we put in this
number, John. Unless you -- you put it in. If so, you ought
to know what you put in there.
MR. TROLINGER: No, I did not. That's why I was
asking.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Jannett had a phone bill out
in hers a while ago that increased, so it can't include all
phones.
JUDGE TINLEY: That was number of instruments and
long distance?
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MS. PIEPER: That was because I have more -- more
JUDGE TINLEY: So, you're talking about the base
trunk line charges --
MS. HARGIS: Mm-hmm.
JUDGE TINLEY: -- that are included in this bill,
as well as the master cell phone contract, excluding the
Sheriff?
MS. HARGIS: Right.
JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's probably the right
way to do it.
JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: John, tell us about the
added person that you've requested.
MR. TROLINGER: Well, I see the need -- there is a
need right now for someone that can be dedicated to desktop
support, interfacing with the users. The reason is, we need
to have a database administrator, someone at the -- at that
level that can help out with reports and -- and detailed
high-level software problems.
MS. HARGIS: I vote yes.
MS. HYDE: I vote yes.
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MR. TROLINGER: I've got additional departments
that we've added this past year. We've added onto the county
network the Animal Control, the Road and Bridge --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You brought your support
base with you.
MS. HYDE: And training.
MR. TROLINGER: Training section, the Juvenile
Detention. And with the addition of I.T. specialist Bruce
Motheral, he's a real asset with the training. Definitely we
want to do that classroom training.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay, thank you.
MR. TROLINGER: You're welcome.
MS. BOLIN: Do you need another vote? We'll be
same subject.
MS. BOLIN: Oh, darn.
JUDGE TINLEY: Supposed to do that up here, right?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: It's reserved for this dais
only.
MS. BOLIN: Okay.
25 ~ MS. HARGIS: I've got to research.
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MR. TROLINGER: -- on exactly what's going on
there, but I will say, as a result of replacing -- following
onto replacement of the courthouse telephone system, I expect
we'll be in a bid situation for services for both the local
and long distance, and I see a reduction coming on this year.
JUDGE TINLEY: And a significant improvement in
service, in all probability.
MR. TROLINGER: Hopefully.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: When do you see that
contract and so forth coming through the Court?
MR. TROLINGER: My original objective was to -- to
put in the bid documents, the RFP, this month, but with the
-- we've brought on Bruce, and he's somewhat of an expert on
telephones. I'm having him research more in-depth the
options before we put out the RFP. With the -- with the
funding now settled, we can anticipate September for the RFP,
and by January, the installation.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Good.
MS. HARGIS: It's a pretty complicated RFP, believe
it or not.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'm sure it is.
MR. TROLINGER: It doesn't just include the
courthouse telephones; it also includes -- for instance, it
could include Juvenile Detention Facility, because with
~ voice-over IP, we have the capability to connect the offices
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that are just on our computer network to -- to telephones, so
we've got a lot of options. For instance, J.P. 2, that's
been a point of contention for some time. They have a very
high phone bill, even though they're inside the Sheriff's
building, the law enforcement center. They have a high phone
bill because they're being charged separately just for that
service, as if they were a separate entity. With voice-over
IP, we would just add three lines on that existed here at the
courthouse switch. Big savings, maybe by a factor of
50 percent.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Good.
MR. TROLINGER: So, that's not completely settled
on the telephone line item and we'll have to come back on
that, Jeannie?
MS. HARGIS: Well, unless I can find it here.
MR. TROLINGER: Okay. I'd like to have as close to
an exact number as attainable. I'd like to tell you exactly
what we're doing on those items.
MS. HARGIS: I can't -- I've got so many pages.
MR. TROLINGER: Do you want to come back to that
later?
JUDGE TINLEY: Any more questions, John?
MR. TROLINGER: Thank you, sir.
MS. HARGIS: Yeah. Actually --
JUDGE TINLEY: You got any more issues on this one?
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MS. HARGIS: Yeah. This is lined out. We've got
cell phones for $216, a manager's cell phone for $204, the
computer room, $96, and the main trunk line, $8,000. And
then one additional cell phone for $216. So, there's a total
of $8,732. We took the phone out of nondepartmental, because
John has to approve that line anyway, and so we need it to go
through him in order for him to be able to approve the lines
and be able to put the tables in; they need to be in their
line items.
MR. TROLINGER: Okay. So, the 8,000 is
approximate?
MS. HARGIS: Yes, based on the current bill we have
today.
MR. TROLINGER: Okay. That's a good number, then.
MS. HARGIS: Right here.
JUDGE TINLEY: Any more questions for
Ills Mr. Trolinger? Okay, let's move on. Extension Service.
MR. WALSTON: Good afternoon.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Afternoon, Roy.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What number is that, Judge?
JUDGE TINLEY: 665.
MR. WALSTON: 665.
JUDGE TINLEY: We wrassled with some figures this
morning, and I think, at least with you and I and Ms. Hargis,
we pretty well got you squared away. Made some adjustments
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COMMISSIONER LETZ: Ms. Hargis, on some of the
others, you've got the lease payments for the -- what did we
buy, a van?
MS. HARGIS: Yes. We put it in, and we -- we put
it in the capital. We didn't take it out of this budget. We
wanted to present it to you guys before we took it from one
to the other, so I wanted to leave you the option as to what
you wanted to do with it. The lease payments are $7,532. He
does have three more to go. We haven't actually made one
yet, so if -- we made a down payment. So, we feel like the
payoff's around 20,000, 21,000.
JUDGE TINLEY: Twenty-one is what you're showing.
MS. HARGIS: If you'd like to put it in the
capital, then we can remove that from the operating budget.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Be significant over the
next three years.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: It would.
MS. HARGIS: Okay.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: That will be consistent with
all departments.
MS. HARGIS: You want to move it from -- that
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JUDGE TINLEY: And the use of the vehicle is
having -- that vehicle has reduced your traveling costs?
MR. WALSTON: Yeah. We didn't get it --
JUDGE TINLEY: That's what you said this morning.
MR. WALSTON: Yeah. We didn't get it till January
last year, and October, November, and December was a good bit
of traveling. That's where a lot of our 4-H Coordinator
travel came from that went over this year. So, I think
having it now going into the fall and early part of 4-H year,
that'll help. We should --
COMMISSIONER LETZ: How many projects do you have
out -- are you going to have out there?
MR. WALSTON: We've got right at two-thirds of the
pens full on the lambs and goats, and we'll -- we've got a
cutoff date on September 1st for the swine pens. So, after
September 1st, we should pretty well know.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: But a good number?
MR. WALSTON: Yeah. We're getting some new kids.
We're getting some kids that haven't done it before that --
as a matter of fact, got two graduating seniors that have
never got to show. They get to show this year.
JUDGE TINLEY: Because they now have available a
place to keep their animals?
MR. WALSTON: Yes.
25 ~ JUDGE TINLEY: Well, took us a while to get there,
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but we got there, didn't we, Roy?
MR. WALSTON: Finally, we're getting there.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. This is -- we're using a
building that's been there for I don't know how many years.
It's been useless, just sitting there. Now it's being used
for multi purposes.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Junk barn is what it was.
JUDGE TINLEY: When did you and I first start
talking about trying to find a friendly rancher that was
close enough --
MR. WALSTON: Oh, I imagine it's been at least
three, if not four years ago.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: We talked about trying a joint
venture with K.I.S.D. for a couple years.
MR. WALSTON: Yeah. Yeah, just trying to find a
place to put it.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: All we had to do is put it
I out there.
JUDGE TINLEY: Sitting right there under our nose,
wasn't it?
MR. WALSTON: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay.
JUDGE TINLEY: Any more questions?
MR. WALSTON: No. Everything's fine.
JUDGE TINLEY: Any questions, Ms. Hargis?
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MS. HARGIS: No.
JUDGE TINLEY: Gentlemen? Thank you, sir.
MR. WALSTON: Thank you.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. County-sponsored. Most of
those figures have remained pretty static. Trapper contract,
Jon, that's -- that figure was adjusted for this year's
budget. So far as you know, is that going to --
COMMISSIONER LETZ: It shouldn't change from last
year.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: The deal is still in effect. I
presume that they're billing us accordingly. Only other
I
', issue I have -- or not issue -- question is, I was asked by
residents in Comfort that one of the -- Big Sister/Big
Brother that requested funding, they get some from Kendall
County. I said that our -- whenever -- our policy is if it's
not used by our judicial system or the County Judge, you
know, we don't fund it. But I said I'd bring it up.
MS. HARGIS: How much? How much is the Big
Brothers/Big Sisters?
JUDGE TINLEY: We've allocated 4,000 the last few
years, because they participate in a lot of mentoring
children with kids in the juvenile justice system.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: This is a different group.
This is a group in Comfort, which comes out of Kendall
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County, but they serve a lot of Kerr County youth. These
are -- I just -- I mean, I didn't really -- wasn't real fired
up on adding it.
JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. They asked you to raise the
issue. You've raised the issue.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I've raised the issue. And the
answer is, we fund it in Kerr County, and if they can talk
them out of some of the money, they can have it.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Judge, I see you zeroed out
the AACOG line. Was that the dues, the annual dues? And if
so, why?
JUDGE TINLEY: AACOG dues, we're paying either
through nondepartmental or Commissioners Court.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. It's not --
JUDGE TINLEY: I'm not sure which one of those we
plugged it into, but it's dues and subscriptions. I think
it's probably nondepartmental.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay.
JUDGE TINLEY: If I'm not mistaken. That's -- do
you recall the --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I recall now. Thank you.
JUDGE TINLEY: -- the figure? The amount,
approximately?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No.
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JUDGE TINLEY: 2,400, something like that?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Somewhere in that range,
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Judge, the rest of these are
all the same or based on contract, correct? Such as the KCAD
contract; we pay a portion of that?
JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. That's -- that number, of
course, we decided earlier.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: But the rest of them are all
the same as the current year.
JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah, that's right. And if you'll
recall, Historical Commission went from, like, 2,500 to 4,500
this current year.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Mm-hmm.
JUDGE TINLEY: They had asked for more, but the
Court settled on 45. But other than that, all those other
I numbers are --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: About the same.
JUDGE TINLEY: -- the same as they've been.
MS. MABRY: Judge? The AACOG dues were paid out of
the nondepartmental, books, publications --
i COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Say again, Tess?
', MS. MABRY: They were paid out of books,
II publications, and dues for nondepartmental.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What's the amount?
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98
MS. HARGIS: 3,055. You can see it right up there
on the screen.
JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah, thank you. That gets that
issue resolved.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Mm-hmm.
JUDGE TINLEY: Any other questions on
County-sponsored? Ms. Lyle, are you ready to go with yours?
MS. LYLE: I'm ready, sir.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Let's go to the collections.
It says "Collections." How about "Court Compliance"?
MS. HARGIS: We changed the name.
MS. LYLE: I really don't have a whole lot of
issues. A couple items that were reduced minorly, and I'm
comfortable with what was reduced.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What number are you?
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: 429.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: 429?
MS. HARGIS: You have enough for office supplies
and travel this time?
MS. LYLE: I hope so, yes. The only thing that I
know we'll be really close on is going to be our search
program. Our projected end-of-year budget is going to be
right at $1,800, and we requested $1,800. And I understand
J.P. 3 has opted not to renew their contract with Accurate.
I don't know if they are going to be calling upon our
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services to help them find people, but that will be the only
thing I would see we need to increase a little bit.
MS. HARGIS: When did they do that?
MS. LYLE: That I don't know.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Do all J.P.'s subscribe to a
search group?
MS. LYLE: I do not know that.
MS. HARGIS: No.
JUDGE TINLEY: No.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Does J.P. 3 subscribe to a
search group?
MS. LYLE: They did. It was either discussed they
were going to discontinue it, or they had discontinued it.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Why would they do that?
MS. HARGIS: I don't know.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I mean, why would they be a
-- use a service like that?
MS. LYLE: I don't know, unless it's the same
reason we use it, for their collections.
MS. HARGIS: For collecting tickets, finding
~ people.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I see. Oh, that's right.
MS. LYLE: Accurate is to locate people.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, I understand. I
understand.
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COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Good.
MS. HARGIS: Did you say J.P. 1 or J.P. 3?
MS. LYLE: J.P. 3.
JUDGE TINLEY: On our search programs, then, are we
going to see if that will work? If not, we'll --
MS. LYLE: I'm comfortable with leaving it where
it's at to see if it works.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay.
MS. LYLE: And then if I have to, I'll come back
and ask for more, but I hope I don't have to.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Seems to me if she was going
to discontinue her service and expect your office to pick up
that service, she would -- wouldn't she have said something?
MS. LYLE: She would have said something. I just
heard it through the grapevine.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'm assuming she's not going
to do it.
MS. LYLE: Right.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Any more questions for
Ms. Lyle? Do you have any questions?
MS. LYLE: Hmm-mm.
JUDGE TINLEY: Ms. Hargis?
MS. HARGIS: No.
JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you, ma'am.
MS. LYLE: Thank you.
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JUDGE TINLEY: City/County joint. That is in a
bunch of places, most of which I think have already been
concluded.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: 595.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: That's just the airport.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I think we ought to
discontinue all of that.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I've heard that before
someplace.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. Sell the airport.
I COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Probably from the guy that
used to sit on this end of the table.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. Sell the airport.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I'm not sure I don't agree
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: It's becoming a real
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah.
MS. HARGIS: Okay. On this budget, we have the
salary line items, but we get reimbursed for the salary. We
have to put it in to be able to use our payroll system. Our
actual amount of operations is 315,892. We do have the
capital in here. That was intentionally left in here as a
space in case that we -- you know, as we're working down,
that was about the only money we had left to balance. So, we
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do have that amount -- amount left. It is possible, I think,
probably to put in -- with that amount of money, to put in a
2 percent COLA if y'all wanted to. Or we can reduce the
budget and have surplus, so it's up to y'all.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Which line, the 315,892?
MS. HARGIS: Yeah. The 495 -- 455 is the 300 we
did have -- I was over, so I borrowed 8,700 from that,
actually, yesterday. But we have that in two places. We
have that under the capital items, which I added on the --
the bond -- the note, and we also have it here. So, if I
eliminate that, we will then have 300,000 free to do other
projects, or perhaps give the employees a 2 percent COLA, or
any other large projects that I don't know about.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think that airport
administrators can either be the -- on the capital list, as
well as anything. I mean, that's -- to me, they should be
kind of items that are --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Are they here? Are --
MS. HARGIS: Yes.
JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah, they're there. It's part of
the 850.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Master study.
MS. HARGIS: The water line is actually around 375,
386,000, because it came in at 746 or 767; I can't remember
exactly now. The master study which is done every year, our
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COMMISSIONER LETZ: Every ten years.
MS. HARGIS: Done every ten years, okay. And then
the hangars are a real open question right now. But just
based on the meeting that we attended, we know that they're
going to try to change locations, but I also know they want
to build -- in order to make enough money, they needed to
'I build enough hangars to do that, to get the capital return,
i
to get the R.O.I. on it. So, there is -- the other location
they're looking at needs a road, and that was my only concern
when we were talking that day. Remember, they said they
needed a road to that area to get to it. It is flatter and
will allow them to build more hangars on that location. I
don't know if Steve has come up with --
COMMISSIONER LETZ: They're working on these
numbers, and I think -- I mean, we just don't have a final.
I think the 850 is as good a number as we have right now. It
may go down some. I don't see it going up.
MS. HARGIS: The site plan. The site plan -- we
looked at that one day -- was 253,000, so that's the reason
why they had to change that, was the site plan alone was too
expensive to --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Is it your understanding
that the City's going to fund their share of this out of
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general revenues as well?
MS. HARGIS: I don't know where the City's going to
fund theirs.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: They're -- what they said
was -- and I don't understand what it means, was that they're
going to loan the airport the money.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: All of it?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well --
MS. HARGIS: What I think -- what I think they
wanted to do was --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I think they're going to
have to rethink that.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think so.
MS. HARGIS: -- they wanted to -- they're going to
borrow from themselves, is what they're going to do. They
wanted us to borrow with them, and I said I don't think that
sounds real good.
JUDGE TINLEY: Good response, Ms. Hargis.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I will agree with you on that
i one .
MS. HARGIS: Okay. One time, yay. (Laughter.)
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Mark the day. 4:01.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We found something.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: 18th day of August at
4:01 p.m.
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COMMISSIONER OEHLER: At 4:03.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Finally got one. Whew, it's
been a long, dry season, boys.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: It ain't over yet.
MS. HARGIS: We actually do think alike as far as
money is concerned, I think. We don't like to spend what we
don't have to. But there was no way I was going to pay them
interest on their money.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You got that right.
MS. HARGIS: So, if they want to borrow --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Let me get a question in
here sideways, and then I'll go back to sleep. We're talking
T-hangars?
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yes.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And, of course, you know,
our -- and we're paying 50 percent?
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yes.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Any of these will be
50 percent.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And we can -- we can build a
road, and that would be part of our --
COMMISSIONER LETZ: The road cost should be pretty
minimal. They're looking at building these over there by
Mooney on that big flat land --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Oh, yeah, okay.
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COMMISSIONER LETZ: -- by the paint shed, which
makes sense. I think they were kind of -- that had been set
aside for a big project someday.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I remember.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: But I think they finally
realized that maybe they ought to -- maybe they ought to just
build something over there and get it moving.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: You know, they ought to
decide every once in a while the big boys are not the whole
~ picture.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What's not?
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: The big boys that fly the big
fancy jets.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, they've got hangars
already. It's the little guys --
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: If they need to, they build
one wherever they need one.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, is our part of -- here
it is right here in front of me. Is our part of the
T-hangars in here?
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yes.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yes.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. Thank you, ma'am.
Good night.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Good night. Have a nice
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COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you very much.
MS. HARGIS: And I believe the thought with the
T-hangars is that the rental income off of the T-hangars will
be able to lower our maintenance costs by producing more
revenue for them.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, that's the general
MS. HARGIS: True. We hope it works.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We'll wait and see.
JUDGE TINLEY: Jon, there was some discussion about
some creative and innovative ways to handle the financing of
this water line, maybe a deal that would not require -- and
presumably something different from borrowing funds from the
City of Kerrville, which I can't see them being in the
lending business in the first place with their -- with their
capital debt structure, but --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, there was some --
JUDGE TINLEY: -- that's not my decision. But by
which we would not have to, up front, put out all these
capital costs, but there was a way to get the funding for
that and -- and pledge the proceeds.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: There was some discussion
about that, Judge, talking about the Airport Board, with the
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approval of the City and the County, issuing debt for these
projects and building in the amortization schedule in the
operating budgets going forward. Which means we don't fund
it up front.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: The -- the other side of that
JUDGE TINLEY: In the plan -- I'm reading your
mind -- we're paying half the capital costs.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: It's our benefit to have the --
the revenue -- the revenue off these projects come to our
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COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, it may very well wash
out that way.
MS. HARGIS: That's the reason why I said what I
did, because if we -- if we pay for them up front and then it
lowers our maintenance costs, we actually come out ahead. We
actually are getting return on our investment. Our goal is
to make them self-sufficient. If we -- so we're going to
have to actually reach out and help them to get that way.
And once they're self-sufficient, then our 315,000 goes away.
Which is --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That argument holds water,
Jeannie, for the hangars. It doesn't necessarily hold true
for repairing the water line out there that they goofed up to
begin with.
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a capital recovery fee on the airport, and if it happens to
go off the airport, so we get paid back. Like, on every
lease they do off that water line, there's a capital recovery
fee that we split.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: There will have to be a
lot -- you and I will have to make certain and negotiate that
if that is the case.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. And that's --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We've raised that issue.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: And I think they sort of agreed
MS. HARGIS: I think they did. Most of the time,
with a development, that's what you get as you build a main
trunk line, and when other people come along, they need to
COMMISSIONER LETZ: They can just be a -- or that
leaves all that space that we're, you know, going to make
available for growth. Now, there has to be, whether it's --
even if it's $5,000, $10,000 a -- you know, 10,000 square
feet, whatever it is, some formula where there's some money
coming in to help offset a little bit of that, 'cause the
City's darn sure going to offset on their side. I just want
to make sure we share in it.
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MS. HARGIS: We need to get an agreement signed
before we decide to pay for --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No question about it.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No question about it.
~ Okay.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Did we kick that one around
pretty good?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Pretty good.
JUDGE TINLEY: Let's go to Health and Emergency
Services, 630. We've got two items in there -- actually,
three. We got the EMS contract. We've solidified that
number at our joint meeting with the City. First Responder
expenses.
MS. HARGIS: That's the new number.
JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah.
MS. HARGIS: And these included the things that he
talked to you about, I think the gear that they wear; I think
~I~ several sets of gear, as you recall. And so when he came
over and we sat down -- I don't know that I have a note in
there, but last year's budget was 12,5, and I think he bought
-- I want to say six or eight additional kits to help with
responding.
JUDGE TINLEY: Most of those were in the west end
of the county, as I recall, too, more sparsely populated
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111
I areas.
MS. HARGIS: And he said the program, again, was
just going really, really well. They're still having a lot
of people sign up for that, so I think that's a really good
program.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I have -- I have hooked him
up with Tierra Linda. A lot of those guys out there are
trained, but not to the level that he does it here, and
they're going to partner in with us and use us for that
training and get them certified and do that. I don't --
there was nothing said about them getting those glass-proof
', shirts and all that stuff. They can kind of do their own, I
i
think. But I just thought that was kind of neat. He -- he
is really an interesting fellow that puts the community
first, and I'm enjoying the relationship Kerr County has with
this guy.
MS. HARGIS: Eric is 100 percent for his community.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, he is.
MS. HARGIS: He's a fine young man. And he was --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Interesting fellow.
MS. HARGIS: While doing the EMS, he finished his
college degree two years ago, and went every night, plus did
all of this. And he has a great passion for this. It's
really wonderful.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: The 139,254, that's
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strictly EMS, right?
MS. HARGIS: That's EMS.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What's fire?
MS. HARGIS: Fire is under City/County.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: It's somewhere else.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay.
MS. HARGIS: Actually, there's a fire fund right
~, there, 14.
~ JUDGE TINLEY: Fire protection, 14-661.
MS. HARGIS: That includes not only the city, but
all of the volunteer fire departments, so if there's any -- I
mean, that's what we've given them all in the past.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay.
MS. HARGIS: We actually were at 180; we had to go
up to 185, as you recall from at the meeting.
JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm.
MS. HARGIS: So, I left all of the volunteer fire
departments as-is, unless y'all tell me differently.
JUDGE TINLEY: And then the only other thing we
have is the library, and that comes in at a flat 300.
MS. HARGIS: That's right. I wish, though -- in
one respect, the only thing that I'd like, if we could, is to
have contracts with some of the volunteer fire departments
about our money, because sometimes we get some really strange
requests for what they're spending, and we don't have any
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kind of policy as to what they can and cannot spend on, and
it really puts us in a bad position, 'cause sometimes we're
approving things that are a little bit -- you know, one lady
turned in mileage to go get water, to pick up water and take
it to the fire department because there was a fire, for
drinking water. She charged us the mileage. And as long as
the fire chief approves it, there's nothing I can do about
it. So, in -- in the past in my company, we used to have
with our volunteer fire departments kind of a criteria that
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I thought we had contracts with
all of them.
'~ MS. PIEPER: We have contracts with them, but it
doesn't specify what that money can be used for.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No, it doesn't.
MS. HARGIS: So, I just wanted to bring that up.
That's entirely up to you. We'll continue to do this, but I
do think there are some things we pay out of there that I
don't think you'd be real happy with.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Is it possible for you to
put together a list of -- of potential expenditures which are
not -- could not/should not be approved? We can take it from
the reverse side back in our discussions with the various
VFD' s .
25 ~ MS. HARGIS: Well, we can put it together. I mean,
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it -- and it's -- again, because you don't have any criteria,
there's nothing -- there's no -- there's nothing -- no way I
can turn them down. But, I mean, they're -- they're items
that I -- right now, I -- it's just been several different
things over the last couple of years. We'll go back and
look, but I think you'll be surprised.
JUDGE TINLEY: My recollection is that it provides
that they will be reimbursed for, and then some broad,
general --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Right.
JUDGE TINLEY: -- headings; equipment, training, --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Right.
JUDGE TINLEY: -- and so forth. The only
prohibition being, you can't pay people. No personnel costs.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Beer.
JUDGE TINLEY: Didn't say that.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We can buy beer?
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That should be --
JUDGE TINLEY: I believe there's a specific
prohibition in there about you cannot pay personnel costs.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I think you're right.
MS. HARGIS: We didn't -- we haven't gotten
anything like that. We haven't gotten any personnel costs,
just some little kind of strange little --
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Just some beer.
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MS. HARGIS: -- strange little quirks. And I hope
we're not paying for beer. I would turn that one down. I
have had --
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Not as much as you used to.
MS. HARGIS: Not as much as I used to?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's closed-minded.
That's pretty closed-minded.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Let's just leave it at
I that .
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Buster knows what I'm talking
I about.
MS. HARGIS: One for one. Okay.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You got to remember, now,
these people are volunteers, and you got to treat them with
kid gloves. You tick one of them off, buddy, and we're in
trouble.
MS. HARGIS: I have attended several of those
parties where I wouldn't pay for the refreshment.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: You think we're tough; you
wait till you tackle one of those guys.
MS. HARGIS: Don't mess with them.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay.
MS. HARGIS: Is that pretty much -- I think this
pretty much covers everything.
JUDGE TINLEY: We got everything out for the day,
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gentlemen?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Looks that way.
JUDGE TINLEY: My apologies to you, Kathy, for
running you over.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Her fingers are cramping.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What about me?
JUDGE TINLEY: I'm sorry to have wakened you.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay, thank you. Your
apology is accepted.
MS. HARGIS: Okay. I'm going to throw back the
question again with the 300,000. Would y'all like to think
about what you would like to do with that, and we discuss it
on Monday?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: How did we -- how did we end
up -- now, what are we talking about? Left over from
previous? How did we end up with $300,000? I can't figure
that out.
MS. HARGIS: We didn't --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: If we -- if we kind of
line-itemed it in the beginning and said, "Okay, we're going
to go out and borrow 'X' amount of dollars," based on these
issues -- these items, and then we have 300,000 left over?
MS. HARGIS: The airport --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: How do we do that?
MS. HARGIS: Well, again, remember, I left the
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21,000 in for you to take out. I also left this in, because
we knew we had two projects at the airport. We had -- we
have the water line and the master plan, and we also had the
hangars. So, I didn't know if we wanted to borrow money on
all of it, or only on part of it.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, you kind of just fluffed
i the little deal up some.
MS. HARGIS: Well, I just put 300 in each in the
beginning so that y'all could decide how you wanted to go.
'Cause we can -- we could pay out part of the water line, but
not all of the water line at the current -- at the cost it
came in at. And that's the reason why I put the whole water
line in after talking with Bob Henderson on Friday, is
because the water line is closer to 400,000 versus 300,000,
and we really can't sustain that in our --
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Why don't you do the
Sheriff's cars he's wanting? That's 300,000.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Do them out of that money,
and take them out of this -- the one for this coming year.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: That can be done. I mean, it's
just -- I think it's just because there's 300,000.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Is that -- does the windows
come out of that?
MS. HARGIS: No. No.
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COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So it's 300 extra, over and
above the windows and those two or three other little things.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Actually, 300 -- 200 --
MS. HARGIS: In our general -- general '09-'10
budget remaining to be either spent towards the airport --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No.
MS. HARGIS: Removed?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No more airport.
MS. HARGIS: Okay, we have 300,000.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We're going to sell it.
MS. HARGIS: We can reduce the -- the new bond
issue by --	the	new -	- excuse me,	I'	m used to saying that --
the new tax	note	by -	- or there's	a	possibility of increasing
the retirement or paying a COLA.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: How much is a 2 percent
I COLA?
MS. HARGIS: 2 percent COLA on 12 million is going
-- with the roll-ups, is going to be right under 300,000.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That's deficit budgeting.
Take that 300 out of there. You going to build it into the
following year's budget, or are you just asking a general
question?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Just asking a general
25 ~ COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I'm sorry, I thought you were
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like that, or give it back to the taxpayers, you know. I
mean, something.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right now, we have --
like that.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You can use it and then
lower the new tax anticipation note accordingly.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's what I'm talking
about.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: What I'm getting at.
~'I COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's what I'm talking
about. That's giving it back to the community. Damn, I sure
wanted that big raise. Oh, man.
MS. HARGIS: Well, I had -- you know, I have to ask
for the employees. I don't think that they're expecting
anything, but, you know, this just happened to work out that
way.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: We'll look at it. I would
probably be in favor if we can do it without doing a deficit
budget, to -- even if it's 1 percent. I mean, I think
because if you don't do something, it catches up with you
down the road.
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COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I agree. Like it did last
year or the year before, whenever it was.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: You know, but if you can't
~ afford it, you can't afford it. But if there's -- you know,
if we can get a balanced budget, outside of the capital
stuff, --
COMMISSIONER	BALDWIN:	But	if --
COMMISSIONER	LETZ: --	then	I'm in favor of doing
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: If you have -- if you have
300,000 and a 2 percent salary increase for everybody, it
comes in under 300,000.
MS. HARGIS: Yes.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What's deficit spending
about that?
MR. ODOM: There's not any. The -- there's -- we
have an approximate payroll of around $12 million, so, I
mean, 240,000 of that would be the 2 percent. And then you
got rollup costs of 7.65 and the retirement of 10.59, which
comes out to 18-something percent. I think it comes in
around 275,000. One percent, you're going to just take half
of that.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Does that include -- does
that include the retirees?
JUDGE TINLEY: No.
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MS. HARGIS: The retirees getting a raise?
', COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Does that include the
retirees getting a 2 percent --
MS. HARGIS: No.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- COLA?
MS. HARGIS: No. No. The retirement fund --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We need to start talking
about the retirees, helping these retirees a little bit.
MS. HARGIS: It's not -- no, I'm not --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You're not there yet.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No, but I'm close.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Getting closer.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Getting close.
MS. HARGIS: I think what you guys want is for us
to manage somehow -- and that's the other thing you could do,
is buy down some of our -- our funding deficit that occurred
during this marketplace. You know, we -- we took about a
35 percent hit on the investments in the retirement plan as a
whole, and they've recouped about 25 percent of that.
However, most of the funding is down, so we're actually
paying 1 percent over the -- each year over the next 10
years, and they're calling it a smoothing effect so that we
don't get hit with the whole payback at one time. Now, we
can buy that down, which will decrease our rate. But when I
was at the seminar, I talked to the actuary, and he said he
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really wasn't gung-ho, unless you had really extra money to
put in. And when I figured it, in order to get our
percentage down, we have to put in about $550,000. 300,000
doesn't even affect it.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Forget it.
MS. HARGIS: So, to me, it's easier for us to take
the 1 percent hit and just ride it on out. And if the market
comes back, they could recoup it faster. You know, it's one
of those things. But they have it on a 10-year situation.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, they had to set it up
that way, and if they recoup more as the market continues to
rise, as it has done, then that will either go up quicker or
can be reduced.
MS. HARGIS: I hope it doesn't decline too much
more. So far they've done pretty well. They do have some
really good money managers; I was pleased to see that. State
Street Bank has always been a pretty solid institution, and
they are behind most of the investments. They have an
in-house gentleman who takes care of it. He seems very
qualified. I think we actually did better than the T.M.R.S.
fund. The City --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Down about 15 percent.
MS. HARGIS: Yeah. The T.M.R.S., the City -- we
talked to them yesterday. Their percentage is 14 percent.
Ours is -- is 11. That includes our insurance.
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COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Judge? I'm wondering if it
would be -- be wise for us to ask Jody maybe to get with the
Auditor and come up with a list of ideas of what to do with
this $300,000. (Laughter.)
MS. HARGIS: Jody and I can spend it real well.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You can start with paying
off her mortgage.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Pay off her mortgage. Shopping
at -- you know, shopping at --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Fix your road. I'm trying
to get your road fixed.
MS. GRINSTEAD: There you go.
MS. HARGIS: I need some.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That will do about 100 feet
MS. GRINSTEAD: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: But I -- what I heard -- I
heard two or three little ideas. And I think this lady's
standing there asking us, "What do y'all want to do?" I
think I heard her say that.
JUDGE TINLEY: Well, what I heard her say was,
these are some -- some possible options. There may be more.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Fine. That's fine.
JUDGE TINLEY: We're in position to really zero in
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COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think we need -- we need to
have that conversation, but I think also, at the same time,
we look at the capital item list, which is a little bit
inflated to me. We may be able to cut that back some. We
need to look at -- you know, need to get a better number for
the airport. Need to get a better number on the building, or
a smaller building. I don't think -- I think the number you
pretty much have to go with, but I think the size of it can
be adjusted downward, which will save 200,000 or 300,000.
JUDGE TINLEY: I think both of them can be adjusted
down.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Both of them, size and the
JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Jeannie, any problem with
bond covenants, rolling that into the general fund, for use
of the general fund?
MS. HARGIS: The money that we have?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Mm-hmm.
MS. HARGIS: No, you can't do that.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Go to jail.
25 ~ COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah. I'm not going with
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COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No, I'm not -- the reason I
asked the question is because you're talking about using
it -- basically, using it for employee raises. That's
putting it in the general fund.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: No, it's not there yet.
MS. HARGIS: Not there yet. It's still in the
general fund, budgeted in the general fund, so -- it's just
shown as a capital item, but that just means that we put it
in the capital item area because we -- that helps us to know
we need to put it on fixed assets, and it also shows you
where those items can be deleted or added. But it's a
general item right now. It's just a general operating item
right now.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay.
MS. HARGIS: There are some little items that you
can see on the capital that would be nice to -- just to clean
up and take out, besides the radios, like the $5,500 that we
have for the vacuums and stuff like that.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right.
MS. HARGIS: I'd like to clean that up to where
it's mostly big-ticket items.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Vehicles or -- at least not --
well, a vacuum's almost an expense item, anyway. I mean --
or what is there, a shampooer.
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MS. HARGIS: They're pretty expensive, so -- but in
the overall scope, we need to look at those. But I would
rather y'all think about it rather than make a quick
decision. And I'll be glad to, you know, get any feedback
from any of the other elected officials as well.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: It appears to me that we have a
doable budget, with adjustments to make, and look at the
debt. Judge, what's your idea on our next meeting? When are
you going to call us back together to talk about this topic?
JUDGE TINLEY: Well, we've got to -- we're going to
file this budget.
MS. HARGIS: We need to go ahead and file.
JUDGE TINLEY: We're going to file a budget, and
we're going to be filing that this week.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Where's the 300,000 going to
be? Take it out of that airport -- take it out of where it
is. Just leave it off, maybe.
MS. HARGIS: Well, just --
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I don't like it. I don't think
it's -- I don't like it being in the capital category over
there at the airport.
MS. HARGIS: When I zero it out, it will just show
we have a fund balance, which is not a bad thing either.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. It wouldn't hurt to
raise that and build that a little bit for the next year.
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MS. HARGIS: That's also another option.
JUDGE TINLEY: But we -- then, come Monday, we're
going to need to handle the first step of the tax rate. That
comes on for a record vote. And then, of course, we'll set
the --
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: For information.
MS. HARGIS: Well, what comes on Monday, Judge, is
you actually set the public hearings. Now, she's going to be
publishing the effective tax rate -- and Diane left -- on
Thursday, okay? And we -- the effective rate is what she's
publishing, so please keep in mind that the effective rate is
not what you're going to levy. You are actually -- what you
-- what we have put in this budget is last year's tax rate.
Last year's debt rate and last year's tax rate. And it is
less than -- it is less than the effective rate. To give you
an idea, and I told the Judge this earlier, when you look at
my cover page on the budget, it says we have increased our --
our revenue by 179,400 -- I think it's 400. And of that 179,
74,000 was new property. It equates to a 1 percent increase
in the roll. That's why we did the assumption at 1 percent.
So, that's a very small increase. I mean, we're really
coming under the effective rate, so most of our residents
will really see a reduction, almost, in taxes. Now, the one
thing, too, that I want to make y'all aware of, if you look
at the appraised value of the over-65, and you look at what
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COMMISSIONER OEHLER: What are we going to lose on
the new law that was passed by the State Legislature of no
taxes for the disabled veterans?
MS. HARGIS: I'm real concerned about that, because
we have a lot of disabled veterans. They have to be 100
percent, I believe, to be totally exempt.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That's right.
MS. HARGIS: But we do have a lot of them, because
we have the V.A. Hospital here. We're going to take some
really hard hits. We really are going to have to look at
this hard next year to adjust the rate. I know you all got a
letter from Mindy, and she and I were reviewing it. And one
of the things that you notice in our cash balance -- 'cause I
went back into the software to '06, and I wasn't able to go
back any farther than that, because that's the first year
they pooled the cash together so I can actually compare
money. But we -- we have about a $6 million -- 6 million --
we have 7 million today. In '06 we had 6 million, 20. Today
we have 7 million, 14. So, our cash is remaining relatively
stable, but we're not growing our balances for an emergency
or a big trial or something of that nature. That worries me
a little bit. I can't -- you know, I would love to see you
raise the taxes, but I realize it's a political thing. Even
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the effective rate -- the effective rate shows a $499,000
cents higher than we are today.
So, I will leave y'all kind of with that, but I
know you're going to get some calls because of the fact that
it says it's higher. So, just an F.Y.I., you want to tell
your constituents this is the effective rate, not the rate
we're levying. But on Monday, you're going to decide --
you're going to have the two public hearings to decide what
your tax rate is, and since we have been able to balance the
budget, you know, with -- I thought we really -- that's why I
pulled everything out that I possibly could. I think we're
going to make it, and I think the reason we're going to make
it is because of Rusty. And that 300,000 that we ended up
with is basically the 300,000 that he gave us by -- by
putting the inmates in there. And we also checked the food,
and thanks to Rusty, he had enough money in there for food,
so we upped the food budget just a little bit. I think --
what, $24,000, Tess? And because -- when he said 350, I got
real excited, but then I remembered, we got to feed them, so
what's the cost going to be? And so he had figured in that
he would have a population, maybe, of 150 in there, so we
have plenty of food.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: What would the -- Buster, the
Indigent Health care, that comes out of the general fund,
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JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: So, without the change we made
there, we'd be in serious trouble.
JUDGE TINLEY: That's the other big --
MS. HARGIS: That's the big-ticket item. And, you
know, next year, though, we're going to have a problem. The
reason we were able to do that this year is the cash balance
that they have in the indigent was large, and therefore, we
are drawing down on their cash. But they're going to --
their cash balance is going to go way down, so we're not
going to -- you know, depending on what they do this year,
that may go up next year. So --
JUDGE TINLEY: But you're right, Jon. They, coming
into this year, with what they held as cash balance this
current year, took a lot of the edge off of -- off of the
hard times that we have.
MS. HARGIS: They came in with a million.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Most of it.
MS. HARGIS: They came in with a million, and they
only spent a half a million. Plus we gave them tax money.
We -- we cut a little bit last year, so they're going to come
into this year with about 650,000. So, they're doing really
well. Leonard's also doing really well in his, because the
collection -- or Compliance department, all those funds are
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going to Leonard, and he's way ahead on that, in those fees.
Those fees are about 150,000 ahead as of July 31, so he's
going to end up with a better fund balance. But right now, I
can't predict how high it is; I don't want to. So, that's
the reason why I'd like to put half of his back in, because
he needs to stay -- if we have a flood or anything, we need
-- we need instant cash. Then we can go borrow, but we need
instant cash.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Another thing is, by taking
the two years of capital -- capital loans -- capital projects
out of the Maintenance and Operation budget makes a big
difference.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Saves the lease costs that
I we're --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Oh, big difference.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: We're fortunate to be able to
be paying off things so that we can use that money --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Right.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: -- to pay for things that we
do in the future.
MS. HARGIS: Well, and I really want to compliment
every one of the elected officials here. I mean, I've never
seen people budget so tightly as these folks do. They do a
great job. They really do. They're very conscious of the
fact that this is taxpayers' money, and they do a great job
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in giving us a budget that we don't have to really cut a
whole lot, because they've done it themselves. And even when
I went out and asked for that, a whole lot of them came back
and cut again. Jannett's one of them. So, you know, we got
a good group of folks that we work with here.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I agree.
JUDGE TINLEY: Anything else, gentlemen?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: When -- when are we going to
talk about if we want to go over some of the budgets again?
Right now?
JUDGE TINLEY: Well, I think the big item that's
hanging in the balance is trying to get a tighter handle on
these capital costs.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I understand.
JUDGE TINLEY: And adjusting some of those in or
out, or -- or fine-tuning them. I think a huge item is this
building. There's a wide divergence in what even some of us
here on the Court think that thing's going to cost.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, or what -- you know, I
-- I want to get a clear picture on what we're talking about.
Are we talking about -- I mean, is the curtains going to be
in the window and the doorknobs going to be on the doors?
JUDGE TINLEY: What windows?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, what windows? That's
correct. I thought of that earlier. But, no, I want -- I
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want to have another shot at the 198th D.A.'s budget. I'll
just lay that out there on the table. I think that needs to
be talked about some more. Are we going to have that
opportunity?
JUDGE TINLEY: We can take the opportunity.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay.
JUDGE TINLEY: If you want that opportunity, we
will take it.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I just think that should
happen at some point.
JUDGE TINLEY: But the biggest item that I see that
we've got hanging out there loose is this capital stuff.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I agree. I agree. Oh,
yeah, by far.
JUDGE TINLEY: Until we get a little bit more
information on that, I'm not sure we can refine that to the
ii point where we really are comfortable setting a number on it
to start that process rolling.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Can we do that Monday after
our meeting, or do we need to do it prior to that? We'd have
a hard time with posting before --
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I don't think we're going to
I have the data.
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JUDGE TINLEY: We won't have it Monday, I don't
MS. HARGIS: Yeah, we're early this year. But I
would say maybe one more week, but then we need to nail it
down, just because it takes six weeks for us to -- to get
this thing rolling. And -- and the market is just not as --
Bob told the Judge and I we need -- we need to hurry. Not --
because he's not real sure what the interest rates are going
to do.
Monday.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: We could plan for a week from
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That'd be all right.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Just to have a special meeting
to wrap up budget stuff. That should be September -- that's
the 31st? Or 1st? 1st.
JUDGE TINLEY: Be the 1st -- no, 31st of August.
Sure would be.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: 31st.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That's fine, whatever.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Remind me, so -- so Monday,
-- Monday, she was talking about setting tax rates.
MS. HARGIS: No, setting --
JUDGE TINLEY: Start the process to set the tax
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rate on Monday.
'~, COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: She was talking about
Monday; she was talking about setting tax rates. Whether
that is setting up the dates to do that, or -- what were you
talking about?
MS. HARGIS: That's correct. That's correct.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay, thank you.
MS. HARGIS: Diane will present that.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And about when do you
calendar, so I'm probably going to get it wrong. I think
we're supposed to meet the first time on the -- I don't have
the calendar in front of me. I think it's -- it's that week.
Do you have it?
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well, Monday, let's make sure
we have a calendar that we go through so we can plan out --
these are important votes; make sure we're all here.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I just don't want to get us
so -- you know, get in a time crunch, like tomorrow we're
going to be setting tax rates, and we still haven't done
everything we need to do with the budget. I don't want to
get too far in that.
MS. HARGIS: I think she's got the first hearing on
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JUDGE TINLEY: 9-14.
MS. HARGIS: Yeah, at our regular meeting, and then
the second one. We only have to have one, because we're not
going over the effective rate.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What is that? Like, 60 days
before, something like that?
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Fourteen. Minus 10 minutes, 30
seconds.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: 32 seconds.
MS. HARGIS: Yeah, after the first public hearing,
you have actually not sooner than three days, not greater
than 14, you have to meet. It's --
JUDGE TINLEY: Actually, we've got -- we've allowed
for a second public hearing on 9-21.
MS. HARGIS: Yeah, if we have to have it. Not
sooner than three, but we've got it --
JUDGE TINLEY: And on the 28th, which will be our
last meeting --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What date?
JUDGE TINLEY: 14th is the first public hearing.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay.
JUDGE TINLEY: Second public hearing on the 21st,
if necessary. Adoption of tax rate on the 28th.
MS. HARGIS: You have to adopt the tax rate -- the
budget first, and then the tax rate, I think. There's a lot
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of publications and advertisements that have to go in for
both, and so I will try to e-mail all of you, or put in your
boxes as well, some options, try to refine this down a little
I, bit more. Maybe take off some of the other items and put
them in the small ones, put them back in the regular budget,
see how we come out. What about -- I mean, one of the things
is Tim's cars could -- I mean, I guess I should ask, would
y'all prefer he just buy two little trucks? Two little used
trucks?
JUDGE TINLEY: I don't think there's an issue
whether or not you can buy a little one cheaper than you can
a big one, seriously. But we need --
MS. HARGIS: Shall I send him out to see? I'll
send him out to get --
MS. MABRY: I was with Tim when he got his first
quotes last week, and for two F-150's, they quoted him 21 a
piece. So --
COMMISSIONER LETZ: An F-150 isn't a big truck any
more. It's about, like -- well, it's like --
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Not expensive, really.
Trying to get rid of them.
I~ COMMISSIONER LETZ: They're like -- there's a big
difference between what a full-size truck used to be.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: There's a whole lot of
difference between an F-150 two-wheel drive, extended cab,
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and a four-wheel drive -- four-door F-250 with four-wheel
I drive.
MS. HARGIS: Keep in mind, our bidding now is
50,000, not 25,000, so he's able to go out and buy -- you
know, we can buy things locally if we want.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Price, okay.
JUDGE TINLEY: Anything else, gentlemen? Let's
call it a day. We're adjourned.
MS. HARGIS: Thank you.
(Budget workshop adjourned at 4:41 p.m.)
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 9th day of September,
2009.
JANNETT PIEPER, Kerr County Clerk
BY : ~~~~t.f __
--- ~----
Kathy nik, Deputy County Clerk
Certified Shorthand Reporter
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