1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 KERR COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT 9 Sunset Workshop 10 Monday, May 14, 2001 11 2:00 p.m. 12 Commissioners' Courtroom 13 Kerr County Courthouse 14 Kerrville, Texas 15 16 17 SUNSET WORKSHOPS 18 19 20 21 22 23 PRESENT: FREDERICK L. HENNEKE, Kerr County Judge H. A. "BUSTER" BALDWIN, Commissioner Pct. 1 24 WILLIAM "BILL" WILLIAMS, Commissioner Pct. 2 JONATHAN LETZ, Commissioner Pct. 3 25 LARRY GRIFFIN, Commissioner Pct. 4 2 1 I N D E X May 14, 2001 PAGE 2 Sunset Workshops 3 2:00 p.m. Public Safety 5 4 D.P.S. License and Weights 8 E.M.S./First Responder 15 5 Trapper program 21 Volunteer Fire Departments 22 6 216th Judicial Task Force 38 D.P.S. General 39 7 8 2:30 p.m. City/County programs 42 Airport 43 9 Library 46 Recycling Center 50 10 11 3:00 p.m. Social Service programs 52 Child Advocacy 65 12 Soil Conservation Service 68 Dietert Claim 71 13 K'Star 84 Crisis Council 86 14 CASA 88 KEDF 91 15 Kerr County Historical Commission 101 Child Services Board 106 16 17 3:30 p.m. County departments 108 18 19 Adjourned 121 20 21 22 23 24 25 3 1 On Monday, May 14, 2001, at 2:00 p.m., a workshop 2 meeting of the Kerr County Commissioners Court was held in 3 the Commissioners' Courtroom, Kerr County Courthouse, 4 Kerrville, Texas, and the following proceedings were had in 5 open court: 6 P R O C E E D I N G S 7 JUDGE HENNEKE: The hour draws nigh. It's 8 2 o'clock in the afternoon of May 14th, Year 2001. We'll 9 call to order this Kerr County Commissioners Court workshop. 10 The topic today is for us to conduct our own version of a 11 sunset review on the nonmandated County programs -- 12 nonmandated programs which Kerr County supports or has 13 historically supported financially. All of you have been 14 notified, obviously, of the meeting. The meeting is not -- 15 was not posted to make any decisions today. The meeting is 16 simply designed for us, as the Commissioners Court and the 17 budgeting authority, to have the opportunity to review those 18 programs which we have historically supported to see if, 19 one, they are such that we want to continue supporting at 20 the current level or other level, and two, to see if there 21 is any legal authority for us to make the financial or other 22 contributions which we have been asked to do. For 23 convenience purposes, we have attempted to lump those 24 programs together into generic categories, starting at 25 2 o'clock with public safety, followed at 2:30 with 4 1 City/County programs, 3 o'clock, social service programs, 2 and finally, 3:30, County departments. We've never done 3 this before, so this is a new experience. What we're going 4 to do is move as expeditiously as we can through these, and 5 ask those people who are here to represent the different 6 organizations if they care to give us a brief description of 7 their program, the funding for their program, and how the 8 Kerr County support falls into that funding. Before we call 9 up the first group, is there anything any of the 10 Commissioners would like to offer? 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'd like to know 12 exactly where this document came from. 13 JUDGE HENNEKE: I believe that was prepared 14 by the City and given to us in anticipation of being here. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you. 16 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Also, I think where -- 17 where we can, should we not address the issue of statutory 18 authority first in each case? Because if we can't get 19 beyond the statutory authority, talking about how good or 20 bad a program might be and what level it's to be funded is a 21 pretty good academic discussion. But, I think we first need 22 to determine, is this something that we can legally do? And 23 if it is, then we move on to the next step or something like 24 that. 25 JUDGE HENNEKE: All right. And to help us 5 1 with that, we've asked the County Attorney's office to -- 2 through Travis Lucas, the Assistant Kerr County Attorney, to 3 take a look at the programs, and he has provided us with his 4 opinion as to the authority for the funding. Might as well 5 jump right into the lion's den. 6 MR. LUCAS: You bet. We've got a new memo 7 coming up. Apparently, when this just printed -- we've been 8 having some printing problems, and I think on Page 3 it's 9 incomplete; like, 19, 21 -- 20, 21, 22, not even there, so 10 hopefully Wayne will get up here by the time you get to 11 that. But, what I did was, I've got them listed as we have 12 them listed on the agenda. This was a project that I put 13 in, I guess, several days off and on for maybe about five 14 weeks, with the help of Thea, which was quite kind of her to 15 kind of give me the background on how some of these programs 16 came to fruition and where we are today. 17 I'd like to open up with a little thing I 18 preach to y'all just about every time, and y'all go to 19 y'all's education courses and with TAC, and y'all always 20 hear this, too. And that is, Article III, Section 52 of the 21 Texas Constitution prohibits counties from granting public 22 moneys to individuals, associations, corporations, 23 whatever -- whatever entity that we can think of, and that's 24 it, period. We can't do it unless we've got some sort of 25 express authority or implied authority from that express 6 1 authority. And, so, county government law is tremendously 2 different than, you know, the state agencies where they can 3 pretty much do whatever they can that's not covered in the 4 United States Constitution. So, we just can't willy-nilly 5 decide to fund things just because they might be good. 6 And so, anyway, having said that, let's start 7 with this document here. I have listed the names of the -- 8 of the outfits and have cited statutory authority if there 9 is any statutory authority. D.P.S., I could not find any 10 statutory authority for funding -- for funding that 11 particular program, based upon what I have been told, you 12 know, how we fund that program, you know, for I guess a 13 secretary or what-have-you. County governments do not have 14 a general police power, to begin with. Also, we don't have 15 a general authority for funding just any kind of law 16 enforcement. It's very specific in the Local Government 17 Code, and therefore I could not find anything right there. 18 Now, I could be, you know, misinformed of the facts of -- 19 of, you know, what exactly we do spend on D.P.S. So, 20 Trooper, maybe you could clarify that; I'm not real sure. 21 But, anyway, we could not find any apparent authority, 22 express or implied. 23 EMS. Health and Safety Code 774.003(a) and 24 several A.G. opinions authorize that. It's real clear and 25 easy. First Responder, again, the exact same authority and 7 1 A.G. opinions cite authority for funding. The State Trapper 2 contract, Health and Safety Code 825.004 allows for that. 3 Fire protection, via volunteer fire departments, Local 4 Government Code, Chapter 352, several provisions in there. 5 Larry, you and have I talked about that. Task Force, the 6 reason there's a question mark there, I was not asked to 7 evaluate that and I just looked and put a question mark. We 8 might have to revisit that. Airport, of course, we -- 9 JUDGE HENNEKE: Excuse me, Travis. Let's 10 take these in the order that we've got them -- 11 MR. LUCAS: That's fine. 12 JUDGE HENNEKE: -- grouped, so we'll stop 13 here, go through these, and then we'll briefly review the 14 next group when you get to that at 2:30. 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Task Force would be 16 the 216th Drug Task Force? 17 MR. LUCAS: Right. 18 JUDGE HENNEKE: Okay. 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I have a question. 20 Were you going to open it up to the floor or -- 21 JUDGE HENNEKE: No, I was going to open -- 22 start with the D.P.S. and see if they wanted to -- 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Let me ask a question. 24 You specifically said D.P.S. secretary. 25 MR. LUCAS: Yes. 8 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And I understand that. 2 What about -- are you including in there, you know, you -- 3 we buy -- every year we buy light bars, radar units, those 4 kinds of things, which just about every county in the state 5 does that for their local D.P.S. people. 6 MR. LUCAS: Mm-hmm. 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Are you saying that we 8 don't have the authority to purchase -- to make those kinds 9 of purchases? 10 MR. LUCAS: I could not find it -- any. I 11 don't know a lot of county -- many counties fund programs, 12 you know, all over the place. I don't know why they do it. 13 A lot of times they don't have authority for that. I'm just 14 saying that I could not find any authority for this county 15 government expending funds on a state agency. 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Whether it's a 17 secretary or a radar unit, either one? 18 MR. LUCAS: Yeah. 19 JUDGE HENNEKE: Okay. Well, let's go ahead 20 and go through the -- run quickly through the list here. 21 D.P.S. Do you want to tell us a little bit about what we do 22 for you, Travis? 23 MR. HALL: Well, for myself -- and I'll 24 allude to the secretary there since Sergeant Seale's not 25 here. 9 1 JUDGE HENNEKE: I do believe he'll be here 2 shortly, but go ahead and address your -- your part of it. 3 MR. HALL: He's in Austin teaching, and he's 4 supposed to be back. But, one thing she does for me is my 5 reports, which gives me more time on the road. More time on 6 the road means more money in y'all's pockets. What -- my 7 general responsibility is, of course, commercial motor 8 vehicles. Y'all have nobody in the county other than myself 9 that has the authority to enforce the commercial motor 10 vehicle laws. So, I spend a tremendous amount of time doing 11 that and answering commercial vehicle questions, whether it 12 be for the Road and Bridge Department, for instance, last 13 week they called me and asked me what to set a load zone 14 bridge that's being redone out there in your precinct -- 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Hermann Sons. 16 MR. HALL: Hermann Sons, asking me weight 17 questions on that type of stuff. So, I spend probably 18 about -- oh, between 20 and 30 percent of my time in doing 19 nothing but answering commercial motor vehicle questions or 20 regular -- on the regulations of commercial traffic. City 21 has nobody that does commercial traffic, so if there's any 22 type of commercial incident, I'm the one that gets to take 23 care of that. I mean, I've got, more or less, four counties 24 that I take care of, but Kerr County's the biggest county, 25 so I spend probably 85 to 90 percent of my time here. For 10 1 instance, last year I brought into this county somewhere 2 around $54,000 in fine money. That does not include county 3 court cases. That's just Class C misdemeanors is that all 4 that -- or J.P. court cases is what that boils down to. 5 JUDGE HENNEKE: What does the money that we 6 provide for your operation go for? 7 MR. HALL: You buy radar for me each year, 8 provide me with telephone to be able to get hold of -- 9 portable phone, pay for that service, my pager, those type 10 of things like that, that -- where the people can get hold 11 of me 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The State does not 12 provide that type of stuff for us. The phones and the 13 pagers, they provide supervisors with it, but they don't 14 provide the trooper. But, who gets called out? The 15 troopers do. The supervisors don't. So, I mean, that's the 16 type -- that's what I use the money for, is to be able for 17 y'all to get hold of me a lot easier. The City and the 18 County both. Other questions? 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: In larger counties, 20 or other counties where there are troopers like yourself 21 doing the road work and somebody has to do the paperwork. 22 How is the paperwork done? How is the paperwork done in the 23 larger counties? 24 MR. HALL: Most of them have secretaries that 25 do it. And, what I'm talking about on the paperwork would 11 1 be such as a criminal case or a DWI, something like that, 2 where we dictate it and then the secretary will type it up, 3 instead of us having to sit in an office typing up our own 4 reports like that. You know, day-to-day paperwork, such -- 5 such as our weekly reports and all that, we have to do all 6 of that. But, criminal court cases and -- and accidents, 7 where there's a major accident and we do a lot of the 8 investigation on that and have to document a lot of stuff on 9 that, well, then we turn that over to a secretary to type it 10 up. 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I guess the thrust of 12 my question was really that which had to do with J.P. 13 courts, how the paperwork flowed to the J.P. court. It's 14 handled in other counties much the same as you're saying we 15 do here? 16 MR. HALL: Yes, sir. Yes, sir, and the other 17 thing is -- is warrants, typing up the warrants. In some 18 counties, the secretaries in the J.P. courts don't type up 19 the warrants or the warrant shucks, and keep up with -- with 20 the day-to-day stuff of when the money comes in or -- or, 21 say, the -- when the J.P. sends back our tickets, you know, 22 and there's 10 troopers there. Well, somebody's got to sit 23 there and sort through all of that to put them in the pile 24 for each person. So, that's one of the other things that 25 they do for us, just day-to-day paperwork like that. 12 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I guess my -- I mean, I 2 think everyone -- certainly I, you know, understand the 3 service that D.P.S. does for the county, Trooper Hall does 4 or his portion of the D.P.S. But, I'm -- I'm concerned 5 about the lack of authority -- specific authority to fund 6 it, and it doesn't make sense to me, since it's done pretty 7 much statewide. 8 MR. HALL: Its probably, I would say, about 9 250 of the 254 counties. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Funded by counties, and I 11 wondered if there's -- you know, I wouldn't know how you 12 would go about it. I'm certain you could do an interlocal 13 agreement of some sort for him to do the weights portion. I 14 mean -- 15 MR. LUCAS: Yeah, they could. Now, here's 16 the deal. It depends on the facts. I mean, this is the 17 first I've heard, you know, about the bridge. So, I think 18 it's fact-sensitive of -- and, again, I've had this 19 conversation a million times, it seems, with TAC and their 20 lawyers, that there are a lot of counties that fund 21 unauthorized programs, all the time. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. 23 MR. LUCAS: And we're going to get into that, 24 I think, with some of these others, and it just depends on 25 how creative the lawyer, I guess, in my capacity is; whether 13 1 he's kind of a strict instructionist or kind of liberal -- 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Especially with the Road 3 and Bridge-type work, which is clearly a -- a County 4 responsibility. If we did an interlocal agreement with 5 D.P.S. and funded -- you know, I mean, kind of the way we do 6 fire departments. I mean, as long as you're doing the work 7 for the County, you know, how -- they said they're using the 8 money to further those things, then the money's being used 9 in the county and for County funds. 10 MR. LUCAS: Yeah. But, now, with the fire 11 department, I mean, there's a whole subchapter for that. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. 13 MR. LUCAS: And it's very broad. So -- 14 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Judge, is there a way 15 on some of these like this, where, as Jonathan says, there's 16 a -- obviously some need for this, and it's -- we know what 17 the service is; that's not the problem. The question is the 18 legal authority. Could we craft -- 'cause I suspect there 19 could be others. Could we craft one or more requests for 20 A.G. opinions and just ask the State -- 21 MR. LUCAS: Sure, you always have that 22 option. 23 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: -- can we buy light 24 bars or can we provide a secretary or can we -- 25 JUDGE HENNEKE: Like Travis says, we always 14 1 have that option. 2 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Seems to me on some of 3 these, that might be, 'cause we can flail around on this 4 pretty hard and probably not come up with an answer, because 5 we don't have -- we just don't have anything to go on. If 6 we had an A.G. opinion says this the okay, then fine, let's 7 do it. 8 JUDGE HENNEKE: This is a question we're not 9 going to get answered today. It's one that we bring up. I 10 think that it's good that we bring it up in this context, so 11 that people have the idea to know what we're struggling 12 with, but I think we need to focus on the issue of why we're 13 here and -- and recognize we may have some authority 14 problems, and that we'll deal with them as creatively as we 15 can as we go forward. 16 MR. HALL: In my 24 years with the State, 17 I've never had a county ask me that question, by what 18 authority. And -- and any county that I've ever worked, 19 Commissioners have always been real kind to offer us extra 20 stuff that we need to do our job better, and I've never -- 21 I've never run across it, so I can't answer the question. 22 I've never heard of it discussed in office. 23 JUDGE HENNEKE: That's an issue we'll have to 24 get more creative and comfortable with. 25 MR. HALL: I'm sure if it would be illegal, 15 1 the State wouldn't let -- let us take -- take things. 2 JUDGE HENNEKE: Does anyone else have any 3 questions of Trooper Hall about the funds we provide and how 4 they're used? 5 (No response.) 6 JUDGE HENNEKE: Okay. Thank you, Travis. We 7 appreciate it. 8 MR. HALL: Mm-hmm. 9 JUDGE HENNEKE: Next we have EMS and First 10 Responder. Can we take those up together or -- Raymond? Is 11 Ron going to do it? 12 MR. HOLLOWAY: Ron's going to do it. 13 MR. LUCAS: I've already commented on it. 14 RON: You did say it's authorized, right? 15 MR. LUCAS: Right. 16 RON: Okay. We're past that. Thank you very 17 much. It's a privilege to be before y'all here today and to 18 be able to come before you and talk about the wonderful, I 19 think, relationship we've got and moving forward with that. 20 What I provided for you is actually quite a bit more 21 information than I'm going to try and stand here and present 22 to you today, but what you have is a packet which outlines 23 what we've found to be those areas where we're participating 24 together. Obviously, you have on the agenda for EMS and 25 First Responder. Within the cover sheet, you'll notice that 16 1 I have a spreadsheet there to outline just the dollars and 2 cents portion of it only; doesn't really talk about the 3 actual, you know, services that are provided, just outlines 4 the emergency management that we do together. The fire 5 contract, our Emergency Management Director, as well as the 6 Kerr County First Responder Program, and I'll stop there 7 since that's where we are on the agenda. 8 This just outlines for you what the current 9 funding levels are for this fiscal year, FY 2001. I thought 10 it would be good just to take a snapshot of that. Behind 11 that, what I've outlined for you is in the next section. 12 And, again, not trying to go through all of it, but we have 13 the fire suppression and emergency management area we have 14 our agreement on, and that is not directly reflected on your 15 agenda for EMS, but I just will leave that with you to look 16 at. One of the things that we are looking at with regard to 17 the budget in this area, I will tell you, and I'd like to 18 say right up front, the City is not as far along, perhaps, 19 as you are in your budget process; we're still working that. 20 We're looking at some of those numbers. But currently, as 21 you know, that we do have a -- a general fire contract for 22 county services. We also have one for the Kerrville South 23 area. Both of those contracts -- one of them has not been 24 changed, in terms of the rate of participation, for 18 25 years. The other is at seven years. And, we are looking at 17 1 those contracts right now and trying to analyze what our 2 cost of services are in -- in those areas, and we will be 3 coming back to you to talk to that as we get through our 4 budget process. 5 But, as far as the Emergency Management 6 Coordinator, which is wrapped into that as well, again, 7 that -- that program continues on, managing that program, 8 not only serving the county, but also Ingram and several 9 other areas in managing the overall emergency management. 10 With regard to that, I will go on to -- to the next section, 11 and then I'll stop, is the emergency medical, or EMS, and 12 then Medical Director and First Responder program. As 13 you're well aware, at one point in time, the City and the 14 County were working through a private contractor, and that 15 is now changed with the City taking over the EMS services 16 back in '94. With that said, what we provide is the EMS 17 services in and throughout the county. In addition to that, 18 we coordinate and contract for assistance with the Emergency 19 Medical Director, which is required to be an M.D. who must 20 oversee any EMS program; that's required by state law. 21 You'll notice there that in this year, it looks as though 22 that, because we have a new contract going, we're actually 23 going to be able to reduce that cost this year. 24 In addition to that, we have our First 25 Responder program, which is being managed by our EMS 18 1 Coordinator. We're, I think, getting past some issues we've 2 had there, and we're getting to the point where we're 3 getting the training done, getting the coordination done, 4 where we can communicate better with the Court. But, again, 5 on that program, we have done some salary adjustments this 6 last year in the fire department. That one is being 7 impacted by that somewhat, so that will have some impact on 8 the overall cost in that area. The bottom line is -- is 9 that we, through this particular program, are providing EMS, 10 the Medical Director, and the First Responder coordination 11 through this particular contract. 12 It's interesting to note -- and I think it's 13 laudable for the County and the City to take a look at where 14 you were in '94 and the cost associated with that, and today 15 all of that is being provided actually at less of a rate 16 than we were paying in '94. So, again, this is long before 17 me; I can't take any credit for it. I think it's a good 18 program. One of the things I will point out on the last 19 page that says, under Fiscal Notes, for the emergency -- EMS 20 Medical Director and First Responder, I do have a typo there 21 where it says "First Responder program." It said that that 22 amount would increase to 9,765. It's actually $9,675. The 23 little table that's down below there is actually the correct 24 numbers. So, that's actually an overall reduction for that 25 line item. Do you have any questions about the programs or 19 1 any concerns about what I may have presented to you? I know 2 it's a lot of information to try and digest in just a few 3 minutes. 4 JUDGE HENNEKE: Does anyone have any 5 questions or comments regarding First Responders or EMS? 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: On EMS, you mentioned in 7 the backup the possibility of adding another crew? 8 RON: Yes, sir. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Has there been any 10 thought, long-term, of adding substations around the county 11 out west and out east? 12 RON: Well, in terms of the actual fire 13 stations, we would have to take a look at that with regard 14 to the legal issues as well in trying to get outside the 15 city limits. However, one of the things that we have -- as 16 a matter of fact, Raymond and I were talking about today; we 17 have discussed it, is the potential for doing our transfer 18 program, which, you know, we take a lot of individuals from 19 here, local, into San Antonio, is to try and actually 20 separate that somewhat so that we have more EMS services 21 staying in the county and in the city, and taking the 22 transfer services. And, basically, we're even looking at 23 the old black Welfare station, perhaps setting that up as a 24 transfer program. That's not actually answering your 25 question, but what I am saying is, we are looking at our 20 1 programs so that we can keep more of our resources in the 2 local area and in the county without going outside the 3 county for going and doing these transfers. We would have 4 to take a look at doing anything outside the city limits 5 with regard to any substations for fire and EMS. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I wasn't thinking as much 7 fire; I know right now there are -- currently we have fire 8 stations and which are EMS. 9 RON: Yes, sir. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But in the census data, 11 the population of the county and city are about equal now, 12 which means you have a lot of population that the County's 13 responsible for that are pretty spread out. 14 RON: Yes, sir. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And it's -- I know in the 16 Comfort area, it's an issue, and I'm sure in Center Point 17 it's an issue. I presume out west it is as well. And, if 18 you can -- I'm thinking long-term; talking, maybe, three, 19 four, five years down the road, putting substations out 20 towards Ingram or Hunt and in the Center Point area. It 21 might, if the volume justified it, be something we need to 22 start looking at. 23 RON: Yes, sir. We would have to look at the 24 issue, because right now the actual EMS, not the transfer 25 portion of it -- it gets confusing at times, believe me. 21 1 I'm still learning it. But, the way we're set up with the 2 EMS portion being integrated into the fire department, 3 actually being firefighters who are paramedics and 4 certified, we would have to take a close look at that and 5 how we would handle that program. But, you do bring up a 6 valid point with regard to the new census data and the 7 growth in the county, as well, both on the fire suppression 8 side and on the EMS. That is one of the reasons that we are 9 having to look at our numbers with regard to the service in 10 those areas as well. The call volume on the fire side has 11 significantly increased outside of the city limits, and in 12 addition to that, that call volume has increased for the 13 EMS, so we're trying to take a look at that very hard this 14 year to find out where we need to be with regard to that, 15 make sure we support that properly. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. 17 JUDGE HENNEKE: Any other questions on EMS or 18 First Responder? Thank you, Ron. 19 RON: Thank you, sir. 20 JUDGE HENNEKE: Anyone here to talk about the 21 Trapper program? This is an authorized program. That's 22 one, I think, that enjoys fairly widespread support, 23 certainly in the rural areas of the county, wouldn't you 24 say, Jonathan? 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yes. They have -- I 22 1 mean, right now, I guess they're actively working on -- I 2 didn't look at the report -- probably 20 different 3 properties or ranches, and a lot of those are fairly large 4 tracts there; acreage-wise they take up a good portion of 5 the county, and I think they have two trappers currently in 6 the county. So, I mean, it's certainly a program, from an 7 Animal Control and agricultural standpoint, worthwhile. 8 JUDGE HENNEKE: Volunteer fire departments. 9 We have some people here from the various volunteer fire 10 departments? 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Quite a few. 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I see some. 13 JUDGE HENNEKE: Does anyone want to come 14 forward and tell us a little bit about how County funding 15 fits into your overall budget needs? 16 (Discussion off the record.) 17 MR. BIGHAM: As you can see from the 18 beginning, I gave a little synopsis of -- we cover and 19 protect 8 square miles, 4 in the far southeast corner of the 20 county. Four of it is primary, which is -- our charter 21 covers 4 square miles, and the secondary is -- part of the 22 county on the southwest side is covered by the contract with 23 Comfort. But, in order for Comfort to make a fire in that 24 far corner, they have got to come down Elm Pass Road, which 25 comes right by the Elm Pass Volunteer Fire Department and 23 1 station, and so if they get a call, we get the call; we'll 2 make the first response to that area and then wait for them 3 to run backup. 4 We have 103 major structures now. I don't 5 list the outhouses and the chicken houses and garages, 6 but -- because if you have a fire at a major structure, 7 you'll see what it is when you get there. We cover Elm 8 Pass 1, Elm Pass 2, and Bandera Hills area. We have 42 9 members in the fire department. Eleven are active 10 firefighters, and 13 in Ladies Auxiliary. The department 11 has been in business for 17 years. Our overall budget from 12 last October, our telephone runs $360 a year. Electricity, 13 $600. Gasoline, $500. Now, the gasoline is just normal 14 operating. If we have -- if we have a fire, why, then, of 15 course, that adds to our -- to the overall cost of the 16 gasoline. Truck insurance and the building insurance 17 and the building liability insurance, and any other kind of 18 insurance we have to have, plus our vehicle maintenance, 19 building maintenance, and we -- we belong to the R.C.& D., 20 and our total operating budget for this fiscal year is 21 $3,790. We try to keep a reserve fund of $3,000 for -- if 22 we tear a transmission out of a truck or -- or cut a tire, 23 which I have not listed. I've got a cut tire on our water 24 tanker right now that has to be replaced, and that's around 25 $270. The County support provides 90 percent of our 24 1 operating capital. We basically rely on County funding and 2 donations. The remaining funding comes from our yearly 3 rummage sale and donations, approximately $1,400. 4 Under our future plans, we're trying to 5 accumulate enough funds, and -- to acquire a new brush truck 6 to replace our 35-year-old 904 brush truck. We can't get 7 parts for it any more, and we just don't want to hire a 8 couple of mules to pull it to a fire. We were responding 9 mutual aid to Center Point two weeks ago and we couldn't 10 even get it started. We had -- it's an old 24-volt system. 11 You have two batteries, and one of the batteries has gone 12 bad on us; we couldn't even get it started. If it hadn't 13 been for our new one, why, we couldn't have made the mutual 14 aid. So, there's where we're trying to accumulate -- we 15 have letters out for -- to try to get a donation, but then 16 these donations, you've got to have matching funds. When we 17 got our new truck, we had to come up with almost $6,000 in 18 our own money for matching funds. 19 We need gravel on our driveway; our driveway 20 is gravel. It's not -- we need more gravel on our driveway, 21 fill in the mud holes. And, on our reels -- on our fire 22 hose reels, we have what they call a -- an old red line, 23 which is -- it weighs about 16 pounds to the foot, and you 24 drag out 200, 250 feet of that, try to drag it around at a 25 fire, you get pretty tired. So, we need what they call 25 1 the -- the lightweight forestry hose, which is -- we need 2 around 600 feet of it. And we have several repairs we need 3 to do to our water -- our 20-year-old water tanker, and we 4 need a couple jet nozzles for our fire hoses. We -- right 5 now, we have these old things that you've got to turn by 6 hand, and sometimes they forget which way to turn it, and 7 when you got 250 gallons of water fighting a fire, you want 8 to make sure that you got the right nozzle stream going out 9 there or you run that tank dry in a couple minutes. So, 10 with these with the handles on them, why, you can -- they're 11 easier to control. 12 And, we need two portable UHF radios. Right 13 now, there were times with our radio system, if you go in, 14 like on State Mountain out there, it's almost 4,000 feet 15 high. If you get over on the east side, there's a couple of 16 places where we cannot reach the dispatcher. If we had a 17 portable where we could send a man to high ground to relay, 18 then -- and I think most of the other fire departments in 19 the county do have portables for just such emergencies, and 20 so our future plans total come to 2,000 -- I mean, $23,000 21 -- oh, I forgot about -- if we acquire the new brush truck, 22 which we're praying, we need a new skid unit. The old skid 23 unit is -- is 18 years old, and I passed it on a number of 24 occasions, so we need a new skid unit, and I'd like to buy a 25 brand-new one. So, our total future planned money is 26 1 $23,373. Our current bank balance is $5,872, which $3,000 2 of that is our future -- our reserve fund, which we keep 3 trying to fill each month. Any questions? 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Fred, I have a couple 5 questions. I notice you listed three different -- three 6 different areas of insurance; truck, building, and building 7 liability. 8 MR. BIGHAM: Yes. 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Where do you have 10 coverage for your fire personnel in the event of injury? Is 11 that under the County's blanket? 12 MR. BIGHAM: We have compensation -- 13 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Or something 14 separate? 15 MR. BIGHAM: We have compensation, Workmen's 16 Comp under the County. Is that correct, Mr. -- 17 MR. LUCAS: I'm not aware. 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I see the Auditor is 19 nodding yes. Workmen's Comp. What about in the event of 20 accidental death or injury on -- 21 MR. BIGHAM: We rely on our own personal 22 insurance. Because if we -- if we added that in there, 23 you're talking about probably another thousand dollars. 24 AUDIENCE: More than that. 25 MR. BIGHAM: Probably more. So, we rely on 27 1 our individual insurance. 2 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Another question has 3 to do with -- a year or so ago, you got a grant from 4 L.C.R.A. to buy a new truck. I know you did do that. 5 MR. BIGHAM: Right. 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Are you planning to 7 try that same avenue again for funding of another truck? 8 MR. BIGHAM: Yes. Sue Dyke has got a letter 9 in the works right now. 10 JUDGE HENNEKE: Anything else? 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I have a question, but 12 it's more of a general nature; it's to all the fire 13 departments. And, one of the things that's been difficult 14 since I've been on the Court is trying to figure out how to 15 justly appropriate or divide up the funds. I mean, we've 16 done everything from -- we've never had a real, I guess, 17 system as to -- related to the size of the departments or 18 amount of fires or anything. We just kind of -- "Well, 19 let's give everyone $500 this year." And I'd like to, you 20 know, request that the -- each of the departments -- they 21 can just talk about it and they all have meetings, and give 22 us some guidance on what is the most equitable way for us to 23 support the -- the various departments. Whether it's just 24 to do it the way we're doing it, which is pretty much, you 25 know, almost at random, the amounts, or if we should look at 28 1 the area, geographic area, or the number of people you serve 2 or -- or -- in other words, what the best -- the fairest way 3 is, so that when we do funding, that we're giving the county 4 residents the most bang for their buck. 5 MR. BIGHAM: Well, from my standpoint view, 6 it's kind of tough, because maybe one year we might not make 7 half a dozen fires. The next year -- like four years ago, 8 we had 18 arson fires up and down Elm Pass Road. That -- 9 you know, that set us -- set the old budget way back. Not 10 only ours, but Center Point; they were out there. They even 11 had Comfort a couple times on that. So, it's kind of tough 12 to say, well, this year our budget -- we could say $2,000, 13 but the next year we may need $5,000 or $6,000. If I tear 14 -- if I tear the transmission out of that old 35-year-old 15 truck, even just to have it repaired may run $400 or $500, 16 $600. Well, that knocks a hole in our budget right quick. 17 So, it's kind of tough to -- to actually set a yearly -- on 18 a yearly basis as to how much compensation from the County. 19 It's kind of tough to come to the County -- 20 if there was some way that the County, say, in -- I think 21 Buster will remember, in the old days -- I say old days. 22 Eighteen years ago, you had a set amount. It was put into a 23 bank account on a budget basis. If you used all of that 24 up -- say you had a -- you had an extra -- a big 25 expenditure; you blew out tires, tore out a transmission or 29 1 something that was -- that the budget couldn't cover. Then 2 we could come to the County and say, okay, here's the bill 3 for a new -- for repair of a transmission, and they would 4 appropriate the money. It's just like, let's say, 12 years 5 ago, after we refurbished our old 35 -- one of our old 6 35-year-old trucks, we needed a high-pressure pump. All we 7 had was these little garden pumps. We needed a 8 high-pressure pump; it was to fight construction fires. So, 9 I came to the County and I said, I need -- we had $900 of 10 our own money, and I needed $1,500 more to buy a new 11 high-pressure pump. That was 12, 14 years ago. It's $5,000 12 for one today. But, anyway, so I came to the Court and they 13 approved the $1,500. So -- 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah. Well, I mean, it 15 just seems that we should have some mechanism on the Court 16 when we -- I think we probably, if anything, need to 17 increase funding, and we've been doing a pretty good job the 18 last three or four years from where it was. I don't think 19 it's near enough for volunteer fire departments, but just as 20 to how we -- instead of deciding that in our budget process, 21 "We have $10,000 additional funds that we're going to budget 22 for volunteer fire departments," how do we -- it would be 23 helpful to me if the chiefs tell us some mechanism as to how 24 we divide that up. Do we give everyone an equal amount, or 25 should we divide it up based on some criteria? I'd just 30 1 like to know what that -- what you all think the criteria 2 should be. 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Wasn't there some -- 4 some mechanism, Jonathan, going back? Because it listed all 5 the different fire departments, different amounts for 6 everyone. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Some mechanism that said, 8 well, Elm Pass is littler than Comfort -- Elm Pass is 9 littler than Center Point or Comfort, Ingram has a bigger 10 area -- I mean, it's never been a -- it's pretty arbitrary. 11 Pretty arbitrary. 12 MR. BIGHAM: And the other thing is -- 13 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: You've got a question 14 in the back, Judge. 15 JUDGE HENNEKE: Yes, sir? 16 AUDIENCE: I'd suggest one of the things you 17 might want to look at are the fixed assets of the 18 department, how much equipment does it have, because it's -- 19 that's going to drive its operational budgets over the 20 course of a year. The number of fires that you have is 21 going to be an unknown. We were lucky to get away last year 22 with a very small number of fires, with the exception of the 23 Sheppard Rees fire. But, if we have -- if you have more 24 equipment, it's going to cost that department more money 25 just to continue each year. 31 1 JUDGE HENNEKE: Well, I think Jonathan has a 2 good suggestion, which would be to ask the departments to 3 get together and make a recommendation to the Commissioners 4 Court as to how to allocate funds; you now, whether that's 5 kind of a percentage basis or fixed assets, as you suggest, 6 or square miles or whatever, and then we'll decide what kind 7 of a pool we want to put in and distribute it on that basis. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: One thing, I would not be 9 in favor of changing -- ever reducing some, but I'm just 10 talking about future allocations. I don't want to go back 11 and -- and, you know, try to reallocate what's already been 12 done; I don't think that's fair, but I think if we decide we 13 can afford another $10,000, $15,000, $20,000, as to how we 14 divide that up equitably amongst the departments. That's 15 what I'm looking for. 16 MR. HALL: We have formed an association with 17 the fire chiefs; we meet monthly and talk about different 18 avenues of revenue to come up with. And, you know, I guess, 19 in a nutshell, probably from what everybody -- from all the 20 chiefs here, the majority of the money that y'all give each 21 department is spent on insurance, for -- just like for 22 Mountain Home's purpose, that $9,000 that y'all give me, I 23 imagine close to $7,500 of that is used for insurance, 24 because we do provide insurance for people in case they get 25 hurt. It kicks in after worker's comp; that is covered 32 1 through the County. But -- 2 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I think that's a good 3 question, 'cause I really am concerned about that. 4 MR. HALL: We do carry -- we do carry that 5 type of insurance, and it is expensive. 6 MR. BIGHAM: That's the reason we don't have 7 it. Can't afford it. 8 MR. HALL: But, like Jonathan said, over half 9 the -- or half the population of the county is now living in 10 the county, and that's giving all these fire departments 11 more responsibility. There's no way that we can go out 12 and -- and buy a $250,000 pumper and have it sitting there, 13 because we don't use it the majority of the time. That's 14 why we rely on the City and y'all paying them to come 15 fight -- help fight the house fires. It's not economically 16 feasible for us to provide -- have any of these pumpers like 17 that, because they're not used. If you don't use it, it's 18 going to -- it's not going to work. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Travis, if you -- I'm 20 sure you attend those meetings. If you'll just discuss it 21 and figure out -- you know, give us some guidance as to how 22 best to fund volunteer fire departments county-wide, you 23 know, it would be real helpful to me. That's always been 24 a -- I've always wanted to increase funding, and we have 25 quite a bit, but how to do it and where to put the money has 33 1 always been very difficult to determine. 2 MR. HALL: And Fred brought up a valid point, 3 that in the past, where we do have these major expenditures, 4 instead of us having to pay for it out of our money through 5 -- that we get through donations or fundraisers, is the 6 County used to -- we'd bring the bill to them on these 7 fires, and they'd -- they bought our tires and that type of 8 stuff. If memory serves me correctly, we used to use the 9 County contract to buy tires and gasoline and oil and all of 10 that, kind of like a buying co-op. And that might be 11 something that we could look at, is if y'all could enter -- 12 let us enter into something like that, because we -- 13 otherwise, we're having to pay the same prices as you do 14 when you go buy your individual tires. 15 JUDGE HENNEKE: That's probably something we 16 can work on. I don't see any insurmountable barriers to 17 that. As far as the idea of having money on call, 18 so-to-speak, for major repairs, we don't budget that way. 19 We don't have a pool that we can call on -- 20 MR. HALL: Right. 21 JUDGE HENNEKE: -- for things like that. 22 AUDIENCE: You should have a contingency fund 23 for things like that. 24 JUDGE HENNEKE: We have a contingency fund 25 for the items that we are directly responsible for. We 34 1 haven't had one for volunteer fire departments. The 2 question is, how big of one, if we would decide to do that, 3 and how would you allocate it? Let's say, for instance, 4 that one of the fire departments blew up their truck and 5 they came in with a request which would take 100 percent of 6 the contingency? Do we give to it them? If it's in the -- 7 let's say it happens in November, which is the first month 8 of the fiscal year. Do we give to it them, and so there's 9 none left for the rest of the volunteer fire departments for 10 the rest of the year? We have to look at issues like that 11 as to how we allocate funds across-the-board and fairness, 12 and we also have to look at our responsibility under law to 13 the taxpayers to -- to properly manage the fiscal resources 14 that we're given by the taxpayers. But that's -- this is 15 why we want to start this dialogue. This is why we want to 16 understand how we can best serve you all. Anyone else have 17 any specific volunteer fire department issues they want to 18 bring up? Okay, good. 19 MR. LYNCH: Yeah. I'd like to -- I got a fax 20 that I'd like to pass out for the Commissioners Court, 21 Ingram Volunteer Fire Department. More or less, just review 22 it if you need to. 23 JUDGE HENNEKE: Will do. Appreciate it. 24 Thank you. 25 MR. LYNCH: Appreciate it. 35 1 JUDGE HENNEKE: Thank you. Mr. Sandlin? 2 MR. SANDLIN: I'll try to be 3 uncharacteristically brief. I recently -- recently got to 4 attend a Fire Wise Community Workshop; it deals with the 5 wildlands urban interface, which essentially is Kerr County, 6 and I'll just give y'all some real quick information. I 7 just got it in the e-mail a while ago from the Forest 8 Service. I only have one copy; I'll leave it for you. To 9 put it in a nutshell, it appears -- and I'm not trying to be 10 a doomsdayer, and I'm not a climatic predictor, I'm not an 11 oceanographer, all that stuff -- looks like we're fixing -- 12 we're already in one of those 35-year dry cycles, with the 13 wildland fire frequency increasing during that first 17-year 14 period. Which just means there will probably be -- I'm not 15 saying anything devastating, just more fire calls will be 16 incurred on our volunteer fire departments. 17 JUDGE HENNEKE: Thank you. 18 MR. SANDLIN: If you're interested, that's a 19 bunch of gobbledygook. 20 JUDGE HENNEKE: Okay. That's a good start. 21 That's a good start from the volunteer fire departments. 22 Okay. 23 MR. SMITH: Sorry I don't have anything 24 prepared for you today, Commissioners, but I just want to 25 give you a summary about the documents. Our fire 36 1 department's been in existence since 1948, charter 2 department. It's -- right now we have 12 -- 14 members, 3 firefighters. Our budget that the County gives us -- the 4 money the County gives us is $9,500. $9,500 pays for 5 insurance and has a little bit left over at the end of the 6 year to buy some equipment, because insurance costs us right 7 now right at $5,000, and that covers our coverage on our 8 trucks, buildings, portable equipment, and medical on it. 9 We run, on the average, about 60 calls a year in Center 10 Point, and we do mutual aid calls with any department in 11 Kerr County that needs us. We'll run anywhere in Kerr 12 County, or we help Comfort. We've been to outside the 13 county helping different departments. But, right now, 14 that's -- I just wanted to let you know a little bit more 15 about the department, what we do. 16 JUDGE HENNEKE: Any questions? Thank you. 17 Anyone else on volunteer fire departments? 18 MR. MORALES: Real quickly, sir, my name is 19 Daniel Morales; I'm the fire chief in Comfort, and I want to 20 thank y'all for giving me the opportunity to come before the 21 Court. I would like to kind of give y'all a little synopsis 22 of what we do here. Last year we ran 146 alarms. Half of 23 those were in Kerr County. We do run three pumpers, a 24 tanker, three brush trucks, and we've got 11 men that are 25 medically trained. We have a verbal agreement with the City 37 1 of Kerrville to answer First Responder calls on the eastern 2 side of Kerr County. Moneys that y'all allocate to the 3 department are used for training of our men, as well as 4 paying for the expenses. Last year we took a beating on one 5 of our brush trucks, and we're looking at possibly replacing 6 the chassis this year. But, as always, this is very needed 7 moneys that departments are always looking for, and we had 8 hoped that the Court would keep the departments in mind in 9 their budget. Thank you. 10 JUDGE HENNEKE: Thank you. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Thank you, Danny. 12 JUDGE HENNEKE: Before we completely finish 13 volunteer fire departments, I want to say, on behalf of 14 Chief Holloway, that he's -- he is very frustrated not being 15 able to get any answer from the Governor's office on the 16 reimbursement for the expenses of the Sheppard Rees fire 17 last September. He caught me in the hall before this 18 meeting and said that he'd been trying to reach them today, 19 and that he would keep trying to get us some answers as to 20 when we might expect to at least begin the process of 21 getting the -- what, 70 percent reimbursement? 22 MR. HOLLIMON: Well, they'll send some -- a 23 group of people down here to assess the needs, and it 24 depends on what the needs are, how much they'll give. 25 JUDGE HENNEKE: Anyway, I want y'all to know 38 1 that that certainly has not been forgotten. We're pursuing 2 that promised reimbursement as strongly as we can. Moving 3 on down the list, first let's see if there's anyone here 4 from the Task Force. You speak on behalf of the Task Force, 5 Ron? 6 RON: I'm the designated point man today. 7 So -- 8 JUDGE HENNEKE: We'll come back to the larger 9 D.P.S. after we get done with Task Force. 10 RON: Okay, sir. As you're aware, there was 11 recently a new agreement signed for the matching grant 12 for -- in January 2001 of this particular project. The 13 membership of the Task Force today consists of Kerr, 14 Gillespie, Bandera, and Kendall counties, Kerrville, Ingram, 15 Fredericksburg, Bandera, and Boerne cities. The Task Force, 16 to-date during this current grant year, seized drugs valued 17 at approximately $1,237,689. In addition to that, they 18 initiated 192 cases and made 119 arrests. Those are just 19 some of the statistics; I could give you a lot more. So, it 20 seems as though the Task Force is successful. 21 As part of this ongoing project, the 22 additional matching funds that are requested by each of the 23 entities who participate goes directly to paying the 24 salaries and benefits of each of those entity's employees 25 who are participating. So, in actuality, each of those 39 1 individual agencies are paying those employees assigned to 2 the Task Force, is the way that's actually working, rather 3 than going into a fund that's being funneled through another 4 system. The bottom line is -- is that this next year, with 5 the current contract that's in place in and with the agency 6 contract that we have, as well as yourselves and the other 7 agencies, as far as Kerr County is concerned, there would be 8 a total amount of $38,837 in matching grant. And, again, 9 that would go to pay for salary and benefits for those 10 individuals participating in that. As far as any new 11 programs tied to that, all I can say with regard to that is 12 any new Task Force initiatives that are being looked at with 13 regard to that, which we can talk about under other 14 circumstances, if you would like. 15 JUDGE HENNEKE: Any questions or comments 16 about the Task Force? I think it's a superb program. 17 RON: Thank you. 18 JUDGE HENNEKE: Thank you, Ron. Okay. We'll 19 go back and pick up the broader D.P.S. Gentlemen, thank you 20 for coming over. I know you had to hustle in from Austin, 21 and I appreciate it. 22 SGT. SEALE: I do appreciate y'all letting us 23 be here. 24 JUDGE HENNEKE: Just to catch you up, at the 25 very beginning of the session, our Assistant County Attorney 40 1 informed us that he could find no express authority for our 2 contributions to the D.P.S. Now, that doesn't necessarily 3 mean that we will cease the contributions, but it does mean 4 that we have to find a peg to put our hat on. So, with that 5 introduction -- 6 SGT. SEALE: Well -- 7 JUDGE HENNEKE: -- go ahead. 8 THE WITNESS: Out of the 250-ome-odd counties 9 in the state of Texas, most of them, D.P.S. is funded by 10 those counties, and so -- I say "funded" as far as 11 equipment, secretaries, and things like that. It's a -- 12 bottom line is, the secretary -- I think Travis has touched 13 on this a little bit. The secretary, the radars that we ask 14 for, and the intoxilizer phone line is just an investment by 15 the County. Eighty percent of the J.P. revenue that comes 16 in comes in from the troopers. If they're not on the roads, 17 the revenue's not there. So, that's -- basically it in a 18 nutshell. 19 JUDGE HENNEKE: What's your overall budget 20 for your office, your agents? 21 SGT. SEALE: Secretary's salary, which is 22 around $20,000 plus, whatever that is, and $6,000 for the 23 radars. And I think we have five tent meters that are -- 24 $250 a year that we have to calibrate those, and then our 25 intoxilizer phone line, and I'm not sure exactly what that 41 1 is on a yearly basis. 2 JUDGE HENNEKE: Outside of what we provide, 3 what is your budget? 4 SGT. SEALE: Well, it's a multi-million 5 dollar budget, but it's spread all over the state of Texas. 6 We don't have a specific budget. 7 JUDGE HENNEKE: You don't have a specific 8 figure for your office? 9 SGT. SEALE: No. 10 JUDGE HENNEKE: Okay. That's what I was 11 trying to get at. 12 SGT. SEALE: No, we do not. No, sir. 13 JUDGE HENNEKE: Questions or comments from 14 the Court? Okay. Thank you, Sergeant, I appreciate it. 15 SGT. SEALE: Thank you. 16 JUDGE HENNEKE: All right. The next grouping 17 are the City/County programs. Airport, Library, and 18 Recycling Center. 19 MR. HALL: Judge, let me tell you, if any of 20 y'all would be interested, the next fire chiefs' meeting 21 will be the 6th of June up at the Ingram Marshal's office. 22 That's where we generally meet, which is the first Wednesday 23 of the month. And if y'all would want -- one of y'all or 24 two of you would you care to come and talk to us, that's 25 when we will meet up there. 42 1 JUDGE HENNEKE: Do you have a time, Travis? 2 MR. HALL: 6:30. I'm sorry. 3 JUDGE HENNEKE: 6:30. 4 MR. HALL: Thank y'all. 5 JUDGE HENNEKE: Mr. Lucas, do you want to 6 tell us the legal authority for the Airport, Library, and 7 Recycling Center? 8 MR. LUCAS: Sure. Of course, the airport we 9 partially own, so, because it's a County asset, we can 10 maintain it. With the library, we have specific authority 11 under the Local Government Code, allows us to establish 12 a -- a County -- instead of establishing a County library, 13 the Commissioners Court of a county may contract for library 14 privileges from a -- an already established library. More 15 specifically, it says, the Court may contract to pay 16 annually to the established library out of the General 17 Revenue Fund of the county. So, we're okay there. And, 18 again, the recycling center, I'm told -- of course, we just 19 lease the land as a lessor, and we don't fund anything to 20 that. 21 JUDGE HENNEKE: Okay. Ron, I presume you're 22 going to talk to us about these three, as well? 23 RON: Yes, sir, again. You guys are going to 24 be tired of me. I'll go right down the list here and start 25 with the airport. Again, as you're aware, jointly owned 43 1 facilities, and we have a wonderful fixed-place operator 2 who's currently there. Obviously, with the change of hands 3 that's happening, it's very exciting to be able to keep 4 someone in place who's been here for a while and knows our 5 customer base. I heard a lot of bragging on him from the 6 Texas Army National Guard during the time when we had the 7 major fire going. They just bent over backwards to help 8 those folks out. The bottom line is -- is that the support 9 for the airport has varied over the last six years somewhat, 10 ranging from a high of $66,000 at one point down to $18,000 11 last year. Obviously, the ultimate goal is -- is to have 12 the airport stand on its own two feet and not require any 13 additional subsidy; in other words, get enough operating 14 revenues out there that we no longer have to provide the 15 subsidy to the operation. 16 This next year, there are some substantial 17 grants that we're going to be looking at with regards to 18 TexDOT Aviation and Federal Aviation Administration. There 19 is the airport improvement project, which is a $308,000 20 project, which would go to extending -- or actually 21 extending the ramps that are in place today, doing an 22 overlay on the runway, which would also increase our load 23 capacity on the runway, which is important as the aircraft 24 that we begin to serve grow larger. In addition to that, 25 the issue of moving the entrance road for safety concerns 44 1 with regard to the classification of the airport would be 2 rolled up into that project as well. In addition to that, 3 there's a routine maintenance project of about $60,000, and 4 then the entitlement fund that we're looking at of about 5 $166,000. The entitlement fund has not been specifically 6 designated yet; however, there is the need, as we know, as 7 we begin to grow, and not only the community grows, the 8 county grows, but also the airport, to look at land use 9 issues, economic development impact, as well as noise 10 compatibility contours need to be done on the airport. 11 One of the things that we are going to be 12 looking at, and perhaps talk with you later on about, is the 13 potential of using those additional entitlement funds to do 14 some of that work in terms of those studies, and get that 15 work done early on so that we'll have those answers as we 16 begin to grow into the airport. The bottom line is -- is 17 that's a total grant match that would be required of 18 $77,467, which is up from last year. Now, the good news is 19 it means we need more match -- I mean, excuse me, the bad 20 news is it means we need more match. The good news is -- is 21 that we're getting substantially more dollars to do this 22 project in the airport from outside power, two agencies; 23 that is, the federal and also the state. With that said, 24 the bottom line is, even with those increases in the need 25 for additional grant matches, we still are looking at about 45 1 a $16,000 match from the County and the City each, which is 2 about a $2,000 reduction over last year. So, that means, 3 then, we've got a good increase in revenues. 4 One of those being targeted is the T-hangar 5 revenue, as those complete. We did a very conservative 6 projection that the revenues on that would be based on 7 60 percent capacity in terms of those T-hangars. Again, we 8 can't say; it may be 100 percent. If it does, that means we 9 need even less money. But, we did that on a 60 percent 10 basis to take a look at that. With regard to getting 11 60 percent by the end of next fiscal year is what we're 12 shooting for in terms of the budget numbers. In reality, 13 we're shooting for 100 percent, hopefully by the end of this 14 fiscal year, and we can revise those. So, I'll stop with 15 the airport and answer any questions that you may have. 16 JUDGE HENNEKE: Anyone have any questions 17 regarding the airport? 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Ron, our airplane guru 19 down here seems to think it's going to be 100 percent. 20 RON: We're sure hoping it is. I know I'm 21 being very conservative. 22 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Should be 100 percent 23 the day you let an airplane taxi up to the hangar. I think 24 it will be 100 percent. 25 RON: Yes, sir, that will be good news. 46 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: My only comment is 2 general. It's that, I mean, overall, our funding seems to 3 go down annually, which is great news to us. I mean, so I 4 think the taxpayers of the county think it's a -- and the 5 airport continues to get better and better and better, and 6 taxpayers as a whole are spending less and less to get it 7 done, so we're going in the right direction. 8 RON: I certainly believe we've got a good 9 partnership, and we got a good person in Megan, as well. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yes. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: True statement. 12 RON: I'll go on to the library. Again, as 13 was pointed out, it is a jointly-funded facility at this 14 point in time. It's run as a City department, but jointly 15 funded through the County and the City. One of the things I 16 provided in the report for you was just a small little table 17 there to show you the patron categories so that you can see 18 some of the numbers. This, obviously, does not account for 19 all of the circulation or all of the categories for 20 registered patrons. You'll notice, in these numbers, that 21 we do have a substantial number of patrons circulating 22 through the library, as well as a number of items being 23 circulated. And it seems as though, from looking at the 24 last several years and the trends, that continues to rise. 25 Obviously, one of the things that we're 47 1 looking at is doing some renovation work on the library. 2 We're also looking at bringing on new technology to help 3 service those -- our patrons. But, as someone pointed out, 4 you know, obviously, it doesn't matter; unless you add a 5 number of square feet, you're really not adding a whole lot 6 of capacity. So, one of the things that I know, in looking 7 at the master plan for the library, and also in some 8 discussions with some of the Commissioners, there is the 9 issue of also trying to get out into the county somewhat and 10 provide some programs. 11 One of the things that we have taken a look 12 at, and we've designated that under new programs in the 13 report, is we're proposing a project that we're calling 14 Library Material Circuit Rider. And, what that basically 15 means is establishing a program whereby we would obtain a 16 van, or any -- or another vehicle of some sort where the 17 books could be handled properly; not just thrown in the back 18 of a car or in the trunk, but handled properly, on shelves. 19 And then we would set up relationships out in the county 20 with different -- either commercial vendors, schools, 21 whatever process we could, to -- we even said maybe even 22 precinct offices for Commissioners. But, the idea would be 23 so that an individual would be able to either call in or go 24 on the Internet and be able to reserve a book, and then have 25 that book delivered to them out in the county, instead of 48 1 having to drive here. 2 The whole idea behind this program would be 3 to get the county participation up and to be able to 4 actually take the service to them, rather than them having 5 to come here and get the service. This program initially 6 would be a program that could cost around $60,000 to fund; 7 however, we feel that with some of the endowments and some 8 of the funds that have come to us as gifts, the van could be 9 funded right away. We could go ahead and handle that and 10 take care of that, and then put the van into the replacement 11 program. We have a -- as you probably do as well -- have a 12 replacement program for vehicles; as they get so many miles 13 on them, they get replaced. The idea there, though, would 14 mean we could get into the first year, and we would be able 15 to -- our participation each year would only be about a 16 little over $11,000 to be able to get that program stood up 17 and off and running. 18 Initially, we would propose that we put a 19 one-half F.T.E., the halftime person, in place to handle 20 that, and then we would do the delivery circuit once a week. 21 However, if the demand goes up and we see that people are 22 buying into it, we're getting the demand, we would propose 23 to you that we expand that; we do it two or three times a 24 week. Originally, it was proposed by Antonio, Hey, why 25 don't we just go ahead and do it three times a week up 49 1 front? And, we could do that; however, since it is a new 2 program, we'd like to see how it works and see if it takes 3 off. 4 In addition to that, there will be, you know, 5 obviously, changes to the base budget with regard to 6 increases in benefits and salaries and that type thing would 7 also be coming. The bottom line is -- is that we feel like 8 that with this new program and with these changes, that 9 there is a possibility that. Between the $11,000 from the 10 new program, there is potentially some other numbers in 11 there with regard to about $15,000 to try and get the entire 12 program up and running for this next fiscal year. With 13 that, I will answer any questions on the library. 14 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I don't have a 15 question. I do have a comment, and I'm pleased that you 16 have put this initiative in there, because in the last two 17 years in my last term on the Library Board, we've been 18 talking about the need to bring the services out to the 19 county. I think this is an excellent first step, and I 20 commend you for that. Ron, thank you, sir. 21 JUDGE HENNEKE: Has this been discussed at 22 the Library Board meeting, Commissioner? 23 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: First time I've seen 24 it, although I missed the last meeting. 25 RON: It has not been, sir, at this point in 50 1 time. As a matter of fact, we just now finished wrapping up 2 the numbers, literally as I was coming over here today. 3 And, we have been discussing it at a staff level for some 4 time, but we're at the point now where we're ready to take 5 this to the Library Board as well. But, you got the first 6 crack at it, because we had to be here first. 7 JUDGE HENNEKE: All right. Okay. 8 RON: Recycling center. Again, a joint 9 venture that we have with regard to being able to handle 10 solid waste issues within the city and the county. The 11 bottom line is -- is that the use of that facility is 12 incredible. I have been involved in other communities where 13 recycling was a program, and that's about all it was. I can 14 tell you, from the numbers I've seen here, people take it 15 serious. And that's good, because it keeps it out of the 16 landfill, which keeps the life of the landfill extended. 17 And that's good. In addition to our normal programs, this 18 -- this year, two hazardous waste collections for county 19 residents was established; recycle paint, as well as the 20 hazardous household waste. So, we're glad to be able to put 21 those programs into place. 22 It was interesting, we just recently did a 23 collection at the center, and there was a -- a poll taken as 24 people were coming in and out, and 48 percent of our 25 participants were county residents who lived outside the 51 1 city limits, so that's good. As you well know, the 2 initiative here is to try and get people to quit putting it 3 out in the back 40 and recycle it. As part of that, Megan 4 proposed and we also addressed this year in the recycling 5 program where we had a tire amnesty day, where people can 6 get these tires -- or instead of us writing them citations 7 to clean it up, give them the opportunity to get it in here 8 and put it in, and we had a substantial number show up and 9 actually do that, so that's good as well. 10 This last year, in the current fiscal year, 11 2001, there was not a -- a subsidy requested. Typically, in 12 the past years, there has been $10,000 requested for -- 13 toward this program. However, due to the T-hangars and all 14 the other programs that occurred this year, and also because 15 of the -- the amount of waste stream that's come through, we 16 did not see that need this year. However, looking at this 17 next year and trying to -- to make sure we maintain these 18 additional programs, we would be asking that that be 19 reinstituted this next fiscal year. And, with that, I will 20 answer any questions on the recycling center. 21 JUDGE HENNEKE: Any questions or comments? I 22 guess not. Thanks, Ron. 23 RON: Thank y'all very much. Again, 24 appreciate the opportunity. 25 JUDGE HENNEKE: Thank you. Okay. The next 52 1 grouping of programs we have are what we've called social 2 service programs, which include Family Literacy, Child 3 Advocacy, Soil Conservation Service, Big Brother/Big Sister, 4 Dietert Claim, K'Star. Crisis Council, CASA, KEDF, Kerr 5 County Historical Commission, R.C.& D., and the Child 6 Services Board. Mr. Lucas, what do you have to tell us 7 about these programs? 8 MR. LUCAS: Well, let me first start off by 9 saying that the contracts, I guess, as they were first 10 written by, maybe, one of my predecessors, continue to cite 11 throughout all of these programs that the Judge just listed 12 authority out of the Family Code, Section 264.006, entitled 13 "County Funding." I don't know how much detail y'all want 14 to go into this, but essentially, that particular provision 15 gives counties authority to fund child welfare boards, and 16 it's a two-sentence section. And, the first section pretty 17 much says County Commissioners Courts may fund that 18 particular board. Second sentence, which is the one I think 19 my predecessor may have drawn from, says the "Courts may 20 provide for services to and support of children in need of 21 protection and care," but it continues, "without regard to 22 the immigration status of the child or child's family." 23 Maybe the Judge can appreciate this, being a 24 lawyer. Statutory construction tells us that that second 25 sentence modifies the first, which gives y'all authority to 53 1 fund the welfare board -- Child Welfare Board. And, again, 2 the previous section, 264.005, gives y'all the authority to 3 create that particular board. So, we can't just look solely 4 and isolated at that second sentence and say that we can 5 provide for all child, you know, services, just because of 6 that sentence. Furthermore, there are -- there's some 7 authority that backs that up. It's an old A.G. opinion -- 8 Mark White opinion, but it essentially says, "The County 9 must provide for the support of needy children" -- and, 10 again, it continues; doesn't stop there -- "and has the 11 authority to appoint a child welfare board to accomplish 12 that mandate." So, apparently the Legislature looks to the 13 board as being the vehicle to fund the necessary services. 14 However, what's interesting, in Local 15 Government Code, Section 81, it spells out about 12 duties 16 and powers for Commissioners Court, and one of those powers 17 is entitled "Support of Paupers." The section I've referred 18 to on this sheet is 81.027, and it says, "Each Commissioners 19 Court may provide for the support of paupers, residents of 20 their county, who are unable to support themselves." Case 21 law all the way back from -- to the 19 -- or 1800's never 22 defines what "pauper" is, and I think it's just going to 23 take the general definition of what we all think it is, what 24 you would find in the dictionary. And, one could argue that 25 these programs can be funded on the basis of that. 54 1 Counties throughout Texas are funding these 2 types of programs, whether it's CASA, just about everything 3 that we have on here, and probably they're doing it through 4 that authority. But, there's nothing express that says, you 5 know, that y'all can provide for activities that Big 6 Brothers and Sisters would provide, or what-have-you. Any 7 questions? 8 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Yeah. Without 9 mentioning any of them specifically, I know that there are 10 some on this list that would be a real stretch to say that 11 would classify at the pauper level. I don't know if it's 12 sort of like, "everybody does it." But, boy, I used to get 13 in trouble when I was about high school-age when I tried to 14 rely on "everybody does it." So, therefore, we ought to -- 15 I feel like we need to get a better answer. And it may, 16 again, require a request for an A.G. opinion. 17 JUDGE HENNEKE: Anyone else have any 18 comments? 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I mean, kind of along the 20 same lines as Larry, this is one area that I was always -- I 21 mean, I support all the programs, or philosophically support 22 all the programs that we fund. 23 MR. LUCAS: Absolutely. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: There's a whole lot of 25 other programs that are similar to these that we don't fund. 55 1 I always found it interesting as to, you know, why we did 2 some and didn't do others. And, we've always said -- 3 there's been some general rationale, I think, that if the 4 County Judge who does juvenile cases does -- you know, a 5 program that is used in that light. It was kind of the 6 broadest of, I mean, criteria that seemed to be used since 7 I've been on the Court. But, it just seems I never -- I've 8 yet to have a really good answer to as to why we fund -- or 9 what our authority is to fund some of these. And, kind of 10 along with Larry, I really would like to know that, and -- 11 you know, so we could develop some, you know, written 12 criteria as to what, you know, agencies have to do to get 13 funding from the County. And, that may be worse; may open 14 up Pandora's box, may open up a thousand requests if we do 15 that, but -- 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I agree. I think that 17 you need -- we need to have really firm, clear-cut rules to 18 go by. However, our attorney here, which is an arm of the 19 A.G.'s office, is kind of saying no. I mean, I'm almost 20 hearing an A.G. opinion here. 21 MR. LUCAS: I did have a discussion with 22 Department of Human Services and with their legal staff, 23 trying to come up with a way, and, you know, they confirmed 24 my suspicion, after reviewing the law. Specifically, 25 though, let's look at Child Advocacy. I want to make one 56 1 comment there that I did not list on the memo. The Attorney 2 General funds that, and I think they've been doing that 3 since 1997, in fact. Also, with the CASA, I'd like to spend 4 just a little time there, Judge. Family Code 107 -- let me 5 get to it real quick. In 1997, the Legislature revised a 6 lot of -- all of the law on guardian ad litem and attorney 7 ad litem provisions in the Family Code. 107 -- Chapter 107 8 is the only provision that speaks to that -- to that issue. 9 Specifically, one provision 107.015, Subsection C, does 10 allow for the County -- in fact, it says, "The County shall 11 pay general funds to one who is an attorney ad litem," but 12 that's only in the context of a child/parent termination 13 proceeding. For guardian ad litem, specifically, the 14 Legislature discusses it in 107.031, "The Court" -- and all 15 it really says is, "The Court may appoint, as a volunteer, 16 volunteer advocate on behalf of the child," but mentions 17 nothing about funding. But, again, I think one could argue 18 that these children, in and of themselves, are paupers, 19 regardless of whether they have parents to foot the bill. 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: "Paupers" means no 21 visible means of support? 22 MR. LUCAS: Yes. 23 JUDGE HENNEKE: Any questions or comments? 24 Anything else you want to specifically mention, Travis? 25 MR. LUCAS: No, that's all on the children 57 1 programs. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: On that list, even -- I 3 mean, there's one that is in a different category, which is 4 Soil Conservation Service. Could you talk about that a 5 little bit? 6 MR. LUCAS: Okay. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And -- 8 JUDGE HENNEKE: R.C.& D., as well. 9 (Discussion off the record.) 10 MR. LUCAS: Yeah. First of all, R.C.& D., I 11 was not asked to look that over, but they -- they did -- we 12 don't have a contract. 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We pay dues to that. 14 JUDGE HENNEKE: Yes. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: As opposed to funding it. 16 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Membership. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Membership fees. 18 MR. LUCAS: Soil Conservation, the 19 Agriculture Code, 201.152 gives counties the authority to 20 enter into some pretty broad arrangements. Let me just read 21 one revision. "A County may contribute funds to a 22 conservation district for a specific purpose authorized by 23 this chapter, or for use in the exercise of any power or 24 duty conferred on the conservation district by this chapter 25 that will benefit the contributing district or political 58 1 subdivision," meaning the County. Furthermore, you know, it 2 mentions specific things like we may contract with such a 3 district for acquisition of right-of-ways, maintenance of 4 dams, canals, drains. Just -- it's pretty detailed in that 5 regard. There's also an old A.G. opinion, 1941, that 6 mentions this support, as well. Do you have any questions 7 on that specifically? 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I have a question, but 9 I'll wait until we get out of the others. 10 MR. LUCAS: Let me take KEDF. The 11 Legislature was very detailed in spelling out what a county 12 can do in terms of economic development. I could sit up 13 here all day and give you a lecture as to what a county can 14 do, but essentially, here's the thrust. A county can have 15 activity, dedicate funds and what-have-you with -- you know, 16 in that economic development arena, but only through the 17 vehicle of what we call county industrial commission or 18 county economic development district, or a -- what is called 19 a board of development, one of them. 20 For instance, I'll just give you an 21 illustration. County Industrial Commission is actually 22 appointed by the Judge. It tells how many people sit on 23 this board; about seven people, county residents, obviously. 24 Spells out what it is that they shall do; investigate, 25 undertake ways of promoting prosperous development of 59 1 business, industry, commerce in the county. Other than 2 that, in fact, there are a lot of, again, A.G. opinions that 3 reflect Chapters 381 through 384 in the Local Government 4 Code that -- that talk about this that say, you know, Look, 5 the only way that y'all can get on board with this is if 6 it's -- if the program is, one, County-initiated and 7 developed. Okay. So, it's got to come out of -- it's got 8 to come from y'all; it can't come from a nonprofit -- has to 9 be -- it has to originate from this Court. And, secondly, 10 it must be through the vehicle of one of these entities that 11 I've described, and one of them is a tax -- taxing entity, 12 as well. I think that's the district -- economic 13 development district. Let me just read this real quick, to 14 belabor a little bit longer. "To stimulate business and 15 commercial activities in the county, a Commissioners Court 16 of the county may develop -- the Commissioners Court may 17 develop and administer a program for local economic 18 development or to stimulate encourage and develop business 19 location commercial activity in the county." Furthermore, 20 it says, "The Commissioners Court may then contract with 21 another entity for the administration of that program." Do 22 you see what I'm saying? We've got to initiate it from 23 here, and then have some sort of entity that we've also 24 created to take care of it. Is that confusing? 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No. Would it be like 60 1 -- would it be like, you know, we're a policy-making body. 2 We would create the policy of how the machine should run, 3 and then contract out to run it. Would it be a policy? 4 MR. LUCAS: Well -- 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Or what would -- 6 MR. LUCAS: You really don't contract out. 7 We have to develop the actual entity, itself. 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Right. 9 MR. LUCAS: Follow me? So, in other words, 10 we -- the Judge would have to appoint this County Industrial 11 Commission; that's what it's called in the Code. It has 12 seven people on it. And then it says, in real broad 13 language, that this commission shall investigate and 14 undertake ways of promoting development, business, industry, 15 and commerce in the county. So, I don't know if we would 16 necessarily come up with that policy; it would be the -- the 17 committee. Same for this board of development. But, there 18 is a -- the board of development is created by the voters. 19 If authorized by a majority vote of qualified voters in the 20 county, then the Commissioners Court may appropriate an 21 amount not to exceed 5 cents on $100 assessed valuation to 22 advertise, promote the growth of development of the county. 23 Kind of like a chamber of commerce, I guess, in some 24 respects. 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I know that, you know, 61 1 some of the counties that I deal with, like Jefferson 2 County, they do wild and crazy things from the Commissioners 3 Court, and it's all exactly what you're talking about. 4 It's -- they utilize the Chamber and the Visitors Bureau and 5 those kinds of people, but it all comes out of their 6 Commissioners Court, and they do all kind of wild things 7 down there, build parks and industry, have people in, and 8 I've always kind of wondered how they did that. 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'm going to invite a 10 guy down here in about two weeks to talk about that. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. Settled that. 12 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: I know in Harris 13 County, the economic development foundation -- several of 14 the economic development foundations that are in the county 15 get funded by Harris County through this mechanism that 16 you're talking about, that they have -- in other words, they 17 have what amounts to either a contract or an interlocal 18 agreement that says, "We'll pay you, E.D.F., to do what we 19 have set as goals for the County. 20 MR. LUCAS: Right. And then, also, costs 21 funnel down through that way, too. 22 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Mm-hmm. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So, it kind of depends 24 what K.E.D.F. -- it may be worthwhile to look at how the 25 County got involved. Sherry may do that. 62 1 MS. CUNNINGHAM: I can tell you that. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: All right. 3 JUDGE HENNEKE: Any other questions of Travis 4 at this time? 5 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: He might -- while 6 we're passing through some of these that don't have -- that 7 have justification in the statute, like the Historical 8 Commission, 318.09, I think, that's direct -- 9 MR. LUCAS: Yeah. 10 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: It says that you can 11 have Historical Commissions. And I've got a question on 12 Dietert Claim. It says Local Government Code 332.002, but 13 see -- but also see Local Government Code 445. 14 MR. LUCAS: Yeah, let's go to that. 15 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: What is that? I'm 16 just curious as to what those are. 17 MR. LUCAS: Let me start with 332, all right? 18 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: All right. 19 MR. LUCAS: 332 -- Local Government Code, 20 332.002. "A County may establish, provide, acquire, 21 maintain, construct, equip, operate, supervise recreational 22 facilities and programs, either singly or jointly, in 23 cooperation with one or more municipalities or counties." 24 Go down a little bit further. "A county may pay costs and 25 expenses to carry out this subchapter from its general 63 1 revenues or from other revenues provided by law for the 2 establishment or the operation of parks and recreational 3 facilities." Okay. So, we're clearly okay to dedicate the 4 funds if it's used for recreational facilities, and 5 furthermore -- I guess we all assume this -- if all county 6 residents can use them. We can't specifically -- there's 7 nothing that says we can specifically give moneys for a 8 particular group of people, right? Except maybe paupers. 9 So, take that into consideration. 10 Now, if I go a little bit further in the same 11 332 chapter, it says, "Renumbered as Local Government Code 12 Section 440.22." That's under that finances chapter I just 13 read. The Legislature, again -- sometimes they just flat 14 out don't get specific. They became very specific with 15 funding -- County funding for transportation, and in 445.022 16 it says, "The Commissioners Court, with a population of 17 2.4 million or more, may pay out of the County's general 18 fund costs and expenses for the transportation of senior 19 citizens and recreational activities within and outside of 20 the county." 21 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: We don't quite 22 qualify. 23 MR. LUCAS: No, not hardly. So, if they were 24 thinking along the lines of this particular issue, you know, 25 but they -- they capped it with a large metropolitan area, 64 1 Bexar, Harris, Dallas, what-have-you, then you would think 2 that they would have thought about us as well. 3 MS. SOVIL: I'm trying to -- look at 21. 4 MR. LUCAS: The County may provide grants to 5 eligible nonprofit corporations that provide transportation 6 services to residents of the county. And, I guess if you 7 had a -- oh, I guess if AACOG provides a transportation 8 service, and that's solely what they do, then you could -- 9 you could fund that. 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Do it here through 11 Dietert. 12 MR. LUCAS: Yeah. I guess if it's one -- if 13 it's a nonprofit corporation that provides transportation 14 services -- 15 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Is that -- the Dietert 16 Claim a 501(c)(3) or something like that? 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yes. You're a 18 501(c)(3), are you not? Yes. 19 JUDGE HENNEKE: Any other questions or 20 comments? Okay thanks Travis. We'll just take these more 21 or less in the order they're listed here. Anyone here from 22 Family Literacy? 23 (No response.) 24 JUDGE HENNEKE: Okay. Anyone here from Child 25 Advocacy? Thank you. 65 1 MS. HICKEY: Hi. My name is Rhonda Hickey. 2 I'm with Kids Advocacy Place, and our mission statement is 3 on behalf and for the children of Kerr and surrounding 4 counties. Kids Advocacy Place serves as a facility where 5 children who are victims of sexual and severe physical abuse 6 and their nonoffending family members can come for the 7 purpose of evaluation, intervention, evidence gathering, and 8 counseling in a nonthreatening, child-friendly facility. In 9 compliance with the Texas Family Code, Section 264.405, KAP, 10 Kids Advocacy Place, will perform the following duties: 11 Assess victims of child abuse and their 12 families to determine the need for services relating to the 13 investigation of the child abuse. Provide services 14 determined to be needed -- social services, provide a 15 facility at which a multi-disciplinary team can meet and 16 facilitate the efficient and appropriate disposition of the 17 case through the civil and criminal justice systems. 18 Coordinate the activities of governmental entities relating 19 to child abuse investigation, and the delivery of services 20 to child abuse victims and their families. In addition, we 21 provide a protective environment for children during the 22 interview process. We hope to reduce the number of times a 23 child is interviewed in the system by providing a single 24 mutual facility for professionals who must interview child 25 victims. We make referrals to appropriate mental health 66 1 providers. We serve as a clearinghouse for the continuum of 2 professional and community services to abused children and 3 their families, and we provide ongoing training for 4 professionals who work with abused children. 5 We have a $75,000 budget, and that goes to 6 salary, taxes, counseling services, interviewers, training, 7 supplies, and operational expenses. I also provided some 8 statistical information on Page 2. And, we -- we gather 9 statistics quarterly. And, as you can see, Kerr County is 10 our number one area where we serve the most children. We 11 served 173 children last year, and we are -- in the future, 12 we are planning on increasing our services with more 13 counseling, and helping families fill out Medicaid forms, 14 victims of crime forms, and really getting out into the 15 community and providing more services to families in need. 16 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I have a question. 17 MS. HICKEY: Yes? 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I guess it really is 19 to the County Attorney. 20 MR. LUCAS: Okay. 21 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Looks like the Child 22 Advocacy Center has found a section of the Texas Family Code 23 that applies. 24 MR. LUCAS: Well, no. 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I don't see it in 67 1 your list, is the reason I'm asking. 2 MR. LUCAS: Okay. It authorizes them to be 3 created. Do you follow me? But it doesn't say County 4 funding; two different issues. And, in fact, Department of 5 Human Services is quite involved with them. It spells out 6 one of the more lengthier provisions, Subchapter E, entitled 7 "Childrens Advocacy Centers." It does set forth what they 8 call an interagency memo of understanding; essentially, a 9 contract. But, I think you're confusing authorizing the 10 establishment of the worthy program versus County funding of 11 it. 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's why I had you 13 clear it up. 14 MR. LUCAS: And the Attorney General, I guess 15 since '97, actually -- she found an A.G. opinion, and I 16 started looking in the Family Code for it a couple of weeks 17 ago. They fund it entirely, I think, from their reserve 18 funds that they have. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thank you. 20 MS. HICKEY: We do have an interagency 21 agreement with the Sheriff's Office, the D.A.'s' office, the 22 County Attorney's office, and K'Star and the Crisis Council; 23 we all work together, and really work hard to try to make 24 sure these families are served and that they -- I'm sorry, 25 that they receive all those services that they may need. 68 1 JUDGE HENNEKE: Any other questions or 2 comments? Thank you, Rhonda. Appreciate it. 3 MS. HICKEY: Thank you. 4 JUDGE HENNEKE: Soil Conservation Service? 5 MR. HOLEKAMP: I'm chairman of the Kerr 6 County Soil Conservation District. You have service, but -- 7 but it's a district thing. 8 JUDGE HENNEKE: Okay, thanks. 9 MR. HOLEKAMP: What -- first of all, we -- we 10 get matching funds, and whatever we get from the County is 11 matched by the State. It comes to the county. And, the 12 district puts up a calendar, yearly calendar with -- with 13 their financial report and rainfall for the past ten years, 14 and -- and it goes out to all districts. They get -- the 15 district sponsors awards for Kerr range judging contests, 16 which is held here locally. The district sponsors two 17 outstanding students at the range youth workshop at Texas 18 Tech Center at Junction, and the district sponsors five Kerr 19 County teachers to a teacher's workshop studying 20 conservation and natural resources. And the district 21 purchases T-shirts for the conservation booth at the San 22 Antonio stock show. The district donates to the Hill 23 Country District Stock Show. The district sponsors a fish 24 pond management seminar. The district donates annually 25 the -- to the Association of Soil and Water Conservation 69 1 Districts to sponsor soil and water conservation and 2 educating the general public about the -- protecting our 3 valuable natural resources. The district conducts tours to 4 educate the public on conservation and natural resources. 5 The district soil -- distributed soil stewardship material 6 through -- to churches last year. The district did sponsor 7 a small acreage management seminar last Saturday, the 12th. 8 There were probably a hundred landowners attending. 9 Jonathan was -- was in on this; he had part of it. The 10 district remains self-insured as required by Texas State 11 Soil Water Conservation Board. And, the district works 12 closely with the National Resource Conservation Service to 13 provide technical assistance concerning rainfall runoff and 14 soil and water conservation practices. The Texas members of 15 the news media, outstanding teacher, and citizens of the 16 community at the annual area to the awards. 17 JUDGE HENNEKE: Thank you, George. 18 MR. HOLEKAMP: We would -- 19 JUDGE HENNEKE: Any questions for 20 Mr. Holekamp about Soil Conservation District? 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: George, where does the 22 rest of your funding come from? 23 MR. HOLEKAMP: We have -- have a fish sale 24 and a few other things to -- to make enough. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I mean, out of the $1,500 70 1 that -- $1,500? Is that right? $1,500, and the State 2 matches that, so that's $3,000? 3 MR. HOLEKAMP: Yeah, the State matching is 4 $3,000. We make a little on the -- on the -- our fish sale. 5 We make a little on our calendar and a few other small -- 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Y'all seem to do a lot 7 without much money, which is -- I mean, we have seen you 8 around a great deal, but not a lot of funding. I might also 9 add that Soil Conservation Service was a big help on the 10 Hermann Sons bridge, as well, working very closely with 11 N.R.C.S. We're fortunate to have one of the state 12 directors, Edward Albright, working out there, so we had a 13 vested interest out there. But, either way, we spent a lot 14 of time on making sure that the wheels turned quickly, 15 and -- 16 MR. HOLEKAMP: I've got -- this is a -- is 17 what went on at that seminar. 18 JUDGE HENNEKE: Oh, thank you. 19 MR. HOLEKAMP: You have one. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Counselor, can we take 21 gifts from this man? Thank you, George. 22 JUDGE HENNEKE: Thank you. 23 AUDIENCE: Technical information. 24 JUDGE HENNEKE: Next we'll take up Big 25 Brother/Big Sister. Anyone here from Big Brother/Big 71 1 Sister? Okay. Next on the agenda is Dietert Claim. Rick? 2 MR. BRECKENRIDGE: My name is Rick 3 Breckenridge. I'm Executive Director of Dietert Senior 4 Center. For the record, we are still Dietert Claim Senior 5 Citizens Center, Inc. Our legal name kind of got away from 6 the "Claim" part, 'cause nobody knew what it meant, but if 7 you call us Dietert Claim, we'll answer. Dietert Senior 8 Center is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. We also have 9 a sister organization called D.C. Community Services. D.C. 10 Community is a -- for lack of a better term, a paper 11 nonprofit organization. It's the contracting entity that 12 receives funds from Alamo Area Council of Governments for 13 rural transportation, and in turn, distributes or 14 subcontracts with Dietert Transportation and with Golden Hub 15 Transportation in Fredericksburg to actually provide the 16 transportation services incurred in Kerr and Gillespie 17 Counties. 18 And, the reason that it was established that 19 way, when the rural public transportation programming was 20 initiated three years ago, Texas Department of 21 Transportation and/or AACOG was not interested in funding 22 individual entities and individual counties. And, to be 23 considered for a contract, you really needed to serve more 24 than one county. So, we created D.C. Community Services. 25 JUDGE HENNEKE: And is that a tax-free -- 72 1 MR. BRECKENRIDGE: Yes, it's a 501(c)(3) as 2 well, has its own employer number and -- and employer 3 directors and so on. In the contract that Dietert Senior 4 Center has with the County, the one number that is in the 5 contract page -- and I wasn't familiar with 81.028. I don't 6 know if that's something that the attorney looked up or 7 considered, Texas Local Government Code. So, maybe that's 8 got an extra rule we can lean on. In general, I would like 9 to encourage the Commissioners Court to not only continue, 10 but to increase its support of the senior center. I believe 11 quite firmly that Kerr County and the City of Kerrville have 12 been fortunate through the years to not have to pay for a 13 good many of the services that the senior center provides to 14 this community. 15 If you go to most communities around Texas, 16 you'll find that the senior center and all the associated 17 services, transportation, nutrition, social support services 18 that are administered by or through those senior centers are 19 run by the county or the municipality. It just happened, I 20 believe, that Harry Dietert decided to start a senior center 21 before the -- before government started to appear to fund 22 most of the services that fund senior centers. If we go 23 through the formal part of this process, I'll be happy to 24 research what percentage of funding is provided by county 25 and municipal governments in other areas and how it stacks 73 1 up against what the County and the City are able to provide 2 here, as opposed to what is actually delivered to the people 3 who receive these services. 4 Very quickly, the running total of the number 5 of people and that we serve and the number of services that 6 we provide annually for the last three years that I provided 7 to you, you will not see a total number of clients, and 8 that's because I don't have a piece of software that will 9 give me an unduplicated client count. But, going through 10 and by -- well, professional guess, I would say that -- if I 11 had to bet money, I would say about 3,200 is the total of 12 unduplicated clients. We do, of course, have people who 13 come to the center or utilize center services in one program 14 area and use nothing else, and then, of course, we have 15 people who use all those areas. And, if I had to put my 16 money on -- on a good number, it would be about 3,000 or 17 3,200 people that are unduplicated clients of the senior 18 center in any one year. 19 The senior center is the activities program, 20 which is what Harry Dietert started. That is a collection 21 of about 50 different activities, either sponsored or 22 facilitated by the senior center. They're open to the 23 public. The only situation under which we would kick 24 somebody out because they weren't a senor -- weren't a 25 senior would be if it is an entitlement-type program, where 74 1 their presence excluded seniors. We have made some efforts 2 to attract younger people to participate in the arts 3 programs and language programs and things of that sort, and 4 the idea being that a good many people in this community 5 could learn by listening to their elders, and there's a vast 6 amount of knowledge and experience that goes untapped 7 because its hard to get the younger people to come into the 8 senior center, be exposed to it. But, the activities 9 operation is the core of the -- core of the senior center. 10 Nutrition is second. Wheels -- Meals on 11 Wheels program here in the city and the county is a 12 home-delivered meals program. The Independent Living 13 Program started as a way to disburse funds delivered by 14 Alamo Area Council of Government contracts, and they're 15 slowly but surely diminishing to what we can find funding 16 for. This includes providing homemaker services, personal 17 care services, emergency response devices for people who 18 can't get up to call the telephone if they get injured or 19 have a problem, medical equipment lending, benefits 20 counseling, and just about anything that we can think of 21 where we can provide help for seniors or for the caregivers 22 of seniors to make their old age more bearable, keep them 23 out of long-term care as long as possible. 24 The most successful thing we've begun 25 recently is a caregiver's respite program. There is a 75 1 tremendous unmet need in this community for respite care for 2 the caregivers of individuals who have Alzheimer's or other 3 dementia-related illnesses. It takes a great toll on the 4 caregivers when they provide 24-hour care with no support, 5 no shoulder to cry on, no one to direct them to other 6 resources. Right now, we have a program that's recently 7 expanded to two days a week to take these individuals, pick 8 them up at home, bring them in to the senior center, work 9 with them, entertain them, provide some stimulating mental 10 activities, feed them lunch, take them back home. This 11 provides them something to do, gives them some 12 socialization, exposure to other people, people to talk to, 13 and something other than the four walls where they're 14 sitting, and provides their caregivers that valuable three 15 to five hours of time alone to rest, recreate, go to the 16 doctor, get their hair done, go shopping, whatever it is 17 that they need to do. 18 Finally, the fourth distinctive program that 19 we provide is the transportation program. This is a rural 20 public transportation program operated under Texas 21 Department of Transportation funding through AACOG. We try 22 to always advertise it as such. It's available to anyone 23 who cares to ride. For individuals 60 or older, they're not 24 required to pay a fee, but make a suggested donation. For 25 people younger than 60, they're charged a fee. It usually 76 1 starts at $3. It is absolutely the best deal going, to get 2 picked up at your door and dropped off where you need to go, 3 make a phone call, get picked up and taken back home again 4 for three bucks, anywhere within a 5-mile radius of 5 downtown. We also transport people to San Antonio every 6 Wednesday, largely for medical appointments, but also for 7 shopping and entertainment if the seats are not full for 8 people wishing medical appointments. 9 The mission the of Dietert Senior Center is 10 to enhance quality of life for Kerr County senior citizens, 11 pure and simple. There's no qualification, and it's for 12 Kerr County. And, indeed, all of our long-range planning 13 focuses on expanding services and the availability for 14 services to all areas of the county. We've already made 15 some inroads to the west and to the east. We're working out 16 of the American Legion Hall in Center Point, have a good 17 nutrition program running there, and we have some things 18 that would extend that as a home base for an additional 19 services transportation program, and we're working to do the 20 same thing out in the western end of the county. 21 I honestly believe that our community, the 22 county and the city -- even though I'm a newcomer, our 23 community has not done what it should over the years to take 24 care of the "retireds," as someone started calling them in a 25 meeting recently, who make up a major part of the economic 77 1 lifeblood of the community. And, I believe that the senior 2 center is doing everything they can, within the funds that 3 are available, to not only make life easier for the people 4 who are here who are retired, but also to make life better 5 for everyone in the community by facilitating the people who 6 are here who are retired. 7 We're working right now to establish a good, 8 reliable information and referral program so that the people 9 who are here and the people who are trying to find care for 10 their moms and dads and grandparents and aunts and uncles 11 can go one place and get the information they need to know 12 what services are available, to find out where people can 13 get assistance with whatever you can think of that they 14 might need assistance with. And, I think that that is the 15 future for older people in this community. It's not so much 16 to go out and find more resources to give them more things, 17 but to find more and more creative ways to enable them and 18 empower them to remain independent and out of long-term care 19 for as long as possible. Everyone likes to complain about 20 getting stuck behind a blue-hair in traffic. Well, what we 21 should do is make sure that all of the people who reach a 22 certain age or certain skill level in their driving are 23 provided alternatives, like public transportation, or like 24 additional training courses on 55-Alive driver training, and 25 counseling about their insurance and all those things that 78 1 go to making a safer driving community. Likewise, when 2 people can call an information referral program to get 3 assistance going through the city or county governments to 4 resolve a problem or an issue, that's one less phone call 5 that the person at the government end has to field cold, 6 when that person is maybe confused or doesn't know who 7 they're calling or why they're calling, things of that 8 nature. And that's where we hope to go with the whole 9 thing, and we appreciate the support that the County has 10 given to this point. Hope you're able to continue it. 11 JUDGE HENNEKE: Rick, what is your overall 12 budget? 13 MR. BRECKENRIDGE: Our budget this year is 14 $858,000. About 45 percent of our funding is contract 15 services with AACOG, direct purchase of service for 16 nutrition, transportation, and independent living services. 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Rick, do you go 18 beyond -- oh, I'm sorry. 19 JUDGE HENNEKE: Do you have a community -- 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Just when y'all get 21 finished, I need to clarify some things. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I just wanted to ask 23 if you go beyond a 5-mile radius with transportation. Do 24 you ever -- 25 MR. BRECKENRIDGE: Yes. 79 1 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Good. So, under what 2 conditions, and does the rate change and fee change? 3 MR. BRECKENRIDGE: The rate goes up. Exactly 4 what rate, I can't tell you. It seems to me it skips from 5 $5 to $7 for the next 3 miles, and then from $7 to $9 for 3 6 or 5 miles after that. You can come from out the other side 7 of Mountain Home, go to the store and back, I think, for 8 about $18. I would have to get a schedule and look it up. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: A hell of a deal. 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Not a bad deal. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Rick, one thing that 12 jumps off the page at me is the number of volunteer hours. 13 That's incredible. Forty thousand hours? 14 MR. BRECKENRIDGE: Yes. That's largely -- 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's a good 16 reflection on our community. 17 MR. BRECKENRIDGE: That's largely due to the 18 home-delivered meals program. All of the about 160 meals 19 that we're delivering each noon are delivered by volunteers. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I understand. 21 MR. BRECKENRIDGE: And all of the programs 22 and services that we provide in-house are delivered by 23 volunteers; we don't hire people to come teach language 24 classes or bridge or anything of that sort. 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What's been the level 80 1 of participation at the Center Point -- the nutrition 2 program? Is it on the rise, or how's it going? 3 MR. BRECKENRIDGE: It's rising slowly, but 4 steadily. We had, I believe, 26 people for lunch the other 5 day, the all-time record. 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: How many? 7 MR. BRECKENRIDGE: Twenty-six individuals. 8 Twelve to 15 most days, depending on the menu and the 9 weather. 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I had a -- 12 MR. BRECKENRIDGE: That's all 13 self-sustaining. That is not part of our contract with 14 AACOG. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I had a birthday 16 Friday. Would y'all come to my house and get me to the 17 courthouse and back? 18 MR. BRECKENRIDGE: Sure. 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Every day -- 20 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: You're not old enough. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- for three bucks. 22 Yeah, I am, too. 23 MR. BRECKENRIDGE: If I can steal about 24 another two or three minutes, I would really like Marie Hurt 25 to come up and talk to you for about two minutes and give 81 1 you a few anecdotes. You know, one of the most significant 2 things that we do is an unofficial kind of case management, 3 where anyone in the community who has a problem that's even 4 remotely related to seniors or aging can call us and get 5 help, and we don't get paid for it for the most part, but 6 everybody at the senior center does it, and nobody does it 7 like Marie. 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Hear, hear. 9 MS. HURT: Well, I started in 1974 with the 10 center, so -- it started in '69, so I've seen a lot of 11 growth. And, I always like to go back to what 12 Mr. Dietert -- the reason -- primary reason he started it 13 was because he said that people needed to stay busy and to 14 not -- to get out and to do things. And, he never wanted 15 them to have a TV; he wanted them to be active. He said 16 that it's the prevention to keep them out of, at that time, 17 the State Hospital, out of nursing homes and various 18 situations like that. Well, this proved very true. 19 And, we do a lot of things. We have a lot of 20 requests come in; it's unbelievable. They call us for -- 21 for dog sitting, house-sitting, to really serious 22 activities, and we've been able to, with volunteers -- it's 23 almost like every time we have a need, then a volunteer 24 comes in and says, "I'm here. What do you need me to do?" 25 We've kept some people out of the hospital. We had one 82 1 couple who -- their medical bill was $1,600 -- $600 a month. 2 They were borrowing money, but they didn't tell anybody. A 3 volunteer came in, and her husband and she has a lot of 4 knowledge of -- of V.A. benefits. They now don't have a 5 $600 medical bill. They were able to get him a lot of 6 equipment that he was having to pay for through the V.A. We 7 just do a lot of things like that, that are not in our job 8 descriptions. 9 But, I guess the thing that motivates me the 10 most is Mr. Dietert wanted this center to be one of the 11 best, and so it's an incentive for us to do whatever is 12 necessary in the community to help the seniors. It's -- I 13 just can't even tell you the requests that we get, and I've 14 noticed with my own mother, with just a little bit of help, 15 they can stay in their homes. They just need a little 16 direction. They need to know if they have a need, who to 17 call and -- and what route to take. So, I feel like that we 18 have done a tremendous service in this area to the seniors 19 of this community. And, I guess that's -- 20 JUDGE HENNEKE: Thank you. Travis, did you 21 have something you wanted to add here? 22 MR. LUCAS: Just real quick. You had cited 23 Local Government Code 381.028, and it says Section 6, I 24 guess, you probably got that out of; is that right? 25 MR. BRECKENRIDGE: Yes. 83 1 MR. LUCAS: That's been one of the problems. 2 I've been reviewing these contracts from whoever created 3 them. There is no such section. Furthermore, I wish this 4 previous County Attorney or whoever it was, would have read 5 a little bit further, because 81.028 says this section 6 applies exclusively to a county of -- judge and a county 7 with a population of more than 1 million. So, I don't know 8 why -- whoever put that in there was -- was just wrong. 9 But, I wanted to go back to that 445 section. And, again, 10 if we can look, let me read it to you. "A county may 11 provide grants to, quote, an eligible nonprofit corporation, 12 end quote, that provides transportation services to 13 residents of the county." 14 And Subsection B defines what an eligible 15 nonprofit corporation is, and this is what we need to 16 determine here. "An eligible nonprofit corporation is one 17 that was organized to coordinate the public transportation 18 services of state agencies in a regional rural area, and to 19 provide public transportation in a county -- multi-county 20 rural area." So, you know, we want to, you know, obviously, 21 ask if this nonprofit was created for that purpose, or -- I 22 mean, it really depends on how we interpret it. So, it's 23 pretty loose, but, you know, we also have that provision. 24 It also spells out Commissioner Courts with a population of 25 2.4 million or more may pay out of the county general fund 84 1 costs and expenses for transportation, of seniors -- senior 2 citizens for recreational activities within the county. 3 So -- 4 JUDGE HENNEKE: Thank you. 5 (Discussion off the record.) 6 JUDGE HENNEKE: Next is K'Star. 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Judge, while she's 8 coming up, I want to point out one thing. This is Marie 9 Priour Hurt, so her roots go very, very deep in Kerr County. 10 She knows what's she's talking about. 11 MS. McDANIEL: She's a very respected lady. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Very much so in this 13 corner. 14 MS. McDANIEL: Yes. Hi, I am Alice McDaniel, 15 Executive Director of K'Star Emergency Shelter and 16 Counseling Service. We've been operational since 1990, and 17 so you've been funding this graciously every year. Our 18 budget this year -- our estimated budget will be $825,000. 19 We serve 13 counties, and we -- the shelter is from birth 20 through 17, and then our counseling program, we work with 21 the entire family. And, under the budget, the funds that -- 22 that we have to raise locally in this area is 4 percent of 23 our budget, and that would mean that County Commissioners 24 are funding 16 percent of the funds that we have to raise in 25 this community, and which, you know, is very important to 85 1 us, and y'all have been a great help to us. 2 In the last year, we served 194 children in 3 the shelter, and over 802 in our counseling program. We -- 4 like I said, we work with the children and their families, 5 so -- because we don't think that you can just work with the 6 children and send them back home, because the entire family 7 has to make some changes. We don't believe it's just all -- 8 all the children; it's everybody. So, we work with them. 9 And this year, in the first seven months of our budget this 10 year, we've served 84 children in the shelter and 577 in our 11 counseling program. We have -- we can only take 13 children 12 at a time. And, in the last year and a half, we have had to 13 turn children away because we don't have room for them, and 14 we're the only emergency shelter in the area and the only 15 one that can take kids under 6 years old. So, we stayed 16 pretty busy most of the time. 17 And, we're hoping that -- that eventually, 18 within the next couple of years, that we can build a bigger 19 shelter. We have gotten all of our land paid off and -- and 20 everything through grants, and so we own the whole block 21 behind our shelter, if all of you know where that is, so we 22 have room -- land there to build one on it. So, we're 23 hoping to increase our bed capacity to at least 24, because 24 it's a shame that these kids have to go out of town. 25 JUDGE HENNEKE: Any questions of Alice? 86 1 Thank you very much. Appreciate it. 2 MS. McDANIEL: You're welcome. 3 JUDGE HENNEKE: Next is the Crisis Council. 4 MS. LESSER: I'm Bobbie Lesser. I'm 5 Executive Director of the Hill Country Crisis Council, and I 6 brought a summary of our services, in case you need us. 7 Hopefully, you won't. Ideally, we would work ourselves out 8 of a job, but we're not anywhere close to doing that. Our 9 annual budget for this year is $500,000, in cash. That does 10 not include in-kind type contributions. We cover four 11 counties, so I want to talk about Kerr County alone. Before 12 I get directly to Kerr County, though, I will tell you that 13 $255,000 of that $500,000 budget comes from federal and 14 state grants, which we have to match, and those are in 15 various -- varying degrees of percentage. We have 15 16 employees; 14 of them are in Kerr County, office in Kerr 17 County -- live and office in Kerr County. The -- there are 18 7 of those 14 who are part-time employees. We have some 30 19 active volunteers who put in something like 300 to 350 hours 20 a month with us. Sixty percent of the victims we serve are 21 in Kerr County. 22 And, I will address two areas that we deal 23 very closely with the County Attorney's office on, and those 24 are, one, protective orders for the victims, and then the 25 other part of that is the Batterer's Intervention and 87 1 Prevention Program, which we receive referrals. They're 2 court-ordered to be there. Eighty-five percent of the guys 3 are -- and women; we have a group for women too now -- are 4 court-ordered to be there. We have those programs in all 5 four of the counties, but 50 percent of the people we serve 6 are in Kerr County in the -- in the batterer's program; 7 60 percent of the victims. I didn't bring you a bunch of 8 statistics to -- to hand out, but I can tell you that we -- 9 from October of '99 to September of 2000, we saw 10 first-time -- this does not include the continuing people we 11 see, clients we see -- we saw 117, provided services for 117 12 adults and 60 children in Kerr County alone. 13 We submitted applications for protective 14 orders, 25 during that period of time. I can tell you that 15 we screened out at least an equal number. And, of that, we 16 had 16 that were granted, seven denied, and -- and two were 17 still pending at that point, and I'm assuming that they were 18 probably dropped somewhere in there. For the first six 19 months of this fiscal year -- our fiscal year runs October 20 through September, so for the first six months, we have had 21 service -- provided services to 60 new clients, adults in 22 Kerr County, and 21 children. We submitted 12 protective 23 orders. We have one pending at the moment. Four have been 24 granted, one has been denied, and we've had six dropped. 25 This is a cyclical thing. It seems that there are times 88 1 when we go through seasons where they decide, well, you 2 know, my husband's going to be in the batterer's program, so 3 I'm not going to pursue this protective order at this time. 4 In the interests of time, I would prefer to respond to 5 questions. 6 JUDGE HENNEKE: Anyone have any questions or 7 comments for Ms. Lesser? 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Good program. 9 JUDGE HENNEKE: Thank you, Bobbie. Y'all do 10 good work. 11 MS. LESSER: Thank you. 12 JUDGE HENNEKE: Next is CASA. Diane? 13 MS. OEHLER: I'm Diane Oehler. I'm the 14 Executive Director of Hill Country CASA. I'm going to give 15 y'all some statistics; I'm not going to take very long with 16 it. You'll find last year's calendar year on the front, and 17 then the last time I ran statistics the end of April on the 18 back, and then a narrative. I think most of y'all know what 19 CASA does. The narrative will spell it out. We are funded. 20 We have a $90,000 budget this year. That's about what our 21 budget will be next year, and the fiscal year starts in 22 July. About 60 percent of that budget is funded by state 23 and federal grants for victims services. We're also funded 24 out of the A.G.'s office. 25 And, you know, I don't -- I don't know what 89 1 the mandate for counties is. I just know that counties 2 throughout the state of Texas fund CASA programs. Every 3 time judges get together and -- and we go to workshops, it's 4 very important for community support, since most -- as you 5 all know, courts don't have budgets, generally speaking, and 6 so they fund through the counties. That's one way we can 7 show local support. I'm funded. You can tell by statistics 8 that we -- we only work with kids under court order, so 9 there are no -- there's no padding here. These aren't phone 10 calls that come in; we don't keep any of that stuff. We 11 don't have time for it. These are actually children that we 12 have a court order to serve. Our mandate is kids that are 13 in C.P.S. custody, state conservatorship. Over the five 14 years that I've done this job, we've moved away from 15 involvement in custody matters. We do adoption home studies 16 because it's no cost to the adoptive parents. 17 Under Judge Henneke, we do less in juvenile 18 court. I think he just assigns us in juvenile cases where 19 he feels like there is a need for someone to speak because 20 there's either not a parent or the parents are not providing 21 an environment that the Judge feels is a healthy one, and he 22 wants someone to come in and give him a home study. But, 23 our mandate in most of our funding comes from C.P.S. cases, 24 which is, as you can see, the bulk of our caseloads. Over 25 50 percent of our cases come from Kerr County. 90 1 Ninety percent of our casework comes from Kerr and Bandera 2 County, and I had the same contractual agreement with 3 Bandera County that I do with you all. You all give us 4 $3,000, about -- what is that? I'm not good with math -- 5 3 percent of our budget. Bandera County gives us $1,500, 6 little bit less. I hope that you continue to support CASA. 7 It's fairly problematic for me if the County 8 doesn't support the work that we do, because when I -- we 9 seek grant funding from people like Cailloux and Frankowski 10 and different nonprofit grantors, and if we don't show local 11 support -- we're United Way, but if we don't show local 12 support from the county and we're working for the judges 13 under court orders, then that means to many people that 14 there's a problem there. And, so, we have working 15 agreements with all the courts; the five judges, Judge 16 Henneke, Judge Ables, Judge Prohl, Judge Brown, and then 17 Camille Dubose, who sits as the associate in C.P.S. cluster 18 court in this area. We have a working agreement with 19 T.D.P.R.S. with law enforcement social service providers. 20 I'll be glad to answer any questions that you all might have 21 about Hill Country CASA or about what we do. 22 JUDGE HENNEKE: Any questions? Okay, thanks, 23 Diane. 24 MS. OEHLER: Thanks. 25 JUDGE HENNEKE: KEDF. 91 1 MS. CUNNINGHAM: Good afternoon. I'm Sherry 2 Cunningham, President of the Kerr Economic Development 3 Foundation. I apologize for not being able to sit still. I 4 spent several hours in the emergency room last night with my 5 mother, and my backside isn't working very good today, so if 6 you saw me dancing up and down the aisles, that's what it 7 was. 8 I wanted just to spend a few minutes this 9 afternoon to give you a little bit of history about who or 10 what Kerr Economic Development Foundation is. Back before I 11 came here in 1993, I believe it was probably in 1989, 1990, 12 the effort started with -- when business leaders, through 13 the Chamber of Commerce, came together with City and County 14 elected officials to talk about reactivating the old 15 industrial foundation and to have a program of economic 16 development that was a -- a cohesive, cooperative program 17 throughout Kerr County. Right after that, they did 18 establish the Kerr Economic Development Foundation on the 19 auspices of the old bylaws of the industrial foundation, and 20 a year or so later they -- they contracted with -- I believe 21 it was U.T.S.A. to do the -- to not only finalize the 22 mission statement, but also to set out goals and objectives 23 for this program. 24 And, part of that mission statement reads -- 25 and let me just take a second to read this to you. "The 92 1 Kerr Economic Development Foundation serves as the primary 2 organization within Kerr County charged with the 3 responsibility to promote economic development throughout 4 the county. The KEDF works to promote county-wide economic 5 growth by providing job growth opportunities. The KEDF is a 6 nonprofit organization supported by county-wide funding from 7 public, private, and business sectors of the county. The 8 KEDF seeks to support and promote growth in existing 9 businesses and industries while at the same time attracting 10 new job creation, creating businesses targeted for their 11 compatibility with the community's desire for clean industry 12 and a steady rate of growth." 13 When you start thinking about economic 14 development, it's -- and one of the reasons that they wanted 15 to have this specified effort is, even though we have a very 16 active Chamber of Commerce, they wanted to have a specific 17 programming in economic development, and that's really 18 broken down into three areas, what we call the R-E-A effect, 19 where it's retention of existing businesses; helping 20 existing businesses expand, so that's the E; and then 21 attraction of new tax dollars and new -- new jobs to our 22 area. And so, this really is considered a 23 business/government partnership that has worked through the 24 years. And, you know, our -- our goals in economic 25 development haven't changed that much. 93 1 In preparing for this today, I went back and 2 picked up a copy of the -- the strategic plan and looked 3 through that, because so many of the things that we're doing 4 today still are -- you know, are those original goals. And, 5 I just kind of want to run over a few highlights over the 6 last few years, things that I think are probably pertinent. 7 Of course, we constantly are updating and giving out 8 demographics. And you think, well, demographics, that's 9 information that you can -- you can pick up here and there. 10 We collect and distribute all types of demographics, and 11 I'll give you a handout that will give you all the list of 12 that. As people come to us, not only those who are looking 13 to come to the area, but also those who are already here in 14 business who are doing marketing studies or possibly they're 15 researching a new product line or a new service line, and so 16 they're developing a business plan. So, they have one area 17 where they can come to us for this information. 18 A task force was appointed back in -- I think 19 it was 1994, that did a lot of study -- prestudy before the 20 sales tax went on the ballot for Kerrville voters to 21 consider that created the 4B sales tax boards. Physician 22 recruitment. We're in the second round of that. Back in 23 1995, we had a near crisis in our community about the lack 24 of primary care physicians. This affected the retirement 25 population as well as -- as the health care industry. At 94 1 that time, we had a task force put together, a -- it was 2 really a pledge drive, and they raised over $150,000 in a 3 matter of a few weeks to help in the recruitment of 4 physicians, primary care physicians. We're in the 5 primary -- we're in that physician recruitment phase again. 6 I think it was in 1998 that we held an 7 economic development summit where we gathered together 8 representatives not only of Kerr County, of the City of 9 Kerrville, U.G.R.A., the Economic Improvement Corporation, 10 the business community, and we came together to talk about 11 and to plan for economic development as a whole. It was 12 from that group meeting that the concept of developing a -- 13 a business park in Kerr County and in this area was 14 formulated, and so we've been working on that since then. 15 You all remember that just a few years ago, 16 we had a near crisis in almost losing our V.A. Hospital. 17 And, at that time, the Economic Development Foundation came 18 together to lead the charge to -- to put together a task 19 force to address that issue. And, thanks to Jonathan and 20 introduction to a couple of general friends of -- of ours, 21 we were able to -- to create the Hill Country Veterans 22 Council that really led the charge in turning that issue 23 around, and today we still have those jobs in our community. 24 Workforce is another area that we work, 25 welfare reform. All of that started back in 1994. That 95 1 included everything from job services for the employer, the 2 employee, child care issues and funding, our One-Stop 3 Center. We do a lot of one-on-one industry relations with 4 our employers here. We try to make sure that we are aware 5 of the challenges that they face so we can be a little bit 6 more proactive in addressing those challenges, and a couple 7 of those are housing and labor. Communications is a big 8 part of what we do. And, you know, I -- I could go on and 9 on, but I think the important part of -- of the cooperative 10 economic development program that we have in this area is 11 that we bring people to the table who can be better informed 12 by conversing with each other and knowing what the -- what 13 the concerns are in our community and working together to 14 address those. 15 So, if you have any specific questions, I'd 16 be more than glad to address those. Our annual budget 17 through KEDF is around $80,000 to $87,000. The 18 contribution -- or the contract we have with the County is 19 for $5,000, which I think is about 7 percent of that. We -- 20 every year we probably update -- we have about a $40,000 21 fund at the end of the year that we maintain. Last year we 22 used about $10,000 of that when we were working on the study 23 for the business park. A couple of years ago, we went into 24 that fund also when we were working with a company that was 25 locating here. 96 1 So, our future plans, we did an economic 2 development summit about three or four years ago; it's time 3 to do that again. We need to continue looking at what are 4 the opportunities for the Kerrville/Kerr County area. Right 5 now our tax base is about 62 percent funded by homeowners 6 and 38 percent by business, the exact opposite of the state 7 average. So, you see we have a lot to do there to turn that 8 around. We try to be proactive in a lot of our work, but 9 sometimes, just like the V.A. Hospital situation, we have to 10 become a reactive organization and organize our efforts very 11 quickly, and I think this community was very fortunate that 12 time that we had an organization that allowed us to do that 13 and to be able to respond to that as quickly as we did. Any 14 questions? I'll just -- 15 JUDGE HENNEKE: Anyone have any questions or 16 comments? 17 MS. CUNNINGHAM: I don't know if y'all -- I 18 know you all are new since they did this economic 19 development plan several years ago. I brought a copy of 20 that, and I also have some handouts that I'll share with 21 you, which basically is a list of the demographics that we 22 maintain, as well as our targeted industries list, why 23 economic development, and also the reasons for business park 24 development. So, I'll share those with you. 25 JUDGE HENNEKE: Okay. Thanks, Sherry. 97 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: My only comment is 2 probably more to Travis, and it's just on the -- the 3 authority issue. And it's, you know, whether we're on firm 4 ground. 5 MR. LUCAS: I'm popular today. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Or unpopular. 7 (Discussion off the record.) 8 MR. LUCAS: Tell you what, let me illustrate 9 the law through an Attorney General opinion, 1998. 10 Essentially, up in Waxahatchie, Ellis County, they asked 11 whether or not the Commissioners Court had the authority to 12 fund a -- what they call a small business development 13 center. That really didn't say what that center did, but 14 what they did, the A.G.'s office -- the current A.G.'s 15 office ran the facts through Chapters 381 through 384, the 16 ones that I described to you before, okay? And, let me just 17 read the holding, if you will, of that A.G. opinion. It 18 says, first of all, "We believe the purpose of Section 19 381.004 is to authorize county-initiated, county-based 20 programs. We do not believe that a county's authority to 21 contract for the administration of a program permits a 22 county to subsidize a program developed and administered by 23 another entity. In sum, we conclude that Section 381 24 authorizes a county to fund a program developed by the 25 county, and administered either by the county or by another 98 1 entity under the contract with the county. It does not 2 authorize a county to provide funds to any other program." 3 So, again, let's go back to what the law 4 says. The law says counties can engage in economic 5 development activity, as long as, one, it's county 6 government-initiated, and two, if it's done through the 7 vehicles of an economic development board, economic 8 development district, county industrial commission, one of 9 those. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Would it qualify in that, 11 or would this be the way we meet that requirement? Because 12 on the -- the County has one of the seats on the Executive 13 Board, according to the bylaws. Isn't that correct? 14 MS. CUNNINGHAM: That question came up the 15 other day, and I have -- I need to actually go back and read 16 that, but we have always had a city representative and a 17 county representative on the Executive Board. And, if I 18 might just say something else, sir, throw this back and 19 forth. I think the economies of scale and, you know, what 20 we've had here through the Kerr Economic Development 21 Foundation is an opportunity for -- just like you have 22 partnerships with the city, to -- to fund other 23 organizations and other programs, we've had an opportunity 24 for business people and governments to come together, to 25 work together in economic development. And, you know, I 99 1 think that's what has -- has been so good about this 2 program, is that we have had an opportunity to share around 3 the table, and really keep the cost down. 4 JUDGE HENNEKE: The issue, though, is not the 5 benefit of the program, it's the legal authority for the 6 County's funding of the program. That's the issue. 7 MS. CUNNINGHAM: Well, I don't know whether 8 you can look at it as an investment in economic development. 9 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: We can't invest, 10 that's the problem. We have to -- at least that's what 11 we're hearing. 12 JUDGE HENNEKE: None of us have any question 13 about the benefits of the program. The only issue that's up 14 is do we, as five county -- four County Commissioners and a 15 County Judge, have the legal authority to vote to contribute 16 funds to Kerr Economic Development Foundation under the 17 current structure? That's the issue. 18 MR. LUCAS: If you look at all the political 19 subdivisions in and the state, whether it's a 20 municipality -- well, maybe not some of your special 21 districts, but especially county government, it all hinges 22 back to the 1800's, and that -- with the theme that still 23 persists, which is to keep county government in check. I 24 mean, it is a pure -- you know, it's a -- that old "we hate 25 government" thing, we don't want them to do anything. Just, 100 1 you know, provide, you know, maybe justice issues and -- and 2 support our indigency and things like that. And the problem 3 that we always have, time and time again, that this Court 4 faces is the Constitution, Article III, Section 52. That's 5 not to say that counties don't do this. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think, from what you're 7 saying, Travis, is that clearly counties can do what we're 8 doing; we just need to make sure it's structurally -- it's 9 set up according to bylaws or whatever mechanism so that 10 there's a court order directing that -- how it's going to do 11 it that meets the criteria. 12 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Well, I think even 13 more than that, what I'm hearing is that we have to have an 14 entity. 15 JUDGE HENNEKE: That's right. 16 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: We have to form an 17 industrial commission or something. 18 MR. LUCAS: Yeah. 19 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: And we form that. 20 Now, we can then turn -- and once we've done that, we can 21 then turn to the KEDF and say, "We want to contract with you 22 to fulfill our goals," of the industrial commission or 23 whatever we call this thing. That's what it sounds like we 24 have to do to participate. That's the issue. 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Once having done 101 1 that, though, that potentially opens up other avenues of 2 things that may fall into that realm, as well. 3 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Could. My only 4 experience is Harris County, and I think that's the way they 5 do it. They have some kind of board and then they parcel 6 out moneys through contracts to the local economic 7 development foundations and corporations. 8 MR. LUCAS: In the end, I don't think that 9 it's a matter of whether or not we can do it. We just need 10 to do it in a lawful way, because if not, it's totally 11 unconstitutional and -- 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We can go to jail. 13 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Yeah. 14 MR. LUCAS: Then all of a sudden, I start 15 prosecuting these guys. 16 MS. CUNNINGHAM: Oh, really? Any other 17 questions? 18 JUDGE HENNEKE: No, I don't think so. 19 Thanks, Sherry. Next is the Historical Commission. 20 Blessedly, we don't have a legal issue on this one. 21 MR. SCHELLHASE: I'm Walter Schellhase, 22 Chairman of the Kerr County Historical Commission. We are 23 authorized. We are appointed by the Commissioners Court, 24 the board of directors is. We're always underfunded, and if 25 you can't fund Sherry, we'll take the balance of her funds. 102 1 (Laughter.) 2 MR. SCHELLHASE: Membership is made up of the 3 board of directors appointed by this Court. We also fit 4 under the Child Welfare part of it. Out of the nine 5 Commissioners that are board members, there are no children, 6 although they act like it sometimes. There are no paupers, 7 although they agree that they are, or claim to be. So, we 8 fit under all the categories, so we should be in good shape. 9 JUDGE HENNEKE: Any questions of the -- 10 MR. SCHELLHASE: Questions? Some of that, 11 you did fund us to the tune of $2,500 last year. Our 12 request was for $7,600 as a result of the previous year, 13 which we were also substantially underfunded for the 14 projects we wanted to do. We formed the Kerr County -- 15 Friends of the Kerr County Historical Commission, which is a 16 501(c)(3) program, in order to raise the other funds that we 17 needed, primarily dealing with the Kerr -- with the Union 18 Church. We were having some difficulty in raising funds, 19 due to the fact that we were not tax-deductible. So, as a 20 result of that, we do have a 501(c)(3) company, of which 21 Bill Rector is the president of that this year. And, it -- 22 the bylaws are set up where the outgoing chairman of the 23 Commission takes over two years as the president of the 24 Friends upon change of leadership, which occurs every two 25 years. 103 1 Our primary activities are the Oral History 2 Program which we're conducting, which takes most of the 3 funds. We've now completed 41 of those histories. We 4 started out with a list of 93 we wanted to do. We finished 5 42 of them. Our list is now 103. So, as time goes on, our 6 list -- the oral histories that we need to do continues to 7 grow. We've coordinated that effort with two entities; the 8 library, which will be included in the renovations of the 9 historical library, which we will have space in that 10 building to exhibit all of these historical interviews as 11 they are finished. We're working with Schreiner College on 12 a grant to secure the additional equipment we need in order 13 to do these and put our -- our video tapes on CD-ROM, so 14 we'll have the whole package on a CD-ROM. It turns out the 15 equipment we have is not sophisticated enough to make take 16 transition. 17 The other funds we're using on the archives 18 which are housed here in this building. And, Renee Sherman 19 takes care of our display cabinet -- the Court's display 20 cabinet out on the wall. Which, by the way, that's one 21 program that has been finished after four years, after some 22 time. Our marker program, we have -- I believe it's eight 23 out of our 48 or 49 markers in the county that need to be 24 renovated. That program is underway now in conjunction with 25 another group that is going to do that under our direction. 104 1 The historical brochure that we use showing where all these 2 markers are located throughout the county is now out-of-date 3 and out of publish, so we're -- that will be one of the 4 items that we'll be working on, or working on this year. We 5 did -- the $2,500 did fund that. Our other big fundraising 6 program was the historical calendar that we put on this 7 year. Those funds went directly to Moore Lumber Company, 8 which we agreed in the purchase of the siding for the Union 9 Church that he would buy all that siding that we needed for 10 the church at one time, because it was a specialty item. We 11 were able to match the cypress that was on the old church. 12 He purchased all that for us, with the agreement that all of 13 the funds raised from the calendars would go directly to 14 him, which that is what happened. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: How much did he raise? 16 How much did the -- 17 MR. SCHELLHASE: We raised about $3,800. We 18 still have about 100 calendars left in storage, of which we 19 think maybe -- and it's -- surprisingly enough, we're still 20 selling quite a few of them. We sold about, I think, $80 21 worth of them last month. Someone called me this morning 22 and said they had another $40; someone sold another four. 23 So, here we are in -- in March (sic) and our calendars are 24 still selling. Someone asked do we give a discount based on 25 how many months -- that happened to have been someone that 105 1 had a calendar that had three blank pages in it, so we said 2 yes, you get a discount. 3 Next year we'll continue on all these 4 programs that are ongoing right now, the Union Church still 5 being the largest and single biggest project. I met with 6 Sam Junkin today with regard to their concern with the 7 progress that we're making on the church. To inform you so 8 y'all understand where we are, right now the decision was 9 made that we will -- we'll finish the front of the church. 10 We only lack putting the flooring on the front porch. We're 11 now working on the east side, and we chose the east side 12 because that's the side that is visible from the highway; it 13 gets the most exposure. We're going to try to have that 14 finished before the fair opens, because we'd like for it to 15 look fairly decent on the east side. That's the entrance 16 from the west side of town that goes into the fair. They 17 would like to see us finish with that exterior restoration 18 by -- well, they gave us six months. In my conversation 19 with them today, I said I couldn't guarantee that, but we're 20 going to work at that, see what we can do. Our original 21 agreement, Judge, that you signed said we would go -- would 22 be finished in May of last year. So, at the end of this 23 month, we're going to be a year late. That has been 24 primarily because of fundraising, and the initial outset, 25 because we weren't a 501(c)(3), hampered that some, but 106 1 we're doing a little better with that right now. Do you 2 have any questions? 3 JUDGE HENNEKE: Any questions or comments? 4 If not, thank you, general. Appreciate it. 5 MR. SCHELLHASE: Thank you. 6 JUDGE HENNEKE: Child Services Board. Bobby? 7 We don't -- does anyone have an authorization problem with 8 this one? 9 MR. PICKENS: Good afternoon, Commissioners 10 and County Judge. My name is Bobby Pickens. I'm President 11 of the Kerr County Child Services Board, and have been for 12 the last two years. Also been a member of this board since 13 1996. Kerr County Child Services Board has received funding 14 from Kerr County for the past several years. I've given 15 each of you a letter of what we've done, and also attached 16 are what our primary duties are. Kerr County Child Service 17 Board is a member of the Texas Council of Child Welfare 18 Boards. There are more than 212 local child protective 19 service boards in Texas. These boards are appointed by the 20 County Commissioners Court, and are thus responsible to act 21 for children and provide child abuse prevention and 22 services. 23 Boards consist of 15-member boards who are 24 primarily concerned with children who have been identified 25 as and are at risk. We work with the Department of 107 1 Protective and Regulatory Services, known as Child 2 Protective Services, as well as with other organizations and 3 people who work directly with children and their families. 4 We also work to assist children who have been placed in 5 foster homes by Child Protective Services. We work real 6 hard to promote the prevention of child abuse and neglect, 7 and to assure that all children -- that the desire is to 8 live in a nurturing, loving, and safe environment. 9 The funding that we have received from y'all 10 in years past helps us with the list that is on Page 2 of 11 the attached letter as emergency medical needs, family 12 counseling, teacher in-service training, school supplies, 13 graduation expenses, scouting, several summer camp expenses, 14 and thus, as you can see, the list goes on. The funding we 15 receive from y'all is greatly appreciated. We are 16 nonprofit; we have a 501(c) tax-free document. Everything 17 that we get from y'all is greatly appreciated, and is used 18 for every child that goes into Kerr County. We take in an 19 average of 30 children a year. That's not counting the kids 20 that have already been placed in foster homes. The money 21 that we get from y'all goes sometimes to these children who 22 have no clothes on their backs. We will get a call from a 23 caseworker; we need to go out and get some diapers or some 24 clothes, some shirts, some jeans, some tennis shoes or thus 25 forth. Again, without y'all's help, there's no way these 108 1 children could have anything that they need. 2 JUDGE HENNEKE: What's your total budget, 3 Bobby? 4 MR. PICKENS: Right now it's $5,000. 5 JUDGE HENNEKE: $5,000? 6 MR. PICKENS: Yes, sir. 7 JUDGE HENNEKE: Anybody have any questions of 8 Mr. Pickens? 9 (No response.) 10 JUDGE HENNEKE: Okay. Thanks, Bobby. 11 MR. PICKENS: Thank you for your time. 12 JUDGE HENNEKE: Okay. Let's take a -- about 13 a 7-minute break for our court reporter and come back at 14 quarter till, take up the rest. 15 (Recess taken from 4:38 p.m. to 4:45 p.m.) 16 - - - - - - - - - - 17 JUDGE HENNEKE: Okay. Let's reconvene this 18 session of the workshop. The remaining programs are County 19 departments. I'm inclined to take the position that, so far 20 as the Collections Department, computer specialist, Solid 21 Waste Enforcement are concerned, that we have discussed 22 those very recently and really see no need to go back 23 through the justification for those. 24 MR. LUCAS: They all have -- 25 JUDGE HENNEKE: They all have authority. Is 109 1 there anyone who'd like to take up any of those? 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think almost the entire 3 list comes under a lot more budget scrutiny when we do the 4 budget process. I think we -- at that point, 'cause we have 5 line items in the budget for all those. 6 JUDGE HENNEKE: That's true. The Law Library 7 has a specific authorization. That is funded by fees on 8 court cases. Parks Department has specific authority. My 9 personal opinion is that parks is something we're going to 10 have to give a lot more attention to in the near future. 11 Speaking as one out of the five, I would like to see us 12 devote some more resources to very planned development of 13 the remaining parks we have, one in Center Point, one in 14 Ingram. I might even consider trying to get grants to 15 acquire land for another park. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We need to get a 17 direction. 18 JUDGE HENNEKE: I think that's something that 19 we need to work closely on. I will tell you that I have a 20 concern about the Hill Country Youth Exhibition Center, 21 about the state of the facility, as well as about the drain 22 on the resources. I understand that there is a new proposal 23 on rental fees that's going to come forward in the near 24 future, but I think that's a situation we have to look very 25 carefully at. How much are we willing to subsidize the use 110 1 of that facility by groups that are directly related to the 2 county? We could maintain the facility for use by, say, the 3 Junior District Livestock Show, and at a lot smaller cost 4 than it's taking us now. So, I think we need to have a very 5 serious discussion about where we're going with that. We 6 have a very good master plan for developing that facility. 7 The only thing we lack is the financing vehicle for it. I 8 think that's an issue that the Court needs to address, at 9 least to a certain extent, in this budgeting round. We may 10 have to have -- just have a more serious sit-down and look 11 at how much the new fee schedule is going to bring in 12 compared to how much it's going cost us to continue to 13 operate it. And I know, from discussions with Glenn, that 14 we have some fairly substantial capital expenses; i.e, 15 air-conditioning that have got to be made in order to keep 16 it so that it can function as anything other than a very 17 basic level. Is that correct, Glenn? 18 MR. HOLEKAMP: That is correct. And it's 19 very substantial. 20 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: I think, also -- just 21 to add to the thought, is that on the master -- and we do 22 have an excellent master plan. One of the things we seem to 23 never have gotten, though, is consensus on the requirement 24 to execute that master plan. Now, there are bits and pieces 25 of it. For example, this Junior Livestock Show, we want to 111 1 continue to do whatever we have to do to keep that going. 2 But, like the exercise we went through on the -- on the 3 sales tax issue when there was a lack of consensus on the 4 part of the hotel/motel owners that that was a good thing to 5 do. So, we need to talk a little bit about the strategy, 6 the overall strategy for trying to implement that master 7 plan, 'cause if we don't develop that consensus, I'm not 8 sure we can ever get into the master plan part of it to do 9 any good. So, in the short term, maybe we've got to take 10 some -- some action, some budget action for those capital 11 improvements, just to keep the facility alive. Whether or 12 not we take the first step in the master plan or not. 13 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I think a lot -- I 14 don't disagree with you; I think you're absolutely correct, 15 and I intend to invite someone down here from University of 16 San Antonio Economic Development Agency to talk to the Court 17 about a vehicle, if you will, what you were talking about 18 earlier, a way that we can do these things and perhaps put 19 together a rational funding mechanism for that plan. And 20 how do we do that? Do we do it directly as a Court? Do we 21 do it at arm's length through another entity? How best to 22 do that. And, Jonathan and I had a meeting on Friday -- he 23 was unable to make it, but anyhow, Glenn sat in with me on 24 the meeting, and invite this gentleman down here to talk to 25 the Court here in a workshop session. 112 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think -- and on that 2 area, I agree that we need to do -- and I think one of the 3 -- the difficult things is this amount of money is so large 4 that Bill and I have spent a fair amount of time exploring 5 avenues, rather than get the whole Court involved in trying 6 to look at different directions and meet with people, city 7 councils and the various people around, to get levels of 8 interest so we can come back, I think, to Court during the 9 budget process with some sort of a feel for, you know, what 10 the chances of various options are of progressing. 11 JUDGE HENNEKE: It's possible we may just 12 need to regroup, and the plan that the Court has approved 13 includes a very large major event component. That may not 14 be in the cards, which I think -- I'm not -- I don't believe 15 that. I think that major event component is something that 16 would be very -- very beneficial to our economy, given what 17 our economy is, which is tourism and retirement, for the 18 most part. But, if we can't get a consensus on financing 19 it, we may have to drop back and say, okay, what do we need 20 to do in order to preserve it as an agricultural exhibit 21 center, which would be an entirely different focus. I think 22 it would still be -- I think we're still looking at probably 23 three, four million dollars to preserve the agricultural 24 exhibit center, as opposed to seven or eight to make it into 25 an event center. 113 1 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Minimum of one more 2 heater over the speaker stand on that side. Either that, or 3 I want Commissioner Baldwin's job over in the warm part. 4 JUDGE HENNEKE: You want the swine instead of 5 the goats. 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: One of the things 7 that the gentleman in the meeting Friday tried to impart to 8 Glenn and I as we were sitting there is, there are many 9 avenues to explore, and the multipurpose event facility 10 opens up a lot of those avenues; that if we go back and 11 restrict it to just one element or concentrate on one area, 12 we may be shutting some doors that could be opened to us for 13 funding and assistance, grants, whatever. 14 JUDGE HENNEKE: I think if we go back to the 15 one element -- which I'm not advocating, but I think we have 16 to be willing to think about everybody, it's something the 17 County does by itself. 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Right. 19 JUDGE HENNEKE: Step up to the plate. We 20 either do the bonds or tax anticipation or whatever it is, 21 we do it ourselves. 22 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Mm-hmm, yeah. 23 Mr. Duncan? 24 MR. DUNCAN: The Honorable Court, if I may, 25 two things. I'd like to be excused, number one, but number 114 1 two, before I do, I would like to point out one thing. I 2 didn't get a chance to say this, and I realize budget is 3 coming up. From 1980 to 1997 in County Court at Law, about 4 $2.6 million was assessed. Since January 16, 1997, to about 5 March of this past year, the assessment ran about 6 $2.1 million. What I'd like to point out is that over a 7 period of 17 years, you know, you had 2.6, and over a period 8 of about four years and three months, you had about 2.1 9 assessed. Court assessments are going up, we find, annually 10 and monthly and so forth and so on, and I'd just like to 11 point that out. In collections, our current collection rate 12 is running about 89 percent on new money, about 87 percent 13 on old money. That's just County Court at Law; that's not 14 County Juvenile, which is much better, and -- and District 15 Court. I'm only doing this to make points for budget 16 process, is only reason I'm bringing it up honorable Court. 17 So, I just -- I wanted to bring that up at that point. 18 Thank you very much for your patience. I'm glad I didn't 19 get sunsetted, Mr. Baldwin. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We're not through yet. 21 JUDGE HENNEKE: Does anyone else want to have 22 any specific or generic discussions on -- on the County 23 departments? 24 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: There's one thing 25 that -- just a point to make. There's a statement that 115 1 Travis made; I think it was very good, and he said -- I 2 forget now which agency or thing it was, but you said that 3 it's an asset that we have, and therefore we can maintain 4 it, which I think is a -- is a good philosophical point. 5 That if we have an asset, for example, on this list -- you 6 could have put the Facilities Use and Maintenance 7 Department, because it's not mandated that we have one; 8 however, we can't maintain our assets if we don't have a 9 maintenance department, so I think that's a priority. It's 10 an excellent point, that we can justify several of the 11 County levels -- of the County departments and their 12 functions on the basis that we are to maintain and look 13 after our assets. 14 MS. SOVIL: On the volunteer -- 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Under the general 16 provisions of Article 5, the County's responsible for 17 facilities. If you have the facilities, you've got to 18 maintain them. 19 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Got to maintain them, 20 that's right. 21 MS. SOVIL: On the volunteer fire 22 departments, I think if you'll go back and do some research, 23 originally they were reimbursed for expenses, and that's how 24 their moneys came about; that was the expenses they 25 incurred, you know. And then, over the years, it was raised 116 1 $1,000 or $500, so it just rose in increments. So, if 2 you'll take that incremental raise away, you'll find that 3 that was their cost of services at -- how they were being 4 paid. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: That was all I'm saying, 6 is basically we need to go back to that. I think we need to 7 look at some formula for funding them, because the County 8 hasn't grown that quick. There's some fire departments that 9 have a much higher burden, like Center Point, which is one 10 that has grown a lot, versus, of course, some of the others. 11 And -- 12 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: There's also -- 13 there's also one thing in volunteer fire departments that 14 I've noted, too, and that is the -- there is a great expanse 15 of how they are operated and run. Some very sophisticated, 16 some very unsophisticated. Some have insurance on their 17 folks, some don't. We don't have any requirements for that, 18 and I'm not saying we should, but -- but there is just a 19 great difference in the level of expenditures, because 20 they've taken different approaches on how they do their 21 individual departments. So, it seems like we almost need to 22 come up with something that's formula-based. Maybe it's 23 a -- maybe it's a thing that you can do spreadsheet-wise -- 24 well, based on area and population and with some factors and 25 assets and all that, and you come up with some kind of 117 1 allocation that makes sense. I mean, and then we say, 2 "Here's the total pie that goes to volunteer fire 3 departments, so therefore here's the formula that we'll 4 divvy up the funds by." 5 MS. SOVIL: Could you do CASA and K'Star and 6 the rest of them, pay them on a service-provided basis, 7 instead of contracting for -- you know, they need to turn in 8 that they service to -- 9 JUDGE HENNEKE: I don't think we have any 10 more legal authority for that than we do the way we're doing 11 it now. 12 MS. SOVIL: I read you. 13 MR. LUCAS: The way the contracts are written 14 right now -- again, kind of atrocious. Its cited in that 15 Family Code 264.006, which is actually the authority only 16 for child welfare service boards. I don't know who put that 17 in there. 18 JUDGE HENNEKE: We don't have to look too far 19 to see who put it in there. 20 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: It's like O.S.S.F. 21 People read one part of a sentence of a paragraph, and say, 22 "Oh, see in right there, it says it. No problem." Is 23 this -- 24 MS. SOVIL: Aren't we allowed to pay for 25 services provided to the County? 118 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But you shouldn't provide 2 the services. 3 JUDGE HENNEKE: Only if their specific 4 services are authorized. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The service needs to be 6 authorized. 7 MS. SOVIL: Housing of paupers at K'Star. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Then you have -- you need 9 to do a contract, and you could do it, but you have to still 10 have the authority to fund that entity. 11 MR. LUCAS: You have to have some sort of 12 express or implied authority, and it be a public purpose. 13 That's -- that's -- you need those two things to get around 14 Article 3. Case law all over the place. Yeah, if you have 15 those two things, then you can draw the line. But -- and 16 that's why I think you can make the argument under that 17 pauper provision, I guess is what we just kind of call it. 18 MS. SOVIL: 81. 19 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: I think some of those 20 would be a stretch. You might do it, but some of them would 21 be a stretch. 22 MS. SOVIL: It's like CASA, it's 23 court-ordered services. I mean, he's requiring that study. 24 Wouldn't -- couldn't you pay for that study? 25 JUDGE HENNEKE: I don't know. 119 1 MR. LUCAS: No. 2 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Not in the court's 3 budget. 4 JUDGE HENNEKE: There are times when I'm 5 pleased that I don't vote. Okay. I don't intend to do this 6 every year, but what's your feedback? Was this a useful 7 exercise? 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: It was very useful. 9 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Yeah. I think one 10 thing we might do if we consider doing it again would be to 11 let the agencies and interests know that we're not here to 12 judge on the worthiness of a program. We're talking about 13 legal authority, and what is the general level of funding, I 14 mean, and what are the requirements they have. Not to get 15 into some of the worthiness. And, it's very difficult, if 16 you're in charge of something, not to get up and talk 17 about -- 18 JUDGE HENNEKE: That's where we are this 19 time, but they are always going to get up and talk about 20 what a wonderful program they are. 21 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: And if there's some 22 way to get right to the heart of the legal matter and the 23 overall funding, then that's what we're interested in. Not 24 so much -- 25 JUDGE HENNEKE: I think we did a pretty good 120 1 job this time. Glenn? 2 MR. HOLEKAMP: Before we leave, I have to ask 3 just a burning question. Is -- the concrete commodes, 4 portable, is that going to be -- you mentioned it just 5 briefly earlier. Is that going to be something that we may 6 be able to look at here in the very near future? 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: You talking about -- 8 MR. HOLEKAMP: You know, in the park. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The Bob Barker -- 10 MR. HOLEKAMP: Hope the toilet seat's not 11 concrete. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It will not be portable. 13 MR. HOLEKAMP: They will be permanent? 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Mm-hmm. That one would 15 be. 16 MR. HOLEKAMP: But they're self-contained? 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well, that was -- the one 18 at Flat Rock would be hooked up to the city sewer. There's 19 a city sewer line there. 20 MR. HOLEKAMP: Oh, okay. Man, I just 21 couldn't figure out how that was going to work. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: On all the rest of them, 23 you could prefab them and just put a septic tank there and 24 pump the tank whenever it gets full. 25 MR. HOLEKAMP: The reason I asked that is 121 1 because we -- in your plans with these parks and stuff or 2 whatever, we need to really consider the floodplain and that 3 sort of thing with your -- your hole. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But if you look at right 5 next to the Ag Barn, that little car deal thing over there 6 by the entrance to Flat Rock -- 7 MR. HOLEKAMP: Yes, sir. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: -- they have a holding 9 tank, is all they have, and it was approved by whoever -- 10 Charlie. 11 MR. HOLEKAMP: Yeah. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And, supposedly, 13 they're -- they can't leak. Even if they go in the water, 14 they wouldn't leak because of the way they're manufactured. 15 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: They're sealed. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: They're sealed, so -- and 17 there's a -- screw the top off and you can fill it up. You 18 pump it out. That's what they would be. You just have to, 19 you know, pump -- 20 COMMISSIONER GRIFFIN: Sort of a permanent 21 port-a-potty. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Permanent port-a-potty, 23 no septic or nothing. 24 JUDGE HENNEKE: Okay. We're adjourned. 25 (Workshop adjourned at 5:00 p.m.) 122 1 STATE OF TEXAS | 2 COUNTY OF KERR | 3 The above and foregoing is a true and complete 4 transcription of my stenotype notes taken in my capacity as 5 County Clerk of the Commissioners Court of Kerr County, 6 Texas, at the time and place heretofore set forth. 7 DATED at Kerrville, Texas, this 25th day of May, 2001. 8 9 10 JANNETT PIEPER, Kerr County Clerk 11 BY: _________________________________ Kathy Banik, Deputy County Clerk 12 Certified Shorthand Reporter 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25